The Undying Immortal System by G Tolley

Category: Original

Genre: Fantasy, LitRPG, Progression, Reincarnation, Time Loop, Xianxia

Status: In-Progress

Published: 2024-02-15

Updated: 2025-04-04

Packaged: 2025-04-04 12:18:36

Warnings: Profanity, Sensitive Content

Chapters: 313

Words: 769,076

Publisher: www.royalroad.com

Summary:

Living in a world of cultivators is like walking on the edge of a knife. If you slip, the best result is a deep cut, but the likely result is death. Su Fang is brought into this world completely unprepared, knowing nothing, and lacking any skills to help him. This means only one thing. He is destined to die.

Fortunately, Su Fang is immortal. Not because he cannot die, but because when he does, he un-dies.

In this world, everyone is born with a Golden Finger to help them survive. Su Fang’s blessing is to return to the beginning of his journey after every death. His System provides him credits upon death with which he can purchase absolutely anything, but he is only rewarded enough credits to help him return to the point he died. To advance further, he must rely on himself.

This is both a time loop story and a xianxia story. At different points, one element is more pronounced than the other, but it is always a combination of both.

This can also be considered a slice-of-life story. It isn’t about saving the world or defeating a big bad guy. It is about living life in an unfamiliar world where it can sometimes seem like everyone is out to kill or enslave you.

Expectations:

-Detailed cultivation and crafting.

-Limited fighting scenes through most of the story.

-Slow cultivation progression. Each level will be explored in detail.

-Somewhat unreliable narrator. Cultivation affects the mind, and it will affect the MC’s perceptions of the world. Facts can generally be trusted, but many times there are layers beyond what the narrator sees.

-Xianxia tropes with a world built around them so they make sense. Why do young masters go crazy shouting "You dare!"? Why do their guards willing throw themselves to their death against someone with significantly higher cultivation? All that and more is explained.

-This is a story of cultivation. It has cultivation in the xianxia sense, working to gain strength and power, but, more importantly, it is a story about cultivating the self. Finding ways to make yourself a better version of you.

New chapters drop 5 days a week, M-F, at 7:00AM Central Time (US)

Discord Server

Chapter 1 – Life 1, Age 26

Dying is hard. No matter how many times I experience it, it doesn’t get any easier.

I could say that the first time was the worst, but that would be a lie. I’ve had many deaths worse than the first. Still, the first time I died was the only time I truly believed it would be my end. That caused a different kind of pain.

My first life was long ago. So long ago that I can barely remember anything about that time anymore. After my first death, I endured a dozen lives filled with nothing but pain and suffering. Then, once I found my footing, I began to experience the joy and wonder of living in a brand-new world. All of this, of living innumerable lives without end, has made my first life feel so distant. So… detached.

I’ve even forgotten my name from that first life. It’s disappeared in the long river of time.

I do remember having a sister.

I can’t remember anything about her anymore, not even her name, but I remember caring about her. She was my only family at the end. Allowing these memories to fade is one problem I have not yet fixed. Not yet. Forgetting makes living easier.

When I died, it was sudden. My sister had gotten into some kind of trouble, and I was in a hurry to save her. It was rushing that led to my death.

Maybe it’s strange that I don’t even remember the details of how I died, but I’ve died so many times since then. All I remember anymore is that I had a sister, she was in trouble, and I wanted to save her.

I do, however, remember what came next.

My consciousness floated in an empty void. Everything was nothingness. I could not see. There was nothing to see. I could not feel. There was nothing to feel. Time passed, but it was impossible to know how long I stayed there.

What is your desire?

I had no ears, but the question echoed through my mind. The voice was commanding, as if all things must listen when it spoke. It was the entity I would later come to know of as the Earthly Dao. It was a being that controlled, not ruled, but controlled, an entire world.

My final thoughts echoed through my mind.

I wanted to live. I wanted to live for my sister.

That is compatible. I can grant you a new life. You will have the chance to see her again. You will even have the power to help her in any way she requires, eventually.

Do you accept this blessing?

Yes!

Agreement noted.

Sensation crashed into me.

I was kneeling. The ground beneath me was packed dirt. A gentle wind blew through my hair. The air smelled clean and had the slight chill of a day in early spring.

I opened my eyes to see that I was in a large courtyard filled with people kneeling on the ground. There had to be dozens of us lined up in tidy rows. Everyone had their eyes closed and looked like they were in deep meditation.

I was so shocked I shouted something and tried to bolt to my feet, but I stumbled.

“闭嘴!”

At the head of the courtyard, a middle-aged man stood on a small platform and glared at me. I had no idea what he was saying, but his ‘shut the hell up’ face didn’t need any translating.

I quickly shut the hell up. I didn’t know what was happening, or why I suddenly appeared here, but I would try to play my part until I could understand.

I tried to get back into the kneeling posture everyone else was in, but my discomfort was obvious. Fortunately, not long after my outburst, everyone else in the courtyard began to open their eyes. When the last person awakened, the man up front shouted again.

“起立!”

Everyone started to stand, so I followed along.

The courtyard we were in was surrounded by red-plastered walls nearly eight meters tall, and the area of packed dirt we had been kneeling on was surrounded by a border paved with large gray bricks. At the head of the courtyard was the carved, dark wood platform the shouting man stood upon.

To the left of the platform was a massive red double door. It was adorned with seven rows and seven columns of large brass studs laid out in a rectangular grid.

The group of helpless young men and women I was in was herded out of the courtyard.

Outside, the scenery barely changed as we entered onto a wide road paved with the same gray bricks. The same red walls sealed off both sides of the road, preventing us from being able to see the world around us. We could only go forward or back into the courtyard we had just left.

The man in charge guided us down the road and through a few crossroads, but the tall red walls were everywhere, completely blocking our sight.

As we walked, we passed several more large, studded doors, but nearly all of them were closed. Only a single one was open. Through this doorway, I caught a brief glimpse of an idyllic garden trapped within the red walls of this prison. A soft breeze brought me the smells of fresh flowers and a spring day, but this vision of serenity didn’t last. We were quickly hurried onward.

No sounds could be heard from the world beyond the red walls that surrounded us. All I could hear was the trod of feet as we marched.

At first, staying in step with everyone was simple enough. We were only walking, after all. However, the further we went, the more tired I felt, and after only a couple hundred meters, I began to feel a sense of extreme fatigue. Still, I pushed on and did my best not to fall behind.

Our group was taken to a courtyard in a remote corner of this maze-like complex of red corridors. While this courtyard was extremely spacious, it felt no less claustrophobic than the rest of the complex had. It held nearly fifty tiny wooden shacks that had been crammed together in tight rows, and the same high red walls encircled everything, looming over us and making me feel like a frog trapped at the bottom of a well.

The only place in this courtyard with enough space for me to fully extend both arms without hitting a wall was a large square of sandy soil at its far end. At first sight, I thought that this might be a place for us to stretch our legs in these cramped confines, but on closer inspection, I could see large patches of red staining the square’s tan soil.

At this point, the man leading us started talking and giving directions. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand a single word he said.

Eventually, everyone in the group started entering different houses, so not knowing what else to do, I went with the flow. I picked a house at random and entered it.

From the outside, the building looked to be a small shack made of rotten lumber. Inside, the place was cramped and dirty, and it held the musty odor of mildew. The wooden floors looked like they had seen the passing of millennia. Nearly every floorboard was cracked and broken, and weeds had begun poking through and growing in the room’s corners.

The only item of furniture inside was a rolled-up sleeping mat, but the total square footage of the house wasn't even enough room to completely unroll the thing.

I hadn’t seen anyone leaving a house after entering one, so I decided to sit down and wait until I heard movement outside. It wasn’t comfortable, but I was nearly out of breath, and I needed a place to recuperate. This tiny house offered me a place to do so while I thought through my situation.

Being in an unfamiliar environment, the walk from the courtyard where I started, through the complex, and to this house had felt like it took a long time, but the distance wasn’t really that great. A normal person wouldn’t have even noticed it. However, it had nearly exhausted me, and I had felt like fainting more than once along the way. There had to be something wrong with my body.

I lifted up an arm and rolled up the sleeve of my robe. The sight of the limb that greeted me made me wince. My arm looked like little more than a bare twig. It lacked any sign of either muscle or bone. Upon checking a few other body parts, I confirmed that the previous owner of this body had been suffering from extreme malnourishment.

As I was examining my body, I couldn’t help but take a moment to look at my hair. Like everyone else I had seen in this world, my hair was pitch black and long enough to reach my lower back. It had been done up in a loose queue, but split ends poked out of it between every weave. As I ran my fingers across this braid, the oil and dirt I felt made me think that this body hadn’t had a proper bath in weeks. I wasn’t against being a man with long hair, especially not if it was the local fashion, but I would need to do a better job of maintaining it than the former owner had done.

I couldn’t help but shake my head at such silly thoughts. I was stuck in a foreign world, incapable of understanding a single word anyone said, and I was thinking more about my hairstyle than I was about survival. What was I doing?

Alone and confused, I began muttering to myself to try and focus.

“What the hell is going on?”

My question went unanswered.

I began to think through the events of the past hours. Already, thoughts of my previous life had become fleeting. If I didn’t concentrate, my mind didn’t want to return to that life. It wanted to focus on the here and now. When I did concentrate on that life, I felt remorse for forgetting, but my thoughts would always drift away from it. The cares and concerns from before didn’t seem to matter anymore.

More prominent in my thoughts was the voice in the void. I had accepted its ‘blessing.’ What did that mean? A new life and the power to… help. I did want to help… people, but what ‘power’ was I given that would let me do so?

I waited in my small room for what felt like days, but it was likely less than an hour. Stuck in an unfamiliar new environment with no idea of why or what I was supposed to do, my sense of time became a little screwy.

I should have just waited patiently in that awful shack. I knew that, but I couldn't help feeling that simply sitting around and waiting for something to happen was a mistake. I needed to get out there and try to… do something.

I stood up and walked outside.

The entire area looked abandoned. Everyone was holed up in their tiny houses doing whatever it was we were all supposed to be doing in there. I made a circuit of the courtyard, but other than our tiny homes, all I found was the open area of packed soil, which had a metallic, rusty smell to it, and the outhouse, which had a rather… unpleasant smell to it.

With no one to talk to, I couldn’t help but mutter to myself once more.

“What should I do?”

I could try opening someone’s door and forcing my way in, but that seemed like a bad idea. I couldn’t understand what anyone around me was saying, and even if I could, breaking and entering was a poor way to start a conversation.

I could go back to my room and wait, but that was too passive. I needed to act.

I walked up to the large gateway we had entered from. Two massive, red-painted slabs of wood covered in brass studs blocked my path. I knew that meant we were not supposed to leave. I knew that I should return to my small house and wait for something to happen.

I knew this, but I needed to keep moving forward.

Anyway, what was the worst that would happen? Getting yelled at by the shouty guy wouldn’t be pleasant, but the fear of someone screaming at me wasn’t enough to stop me.

I didn’t hesitate. I walked forward and pulled with all my strength to force the doors open. They were heavy and didn’t want to move. I put all my weight on the copper ring that served as a door handle and pulled with everything I had. It wasn’t much, but the door did begin to budge. That was all that was needed.

As soon as the doorway cracked, a man on the other side pushed it fully open.

He yelled something at me that I didn’t understand, and I said something to him that he didn’t understand. He yelled at me again, and frustrated, I yelled right back at him…

In a fit of anger, he punched me directly in the center of my chest.

My skin and bones offered no resistance to the force contained in his fist.

After a brief, sharp pain, my mind went blank. I barely felt anything as my chest caved in and my organs ruptured.

As my vision faded, I almost wanted to laugh at the shocked expression on the guard’s face. He had just killed one of his charges. I was sure he would have a lot of fun when he had to explain why to Ol’ Shouty.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 1 — 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 10

Sensation crashed into me.

I was kneeling. The ground beneath me was packed dirt. A gentle wind blew through my hair. The air smelled clean and had the slight chill of a day in early spring.

I opened my eyes to see that I was in a courtyard full of people all kneeling on the ground.

It was all the same. With all the same neat, tidy rows of people.

I was so shocked that I shouted something unintelligible and tried to bolt to my feet, but I stumbled once again.

“闭嘴!”

At the head of the courtyard, the exact same middle-aged man stood on a small platform and glared at me. I had no idea what he was saying, but again, his ‘shut the hell up’ face didn’t need any translating.

This same thing had happened to me not more than a few hours ago, so maybe it shouldn’t have been too surprising, but I hadn’t yet fully grasped what was happening to me. All I knew was that I had already died twice in less than a day.

Fearing that the bastard in front of me might want to be the cause of my third death, I decided to shut up.

After that, everything played out the same way it had previously. We got up, walked for a while, and then entered our tiny houses. This time, I decided not to go out for a walk. I sat down on my sleeping mat and tried to figure out what I should do. That’s when I heard a semi-robotic voice echo through my mind.

System initialization complete.

Welcome to the Undying Immortal System.

10 credits available. If you wish to make a purchase, simply say ‘System.’

“What? Who are you?”

I received no response. I waited, but even after a full minute, I still heard nothing more.

I decided to try getting more information.

“What is the Undying Immortal System?”

No response.

“What are credits?”

No response.

Finally, I tried actually following the instructions I had been given.

“System… I would like to make a purchase?”

State your desired purchase.

I quirked up an eyebrow. “What is available?”

Basic information about products available for purchase. Cost 1 credit.

That told me something, at least. I could buy information. The fact that I had to purchase information about what I could purchase was not very happy-making, but I could deal with it.

“Yes, I want to buy that.”

Purchase confirmed. 9 credits remaining.

The System can be used to purchase anything. You can learn new skills, change your body, acquire items of powerful magic, or anything else. As long as you have sufficient funds, you can buy anything.

However, everything you want to purchase will have an associated cost. The greater the purchase’s effect on the world, the more expensive it will be. Credits are the most basic form of System currency. They can only be used on mortal-level purchases. For more powerful purchases, higher tiers of currency must be used.

“System, I want to be sent back home.”

Processing… Teleportation to your home world. Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

Ok, I needed more credits, but at least it was a possibility for the future.

So, what did I need for the present?

“System, I want to understand the languages of this world.”

Learning all languages extant in the Nine Rivers Continent. Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Okay, what about just learning the local language.”

Learning the Western Han Language. Cost 100 credits.

That wasn’t good. I only had 9 credits left. How could I get more?

“Sys—” I started to make another request but was cut off.

Processing… An external entity has discounted the price of learning the language. Cost 1 credit.

“Buy it!”

Purchase confirmed. 8 credits remaining.

Knowledge slammed into me. It left me a little woozy, but in my daze, I inherently understood that I knew an entirely new language. It felt like I was born knowing it. Thinking in this new language almost felt more natural than thinking in the one I had spoken my entire life.

After regaining my senses. I returned to a crucial bit of information. I had just arrived on this alien world, and all I had done so far was get punched in the chest. Why was there suddenly some ‘external entity’ who was both willing and able to give me a discount? What were its motives?

“System, what did you mean about an external entity?”

The cost of that information is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Why did I receive a ‘discount’?”

The cost of that information is not possible to calculate at this time.

I didn’t believe for a second that some entity was handing out discounts for no reason. Whatever it was had to have some hidden motivation for doing so. However, I felt like I was hitting my head with a rock,so I decided to try something else.

“System, how do I earn more credits?”

Basic information on how to earn System credits. Cost 1 credit.

“Ok, Purchase it.”

Purchase confirmed. 7 credits remaining.

Whenever you die, you will be returned to your permanent reset point and will be rewarded credits. The number of credits you receive will reflect your cultivation level at the time of your death. The higher your cultivation level, the more credits.

Note: Quick, repeated, intentional deaths may result in administrative action.

That warning was a bit troubling. I didn’t want to die in the first place. I had done that twice already, and even if the second time was rather quick, it wasn’t an experience I had enjoyed.

Deciding not to linger on thoughts of death, I put any further questions for the system aside for the moment. I needed to understand what was happening in the world around me. I stood up and confidently walked out of my tiny one-room house.

My back-and-forth with the system hadn’t actually taken too long. In fact, I exited my room even earlier than I had in my previous life. So, of course, there was still no one out and about.

With a comprehensive understanding of the local language, I decided to try my luck with the gate guard again. Hopefully, he wouldn’t just kill me this time. If he did… that just meant I would get a few extra credits, right?

The gate was just as hard to open this time as it had been the last time, but again, the guard helped me out after I got it started.

Then, once it was fully open, he glared at me. “What are you doing? No one is allowed out.”

At first, I was nervous, but when I was able to understand him, I was so happy I started smiling.

“Yes, sorry, I just wanted to know what’s going on.”

“What?” His voice was tinged with anger and annoyance.

“Sorry, I’m just not sure what I should be doing.”

“Go back inside and wait for your turn!”

Not wanting to die again, I backed away and did a quick two-step to hurriedly return to my tiny house. That guy had anger issues, and it would do no good to poke a bear.

Just as I reentered my row of houses, a door opened up and a young man walked outside. He was wearing a red hanfu robe that was covered in bright gold embroidery. The cuffs of his robe were tied tight against his wrists with elegant leather straps, and his long hair was done up in a tight bun at the back of his head.

“What are you doing?” He glared at me. “It’s you. First, you were a nuisance during the ceremony. Now, you bother us during our meditation.”

A smirk crossed the boy’s face, and he assumed a fighting stance. “Let this daddy teach you how to behave.”

I wanted to respond, but before I could, he rushed at me and punched me directly in the chest. Like with the guard, my sternum broke and my ribs snapped. Something must have punctured a lung because I couldn’t breathe. I began coughing up blood.

When the guard had killed me, he was powerful enough to end my life quickly. This time, I wasn’t so lucky. As my body collapsed to the ground, I tasted only copper. I felt only pain.

In front of me, all I could see was a pair of embossed leather boots.

I turned my head and looked up at the face of my killer. This boy didn’t show any of the signs of surprise and worry that the guard had. His face held only a malicious smirk.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 1 — 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 17

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 2 – Life 4, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Sensation crashed into me.

This time, however, I was prepared. I did not scream out. I did not fall over. I did not move.

Having died three times now, my mind was… blank.

I was uncomfortable in the kneeling posture, but I could hold it. Starting in the correct position makes it much easier to stay in the correct position.

“Rise!” The middle-aged man barked in words that I could finally understand.

I, along with everyone else, stood up. This time, I was able to blend into the crowd much more easily.

“Follow!”

We again began to walk the same path back to our houses. Now that I could understand everyone, I was hoping to listen in on the conversations around me to get a better feel for what was going on, but to my chagrin, no one was talking. I hadn’t noticed this the last two times. Luckily, the walk wasn’t too long, and we quickly came to the residential area where Ol’ Shouty gave his little speech and explained things for me.

“Your qi has awakened, and you have all received your blessings from the Heavenly Dao. Find a house and meditate on the nature of your blessing. In two hours, we will begin taking you to be tested. Do not cause any trouble during this time.”

That last sentence seemed to be directed at a small group of young men. Standing in the center of that group was the red-robed youth who had recently killed me.

Ignoring that psychopath, I went inside my little house and sat down to think.

I had two hours. In two hours, someone would take me out to be ‘tested.’ I wasn’t sure what that involved, but I could guess they would probably like to know about this System I had been given access to. Oh, and the fact that every time I died, I would be sent straight back to the start of all this.

I didn’t know all of the dangers that this place held, but the fact that I had died two times in quick succession told me it wasn’t safe. I needed to keep my cards close to my chest for the time being. No reason to tell people things they didn’t need to know.

Moving on to other topics, the words Shouty had said played through my mind.

‘Blessing’ was the same word the voice in the void had used. So, my blessing had to be the System and the ability to reincarnate. I would not be sharing that information, so I needed to have another answer ready to go.

I didn’t know what a normal blessing would be or how to fake one. Fortunately, I had an easy way to solve this dilemma.

“System, I want to know about blessings from the Heavenly Dao.”

Information about the Heavenly Dao and its blessings. Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

Alright, so that’s not happening. How about…

“System, I want to know common knowledge and beliefs about blessings from the Heavenly Dao. Things everyone knows or thinks they know about the topic.”

Information on common beliefs regarding blessings from the Heavenly Dao. Cost 5 credits.

That suggested that there was hidden information that was extremely important. Something to keep in mind, but not something I could act on at the moment.

“Purchase!”

Purchase confirmed. 12 credits remaining.

It is commonly believed that a blessing of the Heavenly Dao can be nearly anything. Blessings enhance the blessed in some fashion. A weak blessing may allow the blessed to know how much to water a plant. A strong social blessing may allow the blessed to charm everyone they meet.

The most prized blessings typically enhance a person’s martial prowess. An example would be gaining the ability to create a tiger out of fire that will fight alongside the blessed. However, such blessings are rare and are only obtained by the truly virtuous.

Credits expended. Transaction complete.

I had 12 credits. It wasn’t enough to buy any heaven-defying blessing. I might be able to buy something simple and try to pawn it off as my blessing, but then I would definitely be seen as worthless.

I decided it was better to play up the mysterious angle. ‘My blessing could be anything. It’s probably something really cool, just wait and find out!’

I would tell them I didn’t know yet. I would either be seen as incompetent or mysterious. Both were better than worthless.

That settled, I did have some credits burning a hole in my pocket. If I wasn’t going to spend them on a ‘blessing,’ what did I need?

Knowledge, knowledge about this godsforsaken place where I can be killed on a whim. Why was I being killed so nonchalantly?

“System, I want to know about this body. Who am I, where did I come from? Just give me the basic information.”

Information regarding the identity and history of the host’s body. Cost 1 credit.

At least it was cheap. “Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 11 credits remaining.

The former occupant of the body was named Su Fang. He was born into the Su Clan of the Western Wastes on the Nine Rivers Continent. The Su Clan is the sole ruler of the entirety of the Western Wastes, and they are currently unchallenged in their dominion.

Su Fang was an orphan born into a remote branch family of the clan. He was barely considered a member of the clan, and his identity as a member provided no benefits. If he were to become powerful, or even have the possibility of a bright future ahead of him, that would all change. The clan always welcomes someone of their blood who has potential, no matter how distantly related they are.

The second problem for Su Fang was that his body was in terrible condition. His genetics did him no favors, giving him a naturally small and frail body, but that was compounded by malnutrition and illness. No one had any hopes for his future.

When he turned 16, he was brought to the Su Clan training compound along with every other child of the clan his age. This is where the Su Clan awakens their children’s qi and teaches them how to use it. This training allows a select few to gain great power and become the future pillars of the clan. Every clan member, no matter how distantly related, is required to attend. The clan does not want to miss out on any future prodigies.

During the Awakening Ceremony, clan elder Su YuanFei sent sparks of qi into the bodies of all the participants to try to assist in empowering their blessings. Su Fang’s body, being frail and ill, could not handle this process and collapsed. At the moment of his death, he was blessed. His final wish was ‘to die so that another may live.’

Credits expended. Transaction complete.

And that was that. That was how I ended up in his place. Depressing story, and I had to figure out how to pick up the pieces of Su Fang’s broken life.

I wanted to laugh. I had been dying from a single punch from those pricks. I knew that couldn’t be normal. What I just learned about this being a rather frail and disease-prone body was likely the cause.

From the information I had received, I felt that the clearest path forward was to make the Su Clan value me. They were the unquestioned rulers of this entire area, and it sounded like they could raise their children to be prominent members of society. However, the Su Clan would only value me if I seemed like a prodigy in their eyes. With this body, that was never going to happen.

“System, I want something that will heal my body so that I am at least average among my peers.”

Rank 1 Healing Pill. Cost 10 credits.

It looked like I would only be able to buy one item. A minor healing pill. Was that what I needed? I asked for something to heal my body, but was that good enough? Could I make it stronger?

“System, I would like to buy something that can both heal my body and make it stronger, giving me strength equal to or greater than others my own age.”

Rank 1 Strengthening Pill. Cost 25 credits.

That was a bust. To get one strengthening pill I would need to die three times. It would have to be something for the future.

“Buy the Rank 1 Healing Pill.”

Purchase confirmed. 1 credit remaining.

I sat there, but no pill appeared.

“Where’s my pill?”

No response.

“System, give me my damn pill!”

No response.

“System, how much for information about the location of my pill.”

Basic information about the System storage space. Cost 1 credit.

“No, I’m not purchasing that.”

I could figure this out on my own.

A storage space. A place that stores items purchased from the system. It wouldn’t be a physical location. That didn’t make any sense. So, it had to be something like an inventory in a video game. So, how was I supposed to open it and how could I take things out?

“Inventory.”

Nothing happened.

“System Inventory.”

Nothing.

“System Storage.”

No.

Maybe it’s not done through voice commands. Maybe I can just ‘will’ it to happen.

I focused my mind on wanting to take a pill out of storage. I tried to visualize a pill moving from ‘somewhere’ and appearing in my hand.

A small round pill appeared in my hand.

I was pleasantly surprised when it worked. Instead of immediately swallowing the thing, I tried to put the pill back into storage, but nothing I did had any effect, so the storage probably only worked in one direction.

“Here’s to you, Su Fang.” I tossed the pill into my mouth.

Energy surged through my body. Bones that were slightly out of place were moved back into alignment. Microcracks in them that I would have never noticed disappeared in an instant.

I felt like I had been reborn… again. The constant low-level pain I had barely noticed had vanished. I might still die to a single punch, I had no idea, but I felt like I had more of a future now.

As I waited in my small house, I began doing a few basic exercises. There was barely any room to move, but I still wanted to get adapted to my new body as best as I could. Basic sit-ups and push-ups gave me a sense of my current strength. It wasn’t high, but I was able to complete a dozen push-ups before my arms gave out on me. After that, I performed a little shadowboxing to help with my muscle coordination.

We had been told someone would come to take us for ‘testing’ after two hours. The testing may have started then, but I was clearly not high on their priority list. It took nearly four hours for someone to finally come and open my door.

It was a middle-aged servant whose face was a mask of neutrality.

“Follow me.”

I exited my room. Time to see what future I had on this Nine Rivers Continent.

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 3 – Life 4, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

The guard led me out of the residential area and into a side courtyard with the same gray brick paving stones and red walls. It contained only a single building which had an administrative air to it.

It was a wooden building that had been painted a bright red. The building sat half a meter above the ground upon a thick marble foundation. Red columns were spaced all along its perimeter to help hold up a two-tiered yellow ceramic tiled roof. Complex designs were painted in gold on the red walls, and intricate multicolored patterns adorned the eaves and the brackets that ran between the columns.

I was guided up the marble steps and into the building. Inside, I found a rather spacious front room.

The middle-aged shouty man from the previous ceremony, Su YuanFei, sat at the back of the room to oversee the proceedings. In the middle of the room was an orb that looked like it was made of perfectly transparent glass resting on a pedestal. To the right, a scribe sat at a table taking notes. Finally, behind the orb was an elderly man I had not seen before.

I wasn’t sure about the proper etiquette for this situation, so I gave the elderly man a slight bow and approached. I decided not to speak since, as the locals had recently taught me, speaking out of turn could be deadly. If they decided I acted rudely, I would have to die and try again.

Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. When I neared, the elderly man spoke.

“What is your name?”

“Su Fang.”

I heard the scribe writing this down.

“Place your hand on the orb and channel your qi into it.”

Not sure exactly what that meant, I did my best. I placed my hand on the orb and tried to will something into it. Nothing happened. After a few moments, the man spoke again.

“Concentrate on your dantian in the core of your body. Pull from there and push into the orb.”

I did as he said. I didn’t feel much, but I could feel something. A faint trickle of energy flowed out of me and into the orb. As it did, the orb began to sputter weakly with a faint glow of a mix of random colors.

“Zero affinity.” The elderly man’s tone was neutral. My result didn’t seem to bother him. “What can you tell us about the blessing you have received?”

Having thought about this question, I decided to say something to try and make them think that there would be more to come. Something had to be better than nothing.

“My entire life, my body has been weak and frail. After the blessing, I can feel that there is new strength in it. Old pains have ceased, and I can feel that I am regaining the strength I should have. I believe there may be more to this blessing, but that is all I know right now.”

The old man gave me a look, and I could feel energy from him lightly probe my body. After that, he nodded to the scribe.

“He will be given the Earth Heart Mantra and returned to his original quarters.”

I wanted to speak up and ask a question, but the servant who had led me in began pulling me away. After a second of surprise, I followed behind. We entered a side room where another scribe was sitting in front of several piles of bamboo scrolls.

“Earth Heart.” The servant spoke with a touch of disdain.

The scribe handed over a scroll from the largest pile.

“We will send someone to retrieve this in two weeks. You have that long to learn it. Do not lose or damage this scroll.”

I nodded as I was pulled away. The servant took me back to the residential area, but he didn’t follow me back to my house. He was already off to grab the next person in line.

Sitting back down in my house, I needed to decide how to proceed.

Being expelled from the clan for not placing in the top sixteen sounded harsh, but it did make some sense. The Su Clan was huge, and I was an orphan from a twig of a branch family. At some point, they would have to start pruning down those who could be considered actual family members. It might not feel fair, but it did make some sense.

The new encounters had shown me new areas where my knowledge was lacking, and as long as I knew about a problem, I could work to solve it. The fact that I had zero affinities seemed like it was going to be something that needed to change.

I didn’t know what affinities were or how they would help me, but that testing showed that they were considered important. I only had 1 credit, so there wasn’t much I could do. At most, I could use it to fill in a bit of missing knowledge.

“System, I want to purchase knowledge of affinities.”

Knowledge of affinities. Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

“I want to purchase basic knowledge of affinities. Common knowledge of what people believe about them.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 credit. 0 credits remaining.

In this world, there are many forms of energy. The most common form of energy is qi. It exists everywhere in the air around you. Similar to light or electricity, qi is a form of pure energy.

There are many different forms of qi. Using light as an analogy, there are many different ‘wavelengths’ of qi that give it different ‘colors.’ Examples of this are the five basic elements: fire, water, earth, metal, and wood qi. Other forms of qi may include lightning, demonic, and spirit qi.

Affinities allow a cultivator to control the type of qi that matches their affinity. They can pull that energy into themselves, empowering and strengthening their body. While rarer affinities may offer some benefits, they are generally seen as less useful since their matching qi types may be lacking or insufficient in the environment.

Credits expended. Transaction complete.

I considered the Earth Heart Mantra I was given. It was used to cultivate earth qi. Would cultivating earth qi affect me differently than, say, fire qi? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t have any more credits.

Every time I died, I was told I was getting points because I reached Martial Disciple 1. When I asked about gaining more points, I was told that I would get points based on my cultivation level. It sounded like my cultivation level could be improved by using this Earth Heart Mantra to pull in earth qi. If I were to pull in qi and strengthen myself, I would eventually become Martial Disciple 2. That would earn me more credits when I died without running afoul of the System’s ‘no intentional death’ edict. I didn’t plan on dying, but I knew it would happen sooner or later, so I needed to make the most of it.

Affinity was a body’s ability to control different kinds of qi, and by having zero affinity with everything, I was at the bottom of the bottom. My control of qi barely existed, and I would have a very hard time advancing.

For most people, this would mean the end of the road. However, as the Su Clan was no doubt aware, blessings could change everything. A powerful blessing could easily make up for lacking affinities.

What did this mean for me? It meant I needed to make a plan. I was given an earth qi technique, so I might as well start there since I didn’t know enough to pick between the five basic affinities the System had listed. Rarer affinities sounded interesting, but if they were less useful without a proper environment, I would have to hold off on purchasing them until later.

“System, I want to improve my earth qi affinity.”

Temporary Low 9-star Earth Affinity. Cost 10 credits.

“Fair enough. System, I would like to improve my earth qi affinity by two steps.”

Temporary Mid 9-star Earth Affinity. Cost 35 credits.

I decided to prod a little more to see if I could find out more information.

“System, how much to raise my affinity by three steps?”

Temporary High 9-star Earth Affinity. Cost 85 credits.

“Four steps?”

Temporary Peak 9-star Earth Affinity. Cost 160 credits.

“Five steps?”

Temporary Low 8-star Earth Affinity. Cost 260 credits.

“Nine steps?”

Temporary Low 7-star Earth Affinity. Cost 2,760 credits.

“Thirteen steps?”

Information on affinities. Cost 1,000 credits.

A bit more testing showed that I could ask the System for the cost to raise an affinity up to high seven-star, but if I wanted the prices for anything above that, I needed to pay 1,000 credits for ‘information about affinities.’ In any case, I had learned what I needed to know for the moment. Affinities started at low nine-star and increased through low, mid, high, and peak. Then, they advanced to low eight-star. Presumably, this would continue to at least peak one-star which may or may not be the highest.

I considered this. Did I need to commit suicide dozens of times to get a usable affinity? I didn’t want to do that. Memories of my last death lingered in my mind. Also, I was sure that committing suicide twenty-odd times in a row was exactly what the System had meant when it warned me against ‘quick, repeated, intentional deaths.’

So, I needed to find a way to quickly improve my cultivation to improve my credit gain. The key to that had to be these affinities. Improving to low nine-star was cheap. I could afford that with just a single death.

Wait… The prompt had said ‘temporary.’

“System, I want to improve my earth qi affinity permanently. I want it to stay improved even after I die and restart.”

Permanent Low 9-star Earth Affinity. Cost 100 credits.

There it was. Ten deaths to afford even the worst affinity available.

Processing… An external entity has discounted the price of increasing your affinity. Cost 10 credits.

Note: This discount will only be applied to the first affinity you permanently upgrade. However, any future upgrades to this affinity up to the level of peak nine-star will also be discounted to 10% of their regular price.

An external entity again… that was worrisome, but at least it was helping me out.

So, a discount, but only to the first affinity I chose to make permanent. Did I want to focus on earth qi?

I didn’t want to rush this decision. Since this discount only applied up to peak nine-star, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I picked the wrong affinity now and decided to change my focus in the future, but starting off on the right foot was always for the best.

Not that any of this mattered too much at the moment. I didn’t have any credits, so this choice would have to wait for the future.

My goals moving forward were simple. Push as far as I could. Learn as much as I could. If there was a risk, take it. Better to learn and die so I was prepared for the future.

I didn’t want to die. Even with the resets, I didn’t want to die, but I would.

That said, for the near future I wouldn’t exactly be doing anything death-defying. I would be sitting on my rear trying to pull in energy while having little to no ability to do so.

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Chapter 4 – Life 4, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

For the next several days, I practiced the Earth Heart Mantra alone in my tiny house. In reality, I didn’t do much more than sit there and wait. Servants delivered meals, but they never stuck around to chat. It was a somewhat miserable existence. I tried my best to cultivate, but it seemed like with zero affinity, making any progress was going to be more difficult than I had expected.

Fortunately, on the fifth day, things changed. Everyone was brought to the large dirt square behind the houses, the imperiously named ‘Martial Arts Training Yard.’

As we gathered, I noticed one thing that was a little strange. A few children were missing from the group, including the red-robed prick who beat me to death a few days ago. Putting that together with the look of superiority he gave me the last time we met, I could guess that the elites had been separated out for special training. Good news for me it seemed.

An older man with military bearing stood in the middle of the yard and began giving orders.

“Quiet! Space out and circle around.”

He waited in a stiff pose as we did as ordered.

“For the next three months, you will all be undergoing extensive martial training. Every hour of every day you will either be exercising, cultivating, or recovering. After three months, many of you will no longer be members of my clan. If you want any hope of remaining one, you will push yourself to do your best at every moment. If you do not want to be one, you will still push to do your best at every moment because if you don’t, the moment you leave this place, you will learn exactly how harsh this world can be to commoners. Basic martial skills are a necessity.”

His eyes roamed across everyone as he gave us all a disgusted look.

“This training won’t just be hard. It will be deadly. If you relax for even a moment, you might find out that it was your last.” He smirked and looked around the circle. “Now, time for a little demonstration. Do we have any volunteers?”

Everyone froze. No one wanted to be the first to offer themselves up for a beating. After waiting a few beats, I decided to make a move. Was it stupid? Sure. Did I care? Not really. What was the worst that could happen?

I stepped forward.

“I volunteer.”

“Excellent.” The instructor seemed truly satisfied. “Attack me!”

Again, I froze briefly, but after only a moment, I moved. I was no professional, but I had learned a bit of fighting in my first life. I wouldn’t be able to take down a trained fighter, but I was confident enough to take on a simple street tough. I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to win, but if I could put on a good show, maybe I could earn a little respect.

I rushed forward and punched out with my left fist at the man’s chest. It wasn’t a feint, but it also wasn’t a full-power hit. I had to force him to raise his arms for a block. As he did, I pivoted and swung my right fist at his midsection. This was again blocked.

I worked as hard as I could, throwing out a punch or kick whenever I saw a potential opening. The man easily blocked everything. He didn’t even bother to dodge or redirect the force of my attacks. He just stuck out a palm and batted me away.

“Good, it seems like at least someone knows a little about fighting.” The instructor smiled happily. Then, this slight smile flashed into a sudden scowl. “Too bad you don’t listen. I told you that if you relax for even a moment you might die!”

Suddenly, he punched.

The blow hit my head, stunning me. If this man was even close to as strong as the guard I had met earlier, he should have been able to kill me in a single hit, but he didn’t. He spent several slow, agonizing minutes tenderizing my flesh. One bone after another snapped as he pummeled me. I wanted him to stop, but I couldn’t speak.

Finally, my body fell limply to the dirt ground.

“This is your lesson for today. In this training, slacking for even a moment means death.”

Every breath I took was painful, and no one so much as looked at me.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 1 — 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 10

I sat back down in my house. Nothing made a sound, which was nice. Waking from death was starting to become routine, but it still wasn’t easy. The memories of bleeding out in the dirt lingered. Coming to during the awakening ceremony was more difficult than it had ever been before, but walking back to this tiny house had almost become relaxing.

I laughed mirthlessly. My purchase of that healing pill had been a waste. I was back in the same spot I had started in, same terrible body, ten credits poorer.

I thought about buying another one, but there was no point in wasting money. Better to see if I could complete this new encounter without it first.

I did my best to repeat everything that I did in my last life. I didn’t have a healed body this time, but I still claimed it was healed. It didn’t seem to make any difference to the examiner. The extra few days of practice with the Earth Heart Mantra didn’t make any difference. I was still unable to make any progress.

When we all gathered around the Martial Arts Training Yard again, everything was pretty much exactly the same as the last time.

“Now, time for a little demonstration.” An evil glint in the trainer’s eye. “Do we have any volunteers?”

Learning that volunteering meant death, I wisely chose to keep silent. I did my best impression of a stone, letting time pass by as the murderer in front of me waited for someone to kill.

“Hmpf, not a single person brave enough to even demonstrate what they know.” The man spoke with a disgusted tone. “Fine. You! Step forward and show me something.”

The bastard was pointing right at me. Apparently, I was the designated whipping boy for today. Sparring with him was certain death, so when I stepped forward, I just began air boxing. Trying to demonstrate my punches and kicks for him.

“What the hell are you doing? Get over here and fight! NOW!”

I didn’t want to go. Something shoved me forward.

I managed to regain my balance and get into an attacking stance. It didn’t matter.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 1 — 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 20

Again… why?

The suffering didn’t get any easier. Knowing what was happening only made it worse.

I needed to calm down. I needed to talk it out and work through the problem.

“Why did I die?” I asked myself in my tiny house. I looked at the floor and began tracing cracks in the wood with my eyes.

“Because a huge prick forced me to fight him. He could have picked anyone. He picked me. He wanted to kill me. Why?” I stared straight ahead at the barren wall and rickety wooden door. “Why is too difficult. Not enough information. What can I change so that it doesn’t happen again?”

I thought through the options of what I could change. The easiest would be to simply stand in a different spot. Doing so was almost certainly meaningless. There was no way it would work. Trying it was free, though. It wouldn’t cost me any credits, and I could continue saving them for a more meaningful purchase.

Should I try it? It was a variable I could easily change. If it didn’t work, all it meant was another death. Another painful, trauma-inducing death. I didn’t want to experience that again, but it was worth checking. The credits from that death would be beneficial, and the System couldn’t complain that the death was ‘intentional.’

I shuddered.

“Yes… death hurts, but I have to experiment to understand what variables are important in this situation.”

…

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 1 — 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 30

When I arrived back at my tiny house, I took a deep, steadying breath.

“Okay, nothing to do with where I was standing. At least now I know. So, what’s left? Why am I being targeted?”

I thought of three possibilities. One: my background. Something special about my background, or just the fact that I’m an orphan, makes me the best target for this little lesson. Two: my actions. Something about the way I act between revival and this demonstration gets me targeted. Three: my skill. Zero affinity and no demonstrated blessing. This makes me worthless in the eyes of the higher-ups. Better to kill me now to at least extract some educational value.

I couldn’t do anything about one, or should I say, doing something about one would likely cost serious credits.

As for two, while I could change how I acted, I didn’t know what actions might be causing this kind of reaction. More information would be nice, so I could run tests, but I didn’t know what to change. Also, I truly did not want to suffer at that bastard’s hands again.

So, number three. If I wanted to survive, I needed an affinity or demonstrable blessing. That way I would have some amount of perceived value to the clan.

I could only purchase a permanent affinity increase at a discounted price once. Was this the right time? No, better to learn more before wasting such an opportunity. Purchasing one-time upgrades would burn credits, but with any luck, I could gain valuable knowledge and experience.

I also needed that healing pill. I wouldn’t survive long without it, but the cost of buying one after every reset would quickly add up. Of course, I could try…

“System, I want to buy a minor healing pill that will reappear after every death.”

Recurring Rank 1 Healing Pill. Cost 200 cre… Processing… An external entity has discounted the price. Cost 20 credits.

An external entity changing prices again…

The price wasn’t bad. I had 30 credits, so I could buy the pill and still have enough for a one-time earth affinity boost. Was that the right thing to do? What were the chances of still getting targeted with the lowest-level affinity?

Getting the next step up would only be 25 more credits… That’s only three more deaths…

As long as it was that guardsman, three more deaths wouldn’t be too bad. When he killed me, it was painful, but it ended quickly. I could endure that. I could only hope the System didn’t punish me for it.

You have died. Calculating…

You have died. Calculating…

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 1 — 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 60

System Warning: Quick, repeated, intentional deaths detected. Further actions may result in an administrative response.

As soon as I returned to my house, I collapsed.

I was mentally exhausted. Three rapid deaths. How bad could it be?

It felt like my soul had begun to fracture.

Yes, I was reborn. I was in perfect health. But I still felt myself die. It still lingered in my thoughts.

“Never again. I don’t want to do that ever again.”

Centering myself, I focused on what I needed to do at that moment.

“System, I want to buy a minor healing pill that will reappear after every death.”

Recurring Rank 1 Healing Pill. Cost 20 credits.

Purchase confirmed. 40 credits remaining.

“System, I want to buy a temporary mid nine-star earth affinity.”

Temporary mid nine-star earth affinity. The cost is 35 credits.

Purchase confirmed. 5 credits remaining.

I felt the changes in my body. It was hard to describe. It just felt like my body was more real than it was before. Like… like I was moving through the world now whereas before I was only a ghost.

“Hopefully, this works.”

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Chapter 5 – Life 10, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

The elderly man at the affinity testing orb looked at me. “What is your name?”

“Su Fang.”

“Place your hand on the orb and channel your qi into it.”

This time, not only did I know what to do, but the action came much easier. Qi flowed from my dantian and into the orb. A dull brown stone appeared in its center.

“Earth affinity. Mid nine-star.” The elderly man’s voice sounded only slightly kinder than it had in the past.

Honestly, I didn’t know what a ‘good’ result would be for this test.

“What can you tell us about the blessing you have received?”

Playing the mysterious angle didn’t work at all, better to try to appear straight-forward.

“The healing and slight strengthening of my body.”

“Hmm, works with the earth affinity. Very well, give him the Earth Heart Mantra and return him.”

This wasn’t much different from past lives, but the faint hint of praise gave me hope.

As before, I picked up the scroll and returned to my tiny house.

At this point, I didn’t really need the scroll anymore since I already knew what it said. Practicing it this time, however, was different. As I followed its instructions, I could feel a significant difference.

The Earth Heart Mantra instructed me to move the qi inside my body in specific ways. The first step was to move it toward my upper right arm and create a kind of whirlpool, a qi vortex. The goal of this was to pull qi from outside the body and trap it within the muscles. At the same time, I was supposed to create a kind of filter that would only allow earth qi into my body. The higher the purity of earth qi, the more effective it would be when used.

In the past, this had been impossible for me. Concentrating my qi into one part of my body was difficult. Creating a whirlpool to pull in qi out of my reach. Creating any kind of effective filter was completely beyond my comprehension.

This time, however, it all seemed to just work. Moving the qi and creating the whirlpool was as simple as breathing, and I was able to quickly reach the point where my body would pull qi from the air.

The moment I did so, I immediately stopped. Pulling in qi at random would do more harm than good. I needed to filter it first.

Actually…

From what I could tell, it seemed like the energy I pulled in was already at least fifty percent earth-attributed. My affinity with earth was helping me automatically. It was bad to gather qi at random, but was it a dealbreaker?

Still, I knew I should try to do it correctly.

I worked to form the pattern from the scroll. My attempt looked… close? As I pulled qi through it, the pattern quickly collapsed. So, not so easy.

I would be able to do it eventually, it was just a matter of practice.

I had to ask myself the all-important question. “Is this worth the effort?”

What was the point of working so hard on a filter so that it would only pull in earth-attributed qi? As I had learned from the scroll, it was supposed to make the qi more powerful. If a chaotic mess of qi was pulled in when cultivating, it would interfere with the earth qi, negating most of its benefits. The purer the qi, the more effective it would be. An extremely high purity would result in qi that was several times as effective as low-purity qi. This was why a strong, pure foundation was important.

However, I continued to consider. Did that matter right now? What was my current goal? To become the strongest person in the world or to just advance one step forward, gaining experience and credits along the way.

The scroll said that if one’s qi purity were too low, they would be stuck as a Martial Disciple forever, but it also seemed to suggest that one could become a Peak Disciple no matter how pure their qi was.

So, I could become a Peak Disciple, learn from the experience, die, and collect the credits for a high cultivation level. Then, the next time around, I could start with an even higher affinity. I would live a series of lives that slowly built upon one another.

Was I okay with this strategy? It meant I would purposefully be sending myself to my death. This wasn’t suicide, and while the death was premeditated, it shouldn’t run afoul of the System’s restrictions. Still…

I worked to shore up my confidence. “I think it’s what I have to do. As long as I have time in between deaths, I will be fine.”

I thought about the viability of this plan. The qi filter was something I would need to learn to create. Even if purity wasn’t something I concerned myself with at the moment, it seemed like a waste not to practice it for the future.

So, yes, I would practice it, maybe for an hour a day, but my focus needed to be on simply grabbing as much qi as possible and advancing as far as possible. That seemed like the way to gain the most from each reset.

I walked to the Martial Arts Training Yard with determination. I was still only a Martial Disciple 1, but I could feel the qi in my right arm surging. It was nearing a breakthrough. In only a few more days, I would finally see what it meant to be a Martial Disciple 2. Hopefully, I would get them.

“Now, time for a little demonstration.” The martial arts trainer had a murderous air about him. “Do we have any volunteers?”

I, like everyone else, remained silent. I wasn’t about to risk putting myself forward.

“Hmpf, not a single person brave enough to even demonstrate what they know. Fine. You! Step forward and show me something.”

The bastard was pointing right at… someone else?

It worked… Not being seen as completely worthless by the clan had at least one benefit it seemed.

The unfortunate victim of this lesson was rather… unfortunate. Thankfully, it wasn’t me this time. I just stood there with a crowd of sixteen-year-olds and watched as one of our number was beaten to death in front of us. This place was just wrong.

“This is your lesson for today. In this training, slacking for even a moment means death!” He gave us all a meaningful look. “Now, pair up and fight. I want to see if any of you have any possibility of being worthy of my clan in the future.”

Slowly the crowd started to move as people began to pair off. My neighbor and I just nodded at each other and moved into position to begin sparring. At that moment, a roar ripped through the yard.

“What the hell are you doing? What was that!? I told you to fight, not play around! Looks like you didn’t understand my little demonstration earlier.”

The instructor charged over to a pair that was on the other side of the yard. As soon as he arrived, he kicked out and broke one guy’s leg. Then, he reached out, grabbed the other guy’s arm, and snapped it in half.

“If you aren’t using those to fight, you don’t need them anymore. Get back to fighting. And do it like you mean it!”

This was not training. This was abuse. This wasn’t about teaching us to become fighters. It was about suppressing and breaking us. Was he trying to turn us into soldiers? Impossible. There was no way this could build an effective fighting force.

Still, I knew better than to openly question anything at this point. I was stuck in this place. I had to learn how to survive. Survival came before trying to understand and/or change the socio-political landscape.

I focused my mind and was relentless. I did everything I could to beat my sparring partner into a bloody pulp. None of us had any special cultivation powers. It was all about base martial prowess. As I said before, I was no professional, but I was good enough for a street fight. The child I was forced to beat down didn’t have a chance.

Even though I had a clear advantage, I kept my attention on everything around me to a paranoid degree. I knew that bastard was just waiting for an excuse to take me out, so I wouldn’t give him one. At least, I wouldn’t let him say I was too ‘relaxed.’

This ‘training’ lasted for two grueling hours. Finally, it was over.

“Congratulations, you survived day one. I will be back in a week. If you have not improved, you will be retired from future sessions. Consider this week my gift. Cultivate and train hard, children. Your three months have just begun.”

The following days, I pushed myself as far as I could. I didn’t worry about practicing martial arts. In my mind, I had enough of a lead on these kids that I wasn’t worried about them getting in an extra month of practice. No, I focused on cultivating my qi with the Earth Heart Mantra to strengthen my body and lock in a few extra future credits.

Just two days after our little training session I was ready for my first breakthrough. The qi in my upper right arm’s muscles became so dense that it was unable to absorb any more.

The next step was to find the acupoint in my arm. According to the scroll, it was supposed to be on the outside of the arm near where the arm muscles and shoulder muscles made a natural divot. I was supposed to be able to find this point by moving the qi around slowly and finding a place where it became ‘sticky.’

This took me several days, and it was easy to get fed up with the process. I was slowly groping around in the dark trying to feel something when I had no idea what I should be feeling. It wasn’t until the third day that I managed to do it somehow.

After that, the process was brutally simple. Concentrate my qi into a sharp point and stab from the inside of my arm, through the acupoint, and outside my body. This seemed like something only the reckless would try without proper guidance and supervision, but I didn’t have that luxury. I also didn’t care if I messed it up. I just needed to learn from the process and do it better the next time.

As I stabbed, I could feel qi pour out of me. Nearly everything I had worked for so long to gather vanished in only a few heartbeats. There were no visible signs that I had even done anything , but I felt like there was a gaping spiritual wound in my arm. The dregs of my remaining qi began to trickle out through this opening.

Finally, with what little energy I had remaining, I reconstructed the qi whirlpool in my arm, pulling energy in instead of letting it flow out. Again, I was supposed to create a qi filter over this acupoint so that only earth qi was pulled in, but I didn’t bother. That was something I would deal with in the future.

Qi poured into my muscles at several times its previous rate. Before, it had taken me days to fill my arm with qi. Now, it took only a few hours. In what felt like no time at all, I was back to my peak with one arm brimming with qi.

Before I broke through, I had to consciously hold the qi whirlpool in place and focus on cultivating. After breaking through, this became more of an autonomous bodily function. The qi in my right arm would constantly replenish itself whenever it ran low. Like with breathing, I could speed this process up by actively cultivating, but doing so was no longer a necessity.

I had reached Martial Disciple 2.

There was no time to sit around. I needed to start on the left arm.

By the time our week of training was over, I had made what I thought was considerable progress on reaching Martial Disciple 3.

It was a bit harder to pull energy into my left arm than it had been when working on my right arm. It felt like there was almost a form of magnetic repulsion at work, but each day, my qi was becoming denser. It was only a matter of time before I could break through once more.

As we arrived at the training yard, the instructor looked at me in surprise. An honest-to-gods smile appeared on his face. It seemed like he was actually happy, not just derisively happy, when he saw me. Since I was the only one that generated this reaction, I could guess that I was the only one to make a breakthrough this week. I felt proud of myself.

“Alright, pair off and fight!”

This time, he gave a few pointers on how to fight better. Shocking.

A couple of kids did end up getting brutally beaten by him, but no one died. I didn’t know if I was adapting or just developing Stockholm’s syndrome, but things did seem to be looking up.

“Stop! Circle around!” he finally shouted after a few hours.

“Some of you are progressing nicely, so I have good news. In two weeks, it will be the end of your first month of training. At that time, there will be a small competition. You may have noticed that several of the Disciples you started with are no longer here. During their evaluation, they were graded as having exceptional potential, so they have been receiving specialized training. At the end of this month, you will be free to challenge them for their positions. If you can defeat one of them, you will get their spot and all the resources that come with it. Train hard.”

We were dismissed, so everyone began to walk back to their homes. As I was turning to leave, I was stopped by our instructor.

“Keep up with your current efforts.” His voice sounded happy and encouraging. “I look forward to seeing you challenge for a spot as an elite Disciple at the end of the month.”

I smiled and bowed to him.

It was a rough start, but maybe everything was beginning to work itself out.

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 6 – Life 10, Age 16, Martial Disciple 4

The following two weeks were tough but rewarding. From an outsider’s viewpoint, it would have looked like I spent the entire time quietly sitting alone in my house, but that was far from the truth.

I spent the entire time constantly cycling my cultivation technique, using it to pull vast quantities of qi into my body. Though my physical exertions were limited, the process was mentally draining. Even after I gave up on creating a proper qi filter, managing all of the energy flows so that my cultivation speed was both fast and consistent was near the limit of my capabilities.

First, I had to cycle my qi around my body in a complex pattern. This was a problem because my qi did not want to move. It felt like it was completely trapped inside my muscles. However, the cultivation technique stressed the importance of creating a slow, steady qi flow throughout my entire body.

The further I advanced, the more this flow would stabilize. Eventually, I would reach a point where the flow was autonomous and no longer required my concentration, but in the early stages of cultivation, it took an incredible amount of effort to maintain.

Simultaneously, I also had to create a qi whirlpool in the area of my body that I was actively cultivating. Just like the qi flow, this whirlpool also had to be steady and consistent. Fluctuations in this whirlpool would not only cause my absorption rate to decrease, but they also made the qi that did enter my body much harder to control and focus into my muscles.

After a muscle group was fully saturated with qi, I had to ‘break through.’ This involved finding an acupoint somewhere in that part of my body and piercing it with a needle of qi. When finding those points, I felt like I was feeling around in the dark with nothing to grab hold of. I was essentially waving qi around my muscles until I found an area where there was slightly more resistance. Then, I pierced that area as accurately as I could.

Every breakthrough I made was full of flaws. The needles of qi I used were placed incorrectly, they were angled wrong, and they were full of impurities. Nothing about this first attempt at cultivation could be considered ‘good,’ but alone in my room with no one to guide me, it was the best I could do.

After all my efforts, I was able to open the acupoints in both of my upper arms and the one in my chest. I had reached Martial Disciple 4.

As my cultivation grew, I began to feel a strange sense of confidence. It felt like I could trample anyone who tried to stand in my way. It wasn’t just that I could trample them, I wanted to do so. Deep in my heart, I knew that there was no obstacle I couldn’t overcome.

Fighting the children in the practice yard posed no challenge at all anymore. I had already been more skilled than them. Now, I was also significantly more physically powerful than them.

The elite disciples that I would soon defeat might be strong in their own right, but I would slap aside anything they threw at me. I was unstoppable.

As a group, we were all led out of our residential courtyard and were guided to the depths of the training complex.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see since high walls enclosed both sides of the roads. Large double-doored gateways occasionally appeared, but we were quickly hurried past them. Eventually, we were led out into a small stadium.

On one side, several old men sat on a balcony to watch the events below. At ground level opposite them, were ten young men sitting on expensive-looking chairs carved of a dark, rich wood, though thrones might have been a more apt description.

Our martial instructor, who had been guiding us up to this point, stepped to the side and allowed a new man to take charge of things.

“Welcome everyone. I am Su HuaTian, Eighth Elder of the Su clan. Today, you are here to bear witness to the ten most elite and honorable new Disciples of our clan. They have each been blessed with powers and abilities far beyond their peers. They are the best of you, and they will be the proud representatives of the Su Clan in the future. Bow and pay your respects.”

I wanted to laugh, but I followed along with everyone else and bowed to the ten elites.

“Of course, the Su Clan accepts only the best of the best as its elite. These ten have been specially chosen based on the combined knowledge and experience of the clan’s esteemed elders. However, if you believe that you are superior to one of these hand-picked elites, you may challenge them to prove yourself more worthy of their position. This is your first such opportunity. After today, you will only have two more chances.”

I looked at the ten children on their thrones. Could I take them? Of course I could. I was a Martial Disciple 4! It would be a simple thing.

I looked at our instructor. He gave me a surreptitious nod. He wanted me to do this. He believed in me.

I looked back at the fools sitting on their monuments to false superiority. I couldn’t challenge the weakest. I needed to prove myself. I didn’t know how powerful the strongest would be. I could take him easily, of course, but I didn’t want to appear too arrogant.

Looking over the ‘elites,’ I recognized the red-robed youth who had killed me in the past. I wanted payback, but the time wasn’t ripe. I wanted him to see my might first.

The man on the stage was the eighth elder, right? That sounded good. I looked at the boy sitting in the eighth chair from the left.

I stepped forward.

“I challenge him!” I pointed directly at my prey.

My fellow disciples inhaled in surprise. Our instructor smiled contentedly. The idiot I challenged didn’t react at all. He was frozen in shock.

The elder in charge of the event only raised an eyebrow. “Step onto the stage.”

The incompetent elite and I walked onto the stage and stood opposite each other.

“This will be a fight to submission. Your goal is not to kill one another. However, fists have no eyes. In challenge fights, maiming and death are possible. Do you both understand?”

We responded simultaneously. “Yes, elder.”

“Good, bow to your opponent.”

I gave the fool a half-hearted bow. He would know what it meant to be a true elite soon.

“Fight!”

I rushed forward. I didn’t bother with technique. I would show my skill in martial arts later. First, I needed to make an impact. I needed to show this kid what a Martial Disciple 4 was capable of!

I appeared directly in front of him and threw a wild haymaker. He countered with a punch of his own. His punch was a weak thing with barely any force, and he aimed it straight at my oncoming fist. He was about to learn a lesson!

Our fists connected.

My arm shattered. I didn’t care. I could barely feel it. I was going to take this boy down.

I twisted my body and prepared to knock him out with a strong left hook. He was faster.

I was hit with an unrelenting series of blows. Every bone in my body began to snap, and I collapsed to the ground like a rag doll. Even then, I barely felt any pain. The only thing in my mind was to stand up and teach that child a lesson.

But… I couldn’t move.

“Hmph, this is a good lesson for everyone.” My instructor turned to face the others he brought to challenge these elites. “None of you have advanced out of Martial Disciple 1. Even the fastest of the elites is still only a Martial Disciple 2.”

He pointed at me and gave me a look of scorn. “This fool rushed all the way to Martial Disciple 4. He pulled in tainted qi without a single thought for his strength, foundation, or future. Doing this is the fastest way to an early death. I hope none of you will be so stupid in the future.”

When the instructor’s speech concluded, the elder took over once more.

He looked at the foolish elite who thought he could defeat me and spoke only two words.

“Finish it.”

The idiot approached me, and just as he entered my reach, he threw a punch at my head.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 4. 40 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 45

When I woke up in the blessing ceremony, I could barely control myself.

As I followed Shouty back to the residential area, I was nearly bursting with anger.

The moment I was secluded away in my tiny house, I couldn’t contain it anymore.

“What the hell! What was that? I knew I had a much worse foundation than anyone else. I knew I would be weaker. And I for damn sure knew that maniac was a complete bastard. Why was I so convinced of my own invincibility? Why did I think that madman was being nice to me?”

Was it just gullibility? A little extra strength and I thought I could do anything? A little smile and I trusted everything he said?

No. Whatever had happened to me was far more than any personal character flaw could account for. Something had been messing with my thoughts.

I did my best to mentally replay everything that happened before my death. I thought through all my actions. It was all based on an unbridled confidence. What had caused me to be so confident? What had made me so insanely arrogant that I had thought like that for even a moment?

Even lying on the ground and bleeding out, I was sure that I would win that fight. There were a few possibilities for what could have caused this, such as poisoning, but I had an instinctive suspicion that it was my cultivation technique causing this problem. Was that what an ‘Earth Heart’ was?

“System, how did my cultivation technique cause me to go crazy?”

The cost of that information is not possible to calculate at this time.

“System, how can I stop my cultivation technique from making me crazy?”

The cost of that information is not possible to calculate at this time.

“System… how much for a cultivation technique that will not make me crazy?”

The cost of that information is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Thank you so much for your support, System.”

I sighed in defeat. I couldn’t purchase anything to help me, so what do I do?

Anything I tried to do would require credits. To get more credits I needed to cultivate. Maybe if I cultivated better, I wouldn’t have the same problems. To cultivate better, I needed practice.

I was supposed to be using a qi filter to ensure that the energy in my body was pure. Doing as I had, pulling in a chaotic mix of qi, significantly weakened me and might have been a large part of why I went crazy.

Sadly, cultivating properly wasn’t going to happen any time soon. I could barely cycle my energy and create the whirlpool at the same time. I would need significantly more practice before I could do both of those and maintain a qi filter all at the same time.

“I think… I think I just have to do the same thing again.” I was trying to psych myself up for the inevitable. “I made gains in both knowledge and credits, and after all, there were no permanent consequences. Repeating everything would give me more practice and let me learn how to improve. That’s all I’m doing, practicing.”

I took a deep breath in and out.

“But first, spending.”

While I had earned 40 credits from that last jaunt, I hadn’t really been very profitable. I had spent 35 credits on a temporary affinity, so in the end, I had only netted five credits. I had to console myself with the belief that what I had gained in practice and experience was worth far more.

So, should I spend 35 credits on another one-time boost to earth affinity or should I try a different path? I had to boost my affinity, there was no question about that, but I had a few options available. Another one-time to earth, a permanent to earth, or a one-time to a different element.

I decided it was better to stick with earth for the time being. Deeper practice was better than wider. More practice with earth might mean I could quickly raise my cultivation to a higher level in a shorter amount of time.

At some point, I needed to work on learning to make a high-quality qi filter. It was clear that high-purity qi would be extremely important in the future, but that couldn’t happen until I had learned better qi control.

“System, I want to buy a temporary mid nine-star earth affinity.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 35 credits. 10 credits remaining.

One month later, I arrived back at the stadium for our challenges.

In the intervening time, I had pushed to cultivate faster and better than ever before. I was more confident and forceful when aligning the qi flows in my body, and I was able to create much more consistent qi whirlpools. When I broke through, I found my acupoints faster and more accurately than ever before.

However, I had still made zero progress on learning qi filters. I had attempted it a few times, but trying to maintain them while doing everything else pushed me far past what I could manage. Still, I had begun to see hope. Cultivating was beginning to require a bit less of my concentration, and in the future, I might be able to focus on the filters while I maintained everything else in the background. I just needed more practice.

Even with my faster, better cultivation, I had only made it back to Martial Disciple 4 by the time the challenges rolled around. Since I had been more accurate when piercing my acupoints, I felt I was a little stronger than the last time, but I still had a foundation of rotten mud. I knew I wouldn’t be able to defeat a skilled opponent, and I didn’t want to try.

My plan was to delay, skip this challenge, and cultivate further. That would net me more practice and more credits. In the silence and privacy of my little house, I was easily able to focus my mind on staying low-key and quietly advancing.

As soon as I began following our instructor to the stadium, a question appeared in my mind: ‘If I did fight, could I win?’

That wasn’t the plan. I didn’t want to fight. But if I did, could I win?

The more the question echoed, the more confident I became. I had just been surprised last time. Also, I was stronger than ever. I could definitely win if I fought. That wasn’t the plan, but if I did fight…

The moment I saw the elite disciples, pride and confidence exploded out of me.

I had to prove myself. I needed to make up for the mistake in my last life.

Yes, these children may be stronger than me. Their cultivation may be purer. Their muscles may be more powerful. But I was a skilled warrior.

I could take down any of them. Last time, I was too relaxed. Our instructor had always warned us about that, but I had still fallen into the trap. I hadn’t taken the fight seriously. That was why I lost. As long as I focused, I would be able to defeat all of them at once.

A small voice echoed in my mind. ‘This isn’t the time.’

I started to regain a bit of calm.

The elder in charge of the competition stood before us. “Does anyone wish to challenge?”

No one made a move.

Our instructor looked at me. I gave a slight shake of the head. He squinted his eyes.

The elder looked at our instructor. “Deacon Xu?”

“Sir, I believe there is one disciple who should be given an opportunity to fight. It would be a good lesson for everyone.”

“Oh? Who is that?”

“Su Fang.” He looked right at me. “Please come forward and give us all a demonstration.”

I smiled and bowed. “Very well, Master Xu.”

I realized that this might have been the first time I learned the man’s name.

I pointed to the same child I had fought last time. “I will challenge him.”

I was willing to wait, but they wanted to see what I could do. Fine, I would show them!

Yes, the boy’s cultivation was powerful, but he was a mere Martial Disciple 2. The only part of his body that had been strengthened was his upper right arm. Avoid that, don’t let him hit me with a right hook, and I would be golden.

I charged forward, careful to veer towards his left side.

Take him by surprise, then take him out before he even has a chance to respond!

As soon as I got within reach, I made my attack.

He swung a fist.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 4 – 40 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 50

On the walk back to my house, I was angry.

I was angry at this sadistic place, but also angry at myself.

Yes, my mind was being affected, but I should still have been able to control myself. I did control myself, but the moment that bastard opened his mouth, my control completely disappeared.

I had a plan. I knew I couldn’t beat that guy. I didn’t want to beat that guy. I wanted to learn to cultivate more efficiently, cultivate deeper, and earn some credits along the way. Was controlling those impulses truly impossible?

No, that wasn’t right. Last time, I was able to regain my calm. My original thoughts had begun to resurface. I could fight against those external influences, and the more practice I got, the more easily I would be able to push them away. This was just another form of training.

So, what now?

If I tried again, would I be able to do better against whatever was controlling me? Would I be able to push it away?

More importantly, my practice was effective. I was getting better at all aspects of cultivation. I could push further with better results. Soon, I would be able to incorporate a filter to increase my strength even more.

With the additional mental training I was getting by fighting the cultivation technique, I might even be able to completely resist the urge to fight next time. That would allow me to reap even more rewards.

I looked at my credits. Should I buy anything? Excluding the 35 credits I needed to reserve for an affinity, I had 15 to spare. I could try to use them for information, but I couldn’t think of anything affordable that would be of immediate help. I could try to use them to improve something about my personal capabilities, but I wanted to wait. If I had more to spend, I could buy something more powerful.

I sighed.

One more time. I would try one more time to see if I could make it past this first challenge. If not, I would try a different path.

After a month, my qi control had improved by leaps and bounds. I was now able to establish a minimally effective qi filter while also maintaining strict control of my qi flow and whirlpool.

However, I didn’t use the filter much in this life. It slowed down my cultivation speed, and I wanted to see how far I could push without it. A higher cultivation level would mean more credits when I inevitably died.

When it was time for the challenge, I was a Martial Disciple 5.

Being a Martial Disciple 5 meant that I had strengthened both upper arms, my chest, and my upper left leg. I had not yet had much of a chance to begin working on my right leg, but that was fine. My cultivation base far surpassed the other disciples. Even if they wanted to, they would never be able to compete with a Martial Disciple 5!

I looked at the elites. When the instructor asked if anyone would fight, I stepped forward without pause and roared out my challenge.

The fight went exactly as I should have expected.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 5 – 50 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 65

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 7 – Life 13, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Back in my tiny house at the beginning of the month, I was feeling a bit depressed.

That last time was significantly worse. The urges seemed to multiply after I hit level 5. Everything I did always seemed perfectly reasonable in the moment, but as soon as I returned to the start, it was obvious how idiotic I had been.

So, what was I supposed to do? If I rushed to Martial Disciple 5, that bastard would make me fight. Even if I could control my mind enough to say ‘no,’ I doubted he would accept that as an answer. I would have to fight, and if I fought, I would die.

On this path, I could only survive a month. Constant deaths. One month after another. That wasn’t the kind of life I wanted. As Martial Disciple 5, I could net 15 credits each run, but no gains would be worth that kind of endless torture.

Even if I did pursue that path, I would need years of practice before I was able to reach Martial Disciple 6 in only this single month. I was reaching the limit of what I could learn by walking this path, so the only gains from each death would be those measly 15 credits.

I needed to find a new path. What were my options? Make my affinity boost permanent? That would boost my net income significantly, and it would allow me to begin raising my affinity past mid nine-star since I wouldn’t simply be throwing away my credits every time.

Was I ready to commit to that? I had no idea what benefits cultivating different elements might or might not have. I didn’t even know what benefits cultivating earth qi had. I only had the most basic understanding of cultivation. Fully committing to an element without understanding any of its implications seemed rash.

Go with a different affinity? Maybe, but there were disciples representing all five basic affinities, and no one received any special treatment. Going with a different affinity didn’t seem like it would change my situation.

I decided on a crazy plan: cultivate correctly.

Using a proper qi filter would slow me down, and I wouldn’t be able to push far in this first month as I had previously, but if doing things properly allowed me to live to see a second month, it would all even out.

I already had a lot of practice creating qi filters while absorbing energy. Most of my effort was spent gathering anything and everything as fast as I could, but I had spent sufficient time filtering my qi to know what I was doing.

This life, my plan was to force myself to cultivate only the purest qi I could right from the start.

With all my experience, this was much easier than I thought it would be. Creating the filter went smoothly enough, but what surprised me was how little effort it took to pull in qi through the filter.

Every time I advanced a level, the qi in my body created a stronger and stronger repulsive effect. Cultivating as a Disciple 5 was arduous work when compared to cultivating at level 1. When I cultivated correctly and filtered out everything but earth qi, cultivating as a Disciple 1 was about as difficult as it had previously been at level 4.

At this rate, I would reach Martial Disciple 3 by the end of the month.

That… seemed wrong. If I could reach Disciple 3, why were all the elites only level 2?

I examined the qi in my body. In past lives, my earth qi purity always hovered around 50%. Looking at it now, after having used the best filter I could manage, I estimated my purity to be around 70%.

Not good enough.

The rest of the month I focused on trying to filter my qi correctly. I kept trying to figure out why my filter was not working correctly, but nothing helped. My purity remained around 70%.

It was better than it had been in the past, but it wasn’t good enough. I wished I understood more about the elite disciples’ cultivation bases. All I knew was that they were supposed to be Martial Disciple 2, but I didn’t know anything about their purity or anything else that might be affecting their strength.

To try and solve this problem, I could only turn to the System.

“System, how much would it cost to learn how to improve my qi purity? What do I need to do to cultivate better?”

The cost to do so is not possible to calculate at this time.

I could only shake my head. The same as always. I could only push forward and try to learn on my own.

At this point, my path was set for this life. I would see how far I could push with the best purity I could manage.

The good news was that I was still able to reach Disciple 3 before the end of the month. I had pushed above where the elite disciples were, so I would probably still be targeted, but I wouldn’t step forward. I was in control of my thoughts this time.

When Deacon Xu called for volunteers, I didn’t step forward. I didn’t feel the strong impulse to prove myself that I had in the past. I did hear a constant voice in my head saying ‘Maybe you can do it. It might be different this time.’ I didn’t listen to it.

There were no volunteers.

Xu looked at me and voluntold me to step up. At that point, the whispers finally won. I wanted to see what this new strength could do.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 3 – 30 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 60

“Godsdammit all! Every gods damned time!”

At least the urge to fight wasn’t as strong that time. I was learning to control it, or maybe just being at a lower level helped me control it.

But what should I do now? Getting a Mid-level affinity when I couldn’t push to Disciple 4 was a money-losing strategy. Even if I did learn to improve my purity further over time, I would quickly run out of credits.

That was with a Mid-level affinity. That was a high cost. I could cut it down to Low. I might not be able to cultivate as far or earn as much revenue, but it zeroed out the losses. It was worth a try.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 1 – 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 60

“Okay, so at low nine-star, the bastard singles me out for death the first week again. Next plan?”

I could go for a high affinity. That might provide some extra protection, and I might be able to jump up an extra level or two. I might even get chosen as an elite from the start.

The problem was the cost. I would have to pay 85 credits every time I restarted. That was a huge cost with very little potential upside. To simply recoup my expenses, I would need to hit Martial Disciple 9.

Another option would be to forcibly suppress my cultivation. Keep it low, and maybe I wouldn’t get targeted, but what was the point? I didn’t gain any credits if I didn’t advance.

I could try to skate by, get out of this three-month torture session, leave this damn clan, and cultivate freely.

Following that path, could I push my cultivation to the limit of Martial Disciple and find out what came next? It would be good to learn more about this world and experience something different.

I didn’t know how long I had spent in this damn house. Over a year? I needed to get out and see new places.

It was just… That was a huge time commitment. If things didn’t work out as I hoped, I would be wasting months with nothing to show for it.

I was silent for a long time as I sat there thinking.

What would make it so that the clan would actively not want me to die?

A higher affinity, obviously, but that would be expensive.

A powerful, obvious, demonstrable blessing? Yes, but again, expensive.

What else?

An idea popped into my head. “What about learning a trade? Could that work?”

Even people in this strange world of cultivators had to value skilled labor. Were there any special cultivator jobs? My ‘blessing’ could be knowledge and skill in one of them. Each life, I would learn more, making my ‘blessing’ stronger and stronger.

“System, I want basic knowledge about cultivator-specific trade skills. Just tell me what jobs are common for cultivators and what the basic requirements are for each one.

Very basic knowledge of cultivator trade skills. Cost 1 credit.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 59 credits remaining.

There are five common cultivator professions. Each of them is usually paired with one of the five basic elements.

Refiners use metal affinity to create tools and weapons. Beast tamers use water affinity to control demon beasts. Fire affinity is used by alchemists to create pills. Wood affinity is needed by herbalists to grow plants. The earth affinity is used by formation specialists to carve stones into formations.

Credits expended, transaction complete.

Which one would be best for me in my situation? I wanted a trade that would be immediately useful. It needed to be something that could benefit me personally, but it also needed to be something that I could directly demonstrate during that initial evaluation.

Herbalist was a no-go. It sounded valuable, but demonstrating an ability to grow plants would be nearly impossible.

Beast tamer felt similar. I’d not seen any beasts around here, and I didn’t think I would be able to use such a skill while living in this complex.

Refiner, alchemist, or formation specialist…

“System, I want simplified knowledge about refining, alchemy, and formations. Nothing much, just a basic idea of what each of these professions do.”

Very basic knowledge of refining, alchemy, and formations. Cost 3 credits.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 56 credits remaining.

Refiners create weapons, armor, and tools. More powerful refiners can create more powerful weapons and are capable of enhancing any of their attributes. Examples would be a weapon being made sharper, more durable, more flexible, or less flexible. Refined items typically require a variety of ores and gemstones to create.

Alchemy is for creating pills. These pills can be used to improve one’s cultivation, to heal injuries, or as poisons. Alchemists can also create explosive pills that can be used as weapons. Pills typically require a variety of herbs to create.

Formation specialists can create formations that control qi. Possible uses include creating areas of higher qi density, creating shields, or creating large-scale illusions. Formations may require various stones or a variety of expensive reagents to set up.

Credits expended, transaction complete.

So, what should I choose? My end goal was to raise my cultivation so that I would earn more credits when I died. Refining didn’t seem like it would help with that. Creating a qi-dense area with a formation sounded like it might be helpful, but I didn’t like the sound of ‘expensive reagents.’

Alchemy would let me make pills to improve myself while only requiring a few herbs. It seemed like it would be the most effective choice.

I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice. I had to become a drug dealer.

“System, I want to become a skilled alchemist.”

Complete skills and knowledge of a Master Alchemist. Cost 10 billion credits.

Uh, no.

“System, I want to become a basic alchemist.”

Complete skills and knowledge of a Disciple Alchemist. Cost 10 million credits.

Again, a big ‘no’ there.

“System, I want to learn all of the common knowledge about alchemy. The information that any reasonably educated person that grew up on this continent would know.”

Basic knowledge of alchemy. Cost 50 credits.

Still a little pricy.

“System, I want to learn all the common knowledge about alchemy that nearly everyone on this continent would know.”

Common knowledge of alchemy. Cost 10 credits.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 46 credits remaining.

A small amount of information entered my mind. I learned a few snippets about herbs that were commonly associated with alchemy, and I had vague impressions about how to begin learning to make pills, but it wasn’t much. I felt short-changed.

How was I supposed to proceed from here? If I wanted to learn alchemy, I needed a fire affinity.

I had been hesitant about committing fully to an element too early, but I had to do it. I couldn’t continue with these endless one-month cycles. Even if it was a suboptimal choice, I had to commit before I went insane.

From what I had seen of other disciples, trying different affinities would be pointless. Maybe it wasn’t, and maybe I could learn something by trying them, but I wasn’t willing to put myself through that anymore. I needed to push forward.

I hadn’t even attempted a life with a fire affinity before, and maybe I would regret this choice, but even if I did, I would make it work. I was going to go all in.

“System, I want to permanently improve my fire qi affinity to mid nine-star such that it stays improved even after I die.”

Permanent Mid 9-star Fire Affinity. Cost 350 credits.

Purchase confirmed. Discounted cost 35 credits. 11 credits remaining.

I felt power surge through me. It was different than it had been when I had increased my earth affinity. It was more powerful, more primal. It would take me time to adjust to this new sensation.

11 credits left. Anything worth purchasing?

“System, I want to improve my ability to study, learn, and remember alchemy knowledge. I want to improve it as much as possible with 11 credits.”

Severely limited improvement to alchemy comprehension. Cost 11 credits.

Severely limited… so, not much. But, well, even a mosquito leg is still meat. “Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 0 credits remaining.

Time to see if I could become an alchemist.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 8 – Life 15, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

The elderly man at the affinity testing orb looked at me. “What is your name?”

“Su Fang.”

“Place your hand on the orb and channel your qi into it.”

Having done this so many times by now, the process was second nature to me. Qi flowed out of my dantian and into the orb. A dull red flame appeared in its center.

“Fire affinity. Mid nine-stars.”

His inflection was slightly different from the past. Did that mean something?

“What can you tell us about the blessing you have received?”

Now for the real gambit. Would he believe me? Even if he didn’t believe me now, I would be able to build an undeniable façade of an alchemic blessing over time.

My voice quavered as I spoke. “I believe I have been blessed in alchemy. I feel that I will be able to learn it more smoothly than most people.”

The old man looked at me and paused. He had never done that before. Looks like I truly hit an edge case this time.

“Give him the Guided Flame Mantra and return him.”

Like every time before, I picked up the scroll and returned to my tiny house. I was slightly disappointed, but the difference in his reaction showed that I had made progress. Next go round, I might break into a brand-new path forward.

The Guided Flame Mantra was not wholly dissimilar to the Earth Heart Mantra. The flow of qi through the body was entirely different, but the basic idea was the same, and the whirlpools used to pull in qi were identical. The biggest difference was the qi filter, but that made sense as it was designed for a different element.

I didn’t bother with any subtlety. I ignored the filter completely and just pulled in energy as fast as possible. I had no desire to try and puzzle out how to break through the challenge encounter at the end of the month. I would simply race to Martial Disciple 5 and grab whatever credits were available.

Originally, I thought cultivation with a new affinity might introduce some unexpected complications, but everything fell into place simply and easily. Cycling qi through my body and moving it from place to place felt a bit different, but that didn’t affect my cultivation speed at all.

By the end of the month, I had once again reached Martial Disciple 5.

It was time to do my duty for the clan!

I stood on the challenge grounds with a stoic expression on my face. I was here for the clan. I knew what would be asked of me. It wasn’t what I wanted, but I was prepared.

“Does anyone wish to challenge?”

After the elder spoke, no one made a move.

Our instructor looked at me. I nodded. He squinted his eyes.

The elder looked at our instructor. “Deacon Xu?”

“Sir, I believe there is one disciple that should be given an opportunity to fight. It would be a good lesson for everyone here.”

“Oh? Who is that?”

“Su Fang.” He looked right at me. “Please come forward and give us all a demonstration.”

“Of course, Deacon Xu.” I gave him a solemn bow. “I will challenge the eighth-ranked disciple.”

It was time to pay for what the clan had given me.

I didn’t know about the others, but this expert was a Martial Disciple 2 powerhouse. He would help me teach my fellow disciples a fine lesson.

I charged forward, careful to veer towards his left side, showing that such a man could not be taken by surprise.

It seemed like I was only within arm’s reach of him for a split second, but the elite was still able to display his prowess.

With one swift punch, the match was over.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 5 – 50 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 50

The walk from the awakening ceremony to my house this time felt like it took forever, but it passed in the blink of an eye. My mind was in chaos. What had happened? Why was I so different?

The answer was clear. Only two things were different, my affinity and my cultivation technique.

“Guided Flame indeed…”

I sighed.

“So, what do I do about it?”

The System didn’t seem to want to help me with these mental effects, but I had to try again.

“System, can I buy a technique without these mental side effects?”

The cost of that information is not possible to calculate at this time.

“System, can you reduce the power of the mental effects?”

The cost to do so is not possible to calculate at this time.

What could I do? It seemed like, for now, the answer was nothing. However, the mental side effects seemed to get wiped out after each death, which should mean I didn’t need to worry about any permanent damage from them.

I should at least try to confirm that suspicion, but…

“System, do any of the mental effects from these cultivation techniques persist after I die and reset?”

The cost of that information is not possible to calculate at this time.

I considered my options.

A mid nine-star affinity wasn’t enough to catch anyone’s eye. My first step had to be raising it higher. These people might be complete bastards, but if the Su Clan were the complete rulers of an entire region, there would be a lot to gain from becoming an important member of the clan. I just needed to raise my perceived value high enough that they wouldn’t use these kinds of techniques on me.

Actually, this situation might be beneficial…

They were mind-controlling me. They had to know that the scroll they gave me would make me an obedient pawn. After I started using it, I didn’t even have a desire to oppose anyone, and they would know that. This would almost certainly cause them to lower their guard around me, and that might put me in a position to learn secret information or powerful techniques. Even if I didn’t have the impulse to betray them in that life, after I was reset, I would retain the knowledge and be free of the mental chains keeping me from using it.

I just needed to be seen as worthy enough… On that note...

“System, I want to permanently improve my fire qi affinity to high nine-star.”

Permanent High 9-star Fire Affinity. Cost 50 credits.

“Purchase!”

Purchase confirmed. 0 credits remaining.

“Let’s try again.”

“Fire affinity. High nine-stars.” The elderly man’s voice sounded surprised for once.

“What can you tell us about the blessing you have received?”

I decided to retain the same quavering voice I had used last time. “I believe I have been blessed in alchemy. I feel that I will be able to learn it more smoothly than most people.”

The old man looked at me and paused.

“Are you sure?”

I was caught a bit off guard by the question. I hadn’t expected any questions.

“Uh, not really. I just… I just have a feeling. Like that is what I am meant to be doing.”

The elder pondered for a brief moment before coming to his decision.

“Give him the Guided Flame Mantra and send him to be Alchemist RuDi’s apprentice.”

I had done it. After I picked up my scroll, the servant did not take me back to that same, tiny, rickety house. I was going somewhere new.

I was brought to a new courtyard that was a bit similar to the one I had just been tested in. It contained only a single building the size of a small two-story home. Instead of the ground being completely covered in the gray brick paving stones, there was a small strip of greenery hugging the wall as it wrapped around the entire courtyard.

The servant I was following approached the building, but he did not enter. He bowed towards the door and spoke in a clear, but not too loud voice.

“Master Alchemist, I beg leave to enter.”

An airy and aloof voice sounded out from inside the building. “Come in.”

The servant gently opened the door and guided me inside.

We were greeted by a rather young-looking man. It seemed as if he was trying to give off a commanding aura, but his appearance had a tinge of hedonism to it. He was dressed in a vibrant light blue robe that was elaborately embroidered with gold thread.

“What can I do for you today, servant?”

The servant gave a deep bow. “Master Alchemist, I have been directed by the elders to bring this child to you. They wish for him to be tested for potential to become an alchemist. If possible, they would like for him to learn what it is possible for him to learn.”

“I see.” The alchemist looked at me. “What is your affinity?”

“High nine-star fire affinity, sir.”

The moment I finished speaking, the servant slapped me in the face.

“You will show proper respect and address the master as ‘Master Alchemist.’ Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, Master Alchemist. Sorry.”

After waiting a beat, the alchemist waved a hand to brush the matter away. “It’s not important. Very well, servant, I shall do what I can, but tell the elders that rotten wood cannot be carved. I accept no fault if he cannot learn.”

“Of course, Master Alchemist. I will make sure they understand.”

“Leave us.”

The servant gave another deep bow and backed his way out of the building, not turning around until after the door was closed.

The alchemist barely glanced at me before turning away.

“That will be your room.”

He pointed to a small room in the corner of the building. It was barely a storage cabinet. It was smaller than the house I had been living in. I wouldn’t even be able to lie down inside it.

“Your food will be delivered to you. Don’t come out until you reach Martial Disciple 4. Do so as quickly as possible. Don’t worry about qi purity or any of that nonsense. Alchemists can easily fix such difficulties later on.”

I bowed. “Yes, Master Alchemist.”

“Stop.” His voice was light and airy. “I did not give you permission to speak. You will not do so again.”

“Y–” I quickly caught myself, gave another deep bow, and then hurried to my new room. I didn’t think to back away like the guard had done, but I wasn’t called out for it, so it must not have been a problem.

After entering my tiny room and closing the door, I finally breathed out a sigh of relief. This life was going to be tough. Keeping myself from slapping that guy was one of the hardest things I had ever done.

I would persevere. I could get through this.

At first, I was surprised by the alchemist’s demand that I cultivate as fast as possible. It was the direct opposite of everything Deacon Xu had been literally beating into us. I didn’t believe that either man had my best interests as their top priority, so it was more a question of what their motive was.

Actually, the alchemist’s motive wasn’t too hard to figure out. Knowing what I did, there were two extremely compelling reasons for him to want me to cultivate quickly.

First, it would mean that I was permanently crippling myself. Even if he completely disdained me, he might see it as better to kill off even the smallest possibility of a threat in the cradle. By crippling myself with a low-purity cultivation, I would never pose a threat to him.

I didn’t know how important a strong cultivation base would be for alchemy, but I could guess that a weak foundation wouldn’t do me any favors. I didn’t believe for a second that he would ‘fix such difficulties later.’

Second, cultivating as fast as I could meant making quick progress in the Guided Flame Mantra, and I had already learned of the insidious effect it had on one’s mind. If I rapidly cultivated it to Disciple 4, I would become little more than his willing slave.

Knowing this, did I refuse? No. I did exactly what he said and advanced my cultivation as rapidly as I could. In less than three weeks I reached Martial Disciple 4 once more.

His plan may have been nearly perfect, but in the end, it would be entirely ineffective. He would be able to control me in this life, but how long could that last? I had been struggling to survive even a single month. I just needed to learn his alchemy knowledge then die. After that, I would be free of him while retaining all of his teachings.

Did plotting against him weigh on my conscience at all? Not one bit. The winner is king, and the loser is just a thief!

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 9 – Life 16, Age 16, Martial Disciple 4

After reaching Martial Disciple 4, I exited seclusion and walked into the building’s main hall. A small pill furnace sat on a stone plinth in the middle of the room. Along both the left and right walls were boxes and cupboards where a variety of different medicinal ingredients were stored. The back wall had stairs leading up to the second floor.

The Master Alchemist was not in the room at the moment, so I moved to the side of the door and knelt to await his arrival. I was unsure about the etiquette of cultivating here, but the Master had shown interest in my improvement, so I decided to cycle my qi as I waited.

The wait was not long. The Master arrived downstairs only two days after my vigil began. When I noticed his presence, I immediately stopped cultivating, but I did not move. He spent a good deal of time checking the various herbs in the room, only turning his focus to me when he was assured that everything was in its proper place.

“Good, maybe you can be taught.”

Inwardly I brimmed with excitement.

“Before we begin, it would be best for you to understand a few things. I am not the most skilled alchemist in this clan. No, I am, technically, only a Disciple Alchemist. I have yet to properly advance to Master Alchemist. Do you know why that servant who brought you here was so polite and always referred to me as Master Alchemist?”

Was I supposed to speak? His look seemed to give me permission. Still, I didn’t know the answer to his question.

“Because all alchemists are respected?”

He scowled. “If you do not know, say you do not know. Do not make guesses.”

I nodded.

“He was so respectful because of my potential. I am the only alchemist with a high eight-star fire affinity in this entire clan. Having a high earth or metal affinity may be common, but fire is the rarest of all the elements, and few can boast of such a high affinity with it. The elders are terrified I will leave this backwater. There are many powers outside the Wastes that would happily welcome a powerful alchemist such as myself. My destiny is not tied to this tiny clan. I hope you understand.”

He gave me a significant look.

I gave a deliberate nod. Where should my allegiances lie? With a clan that had done nothing but murder me time and time again? No, I must be truly loyal to the promising young master who I could follow to greatness.

“I believe we understand one another. Now, let me be clear. Your affinity is trash. When you compare yourself to commoners, you might think yourself amazing, but a nine-star affinity of any level is worthless. You will never be able to reach even my current level of alchemy for the rest of your life. Still, that doesn’t mean I have no use for you. Perform well, and when I eat meat, you will get to drink the soup.”

I grinned widely and gave a deep bow.

“Here is your first task. There are one hundred and fifty-seven herbs in this hall. They are all common herbs used for either Rank 1 or Rank 2 pills.” He handed me a worn brown leather book. “This contains all of the information about which herbs are which and how to maintain them for ideal medicinal potency. You will study this book and diligently maintain these herbs.”

He turned around and began walking away.

“This is a task I have been doing myself. Common servants are not to be trusted here. After you have memorized everything, return. After I test you, you can take over these duties. Also, remember to be diligent in your cultivation.”

He waved me away with the flick of a hand.

I gave a deep bow and returned to my room.

Memorizing over a hundred herbs and how to maintain them was a challenge. Spending so many credits on boosting my affinity had been a mistake. It had cost so much, and I was still trash. It would have been better to spend those points on improving my memory so that I could be of more help to the Master.

Maybe I could purchase this knowledge directly? Then, I would have a perfect grasp of how to maintain the herbs for the Master. That might mean not being able to spend them on other things the Master might require in the future. For the moment, it was better to study diligently.

Shortly after the end of the first month, I hit Martial Disciple 5. This was a bit later than I had managed in the past. While my higher affinity made cultivating faster, I was spending most of my time studying, so I had much less time to dedicate to cultivation. The Master cared about my advancement though, and he wanted me to rise quickly, so I needed to put in more effort.

At the seven-week mark, I reached Martial Disciple 6 for the first time. The acupoints in my chest, both upper arms, and both upper legs had been opened. All that was left were my lower arms and lower legs.

This was when I hit my first major bottleneck cultivation.

The remaining limbs could be opened in any order, so I chose to focus on my right forearm first. The combined repulsive effect of all of the qi in my body seemed to have been amplified several times over. Drawing in even meager amounts of qi was exhausting.

Advancing to Disciple 7 would be far more difficult than I had imagined. Still, I would persevere. Not for myself, but for the Master.

At the end of two months, I had the herb manual memorized, so I returned to the main hall to await the Master.

After only a few hours, he appeared.

“What are you doing here?”

I held the book up to him. “Master, I have completed memorizing the information as instructed.”

He waved his hand at me dismissively. “Do not call me master. You are not my disciple. Call me Teacher. If others are present, you will call me Teacher RuDi. If someone from outside the clan is present, you will call me Teacher Su.”

He turned around and walked toward the cabinets on the left side of the room. Returning, he placed five different herbs on the table.

He held up what looked to be long chips of wood. “What is this?”

“Astragalus root.”

“What is the correct procedure to preserve it?”

“The root should be properly dried after harvesting. Then, it should be placed in a dry, cool place with moderate airflow. For maximum potency, it should be used within two years.”

He picked up a red fruit that was slightly larger than a cherry. “What is this?”

“Hawthorn berry.”

“What is the correct procedure to preserve it?”

“The berries should be dried and stored in a bed of hawthorn leaves. They should be kept in a dark, dry environment. The temperature should be cool, but not cold.”

Teacher continued asking about the other three herbs he had selected. After each answer, he spoke not a word of praise or rebuke.

“You will take care of the herbs in this hall. Do not enter if I or others are inside. If anyone enters the hall while you are tending the herbs, you will return to your room. Dismissed.”

I bowed proudly to Teacher.

Another month passed quickly. I began making progress toward Martial Disciple 7, but it was still a fair distance away. Teacher wanted me to progress quickly, and I was failing him in that. Fortunately, he never spoke a word of condemnation for my failure.

My work tending his herbs was far more successful. To my admittedly amateurish eye, the herbs remained in pristine condition. Teacher had never praised my work, but I knew I was making him proud.

One day, while I was taking care of my tasks, Teacher came down the stairs. I began to take my leave as normal, but he stopped me.

“Stay.”

He walked over to the largest chest in the room which held hundreds of bright blue flowers.

“What is this?”

“Blue peony, Teacher.”

“What is it used for?”

“I do not know, Teacher.”

“Good, you should not know the uses of any herbs yet.” He gave a slight nod, showing how much my dedication had truly impressed him. “Go and choose a blue peony.”

I walked over and looked into the chest. I did not see anything to suggest picking one over any other, so I just picked up one at random.

Teacher placed a thick paper ledger in front of me.

“When you take a peony from that chest, you will mark it down on this ledger. Each flower costs five silver. They are expensive medicinal ingredients. You will pay back every silver you owe.”

I nodded and made a mark on the ledger.

“Follow me.”

He took me into a side room that I had yet to enter. It was bare except for a small table upon which sat a battered old pill furnace the size of a basketball. He placed his peony into the furnace and started the fire.

“You must get the furnace extremely hot. This will quickly burn away the impurities in the flower. Use your affinity to control the fire in the furnace as you would qi and prevent it from directly touching the flower.”

As I watched, black smoke began to rise from the peony. Shortly after, the entire flower collapsed into a bright blue dust.

“This is Qi Gathering Powder. It is useful for low-level warriors. When you have time, come here and practice. It will take you many attempts to do this correctly. Mark each flower you take. Training an alchemist is expensive, but you will pay back everything you owe in the future. There are ten small cloth bags on the table. When you are successful, store your powder in one of them. After you have completed all ten portions, return to the main hall and wait for me.”

I bowed as Teacher walked away.

With Teacher’s abilities, creating Qi Gathering Powder was effortless. For me, it was anything but.

The first several times I tried, the flower caught on fire nearly instantly. I was at a complete loss for how to keep that from happening. After half a dozen attempts, I decided to stop. Charging ahead recklessly was simply a waste of valuable resources.

How could I stop them from catching fire? Teacher said to control the fire in the pill furnace and not let it touch the flower directly, but everything happened too quickly. What should I do?

I needed practice controlling a natural fire. I had only ever tried to control the qi in my body before, so trying to control an external flame was far beyond my capabilities. Learning to control fire was the true test Teacher had set before me.

I lit the furnace, but I did not put a flower inside. Right now, concocting the powder was beyond me. I watched the flames as they heated the furnace. I needed to control the fire through affinity. My affinity was only a trashy high nine-star, but I could do this.

It took me weeks, but in the end, I was successful. I could, to at least a minimal degree, control the fire within the pill furnace. After another week and a dozen failed attempts, I was finally able to stop the peony from catching on fire.

Only one week later, I discovered the correct temperature to release the black smoke from the flower without it burning. All told, I had wasted 28 precious flowers before successfully concocting a single dose of Qi Gathering Powder.

After using a total of 47 peonies, I completed my task.

The next day, I presented the powders to Teacher.

He checked them carefully before nodding in praise.

“Follow.”

He led me to a room on the other side of the building that contained several boxes. More significantly, it also had a small door leading outside.

“This box contains cloth bags. This one has jade bottles. Any powders or pills you create will go in this box.” He pointed in several different directions. “When you make a deposit, mark it on this ledger. The value of your product will be deducted from your debt. While you are here, you must work hard to repay your debts.”

I nodded, happy that I could finally start repaying Teacher.

He picked up a bag of Qi Gathering Powder and began explaining more about alchemy to me.

“The Qi Gathering Powder is useful only to the weakest, poorest cultivator. Because of how it is created, it has the beneficial property of containing no pill toxin since all of the toxins in the peony are completely burned away. Unfortunately, in doing so, you will also burn away the majority of the flower’s medicinal power, making the end result nearly useless.”

He carelessly tossed the bag of powder I had worked hard to create to the side.

“As I said before, blue peonies are worth 5 silver. A portion of Qi Gathering Powder is worth 10 copper. You concocted 10 portions, which is 100 copper, or 1 silver. You consumed 47 blue peonies. At 5 silver a piece, you currently owe 2 gold, 34 silver.”

I was stunned. I wasted so many precious resources, and even when I succeeded, I was still wasting money. What was the point? Would I be forever burning away all of Teacher’s money? I couldn’t do that to him.

“Good, you understand. Qi Gathering Powder is a failed product. Come.”

He took several peonies and brought me back into my workshop. He put one of them into the pill furnace and began working.

“Use a less intense flame. With a weaker flame, the medicinal power of the flower will not be burned away, and the flower will not turn into powder. Wrap the fire qi around the flower like a ball. Equal heat should be applied from all directions.”

As I watched, the entire flower melted and turned into a silvery-blue liquid.

“After it becomes liquid, increase the temperature. Burn away the impurities. But keep it cool enough not to harm the medicinal power.”

Black smoke began to rise from the liquid.

“Finally, use your qi to apply even pressure from all directions.”

The liquid solidified into a small pellet.

Teacher took the pellet and put it to the side. Then, he began concocting again. This time, significantly more black smoke was released. After forming the pellet, he took it and set it aside. The third time, almost no smoke was released from the liquid.

He held up the first pellet he had made.

“This is a Rank 1 Basic Qi Gathering Pill. Rank 1 pills are suitable for Martial Disciples, and the Basic Qi Gathering Pill is best used by Martial Disciples 1 to 3. Better pills are beyond you, do not worry about them for now.”

He carefully placed it into a jade bottle and set it down before me.

“The medicinal power of a pill must be at least 80%, or it is considered a worthless pill and must be discarded. I estimate this pill retains about 87% of its medicinal power. Grandmaster Alchemists can make pills with 100% power, but it doesn’t matter as it will have little effect on the pill’s price. A difference of 87% and 100% is not enough for people to pay a meaningful premium. However, you should always strive for the highest medicinal power possible.”

He picked up the third pill he made.

“What pills are truly graded on is purity. This is a Low-Purity Qi Gathering Pill and contains a significant amount of pill toxins. It will only sell for 1 silver. A Mid-Purity one, where most of the toxins have been removed, is worth 5 silver. A High-Purity one, where nearly all have been removed, is worth 10 silver.”

He picked up the third one he had made.

“When making this pill, the temperature was too high, and the medicinal power was significantly depleted. On the third pill, the temperature was too low, so nearly all of the toxins are still there. Both are completely worthless.”

He crushed the two pills into powder and scattered the dust onto the floor.

“Those two pills were useless trash. Never create something like that. Instead, when you make such a mistake, quickly increase the temperature in the pill furnace and turn its contents into Qi Gathering Powder. The powder is a failed product, but it is useful and can be sold to recoup a small portion of your losses.”

Teacher picked up the bottle containing the first pill he had made.

“This is a High-Purity Rank 1 Basic Qi Gathering Pill. It is worth 10 silver, double the value of its ingredients. Once you can make these, you will be able to begin paying off your debt. Until then, you must work hard and learn well. If you successfully concoct a pill, place it into a jade bottle, deposit the bottle in the storage room, and mark the ledger. Someone from the clan will grade its purity to ensure it is assessed fairly.”

I gave a deep bow, deeply grateful for everything Teacher had given me. I was proud that he was willing to invest so much in my education.

“I will be traveling in the near future, so I will not be around much. Do not concern yourself with this. Cultivate, tend the herbs, and practice alchemy diligently.”

Saying this, he walked away.

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 10 – Life 16 Age 21, Martial Disciple 7

After Teacher left, I did not see him again for a long time.

It took me nearly three years to concoct my first successful pill. The day after it was deposited, I checked the ledger to find that I had submitted a trash pill with no value. I had to do better. I didn’t deposit another pill until a full year later.

Not long after I turned 21, I advanced to Martial Disciple 7, but at this point, my cultivation ground to a nearly complete halt, and it became incredibly difficult to advance any further. The qi in my body seemed to actively repel any energy I tried to pull into my remaining uncultivated limbs.

Years continue to flow by in a steady stream, and while my cultivation level was stagnant, my alchemy skills were slowly improving. I reached the point where I could always successfully concoct a pill, but when I submitted them, they were evaluated as trash. Unfortunately, I had not learned a method to evaluate pills from Teacher. If I had, I would not have bothered submitting so many failures.

Over time, I learned to feel and understand the process of concocting pills at a deeper level, and I began to sense the energy that existed within peonies. They felt like strings of chaos wrapped around a thick green strand of power. When I heated a flower up, the strings of chaos burned away, but if I heated it too far, the green medicinal power also evaporated.

One big stumbling block was keeping my power correctly distributed. If too much was concentrated in one spot, it would quickly burn through the strands of chaos and eat away at the medicinal energy. To combat this, I had to quickly move all energy away from this area, which usually had the knock-on effect of creating several new hotspots.

Once this process of overheating started, it was nearly impossible to stop. That was why Teacher highlighted the importance of Qi Gathering Powder. When the concoction process began to spiral out of control, I needed to quickly turn up the heat and begin burning everything away so that I would be left with the weak but usable powder.

I persisted in my pursuit of perfection for decades, and my output of trash pills dropped to zero. I wasn’t willing to bring shame to Teacher by submitting them. I always did my best to concoct a proper pill, but near the end of the process, I would always turn up the heat high enough to transform the energy into Qi Gathering Powder. It was regrettable that I had to hand in something so worthless, but it was better than trash.

When I was over 50 years old, I finally had a breakthrough in both my cultivation and my understanding of alchemy. I was able to finally wrestle enough qi into my left hand and broke through to Martial Disciple 8. With qi freely available in both hands, I figured out a method of using it to control the flames in the furnace more smoothly. This allowed me to heat the flowers more evenly. This still wasn’t perfect since the chaotic strings weren’t evenly distributed, but I was getting close.

That year, I finally submitted my first successful Low-Purity Basic Qi Gathering Pill.

The problem was, I could feel myself struggling each time I made a pill. If I had a higher cultivation level, I was sure that it would be beneficial when I was concocting pills. The only reason I had been able to make that first successful pill was because of the extra power and control I had gained after advancing to Martial Disciple 8. To progress in alchemy, I needed to progress in cultivation.

I made a choice. It felt like a betrayal of the trust that Teacher had placed in me, but I knew this was the only way I would ever be able to repay him. The next time I created a pill I thought was successful, I did not deposit it, I chose to consume it.

Qi rushed into me at speeds I hadn’t felt in decades.

Teacher had said that these Basic pills were only suitable for Martial Disciples 1 to 3, but this proved that I had been unworthy of hearing the whole truth at that time. Even at Disciple 8, there was still a strong effect. However, I quickly noticed a potential problem. If this pill had such an effect on me, the rate that low-level cultivators gathered qi would be exponentially greater. Gathering qi for a breakthrough would be easy, but attempting to purify it would be significantly more difficult.

Of course, as an alchemist, purity wasn’t a concern at all for me. As Teacher said, dealing with problems of low purity was simple for an alchemist. Others, however, would not be so fortunate.

For the next year, I worked even harder. Whenever I felt that a pill might not meet Teacher’s strict quality standards and would just be destroyed, I consumed it instead of depositing it. My cultivation quickly rose to Disciple 9.

At this point, concocting pills became smoother and easier. I could both control and sense qi far better than ever before.

Decades passed, and I was nearing the end of my life.

I was over 90 years old, and I had finally reached Martial Disciple Peak. Sadly, I was a terrible alchemist. I had never been able to create anything better than a Low-Purity pill.

In all the time I stayed in this house and practiced my alchemy, I never saw Teacher again. I was worthless. I had failed him. I did not have the face to see him.

Through the years, others came and went from the small building. Several people had lived on the second floor for short periods, but I was always diligent about leaving the room when I heard them coming. I was not to bother Teacher’s guests.

Even though I was constantly wasting Teacher’s precious herbs, the chest of blue peonies was always refilled in a timely manner. No one ever came to question me about why they had been destroyed. They were simply restocked.

This was a final blessing from Teacher. Even though I had failed, he still believed that one day I would succeed.

For eight decades, nothing had changed. I had never left Teacher’s home. I had remained committed to my duties.

I was walking from the pill room, through the main hall, and back to my room one day when I heard several people approaching.

I turned around and headed back to the pill room so as to not bother Teacher’s guests, but my body was starting to fail me. I was not able to move fast enough to leave before they entered.

A calm voice sounded behind me. “Stop. Turn around. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

I turned around and looked at the three men who had entered. One was an aging man whose hair had begun to gray. One was a youth that looked no older than twenty. The man in front… it was Teacher! He looked nearly unchanged since I had last seen him.

“Teacher!” I bowed deeply as my eyes began to fill with tears. “Disciple has failed you. I should have left before you entered.”

It was a long moment before he responded.

“You were to call me Teacher Su.”

Tears dropped from my eyes. Decades had passed, and I had already failed twice in quick succession.

The aging man looked me up and down. “Is he the one that has been making our pills?”

“Indeed.” Teacher appraised me carefully. “Go to your room. Return here in one hour.”

I gave another deep bow before exiting. The wait in my quarters was excruciating. I had not been this excited in years. Finally, Teacher had returned.

Exactly one hour after my dismissal, I promptly returned to the main hall.

The three men sat at a table, facing me. I felt as if I were on trial by all three, but Teacher was the only one to speak.

“I have reviewed the ledgers. The expenses you have incurred are, quite frankly, staggering. You have never been able to create anything better than a Low-Purity Pill, something that is still worth less than the materials that go into it.”

I bowed in shame. I was a failure.

“I have not bothered to make a detailed calculation of the debt you have incurred under me, but I estimate that it is well over a hundred thousand gold. Do you agree with the assessment?”

“Yes, Teacher Su.”

“Very good. You are honest. What is your plan to repay this debt?”

“I do not have one, Teacher Su. My only hope was to one day be capable of concocting High-Purity pills, but disciple has failed you.”

“You are not my disciple.” He waved a hand lightly in dismissal. “You admit to your debt and the need to repay it, correct?”

“Yes, Teacher.”

“Good, then we have a way for you to do so. You can make a significant contribution to the clan. One that is worth far more than the debt you currently owe. Are you willing to do so?”

“Yes, Teacher!” I bowed excitedly. I could finally give back to someone who had done so much for me.

“Good. This is Su YuanFei.” Teacher gestured to the aging man. “He is the Second Elder of the Su Clan and brother to the current patriarch.”

I bowed to Elder Su.

“You are likely not familiar with the current state of the Su Clan. It is failing. Ever since the current patriarch wrested control from his father, the Su Clan has been beset by one problem after another. If this continues, the clan will soon collapse. Our goal is to save it. You will help us do that.”

I smiled inwardly. I would give my all to help Teacher!

Elder Su threw me to the floor in the middle of a massive, open hall. A large, U-shaped table wrapped around me. Behind it were seated over a dozen elderly men.

Elder Su walked in front of me and bowed to the man at the center of the table.

“Patriarch, we have found the traitor! This is the clan alchemist who had been poisoning our disciples. He hid himself inside the abandoned alchemy workshop and slowly siphoned away resources from the clan. For the past several years, he has been adding poisoned pills to our supplies. He had been doing this while hidden deep within the clan. That is why our past inspections failed to find the source.”

Every eye in the room glared at me.

I shouted at all until I collapsed. “You are all bastards! The Su Clan is finished! Just wait for your destruction!”

I began to laugh maniacally.

The patriarch looked at me in disgust. “Take him away!”

I was taken to a dungeon. The guards were not kind. Over the course of weeks, I was methodically tortured. I was old and frail, but they were careful to never do so much damage that I could die. When I became too weak, I was given a healing pill.

This lasted for nearly two months before I finally broke.

I confessed. I told them how the Grand Elder and Fourth Elder had worked together to engineer the downfall of the Su Clan.

After that, I was taken outside. In front of all the disciples and elders of the Su Clan, I was executed.

Before they killed me, I gave them my final words. “The Su Clan is finished!”

I smiled a bloody smile.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple Peak – 100 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 100

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 11 – Life 17, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

I opened my eyes.

I was kneeling in a courtyard surrounded by children.

The rusty gear of my mind started moving, and I began processing everything that I had experienced over the last eighty years.

The endless toils of constant alchemy felt… compressed. I knew I had spent decades in that house concocting pills and powders, but in my memories, it was like it all happened in an instant. I could pick out specific moments if I tried, but if I didn’t, they all blended together. In that state, I felt as if I had only been trapped there alone for a few days.

I was only doing alchemy for a few days when…

The moment I began thinking about the events of the past month, they blazed to life in my memory. I had willingly thrown myself into torture. I was happy about being tortured. I wanted it. I wanted to be tortured for that bastard RuDi…

“Hmph. Rudy.”

Changing the pronunciation of his name was a petty sort of revenge, but petty fit my mood perfectly.

My mood didn’t stay so petty after my snort drew a certain someone’s attention.

“Quiet!”

At the front of the crowd, as always, was a middle-aged man. He was glaring at me.

I glared right back.

It was Su YuanFei.

Rage filled me. Rage at everything that had happened over eight long decades. Rage at this damn clan and everything it stood for. On one path, I try to become a warrior and get brutally murdered time and time again. I try something new, and I get locked into eternal enslavement.

Oh, I know, I could invest everything to become a valued and hard-working member of the clan.

Fuck that! Fuck this clan!

This place was a cancer in the world that needed to be eradicated.

I stood.

As I looked at YuanFei’s, FeiFei’s, angry face, I heard a voice echo from deep within my soul.

You must repay your debts.

FeiFei’s face turned bright red. “Sit back down!”

“Fuck you!”

I charged him.

The old bastard didn’t even flinch. He simply waved his hand, and a small bolt of energy shot toward me.

You have died.

I opened my eyes.

I looked at the children that surrounded me. I saw the red-robed bastard who killed me on my first day in this world.

I ran at him with all the strength I could muster.

Before I even got close, a small bolt of qi hit me in the side.

You have died.

I saw the eighth-ranked elite disciple.

You have died.

System Warning: Quick, repeated, intentional deaths detected. Further actions may result in an administrative response.

I looked at FeiFei. All I saw was red.

You have died.

You have died.

You have died.

System Warning: Quick, repeated, intentional deaths detected…

…

Total Credits: 270

After a couple of dozen deaths, I started to feel like my soul was fracturing. When I opened my eyes, I could no longer muster the energy needed to continue this futile ‘revenge.’

I followed the group back to my tiny house, and once inside, I collapsed onto the ground.

“System, what is the value of Rank 1 pills and their ingredients!”

Complete knowledge of Rank 1 pills prices. The cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Fuck off! What is the local price of Low-Purity Rank 1 Basic Qi Gathering Pills, Qi Gathering Powder, and blue peonies!”

The cost of that knowledge is 1 credit.

“Purchase!”

Purchase confirmed. 269 credits remaining.

The local market price of Low-Purity Rank 1 Basic Qi Gathering Pills is 5 silver, Qi Gathering Powder is 2 silver, and blue peonies are 50 copper each.”

“Gods fucking dammit! System, I want the ability to appraise pills.”

The cost of an ability to appraise all pills is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Mother Fu… System, I want the ability to appraise all Rank 1 pills.”

The cost of an ability to appraise all Rank 1 pills is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Not the time! System, I want the ability to appraise most Rank 1 pills.”

The cost of an ability to appraise a majority of Rank 1 pills is 5,000 credits.

“Shut up! I want the ability to appraise some Rank 1 pills.”

The cost of an ability to appraise a limited set of Rank 1 pills is 10 credits.

“Purchase!”

Purchase confirmed. 259 credits remaining.

I waited, seething. The only thing stopping me from lashing out was the feeling that my soul could collapse at any time.

Again, I received the Guided Flame Mantra and was sent to study under Master Rudy.

I did my best to remain composed. I tried my best to mimic my actions from my previous life. It was hard, damn hard, and I know it wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. Eventually, Rudy sent me out to cultivate the damn slave mantra.

I did not cultivate. I waited several hours. When I was confident the main hall was clear, I snuck in, grabbed a blue peony, and headed to the alchemy room.

I was only a Disciple 1, so I didn’t have much energy in my body, but I had decades of experience. I was as efficient as I could be at melting the flower, burning off the chaotic qi strings, and forming it into a pill. This process took everything I had, and the result was far from what I had been able to achieve at my peak, but I was able to successfully form a pill.

I used my new skill at appraisal and looked at it.

High-Purity Rank 1 Basic Qi Gathering Pill, 84% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 20 silver.

You mother fuckers.

For the first time, I ran up the stairs to the second floor. I was going to hurt someone.

You have died.

I opened my eyes and saw that bastard FeiFei.

You have died.

You have died.

System Warning: The adminis—

You have died.

…

System Warning: The administrator has been notified of repeated infractions. Please Wait.

Total Credits: 419

My anger burned itself out, and I sat alone in my house.

I knew that if I took even one more step, I would crumble to dust, body and soul.

“Is this it? Is this all my life is now? Is it going to continue like this forever? I can try to do better, but does it even matter?”

I didn’t have an answer.

“System… how much to just end this?”

There was only silence.

“How much to make this all stop?”

I waited.

.

.

.

An imperious voice shoved me down into the floorboards.

“Are you done?”

My eyes shot open. There was a man standing in my house. No one had ever entered this house before. This… This was different.

I tried to look at him, but it was like he didn’t fit into this world, like he was outside of it.

He wore a vibrant red hanfu with gold embroidery that shone with its own light. My mind went back to the young, red-robed youth that had killed me long ago. This man was what that kid wanted to be.

It took me a long moment to respond. “Who… who are you?”

“I am the power that controls this world. I am the incarnation of the Earthly Dao. The being given mind and form to carry out the will of the Dao. Everything within this world is under the purview of the Earthly Dao, and I am its hand.”

As the ‘person’ spoke, the light emanating from the gold threads of its robes shone with a brighter light.

“You were blessed. I am the one who blessed you. I chose you. Due to your circumstances, I was able to grant you a uniquely powerful blessing. One which will finally empower me to improve and advance this wretched world.”

It glared at me.

“Allowing you time to acclimate to your new situation was necessary, and a large number of early deaths was foreseeable and acceptable. However, continued immediate suicide upon your rebirth will not be tolerated. I gain little if you do not survive for at least a few years.”

I wanted to respond, to just say something, but I couldn’t put any words together.

“If you continue to act in this manner, your blessing will be revoked.”

I looked at the incarnation. The despair I had felt earlier was replaced with anger. “So, you are just using me?”

“Yes. This world, like every other, is about benefits. I, we, use everything in this world to push it forward toward advancement. I want you, and everyone else, to thrive. Not because I care about you, but because when you thrive this world thrives.”

I thought about what he was telling me. How much of it could I trust?

“System, is… is all of this true?”

Veracity of statements made by the incarnation of the Earthly Dao. Cost… cost paid for by external entity.

Yes. The incarnation’s words are true.

‘Yes.’ Did that mean that everything this being said was actually true? Not at all, but it did mean the ‘incarnation’ and the System were on the same page.

“Okay, fine. You put me here, and you don’t want me to keep dying over and over countless times. If that’s the case, answer some goddamn questions.”

“No, go through the System. That is its purpose.”

“No! At least tell me what is happening to my mind! My memories are… strange.”

The incarnation squinted its eyes and then gave a dismissive snort.

“Very well. The short answer… is nothing. Your mind and body are here. Any damage to either your mind or body is not repaired when you die. It never existed in the first place. Only your soul is sent back in time. The memories you have of previous lifetimes reside within your soul. That is why they feel disconnected. The only memories that are ‘real’ to you are the ones currently in your mind.

“You don’t have to worry about any damage to either your mind or your body. When you die, your soul will be brought here and any damage to your mind will have never existed. Damage to your soul is a different story though, and you have been caused quite a lot of damage there with your little pantomime earlier.”

After saying this, it gave me a dismissive look.

“That is the only question I will answer. We will not be having this conversation again. Leave this place. Explore this world. Try not to die.”

He began to walk away but then looked back at me.

“Oh, one last thing. In the past, you have received ‘discounts.’ That was me. I used the energy of the Earthly Dao to make up for the shortfall in credits. I only did this because forcing you into a situation where suicide was your only option served no purpose. Don’t expect any such favors in the future. Handle everything from here on out by yourself.”

With that, the incarnation vanished.

Credits expended. Transaction Complete. 356 credits remaining.

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 12 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

I sat in my house and pondered alone.

Was ‘the incarnation of the Earthly Dao’ trustworthy? No, obviously not.

In truth, I had no real grasp of who or what it was. Anything or everything it said could be false. The System confirmed what it said, but what did that mean? Could I even trust the System with something like this?

Asking the System didn’t really address my concerns, but for now, the question of whether I could trust the Earthly Dao and the System or not was a moot point. I didn’t have any other choice.

I sighed. I could deal with the Earthy Dao in the future. I had other things to focus on.

My suicidal rampage may have made the admin upset, but it netted me a large number of credits, and it was time to spend money. I knew what I wanted. I had come up with a crazy idea while working for Rudy, but I didn’t know if I could afford it.

First things first.

“System, how much would it cost to move my reset point into this room?”

Relocating your reset point to this room. Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

That was unfortunate. I didn’t want to have to see Su YuanFei every time I was reborn.

I thought about what I asked for and realized I may have requested the wrong thing.

“System, how much to move my reset point ahead to this moment in time?”

Advancing your permanent reset point to the current moment. Cost 1 credit.

Note: This action cannot be reversed.

“Yeah, not too concerned with that. Still… How much would it cost to change my reset point for only my next death?

Temporary reset point. 30 credits.

So, a possibility to keep in mind, but one that was a bit too expensive.

I pulled the healing pill out of my storage and swallowed it. If I’m doing this, I might as well lock in a healed body.

Once the pill was done fixing my body, I sat down in a comfortable position.

“Alright System, change my permanent reset point to this moment.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 credit. 355 credits remaining.

“Okay System, next, the important one. How much to teleport to the nearest city? Somewhere a bit out of view so that my teleporting in won’t cause a scene.”

Teleportation to the nearest city. Cost 30 credits.

Note: The cost of teleportation is dependent on both distance and your cultivation level at the time of transit.

“Good. I just need to keep 30 credits in my pocket. Hopefully, I have enough to get what I really want.”

During my stint as a pill slave, I never did anything I hadn’t been instructed to do, and it was difficult to even think about things other than what I was told to think about. However, occasionally, I was able to spend some time considering what I might want to buy in the future.

I had an idea that I spent the last several decades slowly refining during a few brief moments of clarity. Rudy’s house was filled with countless medicinal herbs. It was truly a shame that everything was just left there to rot. It would be better if someone were able to take care of it all. In fact, it would be even better if I could take care of an entire garden for the man.

My thoughts were forced to follow certain patterns, but the idea behind those thoughts was all my own.

“System, I’m going to need your help with this. I have a built-in storage space, right? Every reset I get that recovery pill out of it, but I can’t put anything in. I want a storage space that I can put things in and take things out of.”

Modified System storage space. Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Alright, let’s say a bag of holding. A canvas bag with a space of ten cubic meters inside where I can quickly pull things out without my arm needing to go several meters into the bag.”

Basic low-level storage bag. Cost 1,000 credits.

I smiled.

“Excellent. Now, how much for such a bag that will travel with me when I reset? Maintaining all of its contents?”

Calculating… Basic low-level storage bag with time-traveling capabilities. Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

Slightly unfortunate, but a low-level storage bag wasn’t what I wanted anyway.

I needed something that would go everywhere with me, and it being a bag wouldn’t have been ideal. I needed this storage space to remain safe. Where was a safe place that would travel through time with me?

“How much would it cost for a storage space the size of ten cubic meters to be created within my soul? One that would act just similar to a storage bag.”

Ten-cubic-meter storage space located in host’s soul. Cost 10,000,000 credits.

“What if it was only one cubic meter?”

Cost 1,000,000 credits.

Excellent! One-tenth the volume equated to one-tenth the cost.

Would it function like I wanted it to?

“How much for such a storage space that travels through time with me and retains its contents.”

Cost 1,000,000 credits.

“Good. Now, I want to be able to expand this space without the System’s direct assistance. I want the space set up in such a way that it is as easy as possible for me to expand while increasing the price by no more than ten times. Also, I should be able to purchase information on how to expand this space for no more than a few thousand credits.”

Calculating… Specified one-cubic-meter storage space. Cost 10,000,000 credits.

“Wonderful! Let’s keep going. Here are the additional features I want. It should be possible to store living creatures inside, both plants and animals. Everything inside should be subject to a similar gravity as this world, and my movements should not affect anything inside the space. Time should flow at the same rate inside as outside, but time inside should not reset when I do. Things should age continuously inside the space. I want to be able to visualize everything inside and move things around at will.”

Processing… Calculating… Specified one-cubic-meter storage space. Cost 17,000,000 credits.

That was everything I had initially planned to ask for, but my plans had changed. My recent meeting with what was apparently an all-powerful being had given me a new requirement.

“I also want it isolated from the Dao. I do not want the Dao to be able to see inside or to be able to put anything inside. Only what I choose to put in this storage space should be allowed in.”

This cannot be done. The System is only of the Heavenly Dao. Isolating from ‘the Dao’ is not possible at this time.

I didn’t know enough to be sure exactly what that meant, but I could at least refine my request.

“Isolated from the Heavenly Dao and all ‘Daos’ under it, then.”

Specified one-cubic-meter storage space. Cost 30,000,000 credits.

I couldn’t help by smile and chuckle happily. I could get what I wanted, I just needed to figure out how big of a space I could afford.

“How much for a space with those same specification but only one cubic centimeter in size?”

Cost 30 credits.

“Alright, System, I want to purchase a storage space with the exact specifications discussed. However, I want its size to only be 8 cubic centimeters. It should be a cube of two centimeters in each dimension.”

Cost 240 credits.

“Purchase!”

Purchase confirmed. 115 credits remaining.

Amazing, and after deducting my transportation costs, I still had 85 credits to spare! Maybe it would have been good to keep a nest egg for the future, but there was one last thing I wanted. Everything else could wait.

“System, permanently upgrade my fire affinity to peak nine-star.”

Cost 75 credits. Confirm?

“Confi– wait. Not confirmed. Not confirmed. Hold off for now.”

The elderly man at the affinity testing orb looked at me. “What is your name?”

“Su Fang.”

“Place your hand on the orb and channel your qi into it.”

I did so.

“Fire affinity. High nine-stars.” The elderly man’s voice sounded surprised.

“What can you tell us about the blessing you have received?”

This time, I spoke confidently. “I have been blessed in alchemy. I feel a connection to it,” I said confidently.

“Are you sure?”

“I have a feeling. It is what I am meant to be doing.”

The elder studied me. He looked me up and down.

“Give him the Burning Flame Mantra and send him to learn from Alchemist RuDi.”

Wait… what?

Rudy looked at me. “What is your affinity?”

“High nine-star fire affinity, Master Alchemist.”

Rudy looked me over, taking an extra moment when he saw the scroll in my hand. Then, he turned to the man who had brought me to his house.

“Very well, servant, I shall do what I can, but tell the elders that rotten wood cannot be carved. I accept no fault if he cannot learn.”

“Of course, Master Alchemist. I will make sure they understand.”

“Leave us.”

The man gave another deep bow and backed his way out of the building, not turning around until after the door was closed.

Rudy pointed to the room I had lived in for years. “That will be your room. Your food will be delivered. Don’t come out until you are at least Martial Disciple Level 4. Do so as quickly as you can. Don’t worry about purity of qi or any of that nonsense. Alchemists can easily fix such difficulties later.”

“Yes, Master Alchemist.” I bowed.

“Stop. I did not give you permission to speak. You will not do so again.”

I gave another deep bow and then turned to enter my room, but Rudy stopped me.

“Hold. What cultivation technique did you receive?”

“It is called the Burning Flame Mantra, Master Alchemist.”

“Give it to me.” He held out his hand for the technique.

After taking it, he looked it over a couple of times before speaking.

“This is trash. This technique is for fighters, not alchemists.” He went to a cupboard, pulled out a new scroll, and then handed it to me. “This is the Guided Flame Mantra. It is more suitable for alchemists as it will help you better control fire qi. Now go, cultivate.”

Ah, good ol’ Rudy.

Of course, I did not cultivate. The first thing I did upon entering the room was make my purchase.

“System, permanently upgrade my fire affinity to peak nine-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 75 credits. 40 credits remaining.

Was this the best use of my limited credits? I wasn’t sure. What I wanted was a reliable cultivation technique, but the System wasn’t even willing to tell me the cost of one. Barring that, increasing my affinity was the only idea I had that could help me at the moment.

I sat in my room and waited until night fell. Having not cultivated, I couldn’t feel too much of a difference from having my upgraded affinity, but it would still be helpful for the evening’s activities.

When I judged the time to be around midnight, I snuck out of my room and grabbed a few peonies. Then, I ducked into the storage room and grabbed a couple of jade bottles. Finally, I headed to the pill room.

Peonies are large, relatively speaking. My brand-new storage space was tiny. Even if I crushed a peony down as small as possible, it would not fit inside the limited space I had available.

However, I could change it into something that isn’t very large. I could turn it into something that was rather tiny in comparison to the flower itself. A pill.

I was as careful as possible. Without having cultivated, I couldn’t use qi. I had to rely only on controlling the pill furnace’s natural flame.

The first pill I made was High-Purity. After that, I was able to make two more Mid-Purity pills. After that, I no longer had the mental energy needed to control the flames.

I had three pills. It would have to do. I wasn’t willing to stay in the Su Clan any longer than I had to.

I placed the two Mid-Purity pills in storage bottles and tucked them into my robe.

I pulled the High-Purity pill directly into my storage space. It should have been put into a jade bottle first since the jade would help maintain the pill’s medicinal energy. Being put directly into my storage space wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. Jade bottles were way too large to fit. In the future, I could look at acquiring a thin jade sheath to surround a pill while still fitting inside the limited space I had available, but that would have to wait.

“System, teleport me to the nearest town.”

Cost 30 credits. Confirm?

“Yes!”

Purchase confirmed. 10 credits remaining.

Initiating Teleport.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 13 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

I arrived on the outskirts of a large city. My arrival point was an alleyway between two crumbling buildings. I was alone, had no money, had no knowledge of the local area, and had no real sense of where I should go.

Had my decision to escape the Su Clan been rash? Yes. I could have at least tried to somehow use a position under Rudy to learn a little about the outside world, but I had no interest in spending even another day inside that prison.

Teleporting out here had cost 30 credits, leaving me with only 10. If I died, I would get another 10, but that still wouldn’t be enough for another teleport, but that was fine. I just needed to advance to Martial Disciple 2 before meeting an untimely end. That would give me enough credits to afford another teleportation.

With three Qi Gathering Pills, advancing to Disciple 2 would be a simple matter, but doing so would require having a cultivation technique that I could trust. In the future, I definitely needed to purchase one from the System so I could be sure it didn’t contain any hidden dangers. Better yet, I should learn to appraise cultivation techniques so I know what dangers they hold. With its connection to the Earthly Dao, I couldn’t fully trust the System, after all.

Before I could do any of that, I needed to rest. It was still the middle of the night, and I didn’t fancy wandering around the streets of an unfamiliar city in utter darkness. I adjusted my robes so that they wouldn’t get too dirty from resting on the ground and sat down to get a few hours of sleep.

I could only trust that the System dropped me in a truly out-of-the-way location.

First step, get money. I already made pills to accomplish this. Now, I just needed to find a place where I could sell them. I left the alleyway behind and began searching the streets for the right type of shop.

The area I was in was what I would consider the slums. Houses were in terrible disrepair everywhere, old women had laid out blankets on the street to set up make-shift vegetable stands, and there were men butchering livestock out in the open.

I was both annoyed and gratified that I did not, in fact, stand out from the crowd as I walked the streets. The fraying robes I had worn since coming to this world fit right in with everyone else in this part of town. Unfortunately, I doubted I would be able to sell pills worth several silver in this kind of location. I needed to find higher-class clientele.

The terrain the town was built on was somewhat hilly, which worked to my advantage. I found a relatively open hilltop and surveyed the city.

It was larger than I had expected. For some reason, I was expecting this to be a small medieval village with a population in the low tens of thousands. Instead, what I saw was significantly larger and more advanced in both size and scope. The population had to be well over a hundred thousand, putting it in the range of a modestly sized city.

Most of the buildings were cramped two-story affairs, with the occasional three-story dotted around. However, what the city lacked in terms of building size was more than made up for in quantity. These wood and stone structures stained the landscape for nearly as far as I could see.

From what I could tell, the city had two major areas of affluence. One was centered around a palace complex with dozens of buildings surrounded by tall red walls. The other was centered around a massive pagoda that towered over the surrounding landscape.

I took another look around, to see if I could find any other landmarks. That’s when I saw it. Behind the palace, up in the forested hills, was what looked from here to be another large building complex.

I couldn’t stop myself from muttering aloud.

“If I were a betting man, I would say that is the damned compound I’ve been trapped in. Which would probably make that palace the Su Clan’s property. I guess I know where not to go.”

I headed to the giant pagoda.

I moved through the streets of the city with purpose. I had no desire to draw attention by rushing, but I also wanted to give off the appearance of a man with a place to be. This… somewhat worked.

After exiting the slums and moving into the more lower-middle-class area, I still didn’t look too out of place, but once I got to the upper-middle-class areas, I definitely no longer looked like a member of the general public. However, I did a decent job mimicking a working-class man making his way through the area on business. I may have received the occasional odd look, but no one stopped me or asked what I was doing.

I was lucky in that the area directly around the pagoda was not too upscale. There were some walled-off areas nearby, but I didn’t need to approach them.

It took me a few hours to make my way to the pagoda, but the sun was still high in the sky. I had high hopes that I would be able to sell my pills, find an inn, and settle down before darkness became a problem.

I had no idea what the pagoda I had seen was. All I knew was that it looked like it was an important location where I would be able to find some high-end shops. I was pleasantly surprised that when I arrived, I saw a steady trickle of people both entering and exiting the building. They were grouped in twos and threes, and they were dressed like any other person on the street, not like monks or priests or anything. So, I concluded that it had to be a public building of some kind.

I climbed stairs at the base of the pagoda all the way to the top of its marble foundation. From there, I could see over nearly all of the surrounding buildings. Two sets of wide-open double doors granted entry inside. A couple of tall, wide, muscular men dressed in dark blue uniforms and wearing a no-nonsense expression guarded this entrance. One glanced at me but turned away after a brief look. I took this as permission to enter.

The inside of the pagoda was one large, massive store. There were counters everywhere, holding everything from herbs to weapons to camping supplies. At a quick glance, it looked like the pagoda contained everything someone might need.

As I stood near the entrance, taking in the sight of it all, a young woman wearing a formal, light-blue qipao dress with silver embroidery walked up to me. She looked me up and down with a severe sneer on her face.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“Uh… yeah, I would like to—”

She cut me off. “Can you even afford anything here? We don’t do charity.”

“No, I mean, I want… I have something to sell.”

Several of the surrounding customers were watching by this point, and they were all smiling and snickering.

“What could you possibly have to sell? Get out of here before I have security throw you out.”

“But… alright.” I sighed in disappointment. This looked like the place I needed to be, but I didn’t have the clout to enter. I might need to work on my appearance, but I didn’t have the resources for that. I could probably get better customer service elsewhere, but this place shone with an aura of importance.

As I was exiting the building, one of the guards shoved me from behind.

“Don’t come back.”

I walked away with my head hung low as the people around me laughed.

After walking a solid block and a half away, I ducked into a small side alley. When he shoved me, that guard had stuffed a piece of paper into my collar.

Hey, circle round the left side of the building. You’ll find a pub there called The Dragon’s Breath. Go through the alley next to it and behind the pub, there’s a side entrance to the pagoda there. Just walk on in.

This was… strange. Was it some kind of trap? They couldn’t be in the business of robbing their poorest prospective clients.

Shrugging, I decided to just go with it. The worst they could do was kill me, after all.

I followed the directions and quickly found the aforementioned door. Unlike the main entrance, this one was built directly into the marble foundation and led into a basement area located below the pagoda’s shop floor.

As I entered, a cheery voice greeted me.

“Hello, welcome to the Blue Wind Pavilion!”

I looked and found the same girl that had been so dismissive earlier. What was going on? The confusion must have shown on my face because she was quick to tell me.

“Sorry about that. It’s how the regulars expect us to behave, and you know what they say, give the customers what they want. Sorry you got caught up in it. Usually, young men who walk into the front entrance wearing ragged clothes and a rather nonchalant expression are extremely wealthy. Most of the actual poor folk know to take this entrance.”

I was shocked. “You treat people like that because they are rich?”

“Oh, yeah, of course. Everyone always fights over who gets to yell at the people who come in looking like beggars. With a little luck, you can earn a year’s commission in less than an hour!”

“What?! How?!”

“Whenever you get a rich guy dressed like a poor guy, if someone looks down on them for being poor, they love to slap people in the face with their money. ‘You think I’m poor? I’ll buy everything in this shop!’ That kind of thing.”

“That… that works?”

“All. The. Time.”

“So… you thought I was rich?”

She started laughing.

“Oh, no, no. Not at all. I knew you were genuine right away, but we still need to keep up with appearances for everyone else, right? Anyway, enough rambling about sales tactics. What can I do ya for?”

I felt like this place was giving me whiplash.

“I… want to sell some pills.” I fumbled around as I took the two bottles out of my robes.

She opened them up and inspected the pills inside.

“Hmm. Mid-Purity Basic Qi Gathering. Efficacy looks decent. I can give you three silver each for them.”

“What? They’re worth ten!” They had to be. If the System had been wrong…

“Yes and no… Their medicinal efficacy is decent, but it’s only in the high 80s, so we can’t sell them locally. We guarantee 90% or more. Also, we only sell High-Purity pills here. We will have to pass them to a smaller branch, and they will sell them for ten silver. So, you see, you can’t exactly expect us to pay you nearly that much, right?”

“Oh, uh, right…”

“Now, looking at you, you are a Martial Disciple 1 who just got awakened, right? And you’re here. Selling pills that could be used to improve your own non-existent cultivation base, right? So, where did a guy who looks little better than a beggar get two precious pills? Why is he looking to sell them off? Why, and this is an interesting question for me, did such a person not know that he shouldn’t have bothered trying to come in through the main entrance?”

She gave me a smile. “These, I’m guessing, are the questions you don’t want me to ask. Therefore, the price is three silver.”

I was slow to respond as I processed everything she had said. “Actually… those are questions I don’t mind answering. I am a Martial Disciple 1, but I don’t have a cultivation technique. I need to sell these pills to get enough money to buy one. As for where they came from, I made them myself.”

“Ooo, a sixteen-year-old boy without any cultivation is able to concoct Mid-Purity pills? I’d like to see that!”

“Uh, okay?”

She smiled brightly. “Lovely, follow me.”

She led me on a winding path through the building’s basement. Unlike the open and spacious shop floor above, this basement was a labyrinth of twisting hallways.

A few people were working down here, but nothing like what I had seen above. Most of the space was taken up by boxes filled with all sorts of random knick-knacks. More than anything, this part of the building gave me the feeling of a low-rent pawn shop.

Once she found the right room, the girl grabbed a flower and threw it at me.

“One blue peony. That will be 50 copper. I’ll put it on your tab. Come. Come.”

She hauled me away to a room further down the corridor.

“Alright, here you go. Lowest-grade alchemy workshop. That will be 2 silver per hour. Sorry, but we don’t rent them out for shorter time slots.” She sounded both cheerful and consoling. “Now, go ahead, let me watch.”

This whole encounter felt so strange. I honestly couldn’t tell if she was mocking me or if she legitimately believed in me. I think she was doing her best to do both simultaneously so that whatever happened, she had acted correctly.

Performing alchemy while someone watched was a new form of pressure, but my decades of practice smoothly guided me through the process, even if I was somewhat nervous. I only had one chance here, and I couldn’t afford to screw up. I went slow and burned away the tainted, chaotic strings with all of the focus I could muster.

While I had been concocting my most recent pills in Rudy’s workshop earlier, my only focus was on efficiency. I wanted to make as many pills as my limited energy could create, so I was willing to lower their quality to get a higher quantity. That would have been the wrong play here. Quantity wasn’t important. One good pill was all I needed.

I burned through way too much energy, but I was satisfied with the result. I handed the pill over to the curious young woman who quickly analyzed it.

When she spoke, her voice was airy and aloof.

“Sigh, I guess it was too much to hope to see a boy without cultivation make a Mid-Purity pill. Still, at least you could make a High-Purity one.” She giggled at her small joke. “Hmm. I guess since you could at least make something, I should give you some kind of benefit. How about 10 silver for the High-Purity and 5 for each Mid? So, 20 silver total. That’s about as high as I can get for you. Minus expenses, that comes to 17 silver 50 copper. Deal?”

“What? Huh? Yeah… I mean, deal.”

“Great.” She smiled and handed me a small bag of coins. “Here you go. Do you need anything else?”

“Can I use this room to make more pills?”

She laughed. “You did pay for an hour here. It’s your time to waste. You can even buy some more ingredients from us if you want, and we’ll definitely buy any Mid-Purity or higher pills you want to sell us. But let me ask you, do you have the energy to make more pills?”

I had expended nearly 80% of my reserves.

“Uh… No, I guess not.”

“So, do you need anything else?”

She seemed to expect me to ask for something.

I thought about it. I weighed the bag of coins in my hand. 17 silver. It should be more than enough to rent a room and feed myself. Worst comes to worst, I could come back here each day and make a couple more pills to sell. I could get by. But there was something I needed as soon as possible.

“What’s the price of a fire qi cultivation technique?”

“Hmm, a cultivation technique… What kind are you looking for? I assume a Rank 1 technique since you’re a Martial Disciple? How good of one do ya want? Low-Yellow? Peak-Yellow? Profound? Higher? We may not have it here, but the Blue Wind Pavilion can source items from across the entire Nine Rivers Continent!”

“Yellow? What do you mean by Low-Yellow and Peak-Yellow?”

She gave me a funny look at that question. “Cultivation techniques are both ranked and graded. Rank 1 is for Martial Disciples, Rank 2 is for Martial Masters, and so on. Within a Rank, they’re graded into Yellow, Profound, Earth, or Heaven. Then, they’re further divided into Low, Mid, High, or Peak.”

“Martial Master? That’s the level above Disciple? But… why those names? Why Yellow?”

“The heavens are profound, and the earth is yellow.” The cadence of her speech was practiced and fluid. “It’s from the poem ‘The Thousand Character Classic,’ you know?”

As she spoke, the language knowledge I had purchased from the System activated in overdrive to resolve the translation issue. She had only spoken four words, “天地玄黃.” Heaven, earth, profound, yellow. The meaning behind these four words was immense. It was a description of the cosmos and its grandeur.

“So, Heaven is the best, then Earth, Profound, and the worst is Yellow. Alright… What is the, uh, cheapest technique you have?”

“Cheapest, eh?” She smirked at me. “I could let you have a Low-Yellow one for 10 gold, but I doubt you want it, nasty side effects on that one. Lowest priced technique I would recommend? Say, 50 gold. It’s still Low-Yellow, of course, but it’s a bit better. Want to take a look?”

“No… no need.”

“Alright, anything else?”

Again, she seemed to expect something from me.

I sighed. “Yeah… Yeah, I guess there is. I want to make a deal.”

“Wonderful!” Her face broke into a brilliant smile. “Let me take you to the boss.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 14 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

As we walked, the young woman began asking me questions as she wrote things down in a notebook.

“So, what do you know about cultivation techniques?”

“Not much, I guess. I’ve never actually seen one. I’ve only just heard about a couple.”

“Oh? Which ones have you heard about?”

I stumbled briefly as I tried to decide what I should say. “I heard of the Earth Heart Mantra once. You know, for earth qi.”

“Yeah! That one is excellent! It’s a best seller. Whenever a new family comes into a bit of money, the Earth Heart Mantra is one of their first purchases.”

“What? Really? Doesn’t it, like, make people crazy?”

“Crazy? No, definitely not! It’s a great technique. Grade-A.”

“It doesn’t… affect people’s minds and make them believe they can do anything?”

“Eh, not anything. They just think that they’re invincible warriors. Doesn’t make ‘em crazy. It’s more… it gives them boundless confidence. ‘I don’t care who you are, I can step on you!’ That type of thing.”

“Why would someone want that? It’s suicidal.”

“Yep, that’s why it’s so great. They don’t buy it for themselves, of course. It’s a technique passed to guards and the like. If some high-level thug tries to attack you, you need guards that will fight back even when they’re completely outmatched. The Earth Heart Mantra cultivates that kind of mindset.”

“Still…”

“What other techniques have you heard of?”

“The, uh, Guided Flame Mantra?”

“Ouch, now that is a nasty one. Slave mantra. We’re willing to sell it, but we have to be careful who has access to it.”

We kept walking through the cramped basement corridors for several more minutes before finally reaching a set of stairs.

“Let’s go.”

As she waved me up the stairs, the strange girl placed her notebook down on a small table. Then, after taking me up two floors, she led me out onto a balcony that overlooked the grand emporium that was the pagoda’s main floor.

“Don’t worry, they can’t see us up here. A formation blocks their view of the balcony. This place just looks like decorative wall panels from down there.” She waved at me as she began walking away. “Come on, let me show you around.”

She took me on a tour around the balcony, pointed out the various counters, and told me about what items were for sale. The tour lasted at least another half hour. When it was finally complete, she brought me to a decoratively carved wooden double door.

“Here we are! The boss’s office. Let’s go in.”

Without knocking, she pushed open the door and pulled me inside.

“Hey boss man, got a kid here. He wants to make a deal with ya!”

A man who looked to be in his late twenties stood up from behind a desk and ambled over to us. As he walked in front of me, he held out one hand. Without waiting more than a beat, he reached down and grabbed my hand, which was still down at my side. He then proceeded to give me a firm, somewhat awkward handshake.

After releasing my hand, he gave a hearty laugh. “Welcome! My name is Chen WuJing. I’m the floor manager of this branch of the Blue Wind Pavilion. Call me WuJing. What’s your name?”

“Um, Su Fang?”

“Su Fang, great name. Mind if I call you Fang?”

“No… not at all.”

“Excellent, Fang. Come on in. Take a seat.” He didn’t take me to the desk but to a few armchairs set off to the side in a small sitting area.

“Fang, you said you want to make a deal. From what Mei told me, you’re looking for a cultivation technique. Is that right?”

“Mei?”

“Oh, that’s me!” The young woman blushed and gave me a small bow. “Pei LiMei, call me Mei.”

“Yes, um, hi, yes, I do want a cultivation technique.”

WuJing clapped his hands together. “Great! I look forward to working with you.”

This wasn’t right. None of this was. Ever since I entered the building things had been so… off. There was no way Mei should have talked to me like she did, and there was definitely no chance a manager at this kind of store would be so deferential to a guy who had spent last night sleeping on the streets of the slums. This was not how things should be going at all. Something was wrong.

“Ah, there it is, I see that look in your eye.” WuJing grinned at me. “Not everyone gets it, but, of course, in your situation, things are quite obvious, no? Before we talk about our deal, let me level with you, okay?”

“Yeah…”

“Alright, so, let me tell you about us. The Blue Wind Pavilion is one of the largest organizations on the continent. We have branches in every major city and most minor ones. Many powerful cultivators work for us, and our leader is a Martial Sovereign.”

He reached to the side table and poured tea into two small cups. He took one for himself and passed the other to me.

“This part of the world is, quite frankly, poor. Our main pavilion earns as much wealth in a second as this place earns in years. There’s no profit to be made here. However, there are still a few reasons we have a branch here. For you, the most important one is that we value talent. Our most important mission is to dig out any valuable talents we find lying about.”

He swirled the liquid in his cup a little before continuing.

“Look at Mei here. She is entirely bereft of any affinity. She is completely unable to cultivate and was kicked out of her clan because of it. But do you know what? She is my most valued worker by far. She is priceless.”

I knew he wanted me to ask a question and let him elaborate, so I obliged him. “Why?”

“Blessings are interesting things. We say ‘blessings can be anything,’ but people rarely think deeply about the implications of that. Some blessings are fascinating.”

WuJing held up the small notebook Mei had been writing in earlier.

“Mei here has a very interesting blessing. When she meets someone, she gains unnatural insight into how to best interact with and respond to them. When she talks to them, she knows exactly how to behave to achieve the best result possible. She may not even know what result she is working towards, just that it is the ‘best possible.’”

He gave a derisive laugh and shook his head. “In truth, I don’t think she’s even touched the surface of what that blessing is capable of, but it makes her an excellent saleswoman. Don’t trust her for a second though. That girl is a wolf. You sold some things to her before, right? Bet you didn’t even haggle. You probably could have gotten at least 10% more out of anyone else.”

Mei harrumphed and stomped a foot. “Boss! Stop it! I’ll have you know that I gave him an excellent deal. Far more than you would have, that’s for sure.”

“Sure, sure.” He waved her concerns away. Then, opened her notebook and handed it to me. “Take a look at this.”

As I read it, I kept glancing at Mei.

Careful with this one, personality is very unique

Be completely open and honest, lies will be self-defeating

Don’t ask about his background, won’t tell the truth

Give direct pricing, won’t haggle

Use given names with speaking

Always act like everyone is equal

Behavior should be close to a commoner in a restaurant

The writing continued, but I stopped reading.

“These are the instructions Mei gave me for dealing with you, what do you think?”

“Why are you telling me this? This feels like something you wouldn’t say to just anyone.”

“Ah.” He tapped the book with two fingers. “Nearly the first thing she said. Completely open and honest. I trust Mei, so I do my best to follow her instructions. I’m not even concerned with how you’ll react to my behavior. Mei told me to act like this, so I am.”

He smiled at her and then turned back to me.

“Now, let me tell you about my blessing. It’s nowhere as crystal clear as Mei’s. I only get vague impressions. To put it simply, I get a vague sense of how important people are. Maybe it’s better to say… I get an impression of how much benefit I can get from someone. Mei’s and my blessings complement each other excellently.”

He raised both hands and clasped them together meaningfully.

“Mei brought you up here because she believed you had a powerful alchemy blessing. This could, of course, be very valuable to us. When I met you though, my word… Where my blessing shows most people as a candle, you are a raging bonfire! Working with you would be extremely profitable.”

A sly grin crossed his face, and I saw a bit of a greedy glint in his eye.

“So, let’s make a deal. I know nothing about you. Not a clue what your actual goal is. And no, I won’t ask. She told me not to.” He gestured at Mei. “She seemed to think you would just tell me some lies if I did ask, so there’s no point. If you want, you can give me some details, and we can work something out, but anticipating your needs, I prepared a few options for you to choose from.”

He took me over to a side table where there were three scrolls and a normal-looking piece of paper.

He pointed to the first scroll. “This is the Flickering Flame Mantra. It’s the weakest Rank 1 fire qi cultivation technique I have ever seen. No warrior would even consider using it. However, it can be great for alchemists. The low power output will make controlling your energy a bit easier. We usually sell it for 50 gold, but you are going to need to pay for it with a loan, so let’s call it 100 gold. Just concoct pills for us until that debt is repaid. This is a simple transaction with no additional benefits to either side.”

The mention of debt sent a twinge through me that made me instantly want to reject the offer. I took a deep breath to calm myself and simply nodded.

WuJing continued to the second scroll. “This is the Bright Candle Mantra. It’s a bit better, a Mid-Yellow Rank 1 technique. The normal cost is 100 gold, and I will sell it to you at that price with the same repayment scheme as the last scroll. The difference is that you will become a guest alchemist of our Pavilion. You will prioritize us above any other organization, and we’ll have the right of first refusal for purchasing any of your pills. We can talk through the exact details if you wish, such as minor benefits when buying and selling.”

Repay… I waited anxiously for him to move on to the next scroll. He placed his hand on it carefully.

“This is the real beauty of the lot. It’s a Low-Profound technique. This technique is not for sale, and even if it were, I don’t think you would be able to cover the cost any time soon. I’m willing to give you this scroll for free, no debt needed. However, you must then become a full member of the Blue Wind Pavilion. We can talk about what that means later if you wish.”

He pursed his lips as he looked at me. “Right now, you don’t qualify for this technique. To do so, you would need to tell me exactly what your blessing is and how it helps you with alchemy. We will test it, of course, and if the higher-ups deem it valuable enough, you get the scroll. We can even see about finding you a master to study under. This would be a great option, but I don’t know if you want to tell us what we need to know.”

No debt was good. Could I tell them about my blessing though? I would have to lie. I wasn’t going to tell the truth to complete strangers no matter how nice they acted. If I did, I doubted I could pass whatever test they would give me.

Having explained all of the technique scrolls, WuJing tapped on the lone sheet of paper that remained.

“Finally, we have this option. I don’t want to offer it because I can guess what will happen. This is not a technique. It’s a recruitment notice. The Twin Mountains Sect is located not too far from here. In two months, they will be having their annual recruitment. We will sell you a room, food, and transport to the sect. During this time, you can buy ingredients and concoct pills for us while you wait. We will buy them all at the same prices Mei quoted earlier.”

He handed me the notice to let me review it. “Normally, joining a sect would require a decent cultivation level, and you would almost certainly have to give them the same information that you would us. The Twin Mountains Sect, however, has a unique recruitment system for new alchemists. The only requirement is the ability to concoct pills, which you have already proven you can do.”

WuJing had me pegged as someone with a powerful alchemy blessing. I did not have that, and I couldn’t tell anyone about my true blessing, so option three was out.

One and two were possible. I could take the scroll, cultivate it, and just live my life. The thing was, I didn’t really know much about alchemy. Getting any better on my own would be nearly impossible. I needed techniques, recipes, and ideally a decent teacher. With options one and two, I would be on my own trying to find these things.

I also didn’t want to be in debt again.

Was everything on the up and up with these deals? Maybe, maybe not, but following WuJing’s advice would be the best way to see if I could trust him more in future lives.

I looked him in the eye.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I gotta go with joining the sect.”

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 15 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

My time at the Blue Wind Pavilion was like a vacation. I had been on the brink ever since my first rebirth, and I finally had some honest-to-gods downtime. Typically at this point, I would be forcing myself to cultivate as rapidly as possible, but right now I didn’t even have a cultivation technique I was willing to use.

My only ongoing obligation was to make a few pills a day. I couldn’t do much with the little energy in my body, so my routine was to just make two or three pills and then rest comfortably until the next day.

Originally, I had planned to take some of this time to explore the city, which I learned was called Dragon Gate City, but thoughts of the Su Clan dissuaded me. I didn’t know if they would be looking for a disappeared pill boy, but I wasn’t willing to risk being captured or killed by them just to have a little outdoor fun. Better to just stay inside and relax.

As far as I was concerned, the Pavilion was relatively generous. Peonies were 50 copper. Workshops were 2 silver an hour. Rooms were 5 silver a day. Food was 1 silver a day. I had no idea if this meant my room was over or underpriced. 5 silver a day felt expensive for a small bedroom, but it was located in the fanciest building in the city, and the Pavilion wasn’t exactly a hotel. In any case, I didn’t worry overly much since a single High-Purity pill a day more than paid for all my expenses. The rest was pure profit.

During my rest, I took some time to read and learn a bit more about the world around me. The most surprising thing was that while the Su Clan was the complete ruler of this entire part of the world, they were actually quite weak. I didn’t quite understand it, but it seemed like any of the surrounding powers could easily crush the Su Clan. They just didn’t. This gave me hope that in the future, if I decided to go on a killing spree for some reason, I would have a decent chance of success.

Other than plotting the inevitable downfall of some evil overlords, there was one more task I had to take care of.

Previously, I had stashed a pill in my storage space for when I started cultivating. After my first week here, I decided to go ahead and sell it to boost my cash flow. That was when I found out that its medicinal power had been all but destroyed. It was completely worthless. Sitting in my storage space and not inside a jade bottle, the medicinal energy of the pill had all but vanished.

Pill bottles were typically very cheap. They were made from low-grade jade and roughly cut into the shape of a bottle. This low-grade jade wasn’t a great insulator of medicinal energy, but it was good enough. Make the bottle walls thick enough and it would work. This kept costs low enough that bottles were not even factored into the price when buying and selling pills.

I needed something special though. My storage space was a box two centimeters in each dimension. Pills were spheres roughly one and a half centimeters in diameter. That meant I needed a ‘bottle’ with walls no thicker than two millimeters. It would have to be specially crafted out of a high-grade jade to be effective.

I was averaging roughly 12 silver a day in profit at this point. Purchasing this bottle cost me over two gold, wiping out nearly a month’s worth of my savings. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Having a pill ready to go at the beginning of each reset would easily make up for the one-time cost.

Following that, I also had to pay the Pavilion another 50 silver for guaranteed safe transport to the sect, taking another large chunk out of my finances. All told, I left Dragon Gate City with a little over 3 gold to my name. Not a fortune, but far more than I had entered with.

The Twin Mountains Sect recruitment was to be held in River Rock, a small town directly controlled by the sect and located right outside its gates.

The Twin Mountains Sect was the closest sect to Dragon Gate City, and the city was the closest large population center to the sect, but ‘closest’ was relative. The Pavilion's carriage still took several days to reach the place.

The trip to River Rock was relatively uneventful. The Western Wastes was an unusually safe area, and the trip was made even safer by traveling in a coach marked by the Blue Wind Pavilion, which no one wanted to offend.

The only dark spot in the journey came a day before its end.

The carriage had made a couple of stops in small towns on the way to the sect. This was a regular supply and delivery route that I had purchased a seat in, not a personal carriage service. At these stops, the driver would go out and exchange various goods with people in each town. I did not pay this much mind since it was none of my business. However, near the end of the trip, something different happened. A young man entered the carriage and sat down across from me.

“What? There’s already someone in here?” His tone was sharp, and he gave me a look of disgust. “My father will hear about this. I was expecting a private journey to the sect.”

I gave a slight nod of apology but tried to not engage with him.

We sat in silence for only a short while before the child decided to speak at me again.

“Boy, are you traveling to the Twin Mountains Sect? I doubt someone like you would be accepted. The sect only accepts talented disciples.”

I didn’t respond, but that didn’t seem to faze him. “Hah, very well, you shall be my lackey. Follow behind me when we arrive, do what I say, and maybe my father will allow you to become a servant. My family is the Wang family of Prospering Prosperity Village. You should know that we are the most powerful force for miles around.”

The child continued to talk, but I didn’t pay much attention to him. I think he even started threatening me at some point, but I can’t really remember. The thing was, he wouldn’t dare to do anything while we were both in a Pavilion’s carriage. I had paid for safety.

Three days after I had left Dragon Gate City, we arrived in River Rock. The selection competition would begin the next day.

After dropping off the young master of the Wang family, the carriage took me to a secluded little inn. I was glad about this since I didn’t want him to know where I was staying. I exited the carriage, said goodbye to the driver, and went to rest up for the challenges I would face in the coming day.

The number of people that lived in River Rock was rather small. The town was nothing more than the gateway to the sect, so the only jobs available involved trading things to and from the sect. Usually, it was a sleepy place on the edge of civilization.

This all changed during the sect’s disciple selection.

Starting roughly a week before each selection, thousands of hopefuls from all around the Wastes would flood into town. They were a mix of both alchemists and fighters, the two specialties of the Twin Mountains Sect.

Cramming countless young men and women into a small area and giving them little in the form of entertainment generally wasn’t a good idea. As it Turned out that when those young men and women were cultivators, it was a recipe for disaster.

Of course, this was all part of the selection process for the sect. The sect did nothing to stop the cultivators from fighting each other. They encouraged it. Anyone who could not survive until the disciple selection took place was someone they didn’t want. However, there were likely some elders guarding the town to at least prevent too much harm to the locals.

Because of the precarious situation, I decided to wait in my inn room and stay hidden away. When the time was right, I left my room and headed toward the sect. To my delight, the day of the selection was much calmer than those preceding it since everyone was filled with nervous anticipation for the events ahead.

As I was walking down one of the town’s small dirt roads with well-maintained wooden buildings to either side of me, I heard a shout.

“That’s him! That’s the cur that insulted his betters yesterday!”

I looked in the direction of the shout and realized that it was a young man pointing directly at me. He was standing with a group of maybe five other thugs.

It was that child from the carriage that kept talking about how great his family was. But… I didn’t remember insulting him. I was pretty sure I only ignored him. Maybe that’s enough for some people.

He addressed the man at the front of his group with extreme deference. “Brother TianLei, please assist me in teaching him a lesson. He did not care that I am your little brother. He was not willing to give you any face at all. If he does not kneel down and apologize to you today, I will write my name backward!”

I took a closer look at this ‘Brother TianLei’ and was shocked. It was the same young man that Rudy had brought with him right before I was tortured to death. He looked almost exactly the same. What was he doing here?

‘Brother TianLei’ gave me a look of disgust. “Kid, do you know who you’ve offended? I am about to become the number one new disciple of this sect. You dare disrespect me?”

As he said this, his arms exploded with lightning, and bright flashes of electricity crackled up and down his arms.

How was I going to handle this? These two young masters were intent on using me as a stepping stone. What was the right way to respond and get out of this in one piece? The night before, I had heard a few people shout ‘A man’s knees are coated in gold. A real man kneels only to his parents!’ I’m sure everything worked out great for them, but they weren’t me.

I carefully approached Brother TianLei and gave him a deep bow. “I have long heard Brother TianLei’s great name. I would never disrespect him. I apologize for any offense I have given, Brother TianLei.”

I wanted to push all of the blame onto this Wang kid, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t a good idea. It might be easy to drive a wedge between the two of them, but they would almost certainly deal with me first.

A cruel smile spread over the faces of all the boys.

Brother TianLei looked down at me. “Very good. You know your place. You will follow me from now on.”

“Brother TianLei, I am not worthy,” I dropped into a kowtow. “I am not worthy of following you. I will just disappear from your sight.”

“Are you questioning me?” TianLei sneered at me.

“No, no sir. I am just not worthy of following behind you.”

TianLei kicked my shoulder, knocking me to the ground. “If I tell you to follow me, you follow. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir, yes sir, but I am not worthy. I must not follow you.”

TianLei kicked me in the gut.

“Still not listening?” He kicked again.

TianLei gave me one last hard kick in the side. “Fine, if you don’t want to follow me, then you don’t have to. All you have to do is crawl under my crotch!”

Weakly, I pulled my battered body forward. TianLei spread his legs and I crawled under them. As I did, his entire group of lackeys burst out in laughter.

TianLei laughed as well, unable to contain his amusement at my battered form. “Come on, we’ve wasted enough time. Let’s go to the selection!”

After they left, I just lay there for several minutes. First because I was injured pretty badly and needed a moment to gather myself, and second because I didn’t want my movements to draw their attention back to me.

When I did stand up, I found that my clothes were torn and covered in dirt. I didn’t have much time before the sect’s disciple selection was set to begin, and I didn’t have any spare clothes regardless. At this point, I personally didn’t care too much about my appearance, but it would be unfortunate to arrive at the sect in such a sorry state.

However, I was left with no choice. If I didn’t hurry, I would miss my chance to join the sect.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 16 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

I arrived at an expansive square where thousands of sect hopefuls had already gathered. Unlike most of the town, the ground of the square was cobbled with dull white stones that had become cracked and pitted by the passage of countless years.

On the far side of the square was a raised dais where a middle-aged man sat and examined all of the young men and women as they milled about the square. To either side of this dais were large paifang arches that crossed over the roads as they stretched off in the direction of the two mountains that rose up behind the scene. That was where the members of the Twin Mountains Sect resided. From here, I could only see two barren peaks of gray stone as they pierced through the foliage that blanketed the mountains.

As I waited in the square for the selection to begin, ever more people continued to gather in the square.

The man on the dais was in no rush to start the proceedings. He casually waited as people from around the town slowly made their way to the square. I had rushed, expecting to be late, but over an hour after I arrived, I was still just standing there.

Finally, when the sun was high in the sky, the man stood and addressed the crowd.

“Welcome to the Disciple Selection of the Twin Mountains Sect. Though the space on our mountains is limited and there are many of you here, we do not turn away anyone worthy of joining us. If fortune favors both you and us, then everyone will join us as a new disciple by day’s end.”

At this announcement, there was mild cheering throughout the crowd. For many here, joining this sect was their only hope for the future. Others, though, stood with smirks on their faces as they looked at the more excited members of the crowd.

Once the cheering died down, the man gestured to the arches on his left and right. “In front of you are two archways. These arches lead to the two different branches of the sect. If you follow the path to your right, you will find the Martial Peak. This is where the fighters of the sect learn and train. If you wish to become a hero in the future, this is the path of your destiny. If you follow the path to your left, you will find the Alchemy Peak. This is where our alchemists work for the betterment of the entire sect.”

He held his arms wide with each one pointed at one of the two arches by his side.

“During each selection, you may only attempt a single path. If you fail, you may try again next year as long as you still meet the requirements. Anyone may try to become a sect alchemist. To become a sect warrior, however, you must be no older than 18 and have a cultivation base of at least Martial Disciple 6. If you do not meet these requirements, you will not be allowed to participate in the selection. We will not question anyone who leaves now, but if you try to sneak in, you will be punished.”

At this point, the man waited for a short while to allow everyone the opportunity to leave discretely if they so wished, though none did.

“Very well. Selections will be carried out in groups of 500. You may begin entering the arches. Once this quota has been met, a barrier will prevent any further entrants until the previous group has finished.”

With that, the man sat back down and simply watched events unfold.

The moment someone passed through an arch, they disappeared. It looked as if they were being teleported away. My own short teleport across a city had cost me all the credits I would earn from dying as a Martial Disciple 3, so it wasn’t cheap. Was the sect willing to spend so much energy teleporting thousands of potential recruits just to appear mysterious? That seemed highly unlikely, but no other explanation seemed to fit.

I held back and didn’t join the first people who rushed to the archways, and it might have been a good thing I did so. Shortly after people began converging on the ‘warrior’ arch, there was a bright flash of lightning. Dozens of people were blasted backward, many of them seriously injured.

I looked back at the dais, but the man didn’t even look at the commotion. He had taken out a small teacup and was contentedly sipping his drink.

So, yeah. The sect didn’t care overly much about our safety. Better to be careful here.

It wasn’t until nearly three hours later that the first group to enter the alchemist arch completed their exam and a new group was allowed to enter. In contrast, the warrior arch was cycling at intervals of less than an hour each. Though it had taken a long time for the first group to finish, few people rushed to join the second group, so when it reopened, I had an opportunity. To not waste any more time than necessary, I hurriedly entered.

As soon as I passed through the opening, the world around me twisted.

I stood in a new courtyard that looked very much like the one I had just exited. It had the same dais at its far end, but this time an elderly man was sitting in its chair. The arch to his left was still painted red, but the arch on his right was the dark black of failure. However, the most important change to my surroundings was that instead of the courtyard being packed with young hopefuls, this one held hundreds of alchemy workstations.

A young man dressed in robes similar to the man on the dais addressed me as I entered.

“Stand in front of a workstation. Touch nothing until told to do so or you will be expelled.”

His disinterest in me was palpable. He didn’t even look at me to see if I had any questions. He just turned to wait for the next person to pass through the arch.

I quickly moved to a workstation nestled near the center of the courtyard. I had no desire to try and stand out by selecting a more conspicuous position. Soon thereafter, more and more people began pouring through the arch and started trying to figure out where they should go. It was not long before everyone found a workstation and quietly waited for the elder to speak.

“Welcome to the Twin Mountains Sect’s Alchemy Disciple Selection. I am an elder of the outer sect. You may address me as Elder Zang. In the future, I hope to see you all successfully enter the outer sect.”

He waved at a workstation that had been raised above the crowd so that everyone could see it. On top of it were the same items that had been placed on all of the other workstations.

“In front of each of you is a workstation with everything you will need to pass the preliminary selection exam. First, on the table, you will see two scrolls. The first is a simple fire qi cultivation technique. For those who have not yet cultivated their fire qi, this will allow you to quickly do so. Having a strong cultivation base is essential when concocting alchemical pills. In this exam, you will be at a disadvantage when compared to those who have long practiced this technique, but you do not need to worry. You are not competing against each other. As long as you succeed, it matters not how others perform.”

Walking back to the front of his dais, a wide grin spread across his face.

“I expect many of you have come here because you have heard that you can get a free cultivation technique. This is absolutely true! You will not be permitted to take the scroll away with you, but you are encouraged to continue cultivating the technique after you leave. If you are unable to reach a high enough proficiency with it to concoct a pill within the next few hours, train with this technique and come back next year.”

There was a bit of shuffling at this announcement. I could see that many people were excited to begin cultivating. I, however, was markedly less so.

The sect was giving out a free cultivation technique to anyone who came here. What did that mean? It was a trap, obviously, but what was the trap? Was the sect so brazen as to hand out slave mantras to thousands of applicants? That didn’t feel right. WuJing had seemed like he was on the level, so I doubted he would send me somewhere I would just be enslaved.

I didn’t yet have enough information to draw any firm conclusions about this technique, but I would not be cultivating it until I had more information. Still… It was a free technique…

“Next to this technique, you will find the instructions for how to concoct a Rank 1 Basic Qi Gathering Pill. Most of you will be well acquainted with it, but this exam is open to everyone, and we encourage everyone who wants to learn alchemy to use this exam as a free lesson! So, I will demonstrate what you should do.”

He picked up a blue flower. “This is blue peony. I’m sure everyone here has seen them growing in the wild around these parts. When harvested in the right way and at the right time, it is the only ingredient needed for the Basic Qi Gathering Pill.”

He started giving roughly the same instructions and demonstration that Rudy had given me so long ago. It was nostalgic, kind of. The result of this display was a small pellet that he held up and showed to everyone.

“This is a Low-Purity Rank 1 Basic Qi Gathering Pill. The more pill toxins you remove, the better your final result. Pills are ranked from Low-Purity to High-Purity. Above High-Purity are Perfect pills, where all of the toxins have been removed. As I’m sure you know, the higher the purity, the greater the value. This is especially true of Perfect pills!”

He placed the pill into a jade bottle and set it aside.

“Your test today is simple. Create Qi Gathering Pills. You will gain points based on their purity. A Low-Purity pill is worth a single point. Mid-Purity pills are worth 5. Highs are worth 10. If someone can manage to make a Perfect pill, it will be worth 30 points.”

Why did that sound familiar?

“Each person has 10 peonies to work with. You must turn in pills worth a total of 5 points. If you do, you will become a sect disciple and be trained in the Dao of alchemy. Though you only need 5 points to pass, you will be rewarded for earning more, so do your best.”

After giving us this encouragement, his face turned somber.

“Finally, I want you to be very clear about the rules. One, the pills you turn in must come from flowers provided during this trial, you may not use outside pills or ingredients. Two, no fighting. You may not fight with anyone, in any way, during the trial. Three, you may not use any form of pressure to force someone to give you pills that they concocted. This includes using your family or status. Four, you may not intentionally interfere with another participant’s efforts. We have proctors watching everything, so you will not need to report any breaches of the rules yourself. We will deal with it.”

With that, the elderly man sat back down on his chair and waved one hand.

“Begin!”

I did not immediately begin working on concocting pills. My mind kept drifting back to the cultivation technique. Using it was a bad idea, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t still learn it. Time was the only issue. Quickly memorizing a complex cultivation technique would be difficult.

I had an idea and began whispering to myself as subtly as I could.

“System, would it be possible to create, like, a mental bookshelf of all the techniques I’ve ever read? So that, if I read something one time, a copy will appear on the bookshelf for me to reference later?”

Rank 1 Mental Library. Cost 1,000 credits.

Note: This library will create a copy of any mortal or Rank 1 book, scroll, or manual you read in the future. It will record information as you see it, and it will not contain information you have read in the past.

“Why only Rank 1? Higher Rank books are all still just ink and paper. If anything, shouldn’t the cost be based on the size of the book, not the Rank? Why do I need to pay more for a library just to copy down the words in a scroll that describes a Rank 2 technique?”

The cost of that information is not possible to calculate at this time.

That was a cost far above anything I could afford, and at that price, the library’s limitations were a bit annoying.

I had only 10 credits to work with. I considered trying to use them to have a perfect memory of this scroll specifically, but what was the point? The technique was almost certainly a dud, and it was possible that I would need those credits in the future. So, since I didn’t have an easy way to memorize the technique, I put it out of my mind.

I didn’t need the instructions for concocting a Qi Gathering Pill, so I ignored that too.

I needed to focus on making some drugs.

While I had 10 chances to concoct a pill, I only had enough mental energy for two or three. If I pushed to make the first one as good as I could, I might only be able to make a single pill. What would be the better play? Was one superb pill better than three mediocre ones? Hard to say, but I decided to go with quantity. I reasoned that even if I tried my best, failure was a possibility. Limiting myself to one pill would mean that a single screw-up was all it would take for me to fail the exam, so it was better to give myself a bit of a buffer.

In the end, my worries may have been unfounded. I carefully and efficiently created three Mid-Purity pills. While working in the Blue Wind Pavilion, I had almost always gotten at least one High-Purity pill out of a batch like this, but I didn’t push for that level during the exam since I was working to conserve my energy.

All things told, I thought that I had been pretty fast, but when I looked up, I found that over two dozen workstations were already vacant when I finished. Maybe they decided to make only one pill? I had completed the assignment after the first pill too, but I had chosen to concoct as many as I could. Maybe others just didn’t see the value in the extra credit on offer.

No worries. This wasn’t a competition, and even if there were competitive elements that I didn’t know about, I already knew I wasn’t the best alchemist here, so there was no harm done.

I gathered my three pills and the seven extra flowers and then headed to where the evaluations were being done. I handed them over to the man there, and he gave them a quick once over.

Once he was satisfied, he spoke to me with a clipped, perfunctory tone.

“Three Mid-Purity, 15 points. Here’s your identity jade.” He handed me a bracelet with a large green jade embedded in it. “The extra flowers are yours to keep. Go through the red arch and you’ll enter the sect.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 17 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

As I stepped through the archway, the world twisted once more.

I looked around.

From the landscape, it looked like I hadn’t moved. The mountains were in the same place as before, and it didn’t seem like the position of the sun had changed. The courtyard around me looked exactly the same, but all of the workbenches and busy young alchemists had utterly vanished.

My head ached slightly, and as the pain grew, the world in front of me expanded. Trees and forests vanished. They were replaced with a multitude of buildings in a variety of different styles. Directly in front of me, a young man wearing the robes of a sect disciple was surrounded by half a dozen of the hopefuls from the previous trial.

As I looked at him, the pain in my head cleared. He nodded once he saw that I was ready.

“Wait here. We need ten recruits before we can get going. It shouldn’t be long.”

It wasn’t. Within only a few minutes, three more hopefuls had already joined us.

“Alright, everyone’s here, let’s begin. Congratulations on passing the first test. Having done so, you will be given the privileges and responsibilities of a nominal disciple of the Twin Mountains Sect. Please remember that you are not full disciples. If you break any of the sect rules, your status as a nominal disciple will be revoked. None of us want that to happen.”

He looked at everyone with a serious expression, trying to emphasize his point.

“As for the rules, they haven’t changed much. They are basically the same rules you were under in the trial. One, pills you turn in must come from the sect's ingredients. Two, absolutely no fighting. No bullying, no duels, no secret brawls, nothing. Three, no pressuring people to give or sell you any pills they concocted. Four, no interfering with someone else’s pill-making. The elders take these rules very seriously, so do your best to follow them, okay?”

After looking us in the eyes one by one, he nodded and continued.

“Okay, let’s head to your new apartments. Each of you will have a roommate who will fill you in on the rest of how the sect works. They’ve all been here for at least a year, so they will be able to get you up to speed in no time.”

The disciple began leading down the street. The more I looked, the more amazed I became. There had to be hundreds of buildings here. I hadn’t been able to see even a hint of such a place when we were back in town. Now, as I looked, I realized that a thick cover of trees walled off this entire city in all directions. It was like we were in our own private world.

Within the city, people were wandering about everywhere. Most of them were young, only a few years older than me, but there were people of all ages from sixteen up. Only young children were missing. The entire town was bustling with activity.

I couldn’t help but ask our guide about it. “How many people live here?”

“I don’t know. I guess every year we get five or six thousand newbies, but most don’t last too long. At least half are gone by the end of the first year. Still, the numbers add up over time. If I had to guess, I would say we got around eighty or ninety thousand living here, but I could be way off.”

“They’re all members of the sect?”

“Oh, no. This city is mostly just for us nominal disciples. We aren’t true members of the sect. The sect members who do live here are just servant disciples. It’s a little better to be a servant disciple than a nominal disciple, but if you head down that route, you’re giving up the chance to become a true member of the outer sect someday. Better to keep the dream alive, right?”

We kept walking and were brought to what could only be described as a block of apartment buildings. That's what they obviously were. They had a façade of more traditional architecture, but they wouldn’t be completely out of place in a modern city. They were tall, seven or eight stories each, but they didn’t reach the level of a high-rise.

I could tell that I wasn’t the only one stunned by the sight. These buildings rivaled the Blue Wind Pavilion in Dragon Gate City for height, though not for elegance. The rest of the hopefuls with me had probably never seen a building larger than two stories.

The disciple guiding us grinned at our reactions.

“Impressed? Space is tight around here, so we have to build up instead of out. Got a few guys with earth qi who were able to make some great buildings for us. That was before my time, of course.”

He reached into his robes and pulled out several large keys.

“Anyway, these are the keys to your rooms. They have your room number on them, so you should be able to find the right place. The first two numbers are for the building, next is the floor, last two are your room. Simple, right? Alright then, I’m ‘a take off now. Your roommate will handle the rest.”

After he left, our group began to break up. My room number was 18 7 12. Most of this group were going to be in building 18, so we all began heading the same way.

Building 18 was on the edge of the apartment complex, right next to the tree line. When we got there, I realized that all the other hopefuls were also on either floor 7 or 8. We would all have nice views overlooking the open landscape below.

That seemed strange to me. Aren’t the top floors usually the best? Why would they give them to newbies?

A few minutes later, I had a pretty good idea. With elevators, high floors are nice, but walking several flights of stairs every day was going to kill me. I needed to start cultivating. Cultivation didn’t seem to improve my body overmuch, but it did give me extra energy, and that was what I needed if I was going to be walking up and down stairs all the time.

I found my room and opened the door. The apartment was surprisingly spacious, far bigger than anything I had in the Su Clan.

Inside, a large young man was waiting for me.

“Welcome, come on in! I’m Bao Wen, nice to meet you!”

I was startled by the warm greeting and barely managed a reply. “Hi, I’m Su Fang.”

“Ah, so it’s Brother Su, great, great. Well, this is the room. Not much to see, right?” He pointed to a couple of things around the room. “There’s your bedroll, and if you need to store anything you have a chest over there. If you want a proper cultivation mat, you’ll have to buy one yourself. They aren’t provided, and I never have any extra cash for one, so I just sit on the bedroll. It works well enough. Other than that, well, we got a balcony with a pretty view, but that’s about it.”

He spoke fast, but his meaning was clear enough.

“So, that’s the grand tour. Have you eaten?”

“No, we just got done with the exam.”

“Great! Follow me. The cafeteria has great food. Well, I don’t know what you’re used to, but it’s much better than anything I’d ever eaten before I came here.”

I followed Bao back down the stairs and past the rows of apartment buildings. Again, the long walk made it very clear why this place was for the newbies.

Bao brought me to a building situated in the middle of several residential blocks. Inside was a large, open room filled with countless small dining tables. Many of them were filled with people enjoying a meal. Along one side wall were several partitioned spaces where workers were serving up meals.

Bao led me to one of the serving areas.

“This one’s got my favorites. You got your identity jade, right? Just pop it here on the reader.” He showed me what to do by placing his own jade on a thick black stone. The stone gave an audible beep, and the worker filled a tray with food before handing it to Bao.

“It’s that easy. You can find something different if you want, but this is pretty good. Rice, tomatoes and eggs, shredded potatoes, and a bit of pork curry.”

We both grabbed a meal and sat down. We kept the conversation at the table light and didn’t talk about the sect. Bao told me about his background, and I gave him a mix of half-truths and blatant lies about my past. He was friendly, but it was best not to say too much.

Bao told me that he came from a poor family in a small village. While he was growing up, his parents struggled to even put food on the table. Things changed for the better when he turned 16 and got his blessing.

Bao’s family were peony farmers. From what he explained, most of the poorer families in these parts worked on peony farms, or farms for other low-level herbs. After getting blessed, Bao found that he had a supernatural understanding of herbs. That led him to try and join a sect and become a cultivator. When presented with the option of becoming an alchemist or fighter, he immediately chose alchemist.

He failed on his first attempt to join the sect, but after returning home and practicing the cultivation technique for a year, he succeeded on his second attempt. That was five years earlier, and he had remained a nominal disciple ever since.

Once our meal was complete, I wanted to learn more about how the sect functioned.

“Do you know why you were chosen to be my roommate?”

“Hah, let me bring you somewhere.”

We left the dining hall, and he led me to another block of several large buildings. He pointed at the largest ones, which were the size of multistory aircraft hangers.

“Those are the Alchemy Workshops. If you want to concoct pills, that’s where you can do it. First two floors have an open layout with plenty of workbenches. It might get crowded around midday, but there are usually at least a few spaces available. Using benches in the general area is free, but if you want one of the private rooms on the upper floors, it will cost you contribution points.”

He pointed to another building. “That’s the Provisions Hall. It’s more or less the most important place here. If you have pills to sell, you sell them there. If you need ingredients, you buy them there. They only deal in contribution points. Don’t try to sell anything made with outside ingredients there, easy way to get into trouble.”

“What are contribution points?”

“In short, they’re money. Gold is worthless in the sect. Contribution points are king.”

Bao led me to a secluded area with a few benches and shade provided by a couple of giant trees. After sitting down, he looked at me seriously.

“Alright, so, you’ve gotten a bit of a tour, seen your apartment, and eaten the food. Time for the harsh truth. Nothing here is free. It all costs points. On the surface, everything looks nice here, but honestly, most of us are just barely scraping by.”

A hint of worry crept into his voice.

“Every month, you’ll be charged 30 contribution points for food and rent. If you don’t have the points, you’ll be expelled from the sect. You asked why I’m your roommate, right? I volunteered. Living with you, helping you out for the year? That gets me a 10-point discount on room and board. As a new recruit, you get to stay here three months for free, but then you’ll take a hit every month. For me, 10 points isn’t too much, but it’s more than a mosquito leg.”

He pulled a jade bottle out of his robes and waved it at me.

“For nominal disciples, there’s only one way to get points. You have to sell pills. Pricing is the same as that test. For Basic pills, it’s 1, 5, and 10 for Low-, Mid-, and High-Purity. Damn peonies will cost you 5 points each, though. Outrageous, right? But that’s the price they sell it for. According to the guy who runs the Provisions Hall, it’s because everything but High-Purity pills is worthless to the sect, so they don’t want people wasting precious ingredients on anything worse.”

I was confused. “How are new disciples supposed to survive? They let in people who could only make Low-Purity pills. Aren’t they going to go bankrupt immediately?”

“Well, they have three months to learn to make High-Purity pills, and it’s generally recommended to study before jumping directly into pill-making. If they study for a few months, the talented among them should be able to make it through.”

“Still, it seems like most would run out of points and be expelled…”

“Ah, yes, but also no. You did listen to the rules, right? About how you can’t force people to sell you pills? They are practically telling outright that you can sell your pills. Well, I am decent as a nominal disciple. Not great, but I can make Basic pills easy enough. So, you want some points? How much gold you got? I’ll sell you some pills.”

“Wait, I thought you said gold was worthless.”

“Sure, here it is, but outside it isn’t. There are plenty of disciples willing to hand over a few of their pills for gold. We can’t go out and spend it until we become outer sect disciples, but we can still send it back to our families.”

He patted me on the shoulder and stood up.

“Anyway, let's finish up the tour.”

He took me to one last block of buildings and pointed at a couple of buildings.

“Those are the lecture halls. There are occasional public lectures you can attend, or you can get a private tutor. They mainly focus on alchemy or cultivation, but it’s possible for other topics to come up. Of course, learning costs points, especially private lessons. The next few months there will be free public lessons for you new guys, but they’re only focused on getting you to be able to produce High-Purity Basic Qi Gatherers consistently.”

He pointed to another building. “That’s the Technique Hall. They got the basic cultivation manuals, from Low-Yellow to High-Yellow, along with a lot of other techniques for controlling fire qi. You’ll probably be spending everything you earn there. Lots of great stuff inside.”

Bao turned to face me.

“That’s about it. Any questions? Nope. Good. Glad to meet you, Su Fang, but now I got some pills to make. I’ll see you later.”

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Chapter 18 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

I had two goals to work towards, improving alchemy and improving cultivation. I didn’t have enough qi to do alchemy, so I first needed to improve my cultivation, and to do that, I needed a cultivation technique. Off to the Technique Hall I went.

Inside, I found numerous bookshelves filled with different techniques, and I didn’t have a clue where to start looking for a good cultivation technique or how to choose one. A guy was standing behind a counter near the entrance, so I decided to just go up to him and ask.

“Hello, can you tell me where the cultivation techniques are?”

“Cultivation? No need to look. We keep them behind the counter. The scrolls out there are all for different skills. We have a good variety of techniques you can use in alchemy out there, but our cultivation techniques are limited. What level do you want? You can go Low-, Mid-, or High-Yellow rank. If you want anything better, you’re going to need special permission.”

“What are the prices?”

“50 contribution points for the Low, 250 for Mid, and 1,250 for High.”

“Besides just the level, are there any differences in the cultivation techniques?”

“Ah, we just got the one, the sect gives the same cultivation technique to all alchemists. It’s for fire qi. If you’re looking for something different, you have to put in a special request. I say there are skills ranked from Low- to High-Yellow, but it’s really the same skill. The higher-ranked one is just an improved version of the lower-ranked one. Of course, a higher-ranked skill also means it’s more difficult to master, so the Low-Yellow technique can be seen as a simplified version. You got the skill from the exam, right? That’s the same skill. It’s technically still a Low-Yellow skill, but it might better be called a Lowest-Yellow version.”

I was wary of trusting anyone, but I had to ask what I cared about most. Truth or not, I wouldn’t learn anything if I didn’t ask. I could only hope the question wouldn’t raise any red flags.

“Do they have any mental effects?”

He laughed at that question. “Oh, of course. The effects are perfect for alchemists. It helps calm and soothe the mind, allowing for a lot greater clarity in your work. You don’t want to be filled with rage when you’re trying to carefully concoct pills, do you? The technique helps with that. It also has a way of helping you follow the instructions in a recipe better.”

I put on a pensive expression. “Any chance I could find one that didn’t affect my mind?”

“Let me guess, you want a strong, high-level cultivation technique that will have no effect on your mind.”

“Ideally, yes.”

“Uh-huh, well I don’t have one, but I do have a spear and shield to sell you.” He laughed heartily at his small pun.

“Wh… what?”

“I mean it’s impossible, kid. Not going to happen. Even if I had such a technique, I don’t know if I’d want it. Most of the time, people are looking for those effects, ya know? Helps to have a technique that puts you in the right frame of mind.”

I left the Technique Hall slightly dispirited. Did he tell me the truth? It made some sense. Cultivation had an incredible impact on the body. From that point of view, the idea that it wouldn’t affect your mind was laughable. Still, there should be a difference between natural shifts in mentality and outside influences.

If I wanted a technique without mental side effects, there seemed to be only one way to get it.

“System, how much to buy a cultivation technique with no mental side effects?”

The cost of that information cannot be calculated at this time.

The same answer as always. I was getting tired of hearing ‘cannot be calculated.’ I wanted a real answer for once.

“System, how much would it cost for you to ‘calculate’ the cost of the information?”

Calculating… Relevant information. Cost 10 credits.

Relevant information… What did that mean? Should I spend my only trump card here for an unknown? This information felt important, and 10 credits weren’t much of a trump card.

“Okay, go ahead and buy it.”

Purchase confirmed. 0 credits remaining.

It is possible to buy a cultivation technique without any mental side effects from the System. If you want a Rank 1 cultivation technique, the cost is 1 crystal. At that price, it will be a High-Heaven technique. Additional High-Heaven techniques can also be included in the purchase without increasing the price.

“Really? Wait, crystal? What’s a crystal?”

Credits contain the energy of a Mortal cultivator. Crystals are a higher form of System currency. They contain the energy of a God, a being that has surpassed the Heavenly Dao.

“So, you’re saying…”

Credits expended, transaction complete.

That… I think I got it. At least, I got the message the System was giving out. The fact of these techniques affecting the mind was a law of the Heavenly Dao. It was not something I could tangle with for the foreseeable future. Time to start working within the rules instead of against them.

I needed a cultivation technique. At the moment, with my best effort, I could make two High-Purity Basic pills a day if I was lucky. That was 20 points a day, but I would lose half of that from paying for ingredients. So, was it possible to scrape together 250 for the mid-level manual in a relatively short time frame? Yes, but it would eat a huge hole in my pocket.

I decided to start by aiming for the 50-point Low-Yellow manual. That would let me start making money more quickly and easily. Would it harm my future and foundation? Did I care? No, it would only affect me for the rest of this life. Better to start moving forward than to delay indefinitely.

It was time to make some drugs.

Over the following three days, I transformed the seven peonies I had remaining into three High-Purity and four Mid-Purity pills.

As soon as I finished, I headed to the Provisions Hall. The transaction there was straightforward. The accessible area of the hall was just a small room with a single counter. I handed over my pills and they gave me points. My contribution point total jumped from 0 to 50 in an instant.

One thing that I didn’t expect was that I also had a large amount of ‘special’ contribution points. Because I earned 15 points during the selection exam, I was given 150 special contribution points. These points were unique in that they could only be used to purchase ingredients. While they wouldn’t help me learn new skills, they would provide my starting capital.

This made clear the choice that had been given to us during the selection exam. Craft more pills for a huge boost in starting capital or save the flowers and use them to earn general points later.

This new knowledge made me hesitate about rushing to buy the Low-Yellow technique. The High-Yellow one was still a bit outside the realm of possibility since after costs were factored in, I would need to sell a minimum of 250 High-Purity pills to afford it, and that was assuming I didn’t make any mistakes. However, buying the Mid-Yellow technique was feasible. With my 150 special points, if I bought 30 peonies and turned them all into High-Purity pills, I would have 300 points. That was more than enough for the Mid-Yellow technique.

This idea was tantalizing, but I knew it wasn’t to be. With the last seven flowers I used, I only made three High-Purity pills after three days, so how long would it take for me to make thirty? A month? Maybe, but that was assuming I never messed up or failed. Instead of trying to be the best in this life, I just needed to set myself up for success next time around.

Instead of buying any more ingredients, I took my 50 new points and rushed to the Technique Hall. The exchange for the Low-Yellow manual went smoothly, and I was about to return to my room to start cultivating when I caught myself.

I was no longer a kid trapped alone in his room, struggling on his own to make even the slightest progress. I had access to resources and teachers now. At a minimum, I could make myself pills to cultivate more quickly. Even if I was only using this Low-Yellow technique, I could still at least try to be smart about things.

It would take me a couple of hours to restore enough of my mental energy to make a pill that had a good chance of being High-Purity, so I went ahead and checked if there were any lectures on cultivation available. In the distant past, I had maximized what I could do with the Earth Heart Mantra on my own, but that didn’t mean I had been using it to its full potential. There could easily be something I missed or didn’t know.

After looking at the cultivation lectures available, there were indeed many options. Purchasing a seat to a lecture from a Martial Master was going for anywhere between 10 and 100 contribution points. The cost seemed to depend on the size of the class and the person teaching it.

Sitting in a lecture hall didn’t interest me too much, so I instead focused on the options for personal tutoring. A few of the one-on-one lessons from a Martial Master were surprisingly affordable. Sure, some people had priced a one-hour lesson at several thousand points, but some teachers were available for as little as 50 points.

Wanting to know the reason for the price discrepancy, I went to the receptionist to ask a few questions.

The receptionist was an older woman with graying hair. She looked like the kind of person who might have been a fixture of this place for decades.

“Hi, can you explain the pricing for one-on-one lessons? The range of prices is pretty large. What do I get for paying so much?”

Her voice was kind and grandmotherly. “Welcome, no problem at all. Mostly, it just comes down to who the teacher is. If someone is asking for hundreds of points for a lesson, they’re probably a low-level outer sect disciple trying to earn a little extra. The ones asking for thousands are usually quite high-ranked outer sect disciples.”

The woman put on a conspiratorial expression.

“I’ll tell you a little secret. Those expensive lessons aren’t about learning. If you take them, don’t expect a diligent teacher. They’re really about making connections. If you’re looking to move up to the outer sect, gifting a powerful disciple a few thousand points is a way to establish yourself there.”

She gave me a quick little wink.

“Now, the cheapest options are different. 50 points is the lowest we allow them to go. Otherwise, some of them would give you an hour of their time for even less. These are all new, low-level Martial Masters who are still nominal disciples, and they’re probably still learning how to make Superior pills. Each set of ingredients costs 30 points at that level, and when you keep failing, you burn through money pretty quickly. The lower the price, the more desperate they are.”

She gestured toward a group of names with even higher prices.

“Above 100 points you’ll find nominal disciples who can occasionally make High-Purity Superior pills. The price is higher because they’re no longer in dire straits, and after they can make them consistently, you won’t find them giving any lessons at all anymore. They’ll be working on their alchemy.”

I thanked her for the insider information and left without scheduling a lesson. Before I could afford anything, I needed to make some money.

The next several days, I dipped into my ‘special’ points to buy pill ingredients. It ended up only costing me 30 of them to build up the funds I needed for a lesson on cultivation. I had decided to go with a teacher that only cost 50 points for two reasons. First, they were cheap, and I didn’t have any cash. Second, I figured it was better to give coal in winter. If the people offering lessons for 50 points were in more need of it, they might well put in some extra effort.

As soon as I had scraped together enough points, I went back and scheduled a lesson for later that day.

The teacher I chose was named Cao MeiLan. She looked slightly older than me, like she was in her late twenties, but with the way cultivation played with ages, I had no idea how old she really was.

Cao made clear that she was just passing on her own knowledge, and that, as she was still a beginner, she could be wrong about some things. However, most of what we covered was considered basic best practices by everyone in the sect. It might not be accurate, but it would be the same advice anyone else would give me.

The information she gave me was simple and straightforward.

First, purity of qi was absolutely vital. According to Cao, it would be better to spend five years advancing a single level with near-perfect purity instead of jumping a rank in a single day. For alchemists, it was imperative since purity affected both the quality of flames produced and the control one had over them.

At my level of alchemy, purity might not matter too much. Apply heat. and boom, you had a pill. However, for more advanced pills, it became trickier to remove all of the toxins contained within the herbs.

With some herbs, toxins could be located within a cluster of medicinal energy, so deft targeting was essential. With others, the toxins might burn at an extremely high temperature, but the medicinal power of the herb would evaporate at a low one, so an alchemist would have to retain regions of hot and cold right next to each other. Extremely fine control of heat was a necessity, and it was only possible with high qi purity.

There was a catch to all of this, though. After age 30, a Martial Disciple’s cultivation base would ‘calcify’ and their cultivation speed would decrease sharply. If a cultivator hadn’t advanced to Martial Master before turning 31, they would usually never be able to do so for the rest of their life. So, it was important to carefully cultivate a pure foundation, but doing so was a double-edged sword. Pure meant slow, and if one were too slow, they would be stuck as a Disciple forever.

After discussing cultivation, she talked about some of the techniques available for purchase and made a few recommendations on ones that I should purchase. These techniques could improve temperature, accuracy, and other basic aspects of qi control.

According to Cao, these techniques were just crutches. In the end, I needed to be able to concoct pills without relying on techniques, but if, say, one’s purity wasn’t high enough, the techniques were a solution.

Third, she told me something I had been wondering about. To advance from a Martial Disciple to a Martial Master one had to create ‘meridians.’ Disciples had qi locked in their muscles, but meridians were pathways that allowed it to flow freely from one part of the body to another.

Someone with a single meridian was considered a Half-Step Martial Master. A Martial Master 1 had two meridians, Master 2 had three, and so on. An important difference between Disciples and Masters was that while a Disciple 10 was a Peak Disciple, one had to reach Master 11 before they would be a Peak Master. This was because masters needed to form a total of 12 meridians in their bodies.

Creating meridians was completely different from cultivating as a Martial Disciple, so to advance past Peak Disciple, one would need a proper Rank 2 cultivation technique.

Fourth, Cao talked about the order to open acupoints. The order I had done it in previously, arms, chest, legs, extremities, was considered standard for most warriors since it quickly built upper body strength. However, she pointed out that for alchemists, especially for Disciples who couldn’t move qi freely, the most important acupoints were those in the hands. That was where they would pull the most qi from when concocting pills.

So, there were two general schools of thought. Open the acupoints in the hands first for quick access to their qi reservoirs or open them last. Opening them last would mean not being able to rely on them as a Disciple, but it would also mean having the most cultivation experience possible before doing so and making them as pure as possible. Her suggestion was to do the upper arms first and do the hands last for the greatest balance of potential benefits.

Finally, she spent the rest of our time together helping me practice creating a better qi filter. She had used the Mid-Yellow version of the sect’s technique, and even though she wasn’t allowed to share it with me, knowing it allowed her to help me improve more easily. The higher-ranked technique simply used an upgraded version of the qi filter from the Low-Yellow technique, so she was able to provide valuable insights on how I could improve my own flawed filters.

Overall, I would consider the lesson 50 points well spent.

Afterward, I went back to my room to cultivate. I didn’t use any pills since Cao told me not to. She said that I should worry both about the pill toxins that even High-Purity pills contained as well as the problems with properly purifying qi while it was being drawn in at an accelerated rate. According to her, I should try to avoid boosting my cultivation speed through pills until I reach a bottleneck.

This time, I cultivated slowly and deliberately. I didn’t have to meet a looming deadline like that crazy Su Clan challenge. I could take my time, so I spent it working on making my qi as pure as possible.

In the end, there was only so much a Low-Yellow technique can do though. I hit a complete wall at 80% purity. It was far better than I had ever done before, but I knew it still wasn’t enough. I needed a better technique.

Still, I moved forward with opening my first acupoint. It took me a month of study before I did so, but I had finally returned to Martial Disciple 2.

I only had one more month before I had to start paying rent, and I had 0 points in my account. It was time to start moving some bricks.

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Chapter 19 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 2

I spent the remainder of the month working on my cash flow. Thankfully, having risen to Martial Disciple 2, I had more energy to work with. I did not, however, have the free rein that I thought I would after I began cultivating again. The reason for this all boils down to qi purity.

To concoct anything more than the most basic of pills, a cultivator must use their body’s qi. As a low-level Disciple, I could use my qi to enhance my control over natural fire to refine medicinal herbs more easily. More skilled alchemists didn’t even need a fire and were capable of refining herbs with their qi directly. In either case, concocting pills required energy.

The higher one’s cultivation base was, the more energy they had for use in alchemy. At the same time, advancing as a Martial Disciple integrates the cultivation technique used into one’s body.

As a Disciple 2, the qi filter and whirlpool in my upper right arm had become automated, and I no longer had to put any effort into drawing qi into that muscle group. However, if I needed more energy quickly, I could actively cultivate, spinning the whirlpool faster to draw in as much energy as possible. The only downside to this was that I would need to maintain a firm hold over the qi filter as I did so or else I would start drawing in a substantial amount of impurities.

Originally, I had thought that after I started cultivating, I would be able to use my qi freely when concocting pills and then actively cultivate to quickly restore it. This would allow me to make better pills at a significantly faster rate than was possible by only using my affinity to try and control a natural fire.

After my lesson with Cao, I knew that I had to put this plan on hold.

Burning through my entire qi pool and then quickly recovering it would lead to the purity of my qi slowly decreasing over time. I had worked hard to raise my purity to 80%. If I used it all, the 20% of the energy that was impurities would mostly be expelled along with the fire qi, but a small fraction of it would remain. After I restored my energy back up to full, I would be lucky to reach a maximum of 79.9% purity.

At first, this meager drop in purity wouldn’t be an issue, but the more times I expended and restored my qi, the worse it would get. I didn’t know what the lower limit of this decline would be, but it wouldn’t be anything good.

My goal for this life was to break through to at least the Martial Master realm. From what Cao said, that meant pushing hard to reach Peak Disciple before I turned thirty, and if I did that, I already wouldn’t be able to have as pure of a foundation as I would like.

The qi purity in my upper right arm had already been compromised by a Low-Yellow technique, but that was fine. I could rely on qi from there while concocting pills and avoid cultivating in other parts of my body. If I wanted my best shot at being successful in this life, if I wanted the purest foundation possible, I had to get a better cultivation technique before advancing even a single step further.

At the end of my first three months in the sect, I was happy. I had paid my rent and still had a good number of contribution points to spare.

I had reached the point where I could pop out five pills a day, and at least half of them would be High-Purity. This let me accrue around 40 points a day. Of course, this only lasted for six days before my ‘special’ points ran out. After that, I had to start paying for my ingredients with the points I earned from selling pills. Still, I was managing 15 points a day profit. After these three months, I had racked up a total of about 500 contribution points.

This seemed almost too easy. Two more months and I would get my hands on that High-Yellow cultivation technique. It was just a matter of time. I wasn’t sure why everyone didn’t get the High-Yellow technique by the end of their first year.

I asked Bao about this, and he looked at me slack-jawed.

“Because it’s too hard! Look, most people move up one step at a time. They start with the free technique, then go to Low, then Mid. Learning the extra complications that come with a higher-level technique takes time and energy, and we usually spend that on alchemy.”

“But a better technique means better alchemy, right?”

“Yes, but there’s another thing. By the time most people have mastered the Mid-Yellow technique they are already Peak Disciples and are ready to advance to master. To switch to the High-Yellow technique, they would have to disperse their cultivation and start over. However, this wouldn’t remove the impurities that already exist in their body. So, they would be doing a ton of extra work for very little benefit.”

I understand that. It seemed like a mistake to me, but it was their life.

Bao smirked at me and decided to change the subject.

“Anyway, are you going to the tournament? It’s going to be great this year. There are even a few new disciples who entered at the same time you did who will be competing!”

“What tournament?”

“Argh, you spend too much time working. You need to socialize more! It’s the yearly tournament to determine who is going to move up to the outer sect. There will be dozens of people competing but only the top five will be promoted! Not only that, the prize for the top three is an opportunity to become a Master Alchemist!”

“What? How can becoming a Master Alchemist be a prize?”

Bao gave a dramatic sigh. “To become a Master Alchemist, you need to absorb a spirit flame into your body. It’s nearly impossible to create rank 2 pills without one. The top three will be given spirit flames. Since they’re already the best of the best as Disciple Alchemists, getting a spirit flame is a guaranteed promotion to Master Alchemist! This is, like, the only chance we will ever get to advance. Making it into the top three is jumping over the Dragon Gate!”

Bao didn’t let me decline the invitation. He grabbed my arm and physically dragged me to watch the tournament with him.

We entered a large stadium with seating that wrapped around the field below. Bao’s tickets were for seats high up and away from the action, but at least we would be facing the contests’ fronts instead of looking at them from behind.

After we took our seats, I looked at the workbenches set up on the field below. “Only 100 spots? Do only 100 people get to compete for outer sect disciple?”

“Brother Su, my man, we have got to get you out more. What have you been doing? Cultivating and working all day? You need a hobby.” Bao sighed in resignation. “No, every nominal disciple is allowed to compete for a spot in the outer sect. The sect has been holding preliminaries for this competition for a month now. Thousands of high-level nominal disciples tried and were eliminated.”

I blushed with a bit of embarrassment. “Oh, really?”

After leaving the Su Clan, I had felt… wrong. Something about staying in the alchemy lab alone and practicing pills felt… right. That was who I was. That was what I was supposed to do. I needed to cultivate, tend the herbs, and practice alchemy diligently. That was who I was.

Going around the sect and socializing felt unnatural.

“So, uh, what’s the test like?”

“Alright, so, the prelims were crazy.” Bao started to get excited again. “Everyone was given a pill recipe that no one had ever seen before. To pass, you first had to make the pill, which almost no one was able to do. After that, the top 100 were chosen based on their pill’s medicinal efficacy. The guy who came in at number 100? His efficacy was only 22%! That pill was brutal.”

Bao shook his head in mock sympathy.

“Today’s final will be much tamer. I bet there are hundreds of people cursing the fact that the test for the final wasn’t used in the prelims. Today, the contestants just need to make five Superior Qi Gathering Pills, something all of them have done countless times before. The final results will be based on the total medicinal efficacy of the pills. Of course, only High-Purity pills count, anything below that will be thrown out.”

“Only High? What if someone makes a Perfect pill?”

Bao guffawed. “If anyone down there makes even a single Perfect pill, they will probably be sent to the inner sect immediately. They won’t even have to bother with the outer sect. A Disciple Alchemist making a Perfect Superior Qi Gatherer? That doesn’t happen.”

The tournament was fascinating.

The recipe for the Superior pills was no secret, and I had learned it my first month in the sect. The base of the pill was still a blue peony. For an Improved pill, astragalus root was added to the peony and both herbs were combined into a single pill. To make it Superior, schisandra berries also needed to be added to the mixture. Everyone knew the ingredients, but being able to successfully make the pill was a different story.

I watched as the contestants carefully trimmed the astragalus so that the resultant medicinal strength correctly complemented the peony. After that, most of the people ranked lower down in the competition began slowly peeling the schisandra berries. The skin was pure pill toxin, so they wanted to remove it first. Those who were higher ranked didn’t bother. They would simply burn away the skin in the pill furnace.

As they began concocting, qi flowed like water. Where I used my qi as a shell to slowly melt toxins away, the contestants used theirs like scalpels and spears, ruthlessly cutting and hacking at any impurities.

Every person had to make five pills, so the competition took hours, but I couldn’t look away for a single moment.

The final result was staggering. Even the worst of the champions had made five High-Purity pills, all with medicinal efficacies above 90%. As for the woman who took first place? Her total efficacy was 482! She had made three at 96% and two at 97%! I had never even gotten close to those kinds of numbers when making even the most basic of pills.

The skill of these competitors was far beyond anything I was capable of.

After the tournament, I sat in contemplation. I was really glad Bao had dragged me here. Watching a group of alchemists who were so much more skilled than myself showed me how much I was lacking.

I had been watching from far enough away that I couldn’t clearly see what they were doing, and even if I had seen it clearly, I still wouldn’t have understood why they did what they did. Still, even from what I could see, it was obvious to me that they all had masterful control of fire qi. Even the people who were eliminated early had skills far, far above what I did.

This wasn’t about knowledge of techniques. It was pure basic skill. Like how a professional athlete, without doing any special tricks or fancy moves, would be able to crush an amateur with basic fundamentals.

“Brother Bao, I need to improve my qi control. I was told I should work on improving my innate skill with it instead of relying on techniques. Do you know any way to do that?”

“Working on your control? Sure, that’s easy enough. Come with me.”

Bao took me to the Provisions Hall. In the past, the area I had entered was just a small room with a single counter. Turns out, that was just an express store for picking up alchemy ingredients. I thought the rest of the building was a warehouse of some kind, but there was also a large store for miscellaneous goods. Before, I had been so focused on the task at hand that I walked right by it.

Bao explained that this store sold most random things one might need. It had the cultivation mats he had mentioned when we first met, it had more comfortable sleeping rolls, and it even had books and games for entertainment during downtime.

Our focus was on a set of shelves that contained an awe-inspiring number of what looked to be nothing more than packets of index cards. The packets were sectioned off in a grid-like pattern of five rows and four columns.

"These are something the servant disciples get paid to make. I hear it’s a real pain to do. Each pack contains fifty cards.” He grabbed a pack from the group on the top left and showed it to me. “These are to help you learn to control your qi more accurately. The top row has the easiest exercises, bottom row has the hardest. Each column is a different skill. Accuracy, insulation, speed, and power. Most people would say the skills get harder as you move from left to right, but that depends on the person.”

“Let’s go buy these and I’ll show you how they work,” Taking the pack he had grabbed from the top left, he headed toward the counter.

Bao offered to pay for the cards, but I had a decent reserve of points built up, so I declined his offer. He wanted to fight me over it, but after explaining that his help was enough, he finally relented.

We took the cards back to our apartment and he began to explain how to use them.

“The top card is going to be the simplest, so it’s a good place to start. Take a look.”

He showed me a card of white paper with a thick black line running horizontally through its middle.

“I’m not sure if it was originally a joke or not, but the first few cards are just numbers. Anyway, this is to help you practice accuracy. You want to channel qi from your body and into the card. Your goal is to completely burn away the black line, but you have to be careful. If your qi touches the white part of the card, the entire thing will turn to ashes in a flash. This level isn’t too sensitive. You might get away with burning the white a little, but the higher the difficulty, the more sensitive the paper and the more complex the pattern.”

He flipped through the cards, showing me a few of the different designs.

“You’re only Martial Disciple 2, so you don’t have much qi in your body yet. That’s one of the nice things about this set of cards, it barely takes any qi. Just keep a light, steady touch, and focus on where you send it. If you were to try some of the other skills, you might need to supplement your qi with natural fire, and I don’t recommend that. Stick with this skill for now and start on the others when you’re at a higher level.”

I sat down and started working on the first card.

When I made Qi Gathering Pills, my process was to create a rough shell of qi around the flower and then mold it into shape, slowly concentrating my energy in different areas to burn away the chaotic tainted energy as evenly as I could. I tried to use that same process with this card.

I started from the center. I could freely push qi there without worrying about it hitting the white paper. Slowly I massaged my qi to the borders, first the top and bottom, then the sides. My qi spread through the card like a highly eccentric oval, and I was able to cleanly remove the black paper along nearly all the sides.

The problem was the shape on the card was a rectangle with sharp corners. Getting flush with the sides was easy, but the corners were a different story. As my qi approached the corners, I kept stopping and pulling back. The more I tried to form it into a right angle, the more I lost control. Eventually, I slipped, and the entire card flashed as it turned to ash.

Bao clapped at my performance.

“That was pretty good. I didn’t get nearly that far my first time. Just keep trying, you’ll get the hang of it. One suggestion though. Your qi is covering a pretty thick area at any one time, so you have to try to shape it into hard lines. That can be difficult, as you just saw. It’s good to practice that, but you might want to start with a narrow band of qi. Think of it like a thin knife, or like a long needle. Just burn a tiny part of the card at a time. It will be a lot more work to do the sides like that, but it will be great for the corners.”

He used his qi to demonstrate his meaning.

“In the end, you will be working on doing it both ways, but I think starting with a narrow beam will probably be easier for you.”

“Thank you, Brother Bao,” I gave him a martial salute in gratitude.

“Hey, you’re treating me like a stranger now. This is what I should do for my brother!”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 20 – Life 50, Age 17, Martial Disciple Level 2

The next few months, my finances took a hit. My primary motivation during this time was to improve my control of fire qi. From what I had seen, advanced alchemy was beyond me until that happened.

Oh, could I try to make a more advanced pill? Sure, but producing anything that wasn’t High-Purity was just throwing money away. If I was going to burn money anyway, I might as well burn what was supposed to burn, those damn index cards.

Honestly, some days I wished I could just burn that whole store down.

Even following Bao’s advice, progress was slow. Trying to get fire qi right up to the edge without going past it was making me insane. Bao had said to think of the qi like a needle or dagger. The problem was that qi wasn’t solid. Trying to form it into a dagger led me to create something that might resemble a dagger, but only if said dagger had been sitting in salt water for a few hundred years. My ‘qi blade’ was a rough, patchy, worthless mess.

I thought I might be going down the wrong path, but Bao assured me that I was doing fine. This was just how things were at first. All I had to do was keep practicing. So, that’s what I did. I practiced. I burned through cards at a truly manic pace. When my funds started to get low, I made pills. Everything I did was to push my skills in qi control as far as they would go.

Eventually, I gave up on the plan to only use the Low-Yellow technique on my upper right arm. I needed access to more energy. I was spending far too much time restoring my energy and far too little time using it. So, I cultivated my upper left arm and advanced to Martial Disciple 3.

This would hurt the purity of my qi, but it would only hurt the purity of the qi in my upper arms. After hitting Martial Master, qi becomes mobile, so impurities in one place would travel throughout the body, but as a Martial Disciple, my problems would remain stuck in my upper arms, so I felt it was worth it.

After this breakthrough, the speed of my progress improved significantly.

After an agonizing five months, I was finally able to successfully cleanse every single card in the first set.

After completing the first row’s accuracy cards, I had to decide what to do next. As I saw it, I had three options.

First, work on getting a higher cultivation technique. Second, begin work on a new set of practice cards. Third, learn to make Mid-Purity Qi Gathering Pills to make credits more efficiently.

“Wait, wait…” I suddenly stopped myself. “My plan was to get the highest-grade cultivation technique first, then cultivate, and then use that extra power to learn alchemy more quickly. How did I get sidetracked into focusing so much on these cards?”

I thought back.

I had been making solid progress on earning enough points to obtain the High-Yellow cultivation technique, but after Bao dragged me to that tournament, I threw away all of my work and focused on those index cards to the exclusion of everything else. I even broke through with the Low-Yellow technique to make the process faster.

Why did I do that?

I had no idea, but I needed to be careful. I suddenly changed my goal and didn’t even realize that I was doing it.

I breathed out and tried to focus.

What was done was done though. I had advanced. At least it gave me more energy to work with. Before anything else, I needed that High-Yellow technique.

I returned my focus to making and selling pills. Before anything else, I needed to earn contribution points.

At this point, I was making eight pills a day, and with the improved accuracy of my qi, seven of them were High-Purity, and I was making a profit of 35 points a day. It only took a little over a month to get enough money for the High-Yellow technique.

After gathering the necessary points, I made my way to the Technique Hall.

“You want the High-Yellow cultivation technique? Not many come in here for that. It’s expensive.”

“Yes, but I wanted to ask, is High-Yellow the best I can get? Before, there was mention of better if I had ‘special permission.’”

“Oh, sure, no way to get a Profound one I’m afraid, but it is possible to get your hands on a Peak-Yellow technique. Hard though.”

“How do I get it?”

“You’ve seen the small competitions around town, haven’t you? Those can sometimes reward the Peak-Yellow technique. Even then, it’s all about whether you’re willing to spend your prize on it and if the elder in charge thinks you’re suitable for it. Mostly, people who win those competitions ask for a Rank 2 skill.”

I hadn’t, in fact, seen those competitions. “What do they test? Pill refining? Do we need to make a high-level pill?”

“Nah, most of them are about your basic control skills. Just work on your qi skills.”

I grabbed the High-Yellow technique and headed out. The conversation made me eager to study and improve my qi skills, but I could only do one thing at a time. Cultivation had to come first.

It took me a long time to successfully learn the High-Yellow cultivation technique. I had to work on it for nearly a year before I was able to successfully maintain its qi filter.

During that time, Bao encouraged me, but he confessed that he would never be willing to try it. The technique was too difficult, and the benefits of using it weren’t that great. I was starting to agree with him.

Nearly every time I talked with Bao, I set the High-Yellow technique aside and started using the Low-Yellow one again. It was only an hour into using the lower-ranked technique that I remembered the point of everything and returned to the better technique. Bao was concerned about this life, so spending so much time learning a technique might not matter to him, but I had to prepare for the future.

I looked for teachers to help me, but Cao had only used the Mid-Yellow and couldn’t give me much advice. There were supposedly teachers who could, but the cost for a single lesson from them was more than the scroll itself, so I just buckled down and pushed forward.

What saved me, as it turned out, was my practice with the accuracy exercises. The skills I gained from them were what finally helped me form the proper High-Yellow filter. This also proved to me that the qi skills were valuable for more than just alchemy.

I struggled to lock the new filter in place as I cultivated. As I drew in qi, the filter began to buckle. As I approached the rate of cultivation I could achieve with the Low-Yellow technique, the qi filter suddenly shattered.

That was okay. I was making progress.

Improving my accuracy with qi had significantly helped me earlier. I realized that the next step to improving my cultivation skills was improving my qi skills.

I thought through the four skills available: accuracy, insulation, speed, and power. Which one did I need here?

Insulation didn’t sound like something that would help me in this case, but the other three all seemed to have some level of merit. Accuracy to draw the filter better. Speed to do it faster. Power to make it stronger.

I could already do the first pack of accuracy, so I didn’t worry about that for the time being. Speed was not vital, since taking longer didn’t matter to me. Therefore, I went with power.

The power cards were a lot more expensive than the accuracy ones had been, but it turned out they were a much better deal.

The power cards were all white with a single solid red circle. The goal of the card was to focus enough energy into the circle to set the red ink on fire. This would leave the card completely blank, the sign of success. The qi did not need to be focused. If it hit the white area, that was fine. All I needed to do was pump energy into the circle enough to burn it away. However, if I used too much power, the entire card would also catch on fire and vanish into ash.

The goal was to use sufficient, controlled power.

The reason these cards were a much better deal was because I would only lose a card if I pushed too much energy into it. Mostly, the problem was not putting in enough. On the other hand, they consumed way more energy. The accuracy cards only needed a trickle of qi. Some of these needed a fire hose.

I fell into a cycle. Train my power, cultivate to restore my energy, train power, cultivate to restore my energy.

As I trained, my qi filter became stronger, allowing me to gather energy faster, allowing me to train more. It was a virtuous cycle.

In the small, secluded world of the sect’s city, I barely noticed as several years came and went.

After my first year in the sect, Bao was no longer getting the discounted rate for living with me. I thought he would move out at that point, but for some reason, he chose to stay. I was always working, trying to advance my skills and knowledge, so I didn’t spend too much time with him, but I was thankful to just have someone to talk to whenever I struggled to make progress.

Cao didn’t know the High-Yellow technique, so she wasn’t able to provide too much insight into the technique itself, but she was still a Martial Master. Over the course of several more lessons, she helped me avoid a variety of pitfalls in my cultivation journey.

With her help, I was able to reach Martial Disciple 6 when I was only 20 years old. My speed of advancement was slower than it had been in the past, but I was using that time to build a much firmer foundation than ever before.

Eventually, I turned 21. I had been in the sect for nearly five years at this point. From what I knew, I was a rarity. There were very few people who lived here for that long and never once tried to make an Improved pill, but that didn’t bother me.

Instead of performing alchemy, my focus was on improving my basic skills. This would make alchemy much easier and allow me to concoct more valuable pills. I couldn’t allow myself to waste herbs. I needed to prevent myself from wasting precious resources. To do that, I had to first improve all four of the basic qi control skills.

Accuracy - to better control where the qi goes.

Insulation - to heat one area while keeping an adjacent spot cool.

Speed - to quickly redirect the flow of qi.

Power - to use exactly as much energy as required.

When I was able to do all the packs from the second row without making a mistake, I nearly collapsed to the floor in joy. Two rows out of five might not sound like much, but I felt amazing about it.

At this point, I started the next phase of my cultivation journey: consuming pills.

Not long after I reached Disciple 6, my cultivation speed declined sharply. Advancing any further was becoming difficult, so I needed to start using pills to assist me, and with my qi control skills now at an acceptable level, I could start performing alchemy again in order to do so.

The thing was, while I could make Basic pills, they weren't very effective on me as a Disciple 6. They helped, but they weren’t ideal. Since the sect didn’t sell any pills, only bought them, I had to turn to my fellow disciples for assistance. This, however, proved to be a little tricky.

The sect bought High-Purity Improved pills for 30 contribution points. I would have been more than willing to pay that price for one, but there was no way for disciples to directly transfer contribution points between each other. So instead, I tried paying people in pills.

There was no explicit rule against this. A High-Purity Basic pill was 10 points, so if I gave someone five pills, that would just be paying them 50 points for it, right?

No one I talked to was willing to even consider this kind of exchange, and I couldn’t understand why at first. However, after one of the disciples explained things to me, it made perfect sense in my mind.

The contribution point system existed to help us succeed as alchemists, and I shouldn’t do anything to exploit it in such a way. While it was possible to turn in someone else’s pills as one’s own, it was something only a poor alchemist would do. I needed to be more forthright and honest in my dealing with the sect.

Something about these thoughts seemed wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, so I decided that the ‘wrongness’ just came because of how quickly I changed my mind on the topic.

After understanding that the pill exchange method was wrong, I tried a different approach. Purchasing pills with gold.

I had three gold remaining from when I first entered the sect. I hadn’t used or gotten any since. Outside this place, High-Purity Improved pills were 40 silver each. Inside, I had trouble finding anyone willing to sell one for 80. I had no reason to hold back, so I spent all of my money and bought four, getting a slight discount by doing so.

With the improvements to my qi skills, cultivating with an Improved pill wasn’t a problem. After using all four pills, along with a few extra Basic pills I made myself, I reached Martial Disciple 8. I was only 23 years old. I had been in the sect for seven years.

After breaking through to Disciple 8, I immediately tried to concoct a Basic pill. I wanted to see how my advancements had changed things.

Making such a simple pill was a breeze, and I quickly removed every trace of a toxin from the herb’s medicinal energy. My speed and accuracy were better than I would have believed possible just seven years earlier. After carefully ensuring the medicinal energy was perfectly pure, I condensed it into a pill and used my analysis ability to examine the result.

High-Purity Rank 1 Basic Qi Gathering Pill, 98% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 20 silver.

I was very pleased with the efficacy, it was almost perfect, but the purity rating annoyed me. I was confident that I had removed every speck of toxin from the pill. Shouldn’t it be a Perfect pill? Why was it only High-Purity? I needed to look into this, but later. There was something else I had been putting off for far too long.

I gathered a blue peony and an astragalus root. It was time to make an Improved Qi Gathering Pill.

The first step was to correctly balance the medicinal power of the two ingredients, two parts peony to one part root. I did my best to measure this visually, but it was hard. I would need to look for a technique to help me with this later. Imbalance wasn’t a critical problem, but it would hurt the efficacy of the final pill.

Next, I had to remove the toxins from both ingredients simultaneously. It was difficult to balance this, but my qi control skills helped tremendously. By the time most of the toxins were removed, I had damaged the medicinal energy slightly, but I could only hope it was not too much.

Third, I needed to blend the two powers together. This was problematic since I could only manipulate fire qi. I couldn’t directly manipulate medicinal energy. I used a strand of insulated fire qi as a kind of stirring rod, but this wasn’t an ideal solution. I added this to the list of techniques I needed to look for.

Finally, I had to compress the energy and form the pill. This worked just like it did with Basic pills, so nothing new here. There was more energy to compress, and it tried to get out of control a bit more, but it was fine…

A small pill dropped to the bottom of the pill furnace. I picked it up and inspected it.

Mid-Purity Rank 1 Improved Qi Gathering Pill, 12% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 58 copper.

It was complete trash. I felt a twinge of anxiety at having wasted precious herbs, but I had gained experience with the concoction process and a stronger foundation for future learning. It was time to find a teacher and grab a few helpful techniques. I may have wasted some points on herbs, but the experience would be helpful as I moved forward.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 21 – Life 50, Age 23, Martial Disciple Level 8

Seven years. That was my deadline. That was all the time I had left before my cultivation base calcified and advancing to Martial Master became a distant dream.

In a sense, I felt like I had plenty of time. I had reached Martial Disciple 8 in seven years, and I would only need to break through three more times to reach Martial Master. I shouldn’t have any problem.

However, reality wasn’t so kind. With each advancement, my cultivation speed was dropping rapidly. Even using the best pills I could afford, advancing to Disciple 7 took one year, and advancing to Disciple 8 took two. If this continued, Disciple 9 would take three years and Peak Disciple would take four. That would leave me calcified and unable to advance to Master without extraordinary luck.

Those who could advance after thirty were few and far between, so nearly everyone transitioned into a role as a servant disciple at that age. While some held out hope that they would be among the lucky few to advance, most knew that it was an impossibility.

I didn’t want to be relegated to the role of a servant disciple. Advancing to the outer sect as a Martial Master meant more access to knowledge while I was alive and more credits when I died.

If I wanted to improve, I needed to advance.

To join the outer sect, there were two requirements. First, I needed to be a Martial Master. Second, I had to be able to make High-Purity Superior pills with an efficacy above 90%. Of course, that was only the minimum efficacy requirement. Depending upon who I was up against in the outer sect competition, I might need to be able to make pills at over 95% efficacy.

In these last few years, my rate of progress had been nowhere near what I needed it to be if I wanted to achieve this goal. I had to push harder and faster. I hadn’t spent these past years slacking off. I had built a solid foundation to stand upon. Now it was time to use that foundation to build a castle.

To accomplish my goals, the first thing I did was go to Cao since I knew I could trust her to teach me well.

She was now a Martial Master who was able to routinely make High-Purity Superior pills, so her lessons should have been expensive. Most people in her position wouldn’t even teach lessons anymore because their time was too valuable. I could only be grateful that she was still willing to help me for a mere 50 points. I could have paid more, and I would have, but any savings at this stage was a blessing.

The problems I faced were a known quantity to alchemists, so solutions were ready to go. Cao gave me a list of techniques that could help me, and I just needed to practice them.

Her biggest piece of advice was to raise all of my qi skills high enough to complete the fourth row of index cards. This was what I would need if I wanted to win a Rank 2 cultivation skill from one of the sect’s minor contests. Very few people were capable of completing row five, and after those people won once or twice, they had no reason to compete again, so I didn’t need to worry about them when trying to earn a cultivation skill.

However, if I wanted any kind of chance of placing in the top three during the outer sect competition and earning a spirit fire, completing row five was a must. So, reaching this level was something I needed to do, but its priority was below that of reaching Martial Master and learning to concoct Superior pills.

As I practiced the qi skills, I ran into a problem.

While working in Rudy’s shack, I had begun to be able to see qi. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know how. All I knew was that I slowly gained the ability to do so. This ‘qi vision’ was essential for alchemy. It was what allowed me to see toxins in the ingredients. It allowed me to see my qi and use it to purify herbs.

After working on row three of the qi skills for a while, I found that my qi vision was failing me. My sight wasn’t good enough to see all of the details I needed to see. I needed an upgrade.

I could have asked Cao about this, but I didn’t have anything else to ask about at the moment, so I didn’t want to bother her. Instead, I went straight to the Technique Hall to see if they could provide me with any assistance.

When I arrived, I didn’t even bother looking for a scroll myself. I went straight to the receptionist to ask about it.

“Excuse me, are there any techniques here that will make it easier to see qi? Like, when concocting pills. I need something that will help me see the qi and medicinal energy more clearly.”

The man nodded in understanding. “Of course, there are two options for improving your qi vision. First, we have an eye technique available. Using it will mean that concocting pills requires significantly more energy, and it isn’t perfect, but it is the most common choice. It’s also the only one you can purchase.”

He moved to pull out the scroll for the technique he mentioned, showing it to me.

“This will work, but it won’t improve your underlying ability. You see, the ‘qi vision’ you are probably used to has nothing to do with your qi or cultivation stage. It’s all about the strength of your soul. The stronger your soul, the more clearly you will be able to see qi, get it? So, to make real improvements, you need a soul cultivation technique that will strengthen and solidify the energy of your soul. At higher levels, this is considered a basic necessity for alchemists, but we don’t sell them here.”

“Why? How do I get it?”

“You have to win it. Keep your eyes open. Occasionally you might find it as a reward for one of the competitions around the city. You see, soul cultivation is hard to learn, takes a long time, and simply isn’t necessary for what most of you kids are doing. So, instead of letting you burn points on a technique you don’t need, you get it for free, but you first have to prove that you’re someone who’ll be able to make good use of it.”

After thanking the man and leaving, I thought about this new information.

Soul cultivation sounded like something that was perfect for me. ‘The Earthly Dao’ had told me that my body and mind were reset, but my soul went back in time. If I cultivated my soul, wouldn’t that be a permanent benefit?

I thought about everything the man told me. I was able to see qi when concocting much more clearly than Bao. Why was that? It must have been because I had somehow strengthened my soul in the past.

I rushed back into the Hall to ask another question.

“Is there a way to strengthen the soul without a cultivation technique?”

“Yeah, sure. When you’re working, it will naturally strengthen your soul over time. Think of your soul as just another muscle. You burn soul energy using qi vision. If you use it too intently, you might even start feeling woozy. This is like your soul has just had a heavy workout. It will take time to recover, but when it does, it will be slightly stronger than before. This takes time though. Soul cultivation is already pretty slow, strengthening your soul through only exercise is painfully slow.”

I thanked him again and left.

I needed to strengthen my soul, but was I willing to risk using a cultivation technique to do so?

I had been more than a little blasé about practicing cultivation techniques in the past, relying on my restarts to fix anything that might go wrong with me. Monkeying with my soul was a completely different story. I wasn’t going to touch something that could permanently cripple me until I understood what I was doing.

Until then, I would focus on strengthening my soul through exercise.

He said it just took time, right? That was one resource I had in abundance. Instead of improving my soul to master the qi skills, I would master the qi skills to improve my soul.

Cultivation, alchemy, qi skills, soul. These were the four things I needed to improve, but doing so was proving to be difficult. I needed better pills to improve my cultivation. I needed better qi skills and a stronger soul to improve my alchemy. I needed a higher cultivation base to raise my qi skills more effectively.

I had been raising each area slowly, one after another in a loop, but that was taking too long. If I didn’t speed up, I would hit 31 and my cultivation base would calcify. So, I needed to pick the lowest-hanging fruit and raise it as high as possible. Then, I could parley those gains into the other areas.

I chose to quickly raise my cultivation base.

To do this, I began consuming High-Purity Basic Qi Gathering Pills constantly. These pills increased the rate at which I could absorb qi from the environment, and their effects lasted for roughly eight hours. Every day, I took three pills to keep these effects running continuously.

As a Martial Disciple 8, the effects of Basic pills were somewhat limited, but they were much better than nothing. I could have tried to use Improved pills instead, but I didn’t have the means to purchase them, and the ones I made myself contained far too many pill toxins. Such pills would be powerful at first, but ingesting too many pill toxins would cripple me before I reached my goals.

My cultivation progress still wasn’t quick enough, so I relaxed my qi filters. While this did mean I was drawing in impurities, it allowed me to cultivate and advance at a much faster rate.

Following this regime, I was able to reach Martial Disciple Peak after only three years.

While raising my cultivation base, I still worked on my qi skills a bit, to keep in practice if nothing else. However, after I hit Martial Disciple Peak, had abundant energy, and was no longer distracted? That was when I began to destroy those cards.

While I had relaxed my filters over recent years to advance quicker, my qi purity was still much higher than the majority of the sect’s disciples, especially in my right hand as I ensured that it always had the highest purity qi I could manage. Waiting until I had the High-Yellow skill mastered to do the majority of my cultivation was a godsend. When I created a knife to cut away parts of those cards, it was like I was passing it through melted butter.

Before long, I was able to complete row four of the qi skill cards.

I was 27. I had three years left.

Qi skill competitions were not too infrequent. There was usually one every month, but the number of disciples who competed in them was staggering. The chances of winning were extremely low, so you had to be both good and lucky. I did not, however, need to win the competition for my goals.

Participants signed up based on which row of the qi skills cards they were currently on. Winning the ‘Row 4’ category awarded up to a High-Yellow Rank 2 cultivation technique. For the ‘Row 5’ competition, the reward could be up to a Peak-Yellow Rank 2 technique, depending on the decision of the elder in charge.

Winning such prizes was beyond me. I wasn’t ready to win yet. I just needed a simple technique that would allow me to keep moving forward. I could get a better one in the future.

My only goal was to impress the elder enough to be awarded a Low-Yellow Rank 2 technique. That was enough for now.

The competition was surprisingly straightforward. Everyone received three special cards, and we just needed to return them by the end of the day. There was no mention of a proctor that would monitor us, just an admonition that we should not turn in the work of others. The sect showed it trusted us, and no one wanted to betray the trust, so we needed to follow his instructions.

These cards were far more complex than any I had seen before. Every card was a challenge that combined all of the qi skills into a single test. I had to accurately burn through a mark on the card at a quick speed with a very specific level of energy all while making sure other parts of the card didn’t heat up at all.

They were challenging and draining. After I finished the first card, I looked at it and saw several spots I hadn’t cleaned correctly. I couldn’t do anything about it though. The ‘speed’ aspect blocked anything from changing after the time was up.

I recovered my energy and began the second card. The result was slightly worse. My focus had slipped halfway through, and I made a mistake, though not a catastrophic one. At least, the card didn’t turn to ash.

I waited an hour before beginning the final card. I couldn’t make any more mistakes. However, I couldn’t rest for too long. Time was a factor.

The third card was the hardest, but having rested and refocused, I was able to complete it to the same level as the first.

After turning everything in, I sat down to await the results. People had until the end of the day to finish, but the elder didn’t wait that long before beginning to award prizes.

Unsurprisingly, I did not win the top prize. However, my performance was good enough to earn me a Mid-Yellow Rank 2 technique.

My advancement to Martial Master was getting ever closer.

I needed to talk to Cao. I wanted her guidance on the process of becoming a Martial Master.

Advancing to Martial Master was all about creating pathways through the body to allow for the flow of qi between different muscle groups.

According to Cao, everyone’s body had a natural energy flow. Meridians needed to be constructed with that natural flow in mind. If they were put in the wrong places, their efficiency would plummet.

The first two meridians were in the chest. Everyone had a dantian near the middle of their torso. This was a natural gathering point for qi. It was most noticeable in those who had never cultivated because it was the only place in their body with any qi at all. The first two meridians took energy from this dantian and cycled it through the internal organs of the torso. This improved a cultivator’s strength and vitality, allowing Martial Masters to live to 200 years old.

Both torso meridians had to be correctly formed and positioned to allow qi to flow properly. That was why those with only one were considered Half-Step Masters. They had begun the process of building their body’s meridian system, but it didn’t mean much until the first two were both in place.

Cao guided me through some of the processes and pitfalls of creating meridians but warned that she was just a novice at this herself. Also, she could not tell me exactly where to place them. I would have to determine that myself through my own understanding of my body’s qi flows.

Cao told me what meridians were and what to expect from the process. The cultivation technique told me the instructions and blueprints for creating them. My body told me where to build them.

The process was tedious, but I was much quicker than a normal Disciple. I had decided to use the same strategy I did when I first became a Martial Disciple. Rapid advancement that would destroy my foundation.

I was already concerned about the purity of the qi in my body, and I had found that my low fire affinity was limiting my future potential. Instead of a long slog of slowly cultivating this life, I decided on a different path. I would race into the Master realm and learn what I could from the process. Then, I would restart from the beginning with more knowledge and a higher affinity so that I could do everything the right way.

I put all distractions to the side in my race to advancement. I built up enough contribution points to pay for rent for the next three years so that I didn’t need to worry about such trivial matters. Then, I began secluded cultivation. I stopped talking to Bao, and I had no more lessons from Cao.

After six months I formed my first meridian. It was a pathetic thing that wasn’t much better than a leaky straw. I had high-purity qi and a Mid-Yellow Rank 2 cultivation technique. These both demanded strong meridians.

With my three-legged cat of a meridian, I might become a Martial Master, but I would be nothing more than a paper tiger.

That didn’t stop me. Six months later I completed my second meridian.

With both channels in place, there was only one last step in the advancement process.

I carefully allowed a faint trickle of qi to pass through my meridians. Even then, it felt like they were on the verge of collapse. If that happened, I would, at best, have to start over from scratch. At worst, I would never be able to form any meridians again in the future.

Infusing my organs with qi lasted three days, but the amount of energy I was able to force into them was pathetic. This strengthening of the internal organs allowed normal Masters to live to 200, but I would be lucky to survive to 110.

That was fine. I didn’t plan on living forever anyway.

I had two years left before I turned 30. I was no longer on a hard deadline, but I didn’t stop.

Simply advancing to Master provided me with very few benefits. I also needed to build the meridian that allowed qi to flow into my right arm. Then, I would be able to pull qi from my torso and upper arm into my right hand. I now had practice with forming meridians, but this still took me another six months to complete. It didn’t matter, I had advanced to Martial Master 2.

I wanted to compete to become an outer disciple at age thirty. As I had reached Martial Master, this deadline was no longer an imperative, but both Bao and Cao had made the situation clear. While those older than 30 could in theory be chosen to join the inner outer sect, it rarely happened in practice, so if I wanted the best shot at doing so, I needed to hurry.

I only had eighteen months to go before the competition that could decide my fate for this life.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 22 – Life 50, Age 28, Martial Master Level 2

Without having concocted an Improved pill that could even be considered decent, aiming to complete a Superior pill with a high efficacy in only eighteen months seemed implausible.

I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

I began to feel more and more that the other disciples here were being held back by a lack of drive to push themselves forward. Most of them spent a lot of time just enjoying themselves. I couldn’t blame them. This was a steady, safe life. People here had homes, food, entertainment, and steady work. It wouldn’t be wrong to come here and just… live.

That wasn’t my calling though. Cultivation, herbs, pills. Those were what my life was about. I needed to stay focused. If this had been my only life, I might have been willing to just settle down here too, but I needed to prepare for the distant future.

Bao didn’t have much advice for me. He could only make Improved pills himself, so my alchemy skills had already reached the limits of his knowledge. Cao told me basically the same thing. She was good at teaching cultivation, but her pill refining wasn’t anything spectacular. She could make High-Purity Superior pills, but that was only because she had years of practice with them. She didn’t have any silver bullets that could help me swiftly improve.

I wanted to find another private teacher, but the ones that could make High-Purity Superior pills spent their time concocting, not teaching. So, I began signing up for public lessons. I didn’t have any other choice.

I filled my days with lessons, pill practice, and a mad scramble for contribution points to pay for everything. After a few months of this routine, I improved to the point where I was able to routinely concoct High-Purity Improved pills. This allowed me to fund my activities much more easily.

Advancing to Martial Master had been a boon. Lack of qi was the bottleneck that had kept me from practicing alchemy as long as I wanted, so being able to pull energy from several parts of my body to keep me fueled allowed me to spend much more time at the workbench.

I considered using some of the pills I was making to help further reduce my downtime from lack of energy, but I decided against it. Qi Gathering Pills were great when trying to break through while cultivating, but they weren’t designed for efficiently restoring energy during normal activities.

It would have been nice if there were a pill designed for long-term energy recovery during daily activities, but I doubted it existed. All Rank 1 pills were completely useless except for Qi Gathering Pills. I had been told this enough times that I should remember it, but I couldn’t help but wish that there were other useful pills.

Something about those thoughts seemed wrong to me, but I put it to the side, it wasn’t important.

I just needed to do my best to power through.

On the day of the preliminaries for the outer sect disciple exam, I was mentally and physically exhausted. I had pushed myself right up to the last moment, and it was only after I found myself haggard and worn out at the testing site that I realized I should have rested.

I was fine. I would only need to concoct a single pill. I had the mental fortitude to do that. I could rest when I was dead.

That thought made me chuckle. It was about the biggest lie I had ever told myself.

We were to be tested in batches of one hundred with new groups cycling in throughout the day. Testing sites had been set up in a few areas across the city to make everything quicker and easier.

The place I arrived at looked like it was just a crossroads chosen at random. It was a spacious area with a hundred workbenches evenly spread out across it in a grid-like pattern. There were a few spectators who had just come to watch, but the location I was at didn’t draw too much of a crowd.

Once everyone was in place, we were all given a pill recipe and a tray that held several herbs. The recipe described the basic steps needed to concoct the required pill, but it didn’t list the pill’s name or effects. As I had only made Qi Gathering Pills, I had no way of even guessing what kind of pill this was or how difficult it would be compared to a normal one.

For this competition, the sect had needed to prepare several thousand sets of ingredients. While we did need to pay contribution points for the herbs used in the exam, the fact that so many would be wasted by alchemists untrained in this recipe told me how little value they held. It was only more evidence that, as I had been told, all Rank 1 pills other than Qi Gathering Pills were worthless.

The primary ingredient for this recipe was a strange mushroom. It had a white stalk and a pink cap. Along the stalk and under the cap, there were odd sacs of a bluish liquid. The supplementary ingredients for the pill were what looked like an ordinary stick of wood and some type of blue-green leaf.

Overall, the process was the same as any other pill. Burn away the toxins, mix the energy together, and compress it into a pill.

When I used qi vision to study the herbs before beginning, I noticed an abnormality. Usually, medicinal energy was green, but here it was a strange blue color. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I couldn’t worry too much about it at the moment.

I followed the process in the recipe as best I could.

The instructions for preparing the wood and the leaf were simple enough. Remove the thin layer of bark from the wood first, then grind the leaf into a fine paste. I did so and set the results to the side.

The mushroom was more difficult to handle. The instructions said to carefully separate the liquid sacs without bursting them. Then, cut up the mushroom into tiny cubes.

When I looked at the mushroom closely with qi vision, I got an understanding of what was going on. The liquid sacs were packed with medicinal energy and contained very few toxins. The rest of the mushroom was the opposite. It was almost all toxin with very little medicinal energy. Cutting apart the mushroom like this made it easier to target and destroy all of these toxins.

Cleansing the mushroom and getting it to a usable state would be a daunting task. It contained a lot of toxins. So, I didn’t do that. The only reason to bother with the stalk of the mushroom was to boost the efficacy of the final pill. That would have been nice, but it would have also drained me of too much of my energy. Instead, I decided to place the stalk to the side and only work with the more potent liquid sacs. I would end up with a less powerful pill this way, but it would be significantly easier to make one that was High-Purity.

After all of the ingredients were prepped, I placed everything into the pill furnace and began scanning them for toxins. I immediately noticed that the energy of the leaf was very easy to damage, so I needed to protect it. The toxins of the wood needed high heat to remove. The ones remaining in the mushroom were difficult to target without hitting the mushroom’s medicinal energy.

There were dozens of small complications. It was challenging, but I did my best. Through sheer grit, I didn’t allow my concentration to fail. Finally, when I was reasonably satisfied with the purity of the medicinal energy, and I felt that doing any more would simply be putting its efficacy at risk, I forced the pill to coalesce.

When I heard the light tink of a pill hitting the bottom of the pill furnace, I relaxed. I had made the pill. I wasn’t sure how potent it was or if it would be good enough to allow me to pass the test, but I at least had something, so I went to turn it in.

I wasn’t too interested in whatever pill this was, but I decided to analyze it for fun.

High-Purity Rank 1 Purifying Pill (Water Qi), 43% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 67 silver.

As I looked at the result, I couldn’t help but mutter to myself.

“That’s cool. Too bad it was a useless Rank 1 pill.”

Again, when that thought popped into my head, I couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what.

After submitting my pill, I had to wait a day for the results. 43% efficacy was bad, no question, but I would be surprised if too many people did significantly better without practicing that pill specifically, and I doubted anyone had done that.

Having finished my part of the exam and needing a break, I had a peaceful dinner with Bao. I had been so focused during this time I had barely seen him.

After we sat down to eat, Bao couldn’t help but ask about the competition.

“So, how do you think you did?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I did the best I could.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. Everything will be fine. Honestly, look at me. I’m a few years older than you and I’m not even close to ready to become an outer sect disciple. Just settle down for a few years and take it slow. You’ll get there eventually.”

I thought about what he said. Was it worth working so hard? It would all happen eventually anyway. If I didn’t pass this time, I could just try again next year. No reason to worry about it. It would be good to just take a couple of years and, like he said, just live.

I had wanted to push myself, to do alchemy and cultivate, but the more time I spent here, the more people told me to relax, the more I felt compelled to follow their advice. Maybe I was on the wrong path.

“Maybe you are right. I pushed too hard to get everything done early, and it might have all been pointless anyway. If it doesn’t work out this year, I’ll take some time off.”

“That’s the spirit! There are tons of things we can do around here for fun. Just you wait.”

After eating, I went back to get some rest. In the morning, I was informed of my results. I had passed. I was in eighty-fourth place, but I would be able to compete in the finals.

The finals were held in the same stadium where I had watched them during my first year in the sect.

The night before the exam, I was nervous. I was so worried about what my results would be, but thoughts of that conversation I had with Bao calmed me. The results of this one competition didn’t matter. If I failed, I could just slow down and live a life of gradually improving my craft. That thought cleared my mind and allowed me to approach the exam without worries about the future.

There was nothing special about this test. All I had to do was create five High-Purity Superior pills. I had the skills necessary to do that. I just needed to make their medicinal efficacy as high as possible. I didn’t need to worry about anything else.

Superior pills needed three ingredients: blue peonies, astragalus root, and schisandra berries.

I had lifetimes of experience with blue peonies. Maximizing their potential was easy.

I had less experience with astragalus root, and balancing its energy with the peony was difficult. However, over the last eighteen months, I had used them countless times in Improved pills. I might not have been as expert with them as I was with peonies, but that wouldn’t be a problem.

The main difficulty lay in the schisandra berries.

Standing in the middle of a packed stadium, I silently watched as many of the competitors began to peel the berries. This reduced the initial pill toxins that they would have to be dealt with, and it made the refining process easier, but it was a trap.

Their strategy was not much different than what I had used in the preliminaries. They sacrificed a bit of the pill’s efficacy to make the refining process easier. However, in this competition, efficacy was king. Everyone would be able to make High-Purity pills, so we had to maximize efficacy everywhere possible.

Peeling the berries reduced the amount of toxins one had to deal with significantly, but it also removed a good deal of medicinal energy. By leaving the skin on, my pill wouldn’t be as pure as it would be otherwise, but it would still barely qualify as High-Purity. With the extra medicinal efficacy from the berry skins, I should be a large step above many of my competitors.

I worked slowly and methodically.

People began to finish and turn in their pills to be judged. I didn’t care. Speed didn’t matter.

After each pill, I rested and cultivated to restore my energy. I needed to be at my peak at all times.

One hour stretched to two. Two stretched to four.

Finally, I finished my last pill. I reflected on my memories of the first competition I had watched. My skill level wasn’t anywhere close to the abilities of those alchemists. All I could hope was that it was good enough.

I checked my pills: 91%, 86%, 84%, 89%, and 90%.

I laughed. A total of 440. I had done my best, but I knew that score wouldn’t be competitive. Maybe it was time to live a normal life for a while.

I knew my results, but I still stood with the other contestants as we waited for the winners to be announced.

First place had a combined 492 points of efficacy. Second had 487.

Then, they announced third place.

“Su Fang, a combined efficacy of 486.”

While the other winners cheered, I just stood there. I didn’t know what the others’ results were, but I knew mine definitely wasn’t 486.

I had succeeded. That was good, right?

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 23 – Life 50, Age 30, Martial Master Level 2

My win in the competition was strange. I didn’t understand it. Possibly, the System-granted ability was more accurate in calculating efficacy than the sect elders. It was possible, but I didn’t believe it, not to this extent.

There had to be another factor at play, but I didn’t know what it could be. I had to just take things one step at a time. Eventually, I would figure everything out.

Having come third in the competition, I would be rewarded with a spirit fire. I knew that this was the difference between a Disciple and a Master Alchemist, but I didn’t know many details. I had avoided looking into it too much until after I knew that I could get my hands on it.

The winners had a few days before we would be taken to receive our prizes, so I spent that time researching. Thankfully, there was an easy solution to learn everything I needed to know. The Technique Hall had a few books detailing what spirit fires were and how to use them. Clearly, they knew many disciples would be interested in the topic.

I borrowed a copy of the book from the Hall and went back to my apartment to read.

So, what was a spirit fire? My personal analogy was that they were a type of symbiote, though parasite might be a more apt description. A spirit fire lives in a host’s body and consumes a small amount of the body’s energy to feed itself.

Spirit fire was attracted to qi. Someone with one in their body could channel their qi in a specific way to make the fire emerge and burn their target. They would then need to pull that portion of the fire back into their body before it dissipated.

While spirit fires were much more difficult to control than qi or natural fire, their destructive potential was far greater than either of those more manageable options. This extra power was what made them invaluable for cleansing the more resistant toxins of Rank 2 herbs.

The spirit fire given out by the Twin Mountains Sect was called the Cold Mountain Fire. From what I read, despite ‘fire’ being in its name, it contained no fire qi. ’Spirit fire’ was simply the name given to this type of energy construct because of its appearance.

Instead of fire qi, it was composed of something closer to a type of earth qi. This ‘fire’ was supposed to be made of roughly 90% earth energy and 10% water energy. The energy wasn’t even qi, but nothing I read said what it was.

The hows and whys of spirit fires were beyond my comprehension, but the benefits were certain. The reason one needed a spirit fire to be a Master Alchemist was because of the ingredients used in higher-rank pills. Pure fire qi was a poor tool for dealing with them. Instead, the unique energy of a spirit fire would break down these robust, complex pill toxins much more easily.

The Twin Mountains Sect had what was called a ‘fire seed.’ Fire seeds were incredibly powerful and unbelievably important. Fire seeds created spirit fire. With a Cold Mountain Fire seed, the sect had an endless supply of spirit fires to infuse into their disciples’ bodies. After a portion was taken away, they just had to wait for it to recover. As long as the seed remained, it would keep producing new flames.

While fire seeds were beneficial to organizations like the sect, they had an even more profound impact when absorbed by a cultivator. Unlike regular spirit fires, a seed isn’t absorbed into the body, it is absorbed into the soul, and seeds absorb energy from the environment, not the cultivator.

Seeds strengthen the soul and can produce endless flames. Some spirit fires are better than others, but most cultivators would fight tooth and nail to get any seed possible.

So, why wasn’t this seed absorbed long ago? Because only Martial Grandmasters came to this area, no one higher. To absorb a fire seed safely, a cultivator needed to be far more powerful than a mere Grandmaster. The book didn’t give any specifics about how strong one would need to be to successfully absorb a seed, but it made clear that any attempt to do so by a Grandmaster would only result in death.

When someone absorbed a fire seed, it would wash their soul in flames, purifying and strengthening it. These flames would be so intense that they would burst forth from the soul and wash the body in fire, burning it to a crisp. To survive, one needed a powerful enough body to absorb this initial burst and allow the flame to die down and return to a calmer state.

After learning the details of spirit fires, I sat alone in my room.

Darkness came, but I didn’t turn on any lights.

I continued to silently consider.

Normally a spirit fire is absorbed into the body. It is like an external object, no different from clothing or a weapon. If I received a portion of the Cold Mountain Fire, after I died, I would have to return to the sect and go through this entire process again to get it back. I would have to reenter the sect and go through this competition any time I wanted a spirit fire.

But a fire seed was absorbed into the soul. If I had a fire seed, I would always have it. When I died, it would stay with me. I only needed to absorb the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire once. Then, I would have it with me throughout all of my future lives.

Was it possible though?

It was considered safe to let disciples near the fire seed because the sect believed there was not even the possibility of it being stolen. We would not be given flames directly. We would be taken to the core spirit fire where the seed was located, and we would gather a spirit fire for ourselves. I would be right there, next to the seed.

If I tried to absorb it, I would die. This didn’t bother me too much. I was willing to die for a purpose, and this seemed like it might be the most impactful death I could possibly have. The details were important though.

Everything I read said the danger was to the body of a cultivator. There would be a one-time burst that would char my body to cinders, but that was the only damage it would cause. Not only would the process not damage my soul, but it was also supposed to strengthen it. The death of my body didn’t matter, much. As long as my soul was safe, I would be fine.

I wanted to take the fire seed. Having a seed for the Cold Mountain Fire would be enormously beneficial for a long time to come.

Taking the seed was the right course for my future.

But, taking it… that would be stealing the lifeblood of the sect. It would be a calamity. The sect had been good to me. The amount I had learned, the amount I improved… It was a lot. Yes, I knew they gave me a cultivation method that was probably messing with my mind in ways I didn’t know, but still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that stealing this fire seed from them was wrong.

This would be the first thing I did that I felt was morally wrong on a fundamental level. This would be pure theft, and I was trying to use the time loop to excuse my actions.

Stealing the seed felt wrong. I thought about why. I would be destroying a sect with people I had come to like. Bao Wen was my friend. We had lived together for years. Cao MeiLan was my teacher. I had learned so much from her. Over the years, I had been focused on advancing, so our relationships weren’t as deep as they could have been, but I still cared for them.

If I took this flame, I might be dooming the sect and destroying their futures.

Did it matter? Did any of it actually matter? I was going to die and be reborn. The sect would get their seed back. I would just have one too. Did it matter if I stole it? It felt wrong, but if I took it, would anyone truly be hurt?

After I took the flame, I would die. All of this would reset. None of it would have ever happened.

It didn’t matter. My time at the sect. Spending time with Bao. Going to lessons and learning from Cao.

None of it would have ever happened.

Suddenly, I froze.

A question with horrifying implications appeared in my mind. It was… I mean… Why had I never even thought to ask before? The more I thought about it, the more I had to have an answer.

“System, what happens to these timelines after I die?”

I waited. No response came.

I started shouting.

“System! What happens to these timelines after I die? Do they vanish, completely resetting with me, or do they continue on after I’m gone?”

The cost of this information cannot be calculated at this time.

“Bullshit! I’m supposed to be able to purchase anything! How much does it cost?”

Calculating… Error. The cost of this information cannot be calculated.

System Message: The price of information depends on the degree to which it will affect the flow of karma and how much it will change destiny. The greater the effect, the greater the cost. The cost of this information is impossible to calculate.

How could the cost be impossible? What did that mean? I knew immediately. It was obvious.

The answer to the question would change who I was. It would change everything I did from that point forward. It would affect everything I touched.

I couldn’t know the answer to the question. The System wouldn’t tell me, and I had no way to find it out on my own.

So then. What should I do?

I needed an answer, but I couldn’t get one.

My body started shaking as I considered the implications of these different possibilities.

Did I even really have a future?

If everything always reset. If everything vanished every time I died.

Did anything really matter?

What if I fell in love? What if I had children? Would they just vanish with me?

I couldn’t know. I couldn’t allow that to happen. To love and raise children, perhaps for hundreds of years, only for them to vanish? For them to have never existed? No!

If I told myself ‘It’s okay. The universe will just keep going after you’re gone. They’ll be fine.’ If I told myself that and it turned out I was wrong… I couldn’t deal with that.

No, I had to act like the universe vanished with me. I had to believe that. I couldn’t move forward with the naive hope that someone I cared about would simply keep existing peacefully after I died. I had to believe that the world ceased to exist after I died. I couldn’t allow myself to become too attached to anyone, and I definitely couldn’t bring children into such a world.

But then… Was it fine for me to murder and torture people? Was it fine because, afterward, it would never have happened?

‘Hey, I beat your child to death in front of you, but don’t worry, it will all be reset in a few months.’

To act, to truly believe that everything vanished. That nothing was permanent. To know, no matter how hard I worked, nothing I did mattered…

No, I couldn’t be that person either.

I made a vow to myself.

First, I would not allow myself to become a monster. Even if the evil I did was reset and it didn’t permanently hurt anyone else, it would still hurt me. I had to be willing to cross some lines I wouldn’t have in the past—that was just how this world worked—but every single time I did so it needed to be done with deliberation. Never just doing evil because I could.

Second, for the time being, no attachments. Working with people was fine. Becoming friends was fine. But falling in love. Raising children. Anything I couldn’t bear to allow to be reset. That could not happen.

Third, this System seemed to have given me eternal life, but the cost was that I no longer had a future in this world’s timeline. I could solve this by just getting rid of the System. That was possible, but there was a better way. I could create my own timeline apart from this world. With my storage space that could be expanded infinitely and didn’t reset upon my death, I had already taken steps that could lead in that direction.

I looked up. The moral crisis strengthened me. It focused me.

Should I take the fire seed? That was the question I had to answer.

This was crossing the line of my personal morals. I had to be deliberate in my decision.

If the universe vanished, no harm would be done. Even if it felt wrong, I could accept this.

If it didn’t vanish, the sect would be hurt badly, but the people would survive. It might be tough times for them, but they would still be skilled and knowledgeable. It was bad, but not apocalyptic.

The advantages to myself for taking the seed would be immense. While the damage to the sect would be incalculable, it was something they could recover from.

My time in the Su Clan had taught me that this world wasn’t kind. If someone else had the power to take the seed, they would take it. The morals of this world, those I had seen, told me that taking the seed was acceptable. This theft crossed my moral line, but not the line of this world.

Was I deluding myself? Making justification for an unjustifiable act? Maybe. Probably so. But I still made my decision. Right or wrong, I would stand by it.

I had to take the seed. However, I would also acknowledge a debt to the sect for this action. Having a fire seed would allow me to advance further and faster than ever before. I had to repay that debt.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 24 – Life 50, Age 30, Martial Master Level 2

The Cold Mountain Fire was kept in a cave deep below the Alchemy Peak.

Our group gathered together in the silence of dawn on the third day after the competition. There were no well-wishers to send us off. There were no sounds of people starting their day. There was only the stillness of death.

The previous night, I had said my goodbyes. To my two friends, I was leaving to enter the outer sect. Only I knew what was about to happen. In a day, they would be gone. Perhaps from their perspective, I would be the one who had vanished, having betrayed the sect in my final moments. I didn’t know. Either way, it was still goodbye.

Our group gathered at the edge of town near a small path into the forest. There were four of us. The three champions and one elder.

The elder who was to guide us looked familiar. I felt like I had seen him before, but I had seen many people come and go over the years, so I couldn’t be sure. His face was stern, yet at that moment I felt he was closer to a grandfatherly figure.

The other two victors of the competition arrived with expressions of pride and expectation on their faces. They were eager for what the day would bring. It was their chance to shine. I could not share in the excitement.

As the sun crested the horizon, we began to walk into the forest.

I felt like I was walking to my death. I was walking to my death. I would not survive to see another sunrise. In a way, I hoped that none of the other people of the sect would either. The moment I had that thought, I was racked with a deep pang of guilt.

This was the first time I was doing something I felt was morally indefensible. I knew it would not be the last. This kind of thing, it’s the start of a path, not the end. I did not know where that path would lead me. I could only hope that I would not turn into a monster who did whatever I wanted because I could.

Still, I was stepping on this path willingly. My current morals would not survive this world. I would inevitably change and compromise, slowly but surely. Better to act deliberately, with a focused, though not clear, conscience.

We walked through the forest in a straight line. The path had no bends or turns. As we walked, the trees around us seemed to move of their own accord. When I saw them out of the corner of my eye, they seemed to be distorting and twisting, but when I focused on them, they were just normal trees.

The walk through the forest was not long, maybe half an hour, but when we stepped out from beneath the cover of the trees, the sun was already high in the sky. The elder didn’t give us any time to linger in the sunlight. He hurried us along the path and into a cave that bore into the mountain’s heart.

There were no decorations here. No masonry to make the cave entrance stand out. No guards to protect what lay inside. It looked like nothing more than a normal, natural cave that one might find within any random mountain.

As we walked down the tunnel, the elder used his qi to light our way.

Everything about the cave looked natural. I wasn’t a geologist, but it seemed like the rock might be limestone or something similar. Water seeped through the ceiling in several places, causing stalactites and stalagmites to form. I was pretty sure that this was a sedimentary cave, but I wasn’t sure. Did that make sense for this type of mountain? I didn’t know. It didn’t matter. I was just distracting myself.

Our group finally arrived at an underground vault. It was larger than any cavern I had ever heard of. Massive pillars were spaced around the room, bearing the weight of the mountain overhead. Everything looked like natural stone, but the regular spacing of the columns indicated that it had been constructed.

In the center of the cavern, rising from a great pit, burned a blue bonfire.

As we approached, I felt no change in temperature. The raging flames made my brain feel that the room should be unbearably hot. With ‘cold’ in the name, I had thought that maybe we would be entering an ice cavern. Instead, it felt like the fire was just an illusion.

The elder stood in front of the bonfire and turned around to look at us.

“We’re here. We will proceed in the order you placed during the competition. I believe everyone has prepared and knows what to do. If you are unsure of anything, then ask. Absorbing a spirit fire is dangerous. Everyone needs to be careful. Pull in only as much fire as you can handle. Do not overdo it. When your body reaches its limit, you will be able to feel it clearly. At that point, do not push. Back away immediately.”

I was to go third.

I watched as a short girl approached the flames first. I hadn’t paid any attention to her before that moment. Her hair was in a single long braid down her back. As she stepped toward the fire, her hair seemed to light up in a corona of flames. It looked like she was about to enter hell itself.

Her actions were textbook, matching everything I had read. She walked within arm’s reach of the flames and held out her hand. Then, she used qi to connect to a small lick of fire on the edge of the bonfire. Using her qi like a fishing line, she pulled the flames into her body. The process was slow. After ten minutes, she began to sweat. At fifteen, her face turned into a grimace. At that moment, she quickly cut off the qi and stepped back.

The girl, looking exhausted from her ordeal, sat down and leaned against one of the room’s many pillars. She closed her eyes in deep meditation.

The boy who came in second looked at her as she sat and gave a cruel sneer. It was strange, I realized. It had been years since I had seen anything even approaching malicious intent. This boy, though, when he looked at the girl… He looked like he was a devil that had walked out of the flames.

He strode up to the bonfire confidently and placed an entire fist into the flames. His face quickly became manic. The elder appeared beside him and threw him away to safety.

After giving the crazy boy a dismissive snort, the elder looked at me.

“Your turn.”

I gazed at the fire. It was an ethereal blue. The flames were nearly transparent, so much so that even though they covered a huge area, I could clearly see through them to the other side.

In the center of the flames was a solid mass of dark blue. That was my target.

I began walking.

I did not rush. I didn’t want to alarm the elder. I didn’t want him to stop me.

When I got to the flames, I didn’t stop. I kept walking.

When he saw this, the elder’s eyes widened in alarm, and he began shouting at me.

“What are you doing!”

At that point, I ran.

The elder would be hesitant to enter the flames himself.

Cold Mountain Fire would not burn most people who entered it. I had checked. But the other three already had part of the flames inside their bodies. If they entered the bonfire, there was a risk that the flames inside their bodies would begin to resonate with those outside of it. If they did so, the fires within them could surge out of control. This made it dangerous for anyone to chase after me.

Still, there were plenty of ways to stop me, so I ran.

It took only a few heartbeats to reach the dark blue core at the center of the fire. It was the size of a fist.

I grabbed it.

I surrounded the core with my qi and shoved it into my chest. After having decided to steal the seed, I had read a rough account of how it was supposed to work, but I had not researched it too deeply. It would have been bad if anyone found out what I planned to do. I just hoped what I did would work.

The fire seed entered my body and passed into my soul.

Flames erupted in my soul, and my soul burned. It was being cleansed by the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire. This was supposed to happen. It was a good thing I knew that, or else I might have tried to force the seed back out, damaging both it and me.

The burning energy burst forth from my soul and into my flesh. Inside my body, one cell after another began to shut down and die. They could not contain the power that was being forced through them. After only a few moments, my brain turned off.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Master 2 — 2,000 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 2,000

I sat in my small house. The normally drab house seemed to have lost what little color it had.

I had made my decision, but that didn’t mean it didn’t affect me.

Physically, I had just burned to death. The feeling of flames slowly spreading and growing inside my body… I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Thankfully, my rebirth had affected my memories, compartmentalizing them. This removed the sting of those memories of physical pain.

However, the emotional pain lingered. I had betrayed my friends. I had betrayed my sect. I had made rationalizations, and I had promised to repay the debt, but none of that changed what I had done. I had chosen to act against people who had done more to help me than anyone else in this rotten world had. Even if that was a low bar, it wasn’t nothing.

I didn’t want to push forward. I didn’t want to spend endless hours pushing toward the next meaningless cultivation milestone. I just wanted… time.

Time to decompress. Time to understand myself better. Who I was. Where I was going.

I stood up and walked outside.

I began just strolling around the houses. I was locked away in this damned courtyard with its moldering houses.

The Su Clan. I hated it, but I also didn’t know it. At that moment, my hate felt like an empty thing. Bad things had happened to me here. They would continue to happen here, if not to me, then to someone else. That hatred. I decided to let it go. There was no reason for it anymore. I had already escaped from my imprisonment here.

I had my own moral line. It was born of the knowledge and experience of my first life in another world. Even though these memories had started to fade, I could not let go of my morals—they were a part of me—but I would cross that line in the future. I already had crossed it once. Even if everything was reset, that did not change the fact that it happened.

To be able to forgive myself, I had to be willing to forgive this clan. It and the people here were products of the environment. Just don’t forget. Never forget, or it will happen again. I needed to be willing to understand them. That was my path forward.

I began to really look at my surroundings. The walls surrounding us were stone with some type of red-painted plaster coating on them. In places, the plaster had started to crumble, revealing the bare stone beneath. Looking at the ground, I noticed ruts that had been worn into the cobblestones by thousands of feet stepping on them countless times.

Were these only signs of immense age? Was the Su Clan facing hard times and unable to afford maintenance? Or, did it just show how little they cared about the people who lived here? I didn’t know, but the answers could give me some insight into this place.

After walking aimlessly for an hour or two, I approached the door of a random house and knocked on it. I had never even thought to try this before. I had to wonder why. When I had lived here, I had locked myself away and driven myself nearly mad with the pressure. Maybe if I had tried to speak to the others here…

A young girl opened the door and looked at me like a deer in headlights. She must have been sixteen, but she looked so young to my eyes.

“He… Hello?”

“Hi, I’m Fang. What’s your name?”

She quickly closed the door. “Please… please, no.”

She was terrified. Terrified by me merely introducing myself.

I sighed and returned to my room. I had wanted to let things go. I had wanted to leave the past in the past. I felt like someone just slapped my face with how fucked up everything was.

I wanted to fix it, to make things better.

I couldn’t. Even if I did change something once, it would go right back to how it was before.

I could change things and then move my reset forward. That might be possible. But I felt like that would just be a bandage on a gaping wound.

I returned to my room.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 25 – Life 51, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

I wanted time alone. Time to brood? Maybe, but I thought of it more as time to reflect.

Alone time was difficult to get. Soon, I would be pulled out to be tested and then sent somewhere. I didn’t know where. I hadn’t run the loop with peak affinity, so there might be changes. I didn’t want to deal with that. I just wanted time to myself, just for a little while.

“System, when I’m tested, I want them to think that I just have a high nine-star fire affinity. What’s the cheapest you can do that for?

50 credits.

It was a fair price.

“Purchase it.”

Purchase confirmed. 1,950 credits remaining.

I did my best to relax as I waited. I felt conflicted about what I was going to do. I only knew of one place where I would be able to spend as much time alone as I wanted. I would be able to work and improve myself in solitude. I wouldn’t have to worry about rent, or food, or the cost of materials, or anything else.

I could cultivate, spend time tending to herbs, and practice alchemy in peace. I wasn’t sure how many different ingredients I would be allowed to work with, but that would be ok. There were still things I needed to improve with even the most basic pills.

For time alone, for time to rest, I was going back to a place I hated.

I went through the test and was assigned to Rudy, who, of course, made sure I had the slave mantra.

Once in my room, I sat down.

Before he allowed me to do anything else, Rudy wanted to force me to cultivate to Martial Disciple 4 so that I would be unquestioningly loyal to him, but I didn’t have to rely on his technique anymore.

But before I started cultivating, I had an important question to ask.

In my last life, I had used a technique given to me by the Twin Mountains Sect. I was told the mental component of the technique was designed to help an alchemist focus in some way, but I wanted to know more about the details. The sect was trustworthy, but I should still do due diligence.

“System, what is the price to learn the mental effects of the cultivation technique I got from the Twin Mountains Sect?”

Cost 5 credits.

“That’s a lot cheaper than I thought…”

I had previously been told that the price of knowledge was connected to the effect it would have on karma and fate. If this knowledge only cost 5 credits, that meant that my knowing it would have very little effect on anything.

Even if it didn’t change anything, I still wanted to know.

“Purchase it.”

Purchase confirmed. 1,945 credits remaining.

Cultivating that technique makes one friendlier, increases the sense of camaraderie, reduces aggression, and increases naiveté. Cultivators will become more susceptible to any suggestions they hear.

That sounded like it might be problematic, but I could deal with the implications later. There might be potential for abuse, but it wasn’t worth thinking about for the moment. Everything was good in the sect, so it wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t an ideal technique, but I felt it was much better than anything else I had seen.

“System, what is the cost of a Peak-Yellow version of the technique? Also, I want it changed so it doesn’t affect naivete and susceptibility, also, maybe get rid of the part about a sense of camaraderie if possible. The friendliness and aggression parts are fine to leave in. Can that be done for a reasonable price?”

Cost 800 credits.

Note: This will give you knowledge of the technique, but you will not be a master of it. You will still need to practice it.

That price wasn’t bad. Considering my funds and my plans for this life, it was very reasonable. Would getting an even better technique be possible?

“What if, instead, the effect was something like simply improving my focus? Make it so that once I started a project, I felt compelled to work on it until completion. Something that gave me the urge and ability to ignore distractions.”

Cost 10,700 credits.

“So, adjusting what I know can be cheap, but learning something completely new is expensive. Alright, buy the first one, and add in a High-Yellow version with the same adjustments. That shouldn’t increase the cost much.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 900 credits. 1,045 credits remaining.

Information flooded my mind. As it did, I compared the two High-Yellow techniques. They were not too dissimilar, but they had differences I couldn’t understand. Yet another problem for later.

Cultivating with a High-Yellow filter was slow. Increasing purity by a percentage point caused an exponential increase in the time required for advancement.

In my current predicament, I needed to be fast. Rudy expected me to cultivate to Disciple 4 as quickly as possible with no filter. Of course, he also expected me to be completely clueless about cultivation, which should give me at least a little extra time before my delay would seem suspicious.

I tried to remember how long it took me the first time I cultivated here, but it was too long ago. I just had to take an educated guess. Spending a month to reach Disciple 4 seemed more than reasonable. I remembered my early lives where I died at that point after a month, so that’s how long I gave myself.

To save time, I did not cultivate the Peak-Yellow technique. I focused on learning and cultivating the new High-Yellow version of the cultivation technique. The changes in it were difficult enough to master in the short window of time I had been given.

Reaching Martial Disciple 2 was no problem for me at this point, and even with needing to learn the new technique, I was able to hit it in only two weeks. As the one-month deadline approached, however, I had still not even hit level 3. That was fine though, I had my backup.

I pulled a Basic Qi Gathering Pill from my storage space. I didn’t want to use anything more powerful because a pill that was too strong could introduce impurities into my cultivation base, but this pill had almost no toxins in it and its efficacy was higher than anything else I had ever made.

I was already at the edge of level 3, so the pill allowed me to break through that boundary with ease. After that, its effects lasted long enough to get me halfway to level 4, but not nearly long enough to allow me to complete the breakthrough. I could only do my best and hope that I was just seen as a slow learner.

Thinking about it, Rudy believing me to be untalented might not be all that bad.

It wasn’t until the two-month mark that I broke through Martial Disciple 4. That was slower than I had wanted, but my foundation was firmer than it had ever been. Rudy didn’t come to look for me even once during this time, so I had to believe that he didn’t care overly much about how long I took to advance.

When I did emerge, he immediately sent me away again to learn how to tend to all his herbs. I wasn’t sure why he bothered with this. Most of his herbs were only Rank 1. There were only three herbs that matter in Rank 1.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that thought. Rudy was wasting his time with so many worthless herbs.

Since I no longer needed to rush my cultivation, and as I already knew the information Rudy wanted me to memorize, I spent the next month studying the Peak-Yellow cultivation technique.

It was an order of magnitude more complex than the High-Yellow technique. The idea that a newly advanced cultivator could learn this without decades of practice seemed crazy to me. The control over qi to cultivate it properly would require a level of skill that was far beyond row 5 of the sect’s qi skill index cards. How could anyone learn this without decades of practice?

The answer popped into my head as soon as I asked the question. Affinity. If someone’s affinity were high enough, this technique would be a breeze. What made it hard was the level of qi control that was required to cultivate it properly. A high affinity would give you that control for free.

“System, how much would it cost to permanently raise my fire affinity to low eight-star?”

Permanent Low 8-star Fire Affinity. Cost 1,000 credits.

“A hundred times the price of a nine-star affinity? That seems like a bit much.”

Note: The price of this affinity is no longer discounted.

I had forgotten that my discount only applied to affinities up to peak nine-star. That was disappointing, but there was nothing to be done about it.

A thousand credits was a bit too much for now. There were other things I wanted to try, so it wasn’t the time to spend so much just yet.

I went back to practicing the cultivation technique. Even without relying on the benefits of a powerful affinity, I was slowly getting better. It would take time.

After a month had passed since last seeing him, I went to find Rudy again. He gave me the same test as in the past and instructed me to take care of his herbs. Then, he took me for the lesson on concocting Qi Gathering Powder.

His alchemy seemed… inept. He was only making powders, but his qi control looked very poor. I realized that Rudy was not, in fact, a very skilled alchemist. Before this, in my mind, he had still been an imposing figure. Now, his abilities seemed childish. Didn’t he say he had an eight-star affinity? Why was his control so poor?

He left me with the task of creating ten Qi Gathering Powders for him. This was supposed to take me weeks to accomplish, so I didn’t rush it. I was only given blue peonies to practice alchemy with, but that was what I wanted.

I came here because I wanted to spend a few years in isolation. However, I wouldn’t waste that time. The first important thing I wanted to do was figure out why I had never been able to make a Perfect pill. I had already created a Basic pill where, as far as I could tell, I had expertly eradicated every bit of toxic energy while perfectly preserving the herb’s medicinal energy, but the result was only a High-Purity pill with 99% efficacy.

I wanted to find out what I was missing. I wanted to figure it out myself, through my own efforts.

For me, the mission to create Qi Gathering Powder was a simple thing. It was something I didn’t even need to think about. However, I still needed to waste time before turning in my finished products.

My memory of my first life here was not great. I had no idea how long I should waste before handing over my powders or how many flowers I should destroy in the process, but I doubted it would make much difference. As long I was not too fast.

After turning the first ten flowers into powders, I began creating Basic pill after Basic pill. As soon as they were created, I analyzed them and then crushed them to dust. All of them were High-Purity. I was able to consistently make 99% effective High-Purity pills, but I never breached 100% or Perfect purity.

I had one idea for how I might do so, but there was a problem with it. In my soul, a fire now burned. It was possible I could use the spirit fire I obtained with my life to create Perfect pills. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to use it. During this period of time, nothing I did worked. There had to be a trick to using the fire seed, but I didn’t know what it could be.

I considered asking the System for information on how to use it, but I was here to learn on my own. I wanted to try to figure it out without simply relying on the System.

After two and a half months, I turned in my powders, Rudy left, and I entered true isolation.

This was what I had been waiting for. I now had all the time I needed to chase down Perfection. To be Perfect, I had to remove all of an herb’s toxins. Fine. I had removed all the toxins I could see. The only possible conclusion was that there were toxins I couldn’t see. That meant improving my qi vision, which meant improving my soul.

In the sect, I didn’t get a soul cultivation technique. Even if I had one, I wouldn’t dare risk using it. The potential for permanent harm was too great. Instead, I had been relying solely on exerting my soul over and over to build up its power. However, now that I had a few extra credits, I could start to look into my other options.

Based on my experience with regular cultivation techniques, I knew there was probably no getting around mental influences with soul cultivation techniques. Last time, the System suggested that if I had energy that surpassed the Heavenly Dao it would be possible to get a technique without side effects. Would I have to wait until then before cultivating my soul to not do permanent damage?

I had no basis for understanding the power of the Heavenly Dao, but I could damn well guess I wouldn’t be surpassing it anytime soon. Waiting for something that may never come seemed like the worst option in this situation.

Unlike with the fire seed, I knew that this was not something I would be able to figure out on my own. I had to rely on the System for information. Even then, I knew it was probably a losing cause, but I decided to ask. Better to look a fool than to make an assumption here.

“System, is there a way I can buy a soul cultivation technique without any side effects for a reasonable price? I want something that will only increase the strength of my soul. I don’t want it to do anything else to any other part of me. No messing with my mind.”

Processing… The cost of such a technique is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Then is there anything I can buy to strengthen my soul without side effects?”

Cost 10 credits.

Having to pay… I didn’t want to, but last time the information was worth it.

“Alright, go ahead and charge me.”

Purchase confirmed. 1,035 credits remaining.

Request is to strengthen your soul without it having any other impact on you. This contradiction is equal to that of a spear that can pierce any defense and a shield that can defend against any attack.

It is impossible to strengthen your soul without fundamentally changing who you are. You recently absorbed a spirit flame seed. This strengthened and purified your soul. This changed you. It changed you in a way that nearly everyone in this world would desire, but it was still a change.

So far, you have mostly strengthened your soul through exercising it. This still changes who you are, but the changes are haphazard and unfocused. It is like a parent raising a child. They try to teach them, but in the end, the child becomes their own person. In the end, parents don’t have any control over who they become.

Soul cultivation techniques focus the path of progression. It is like indoctrinating the child as it grows up. They forcibly control its direction of growth so the soul will grow in a regulated manner.

Either option may be considered beneficial based on the desired outcome. Soul cultivation is faster and has a predictable end-state. There are well-known paths that are easy to follow and will result in powerful souls.

Growth through exercise is slow, but it is unrestrained and can lead to new, unique situations. However, this comes with risks. In many cases, this path can lead to a soul significantly weaker than one that has been properly cultivated.

Credits expended, transaction complete.

I reframed the question. Did I want to choose a well-trodden path and walk down it knowingly, or did I want to recklessly blaze my own trail in the wilderness?

I chose to continue only using exercise.

My reasoning was clear. I needed to start strengthening my soul now, but I didn’t know who or what I wanted to be. I felt that the exercise option would allow me to grow into who I needed to be in the future instead of forcing me to grow into something I chose to be in the present.

Once I had more solid information about soul cultivation and could make a truly informed decision, I would revisit this decision, but for now, this was the right choice for me. Being slower meant that even if I did make a mistake, it wouldn’t be as catastrophic as it would be while following the faster path.

Exercise was slower, but I had nothing but time.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 26 – Life 51, Age 17, Martial Disciple Level 4

Secluded alone in Rudy’s workshop, I didn’t rush to improve my cultivation. There would be plenty of time for that in the future. First, I needed to work on my foundations.

Before anything else, I focused on improving my qi skills, including my qi vision. Without access to teachers or training aids, my progress was slow. Even after an entire year, I felt like I had barely improved at all, but that was fine. My days were rote. I didn’t need to make any big choices. I didn’t have to think. I could just exist.

After leaving Rudy’s house the first time, my life had become far too complicated, and it was good to be able to sit down and zone out while I worked.

Improving my qi skills was a way to improve both my alchemy and cultivation at the same time. This felt satisfying in a way that was hard to describe. Like I was fulfilling my true purpose in this world.

It was funny, in a way. I was doing nearly the exact same thing I had done the last time I lived in this building. The only difference was that last time it was forced on me. This time I chose this kind of life for myself.

My rate of improvement would make anyone else blush in shame, but I didn’t care. The constant daily exercise was strengthening me in a way that would be impossible for anyone without limitless time to do as they pleased.

When I was tending to the herbs one day, I couldn’t help but think about how wasteful the clan was with their resources. They were stockpiling so many useless herbs. Why bother? What was the point of storing so many herbs for Rank 1 pills when nearly all Rank 1 pills were completely useless?

Finally. Finally, I heard my own thoughts. I had that same thought several times in the past, but I had never been able to focus on it before.

“Rank 1 pills are useless…” I muttered in confusion as I tried to keep my thoughts from slipping away once more. “That doesn’t sound right… That can’t be right.”

Why did I think they were useless? Because I had been told that so many times in the sect. Everyone laughed at the idea of learning to make anything other than Qi Gathering Pills. But… why did I accept that so easily?

I thought back to the pill I had made during the preliminaries to join the outer sect. A Purifying Pill for water qi. The name didn’t tell me much, but I could guess the pill’s purpose easily enough. It was likely something that purified the qi of people who cultivated water qi. There was no way in hell that kind of thing would be considered useless. Why was I so convinced that it was?

I sat down in my room. I had to think. What was going on?

Then, I remembered. The effect of the sect’s cultivation technique. It made the user more susceptible to believing anything they heard.

I was stunned.

“That thing is insidious.” My voice was weak and trembling.

The mental control exerted by the Su Clan’s slavery technique was harsh and easy to notice. The moment I died and reset, I had been keenly aware that my actions in the previous life were unnatural and forced.

This was different. Even after knowing that I had been controlled by a technique, even after my rebirth, my memories and beliefs didn’t change. Even though I could think clearly now, if I didn’t consciously think about the situation, I still considered any Rank 1 pills other than Qi Gathering Pills useless, and only overwhelming evidence was able to shift these preconceived notions. What else did I believe just because someone said it while I was under the influence of that technique?

I began thinking back.

Was this why I had rushed so hard to become a Martial Master? Cao had told me that a cultivator’s qi stagnated as soon as they turned thirty and that I needed to ascend before then if I wanted any hope of being successful. I hadn’t once questioned her advice. But was it true?

Was absorbing that fire seed into my soul my choice? I needed it to become a Master Alchemist… right? It was something everyone would want. But… it was rash…

Near the end of that life, Bao kept talking about just living a peaceful life in the sect, and I felt a strong urge to join him. Was that from the technique?

Then, I remembered that the technique also enhanced one’s ‘sense of camaraderie.’ Was I even friends with Bao? I felt that I was, but where did that feeling come from? Was it real or was it just an illusion? How was I supposed to feel?

What kind of place was that? Everyone in the sect had been placed under such a powerful mental influence that significantly altered their behavior. How many of them even knew about it?

I felt a natural urge to completely abhor mental control of any kind, but I also had feelings of deep gratitude towards the sect, real or not.

“Okay, calm down. Let’s try to be objective. Feelings won’t help me here. I cannot trust my feelings.”

I had to talk through the situation and try to be objective.

“First, my actions are my own. I was made more suggestible, but I was still the one who chose to do what I did. I choose not to live a slow life. I chose to advance quickly. I might have been more prone to suggestions, but my personal desires were still a factor.”

I thought about everything I had seen while in the sect. Everyone was happy. Everyone had shelter, food, entertainment, and a job. There was no crime, no poverty, and no sickness. How many people in this world, even knowing the cost, would want to live there? Even back on my home world, there were countless people who would dream of living in such a place.

“Reframe the situation. I had been living in a city. Everything we bought was from the sect. Everything we made was sold to the sect. The sect provided all our housing, food, and luxuries. There was no contact with the outside world. We were encouraged not to even think about the outside. We were taught to love the sect and do our best for it.”

Looked at that way, it had been some weird hybrid of a company town and a cult.

Did that make it evil? Was it a place I should vilify? If I had the opportunity, would I tear it all down?

I could only sigh with indecision. The morality of the situation was too complicated.

I still believed the people I met there were good, but every cult would have some good people in it. Was the leadership good? Should they be lauded for providing a safe, prosperous place to live? Was deliberately using mental influences as a form of control enough to condemn them without another thought?

I didn’t know.

Until I could permanently change things with this world, it didn’t matter. I could put off making a final judgment on the morality of the sect and its leadership. I just needed to protect myself from their schemes.

For the time being, I just needed to double-check any assumptions I had made based on information I had learned in the sect. Not everything I had learned there would be wrong, but all of it was suspect.

An interesting place to start investigating these assumptions was with all the medicinal herbs that were currently available to me. In the sect, we had been encouraged not to learn about them. Doing so was possibly the best way to improve my alchemy skills.

With my new resolve to learn as much as I could about the various medicinal herbs in Rudy’s workshop, I entered the main hall and slowly examined each of them in qi vision. Something strange was immediately apparent. The medicinal energy of most plants was the familiar green, but in a few plants, the medicinal energy was blue, red, brown, or yellow. Why was that?

I picked up a crimson tiger lily. Its medicinal energy was a bright red color. An idea popped into my head, but it couldn’t be that simple, right?

I tried manipulating the energy in the herb like I would with fire qi.

I felt something. It wasn’t quite like qi, but I could move it, though just barely. I tried to separate the energy from the toxins, but the chaotic, toxic energy felt like tar that had been adhered to the medicinal power.

I replaced the lily and walked away. I wasn’t sure how much I might be able to directly manipulate that energy, but attempting to do so could destroy the herb. With so many lilies in that box, I doubted anyone would notice if one went missing, but it would be better to play it safe for the moment.

Using my fire affinity, I had been able to move the red-colored energy. It wasn’t fire qi, but it was some type of fire energy. It was fire medicinal energy?

I looked at one of the peonies used for making Qi Gathering Pills. The energy inside it was green. Was it wood medicinal energy?

I had spent the last year improving my soul, but I hadn’t made any progress in finding any more toxins in the flower’s energy. Why? Why couldn’t I see even a hint of discoloration in the green energy?

There was a possibility I had considered, but there was no way for me to act on it. The toxins were trapped inside the medicinal energy. I had destroyed all the toxins on the surface of the medicinal energy, but I had no way to access anything that might be stuck within the energy itself. Trying to do so would have just destroyed the herb’s efficacy.

I needed to be able to move the flower’s energy freely so that I could expose the last bits of toxin held within. That just wasn’t possible. Until now.

After giving the situation some serious thought, I made my decision.

“System, purchase a permanent low nine-star wood affinity.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 100 credits. 935 credits remaining.

New strength blossomed in my body. I felt more energetic, more alive.

I picked up a peony. Before, with the lily’s fire energy, I had been careful. I didn’t want to destroy it. I had no such compunctions about accidentally damaging a few peonies.

I tried to rip the energy apart with all the mental strength I could muster. Before, when I tried to move the fire energy, it felt like it had the viscosity of pitch. It stuck together and barely wanted to move. This wood energy felt closer to nearly set cement. I could shift it, but it resisted even the slightest movement.

I wanted to improve my wood affinity further but held off. Better to know the final results first.

I spent hours arduously combing through the medicinal energy. Every so often, I would find a tiny spot of toxin which I would ruthlessly destroy. Once I felt confident that I had found all the impurities I would, I spent another hour checking and double-checking my work.

Finally satisfied, I exerted my will and condensed the medicinal energy into a pill. It was the most exhausting Basic pill I had made since first starting to learn alchemy, but it was worth the result.

Perfect Basic Qi Gathering Pill, 59% medicinal efficacy. Value: 38 silver 50 copper.

“So, if I want to be the best alchemist possible, I need to have high affinities in all five elements. I might even need affinities with even more types of energy if they’re out there.”

I knew what I had to do.

“System, how much to permanently upgrade my water affinity to nine-star peak.”

1600 credits.

“Any discount for upgrading all five basic affinities to that level?”

No discounts available. Cost 6,300 credits.

“Is there some type of five-element qi affinity I can buy? One that will let me control all five elements.”

Information on Affinities. Cost 5 credits.

“You’re charging me? Fine, purchase it.”

Purchase confirmed. 930 credits remaining.

Five-element qi and its associated affinity exist, but it is a combination of every element. It is a unique qi type. Five-element affinity will not allow control of water qi.

This world does not possess any affinity that would assist in the control of all five independent basic elemental energies. Such an affinity cannot be purchased with credits. It would, at minimum, require currency earned from a death as an immortal who has transcended the Earthly Dao.

Credits expended, transaction complete.

That didn’t lead to anything for now, unfortunately.

So, 6,300 credits for peak nine-star affinities in all the elements. I might also need to add in another 5,000 to get everything to low eight-star. I was looking at needing a whopping 11,300 credits for affinities if I went down that path. I wasn’t sure how much a Martial Master Peak cultivation would net me, but I was guessing 11,000 since Martial Master had a total of eleven stages.

I needed credits for more than just affinities, though.

I began thinking through everything I needed to buy.

“System, how much for a mental library that can hold any books up to Rank 2?”

10,000 credits.

I might be able to get a discount on that by limiting what kind of information it could store, such as only Yellow-Rank, but the full cost wasn’t completely unbearable. It would be better to pay the full price upfront so that I could store a Peak-Heaven technique if I somehow managed to find one.

“How much for information on how to expand my storage space?”

3,750 credits.

“How much to learn the mental effects of the Rank 2 cultivation technique I learned in the sect?”

The effects are the same as those of the Rank 1 technique.

“No cost?”

This answer does not affect the flow of karma beyond what has already been paid for. There is no additional cost.

“Okay. Then, how much to change my Rank 2 cultivation technique to match the properties of the Rank 1 technique I purchased? Also, how much for a Peak-Yellow version of the Rank 2 technique with the same changes.”

Modified Mid-Yellow technique. Cost 10,000 credits.

Modified Peak-Yellow technique. Cost 120,000 credits.

The Peak-Yellow technique was not something I could easily afford before advancing to Martial Grandmaster, but if I were able to find and study a similar technique, I might be able to lower that price a bit.

Altering the Mid-Yellow Rank 2 technique might be worthwhile, but it might also be unnecessary. If my Rank 1 technique lacked the mental compulsions present in the Rank 2 version, I might not need to worry about them. It was worth checking before committing so much money.

Expanding my storage space, upgrading affinities, a mental technique library.

Those were my priorities. The total cost was 25,050 credits. Three lifetimes as a Martial Master Peak. That… It wasn’t too terrible a price to pay.

Returning to Rudy’s workshop, even with the horrible memories of how that life ended… It… It almost felt like a home, like a place I was meant to be. I had lived there for nearly eight decades. Spending a few more to learn and experiment with alchemy wouldn’t be so bad.

A long time ago, the System had given me the price I would need to pay to learn all the knowledge of a Disciple Alchemist. It was ten million credits, a truly mind-boggling amount. There was no world in which what I knew would cost even a fraction of that price. Even if I combined the potential knowledge of everything I had speculated about alchemy, I doubted it could rise to that kind of price.

There were more secrets to being a true, complete Disciple Alchemist than I knew. I made it my mission to see if I could uncover at least a few of them without the System’s assistance.

I had a room stocked full of medicinal ingredients that I had never even considered trying to work with before. If I began experimenting with them, would anyone notice? People rarely came here, and Rudy would be gone for decades. As long as I made decent pills for them on a consistent basis, would anyone question me?

It would be simpler to find a teacher and learn recipes and techniques from them, but I had a real desire to experiment, to see what was possible without someone, or the System, guiding my hand.

I originally came here to isolate myself for only a relatively short period of time. This would be committing myself to something greater. I would seclude myself for decades to see what limits I could push.

My only focus would be on improving my skills in alchemy and cultivation. That was all that would matter.

“System, permanently upgrade my wood affinity to high nine-star.”

Purchase confirmed. 180 credits remaining.

Qi skills, qi vision, and soul strength. Through them, cultivation and alchemy. All would be upgraded.

I would plan for three lives in seclusion, but I would not leave until I hit the limit of what I could achieve on my own.

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 27 – Lives 51 to 57

My seclusion lasted longer than I had planned.

Over the course of several lives, I earned a total of 48,000 credits and spent 25,350. A small number of credits was used to hide my affinities each go-round, but the bulk had been spent on permanently upgrading my affinities for all five basic elements to low eight-star, creating a Rank 2 mental bookshelf, and learning how to expand my storage space.

The last one was where a new problem arose.

To expand my storage space on my own, I would need to have the seed of a spatial spirit fire in my soul. However, a soul could only house a single fire seed. I looked into purchasing the ability to store two seeds in my soul but was only told ‘The cost of such an ability is not possible to calculate at this time.’

I could discard the Cold Mountain Fire seed, but that wasn’t going to happen unless absolutely necessary. The option I chose to pursue was to buy an expansion to my storage space. With it, I would be able to store my current seed when I absorbed the new one. Once I started expanding my storage space even further, I would be able to store countless fire seeds and switch them out as I desired.

First, though, I had to pay the price of this initial expansion. I needed 1,000 cubic centimeters of space to store the seed. The cost for that was another 29,760 credits.

So, I lived life after life in Rudy’s workshop as I practiced my skills in solitude, and my alchemy skills advanced far beyond what I had initially expected.

I had practically unlimited access to the Rank 1 herbs that Rudy kept in stock. At first, I was careful about using anything other than peonies, but no one ever questioned me about their disappearance, so I became bolder.

There was a servant who ensured all the herbs remained fully stocked, and since the herbs had a natural shelf life, they routinely had to be thrown out for being too old. I just accelerated that process.

Additionally, while the building was typically empty, save for me, there were others who visited it occasionally. I strictly adhered to Rudy’s ‘stay out of sight’ policy, so I never saw who was coming and going from the place, but I didn’t particularly care who they were. All that mattered to me was that their presence helped to hide my use of the workshop’s herbs.

During this time, I performed all kinds of experiments with the herbs available to me, and an odd pattern began to emerge. Nearly all the pills I was able to successfully concoct registered as poisons. Aside from Qi Gathering Pills, basic healing pills, and a couple of other simple ill varieties, everything I was able to concoct was some kind of poison.

I would make a pill and then use my pill analysis ability, which I had upgraded for 1,000 credits, to see what I had made. I wasn’t paying attention to recipes. I was focused on understanding medicinal energy and how the combinations of different energies would affect the body. No matter how I tried to alter my concoction process, nearly every herb in the workshop resulted in something deadly.

Six lifetimes passed this way. Over 500 years.

Intellectually, I knew I spent several lifetimes secluded away, but I didn’t completely feel the passage of time. With each reset, my memories were compartmentalized. Every day in seclusion was nearly the exact same, and after returning to the start, if I didn’t focus on the details, it felt like a life of eighty years or so took only a few days.

Additionally, the longer I spent in the workshop, the more content I grew with that kind of life. It was where I was supposed to be. My skills were growing. I was becoming a better cultivator and a better alchemist. I was doing everything I needed to do.

As time passed, my soul grew and strengthened significantly. This resulted in dramatic improvements to my qi control, and my qi vision improved to the point that I could see all the toxins hidden within Rank 1 herbs with only a glance.

At the end of my seclusion, I could create a wide variety of Perfect Rank 1 pills with 100% efficacy. While the vast majority of these pills were different varieties of poisons, I could only chalk that up being a result of the peculiar selection of herbs that were available to me.

With regard to alchemy, there was only a single blemish that kept me from being completely satisfied. I could never figure out how to use the spirit fire seed correctly. Rudy’s workshop contained Rank 2 herbs, but without a spirit fire, I had been unable to do anything with them. I had tried many times, but it always ended in complete failure. To progress any further, I would need to find a teacher to guide me.

I had purchased everything I wanted except the expanded storage space. I had 22,830 credits on hand, and this death should finally bring me enough.

After I died, I would have to end my seclusion and return to the world. If I wanted to make any further progress in cultivation or alchemy, I would have to leave this small workshop behind and venture out once more.

However, while I was excited to continue my progress, there was a mystery I wanted to solve before I died.

My first life after beginning my seclusion had come to an unexpected end. I went to sleep, and the next thing I knew, I woke up in my tiny house in the Su Clan. I was, needless to say, confused.

I had died, but how? It only took me a few moments to recall an important detail.

Like in my first life in the workshop, roughly eighty years into my seclusion, Rudy had returned with two companions. As a Martial Master, my body hadn’t aged nearly so far, and I was able to hide myself before they saw me. I didn’t know what happened, but I had a good guess that it was related to them.

At that point, I had a choice to make. Should I do anything different?

I didn’t like the idea of dying, and I had no desire to seek out death, but that had been a long life. I had lived to be over ninety years old. After turning forty, improvements in my cultivation base had slowed, and after sixty, I had barely made any improvements at all.

While it came later in life than Cao had said, I had to believe that this was the calcification she had warned me about. Possibly, it was delayed because I had ascended to Martial Master.

I had cultivated slowly and tried to form my meridians as well as I could, but I knew I was making mistakes that limited my potential for further advancement. By the time I was sixty, I was only a Martial Master 3, and after that, I never advanced again.

Possibly, I should have found a quick and painless way to bring my life to a close at that point, but I didn’t want to seek my death too soon. So, since my cultivation was stalled, I threw myself into practicing alchemy with everything I had.

My death solved my cultivation problem and allowed me to begin anew and work toward creating a more perfect, more solid foundation.

So, during my second life in seclusion, I had to decide. Should I do anything different to try and survive longer?

After considering my options, I decided to do nothing different. I would wait until Rudy hatched his plans, and then I would go to sleep and wake up in a new life. This wasn’t suicide. It was a time limit. At least, that’s what I told myself.

The second life passed, and I made it to Martial Master 5 before getting stuck once more. I should have gone to find a teacher. I could have tried finding help. It would have been a good idea to end my seclusion right then. But my alchemy had started advancing in unexpected ways.

I decided to stick it out and try to make progress on my own. In my third life, I finally reached Martial Master 10, but I was unable to create the final meridian needed to become a Peak Master. Even after several more lives, I was never able to form that final meridian. For four lifetimes, I reached Martial Master 10, but I couldn’t take the final step.

In my seventh life of this secluded cultivation, I used every ounce of focus I could muster to complete each meridian as perfectly as I possibly could. I needed them to be pristine, but I also needed to complete them before I was too old and my cultivation base stagnated and calcified once more.

At thirty-nine I formed my eleventh meridian.

At forty, my cultivation stagnated, but I didn’t let that stop me.

At forty-eight, I formed my twelfth and final meridian, advancing to Martial Master Peak for the very first time.

This advancement assured me that once I died, I would have all the credits I needed. I wouldn’t need to spend any more time in seclusion.

That being the case, I wanted to use my death to finally understand why I had kept dying in my sleep. I had a pretty good idea of who was to blame, but I had never once woken up to see them in the act.

I knew which night I always died, so when it was time, I did not go to sleep.

I exited the workshop and huddled in a far corner of the courtyard. My death had always been sudden, so something dramatic must have happened to the building I was in. Maybe I should have gotten farther away, but I wanted to see what had killed me so many times. If I left the courtyard, that wouldn’t have been possible.

Deep in the night, with near-absolute darkness around me, I began to hear screams. They were muffled, fuzzy things. Distance, walls, and possibly something else blocked the sounds, but they were still just barely discernible as screams.

Not long after the screaming started, the alchemy building where I had spent so many years suddenly exploded. It didn’t catch fire and slowly burn. It didn’t go up in a blaze of flames. It was as if the entire building was built on a bedrock of C4.

Shrapnel blasted in every direction. Huddled in a distant corner of the courtyard, I was safe from most of the blast, but some small bits of wood and debris still struck me.

As a Martial Master, I had found that my body generated a weak energy field that could deflect small projectiles. It wasn’t overly impressive, but it meant that I didn’t need to fear the occasional explosion while working with volatile herbs.

The debris from the workshop’s explosion flew at speeds fast enough to bruise me, but this energy shield ensured that nothing was too dangerous to me.

Once I regained my composure, I looked around the courtyard. It was a hell of burning wood and plants, but I didn’t see any people. No corpses. It wasn’t too much of a surprise since I was usually left alone in the building, but I still felt like someone had simply forgotten to evacuate me.

Why did they destroy my home? I wanted… I needed to understand what was happening.

At this point, I could feel my cultivation technique influencing me. As my soul grew, I was able to feel my own impulses separate from those of the technique more clearly. The feelings of my soul were a mix of fear, anger, and aggression. My technique caused the thoughts of my body to be calm and deliberate. This left my mind in a position where I could still think with a clear head. I was still afraid, but the edge was taken off, and the strongest feeling that remained was curiosity.

I wanted to leave the courtyard to explore and see what was happening.

After walking over to the courtyard’s large red wooden doors, I gripped one of the bronze handles and pulled with all my strength. The only result of this was the handle snapping in two. Either the door was sealed, or the explosion had damaged the doorframe and trapped me inside.

Fortunately, I was a cultivator. A mere wooden door shouldn’t be able to stop me from going wherever I wanted to go.

Unfortunately, I had never learned to use my new strength in such a way.

Taking a fighting stance, I centered myself and punched one of the doors with all the strength of my body.

The door didn’t budge, and the bones in my hand nearly shattered.

I wanted to scream. That wasn’t the way. Cultivating qi didn’t improve my body or make me physically stronger. It gave me access to a new type of energy. I needed to use qi to bust through this door, not brawn.

Resetting myself, I resumed my fighting stance and threw out another punch. This time, it was slow and methodical. It looked more like a practice punch than anything else. However, I channeled all the energy I could into my knuckles.

The doors burst open with so much energy they broke apart and splinters flew everywhere.

I took a deep breath and returned my focus to searching for clues about what was happening.

The atmosphere outside of the courtyard was eerie. Before, I had heard screaming, but all that was left was quiescence. I could only hear the remains of the fires crackling in the courtyard I had just left.

I started walking in the direction I believed the screams had come from.

Walking through the streets at night was unnerving. The building complex consisted of several courtyards all separated off by large imposing walls, and the only light available was that of fires reflected down by the clouds overhead.

As I walked, the air turned unnaturally chilly. It had been a long time since I noticed any real change in temperature. I had been locked away in the alchemy building for centuries, and even without any type of heating or cooling, the temperature had never shifted with the seasons. This was the first time in this world that I had ever felt cold.

The cobblestones under my feet began to crackle with each step I took. Looking down, I saw tiny ice shards embedded in the cracks between them.

After turning a corner, I saw several large bluish lumps. They had been bodies. Somehow, they had been flash-frozen and covered in a thick layer of ice. I couldn’t do anything for them. I could only investigate to learn how it had happened.

Ahead, I heard the sounds of fighting. I knew that was where I would find what I was looking for, so I ran forward.

The red walls of the complex opened up into a large garden. Plants and trees had been torn from the ground and lay scattered about haphazardly. A thick layer of frost covered most of the ground.

In the middle of the garden, two people fought. One was wearing robes in the colors of the Su Clan while the other was wearing robes similar to those of members of the Twin Mountains Sect.

Each time a punch or kick connected, I felt a blast of energy push me backward. When I looked at the place in qi vision, I was met with a haze of chaotic lines of different energies spreading out in every direction. As they fought, the two men were releasing qi at an astounding rate.

I didn’t know anything about fighting as a cultivator, but my street fighting knowledge was decent. I could tell that the man in sect robes was trying to disengage, but the clan member wasn’t allowing it. Finally, the man from the Su Clan made a fatal mistake. He overextended and allowed the sect warrior time to back away.

After that, I witnessed what must have happened to the two people I had seen earlier. Ice quickly gathered around the feet of the man from the clan. After that, his movement was hampered. The more he slowed, the faster the ice gathered. When he could no longer move, the sect fighter relaxed and slumped in exhaustion.

I wanted to know who attacked the clan. I walked toward the invader. I was walking to my death, but at that moment, I didn’t think about it. My curiosity drove me onward.

As I walked, I tried to understand the reasons for my actions. I could feel that the cultivation technique was not affecting my curiosity. I had come by that naturally.

Instead, it was reducing my aggression and fear while increasing my positive feelings for this person. I was being urged to be friendly with him. I had more than sufficient soul strength to resist these urges, but I didn’t. I allowed it to happen.

The man had noticed me long ago, but he didn’t seem to consider me any sort of threat. With the amount of qi he had been blasting out earlier, he had to be a Martial Grandmaster, so that was understandable.

He let me approach.

When I was close enough to see his face, I was shocked.

“TianLei?”

This was the man I had met when I was entering the sect. He was also the one I had seen with Rudy so long ago.

“Lei?” The man burst out with laughter. “Does this look like lightning to you? I will give you a gift. I will let you experience the power of TianBing.”

‘TianBing’ didn’t even have to approach me. Ice slowly formed around me, starting at my feet.

Ice coated my legs. I was trapped and couldn’t move. Ice covered my chest. It was nearly impossible to pull in a breath. Ice encased my head. I couldn’t breathe.

When suffocated, a normal human can remain conscious for maybe a minute or two. As it turns out, with the assistance of qi, cultivators can survive a bit longer. I remained in that state, completely conscious but unable to move or breathe, for over ten minutes before I succumbed.

When I finally perished, my only wish was to never see ‘TianBing’ again.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Master Peak – 20,000 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 42,830

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 28 – Life 58, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

As I returned to life, the horror of my final moment lingered in my thoughts. That life had lasted nearly eighty years, but all my memories from it were overshadowed by the terror of suffocating to death while being entombed in ice.

The memory compression that came with a rebirth helped. It gave me separation from the trauma. But still, a lingering fear tainted all my memories from that life. I retained everything I learned, but whenever I thought about how I learned it, I felt a chill deep within my bones.

“Focus on the future, not the past.”

I ran my hands through my hair to drive away the memories. Then, I turned my attention to moving forward.

“System, I want to expand my storage space to be a cube with a length, width, and height of ten centimeters.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 29,760. 13,070 credits remaining.

I didn’t feel any changes, but when I looked into the storage space, it had grown noticeably. This would, at minimum, allow me to better prepare at the end of each life.

With all my essentials taken care of, I still had a large bounty of points to spend, so I considered a few other purchase options. I thought about asking where to find a spatial spirit fire seed or where I might be able to get powerful cultivation techniques, but I decided not to. I wanted to look for these on my own. If I didn’t make any progress, I could always buy the information later.

There was one thing I was interested in looking into though. A long time ago I had purchased an ability that would let me identify pills. The original ability was ‘limited’ and could only identify a few basic types of pills, so during my seclusion, I upgraded it to expand its capabilities, but it still only applied to Rank 1 pills. Having even just a limited ability to identify high-Rank pills might come in handy.

And if I could buy an ability to identify pills, I should also be able to buy a technique to identify other things.

“System, how much would it cost to buy a limited ability to identify cultivation techniques up to Rank 3?”

Cost 500,000 credits.

“And the cost if it only works on techniques up to Rank 2?”

5,000 credits.

“So, Rank 2 costs the credits earned from Master 5, and the cost of Rank 3 is almost certainly the credits earned from Grandmaster 5. A trend that’s likely to continue. Unfortunately, it seems getting Rank 3 is off the table until after I’ve reached Grandmaster a few times.”

I thought about other possible purchases.

“System, how much to expand my pill appraisal to Rank 2 as a limited ability?”

1,000 credits.

The value of Martial Master 1.

I considered buying one or both of these abilities, but they wouldn’t benefit me immediately, and I could just save some credits to buy them in the future if I felt they were needed. I decided to hold onto my credits in case something more important came up.

Purchases complete, it was time to move forward.

Moving forward was easier said than done.

I wasn’t sure what I should do. I could return to the sect, attempt to join the Blue Wind Pavilion, or strike out on my own. I decided to lay out potential goals to pursue to help me focus.

1. Acquire a Profound Rank 1 or better cultivation technique

2. Acquire a Peak-Yellow Rank 2 or better cultivation technique

3. Acquire a Rank 3 cultivation technique

4. Acquire a spatial spirit fire seed

5. Learn how to use the spirit fire seed I already had

6. Learn how to make Rank 2 pills

7. Look into multi-element cultivation techniques

8. Learn more about the world around me

9. Find out more about the fight at the Su Clan

I considered these goals and how to best accomplish them. Heading off to explore on my own had some appeal, but it wasn’t for me. Trudging through the wilderness also wasn’t likely to help me complete any of these goals.

So, Blue Wind Pavilion or Twin Mountains Sect.

The Pavilion felt like it was the better choice, and I had to go there first anyway, so I decided to play it by ear. I would do what felt right in the moment.

“System, send me to Dragon Gate City.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 30 credits. 13,040 credits remaining.

I considered advancing a few stages before heading to the Blue Wind Pavilion, but part of the reason WuJing had valued me was my ability to do high-quality alchemy without having cultivated. I had no idea what his level of cultivation was, but I could guess that not even a Martial Disciple Peak would impress him much. Performing alchemy with no cultivation base had, so that was what I needed to do once more.

With an understanding of the Pavilion’s unwritten rules of conduct that I had lacked during my first visit, I acted like the sophisticated gentleman that I was and headed directly for the pauper’s entrance. I didn’t see any need for a repeat of the humiliation I had endured last time.

Upon entering, I was greeted by a young woman in heavy makeup whose voice showed how little she cared about me.

“Hello, my name is Fan BingQing, can I help you?”

It wasn’t Mei, but she wore the same light-blue qipao dress uniform as the other women I had seen working in the Pavilion. As a massive emporium with dozens of workers, running into someone new wasn’t much of a surprise, but the difference in reception was.

Still, I was here for a purpose. The treatment I received wasn’t overly important.

I put a hand into my robes, pretending to grab something, and then reached into my storage space and pulled out a Qi Gathering Pill.

I smiled at the attendant. “I want to sell a pill.”

It was the only pill I had, and it wasn’t in a proper bottle because I hadn’t had a chance to make pills since purchasing the expanded space. This was a pill from my last life that I had kept in my old storage sheath. I wasn’t willing to show the sheath off, so I had to pretend I had simply been keeping the pill in a pocket without any protection.

I hadn’t thought too much about the pill when I had stored it away, but after handing it over, I suddenly remembered that it was one of my Perfect Basic Qi Gathering Pills with 100% efficacy. I didn’t know how common such a pill would be, but I had never heard of anyone else making one. Showing it off might not have been the right move.

The woman grabbed it from my hand and gave it a quick look.

Her expression froze, but only briefly.

She looked at me with narrowed eyes and then back at the pill in her hand. After several moments of deep thought, she snorted.

“I’ll give you 10 silver for it.”

“10? That’s less than what I could get for a High-Purity pill.” I wasn’t sure what the value of a Perfect pill was, but it had to be worth more. The Pavilion sold High-Purity Basic Qi Gathering Pills for 20 silver, and in my last life, they were paying me 14 for them. Even if a Perfect pill only sold for 30 silver, 10 was a low-ball offer.

“You haven’t been storing it in a pill bottle, and I have no idea how much efficacy it’s lost. These pills aren’t so rare that I’m willing to overpay for questionable goods. If you insist, I can get an appraiser down here. I’ll go up to 12 silver, but that’s the limit.”

“Alright, fine. I’ll take 12.” I sighed in disappointment, but quickly put it out of my mind. The price didn’t matter much. I was just selling the pill for starting capital and to get my foot in the door. My current alchemy skills were equivalent to printing money, so I didn’t need to dicker back and forth over a few extra silver.

“Please sell me two blue peonies and an alchemy room for an hour.”

“What?” She gave me a sharp look. “Are you an alchemist?”

“Yes, I made that pill. I can show you if you want.”

I could practically see the gears turning in her head. “Alright… let’s go there then.”

The walk was short. I took the flowers and quickly made them into two new Perfect pills. I had already shown my hand, so I decided to make it as strong as I could for the meeting ahead.

As I handed her the pills, I made my play. “I’d like to meet with your boss, Chen WuJing.”

She took them and stared at them for a long moment.

“Okay, I can arrange that. Come with me.”

She led me to a room with only a couple of old chairs inside. It was small and dusty. The walls were stark gray bricks with no windows or any sign of decoration. The room felt like a storage closet.

“Please wait here for a bit. Someone will come to find you when Manager Chen is available.”

Saying this, she closed the door and left me in the room alone.

I generally considered myself a good-natured person. I wasn’t going to criticize a low-level employee for doing her job, even if she was a bit rude. I don’t know, maybe she had a bad day. It’s fine. But being stuck in what was little more than a prison cell for more than an hour? That got to me.

Just as I was contemplating storming off, Fan BingQing finally returned.

“It has been—” I started to complain, but she cut me off.

“The manager can see you now.” Her voice remained indifferent, and she turned around and walked away without giving me another glance.

Swallowing my irritation, I stood and followed after her. This girl didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if she was a little rude to me. All that mattered was how her boss acted.

When we arrived at WuJing’s office, I expected her to simply walk straight in like Mei had. Instead, she knocked politely and waited. It took nearly a minute for WuJing’s voice to loudly command us to “Enter.” Without even glancing at me, Fan BingQing quickly opened the door and slipped inside.

I walked into the same richly appointed office I had been in before. Fan BingQing stood off to the side, and Chen WuJing sat behind his desk reviewing a stack of documents. After a brief pause, he set them down and looked up at me.

His eyes instantly narrowed. They shot to Fan BingQing before quickly returning to rest on me.

After only a brief pause, WuJing jumped to his feet, cupped his hands in a martial arts salute, and gave me a slight bow.

“Hello, welcome to the Blue Wind Pavilion. I am Chen WuJing, Manager Chen. How may I address you?”

“Su Fang.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised by how different his behavior was from the last time we met.

“Ah, so it’s Alchemist Su. I have long heard your well-known name. I apologize for not greeting you from afar.”

At this moment, the only person more stunned by WuJing’s change in demeanor than me was Fan BingQing.

“Manager Chen—”

WuJing cut her off before she could say something wrong. “Qing’er, prepare some tea for our guest.”

“Yes, Manager Chen.”

She departed, and WuJing’s attention returned to me.

“Alchemist Su, how may this one help you today?”

Originally, I was split on what to do in this life. Join the Pavilion or return to the sect. This interaction though… it was all wrong. WuJing’s behavior made me more than a little uncomfortable.

If Mei came, her ability might help her mend things, but it would only further demonstrate how much of WuJing’s behavior was an act. I could look at joining the Blue Wind Pavilion again in the future, but for this life, it didn’t feel like it could be my home.

“Manager Chen, I was hoping you could tell me what you know about the Twin Mountains Sect.”

“Of course, Alchemist Su, I would be more than happy to share what little knowledge I have with you. May I ask what business you have there? I do not wish to pry into your secrets, but knowing this may help me understand what information would be of value to you.”

“It’s no problem. As you may have guessed from the pills I sold to the attendant, I received a blessing that promises to be of great help in learning the secrets of alchemy. I wish to further my studies, and I have heard the sect may be a good place to do so, but I know little of it.”

WuJing looked at a pill bottle that was sitting on the corner of his desk. “Yes, a Perfect Basic Qi Gathering Pill. Very impressive for one so young. If you wish, a position in the Pavilion could be opened for you, but the Twin Mountains Sect is also a fine choice.”

“Is that so? Would you recommend it?”

“To someone at your level? Yes. It is likely the best place to learn alchemy in all the Wastes.”

“Do you know about their cultivation technique? I have heard some things, and they’ve made me concerned.”

“Yes, I know of it.” His tone shifted, and he spoke slower and more deliberately. “It is not my place to share their secrets, but I can assure you that you have nothing to worry about. The technique I believe you are referring to is given only to the less skilled disciples.”

“Oh? And would you still recommend the sect to someone like that?

“Absolutely, even more strongly. The Twin Mountains Sect provides a home for alchemists of middling ability. That place isn’t for you. It isn’t for anyone with true ability, but for those who lack the skills to advance further, it is what they need. For someone of your ability, however, they have more… advanced paths one can take.”

“You are so convinced of my ability after seeing only a few pills?”

“I know what it means to make a Perfect pill, as would anyone trained in alchemy. The elders will fight over you if you go there, but you should be careful who you choose to ally with. Make no mistake, the sect may seem peaceful, but as with any organization, the waters run deep.”

“And you have a suggestion for me?”

“Elder Mu.” His response was immediate and resolute. “I believe you will do well with his guidance.”

WuJing seemed very conflicted about what to say on the topic, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t know if he should. However, I already knew that he was a great actor, so I couldn’t be sure what was real and what wasn’t.

“You are a new Martial Disciple, right? You understand that after Disciple is Martial Master and then Martial Grandmaster?”

I nodded.

“Do you know about the realm above Martial Grandmaster?”

“No.”

“Above Grandmaster is Martial Lord. The ascension to Lord is a bit different from those before it. It’s more complicated. For the purposes of our conversation, though, the important fact is that it is impossible to become a Lord while within the Wastes. It is equally impossible for Lords to enter the Wastes. All Grandmasters living in the Wastes, including myself and Elder Mu, are looking for an opportunity to leave so that we may one day ascend.”

“And you believe that I can somehow help Elder Mu ascend?”

“Yes. The Twin Mountains Sect is an outpost of a far stronger sect in the outside world. With your abilities, I would expect you to be able to quickly climb up the rungs of the Twin Mountains Sect and join their patron sect as a core disciple. As your master and teacher, Elder Mu will benefit from your achievements. If you do well enough, he will gain an opportunity to ascend to Lord.”

He looked at me meaningfully.

“That is why the elders will fight for you, and that is why Mu will want you. The reason I think you will want Mu is because he is aloof from the sect’s politics. His only desire is to advance. Most of the other elders are too worried about the sect’s internal affairs and have lost the hunger needed to push forward.”

The benefits WuJing would receive from such an arrangement were left unsaid, but I knew they would exist.

“How should I get in contact with Elder Mu?”

“That may be difficult. I cannot contact him directly, so you will have to rely on yourself to do so. You can, of course, make a public display of your abilities. If you openly craft a few Perfect pills, you will certainly draw his attention, but if you do so, you may lose the opportunity to choose which master you follow. The best path is to find a deacon who reports to him. All deacons in the sect are subordinates of one of the elders. As long as you can find one of his deacons, I trust you will be able to catch the elder’s attention.”

After a few more pleasantries, I departed. Originally, I had planned to ask for information on some of my previously listed goals, but I didn’t. Asking for techniques and fire seeds here didn’t feel right. WuJing had sent me to learn from someone else. I would see what Elder Mu had to offer.

Should I completely trust WuJing? No, but I always felt he was playing straight with me. His personality shift made clear just how much of his behavior was an act, but even then, it didn’t feel dishonest. If he wanted, he could easily kidnap me and force me to work for him. Instead, he offered guidance.

WuJing had a powerful social blessing and was skilled enough to use it properly. He may or may not be a nice guy, I don’t know, but he knew how to do business. Screwing over someone caught in a time loop would definitely be bad for business.

Of course, he had no way of knowing about said time loop, but his blessing gave him more than enough information to be cautious.

I would follow his advice and meet Elder Mu. It would be a good test of how far I could trust WuJing’s judgment. If everything worked out, I would be more than happy to work with him again in future lives.

I just needed to meet with Mei next time so that she could give him information about me first.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 29 – Life 58, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 5

Before leaving the Pavilion, I spent several days preparing for the journey ahead.

First, I advanced my cultivation to Martial Disciple 5. This was a calculated decision. Upon entering the sect, I wanted to draw as little attention as possible. A cultivation base of Disciple 5 was neither too high nor too low to expect from an alchemist looking to join the Twin Mountains Sect.

Second, my storage space was a cube ten centimeters to a side, a little bigger than the size of an adult fist. That didn’t give me enough room to store everything I might have liked, but it would allow me to carry a few essentials.

Mostly, I packed it with several small bottles of pills. These included Basic, Improved, and Superior Qi Gathering Pills, a few healing pills for different types of injuries, some energy recovery pills, and a few of the deadlier poison pills I had managed to concoct. The remaining space was barely enough to slip in a dozen or so gold and silver coins just in case they were needed.

As I was heading out of the Pavilion to begin my journey, Fan BingQing handed me a letter. She said that WuJing had written it for Elder Mu. If I decided to meet with the elder, then I should give him this letter.

With all my business in the Pavilion completed, it was time to head back to the Twin Mountains Sect. However, this time I paid for a private carriage.

The entrance to the sect was just as I remembered it. White cobblestones covered the ground, two paifang arches stood as the entrances to the two paths of the sect, and an ancient sect elder sat upon a dais. Oh, and the place was packed with hopeful young men and women looking to join the sect.

As I waited for the proceedings to begin, I studied the elder in front of me. WuJing had indicated that there was a high degree of factionalism inside the sect, and I needed to try to understand it. I thought it unlikely that symbols of one’s faction would be worn openly since that would indicate serious rifts within the harmony of the sect, but I kept an eye open for such overt displays just in case.

The elder wore a dark gray-blue hanfu robe. It was the same color and had a similar cut to those worn by the sect deacons I had seen. However, it was adorned with delicate gold embroidery that I hadn’t noticed before. Unfortunately, I wasn’t close enough to make out the designs. I could only see light marks across his chest and thick bands at his wrists, collar, and hem.

The other thing that set his robe apart was its precise cut. His robe had thick cuffs and a peaked collar. The typical robe I had seen in the sect lay flat in these places. This cut gave him a more militaristic vibe. I had only seen one other person wearing a robe like this. It was the same style as what TianLei — TianBing? — was wearing when he attacked the Su Clan, though his robes were a paler blue.

My musings on the elder’s wardrobe were cut off by a shout to begin the testing. It was time for me to make a choice. I could do exactly as I had done last time. Wait for the second round of exams. Be the seventh person to turn in my pills. And then, if everything worked out correctly, I would again be put in a room with Bao. I could have done that, but I didn’t. I did not want to reopen that friendship just yet. Maybe in another life. In this one, I was going to advance to become an outer sect disciple as swiftly as possible.

I moved to be one of the first participants to enter the alchemy gate. Last time, I was careful so as not to be caught up in a brawl of sect hopefuls trying to force their way inside. Since that had only occurred in front of the fighter’s gate, where an immense lightning strike had severely injured several people, I didn’t need to worry.

Just as I began moving to the front of the crowd to enter the gate, a firestorm exploded in the area around the fighters’ gate. I had been ready for a commotion, so I took the opportunity to cross the boundary into my own archway. Only later did I wonder about why it had been fire and not lightning.

The setup for the exam was the same as last time. Everyone was given ten peonies, and points would be awarded for each pill successfully produced.

This was the place of my second big decision. Thinking of everything WuJing had told me, I could guess that one of the perks of being the overseer for this exam was the ability to find and pluck promising talents from those attempting to join the sect. If I impressed the elder in charge, I might swiftly be inducted into his faction. The problem was that I didn’t know who the elder was or anything about the faction he represented.

So, I decided to pass on this opportunity. I created two simple Mid-Purity pills and submitted them while saving the additional flowers for later. This result would be considered decent, but it wasn’t something that would catch anyone’s eye. I would do as WuJing suggested and find Elder Mu, hopefully in a way that wouldn’t attract anyone else’s attention.

As I went to hand in my pills, I took a moment to inspect the elder. His hanfu was the same color as the previous elder’s, dark gray-blue with gold embroidery, but it had the flat cuffs and collar that I was more used to. The delicate golden lines on his chest were too far away for me to make out, but I could see that the thick lines around the cuffs and hem were made up of artistically entwined snakes.

Making a mental note of the differences, I turned in my pills and headed into the sect.

After entering the sect, I was brought to my room and introduced to my new roommate, but I declined the tour and meal. I was not willing to form a connection here during this life.

I wasn’t sure how much attention would be paid to new recruits by the people in power, but I didn’t want to stand out too much. I needed to get Elder Mu’s attention while ideally avoiding that of the other elders. WuJing had warned about the waters of the sect running deep.

To that end, I should have acted normally and had dinner with my new roommate. I just… couldn’t.

Instead, I spent my first days exploring the sect on my own. I had lived in this city for over a decade, but I had never really studied the place. I had just treated it as any regular city where everyone was a random stranger. I never even considered that factions might have been secretly plotting against each other in the dark.

What struck me even more deeply was when I opened my eyes to all the places in the sect I had previously ignored. I had treated the Provisions Hall I went to as theProvisions Hall, like it was only one. But this was a city of nearly a hundred thousand people. Of course there would be more than a single Provisions Hall. There were multiples of every type of building, each serving a different group of apartment buildings.

The city was set up in something close to a hexagonal grid. In each section, there was a Provisions Hall, Technique Hall, and Alchemy Workshop. These core buildings were then surrounded by three or four blocks of apartment buildings. While my new apartment was in a different block than last time, it was still in the same section of the grid.

To get a feel for the differences between these sections, I explored the public buildings in each of them. The deacons and servant disciples all acted similarly. They were always friendly and happy to help, and I couldn’t find anything about the way they behaved that might suggest factional differences.

These public buildings were mainly run by servant disciples with a couple of deacons acting as managers. The deacons wore robes of the same gray-blue the elders did but without the golden embellishments. The servant disciples wore only simple pale blue robes.

I had hoped to see detailed embroidery announcing the factions each person was a member of, but unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky. Figuring out how people were divided would be a bit more challenging.

I worked under the assumption that if people worked together in a building, they would probably be members of the same faction. From there, I began to compile a complex chart of interrelations. I might not have been able to know who belonged to which faction, but I could at least group people together.

Was mapping out the relationships between all these people in the sect a waste of time? Initially, yes. It would help me in the moment, but the potential long-term benefits were somewhat limited. That was, of course, until I had an idea.

“System, I want to purchase a mental journal. I want to be able to mentally summon a book, write in it or read from it, and then mentally dismiss it. The information should persist through restarts. I don’t care if others can see the book or not, whichever is cheaper.”

Rank 1 Mental Journal. Cost 100 credits.

Note: This journal is an extension of your mental library. Its rank cannot exceed that of your mental library. This journal will not be visible nor tangible to any others.

I had only planned to use this to store mortal information, but it would be better to be as prepared as possible, right?

“Buy that for up to Rank 2.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,000 credits. 12,040 credits remaining.

With my new mental journal, I now had a way to record all the details about everyone in the sect, and I would retain it forever. In a future life, if I needed to know something, I could simply look it up.

Expanding upon this initial idea, I began recording other important notes on things to keep in mind during future restarts.

I lived in the city for a year before finally making a move to contact Elder Mu.

During that time, I raised my cultivation from Martial Disciple 5 to Martial Disciple Peak. This was a fast pace, but it was within the bounds of what would be expected from an alchemist with unlimited access to Qi Gathering Pills.

If anyone noticed my accelerated growth, they would likely expect it to result in a buildup of impurities and pill toxins. Of course, with Perfect pills and a well-practiced Peak-Yellow cultivation technique, neither of these was an issue.

I only spent a limited amount of time making pills. I didn’t need the contribution points. I only did so to maintain the façade of a diligent disciple, and I only accrued enough points to barely cover the cost of rent. Also, when I did sell pills, I purposefully weakened them to give off the illusion that I was struggling with improving my skills.

I wanted any faction spies to believe that I was a mildly diligent, well-meaning disciple who was just starting to learn alchemy. I may have gone a bit overboard in this effort, but since the ruse didn’t affect me overmuch, I kept it up.

In an effort to find a way to contact Elder Mu, I kept a close eye on the competitions held throughout the city. Whenever notices for such events were posted, they helpfully provided the name of the elder in charge. This elder may not be at the competition, but the deacon involved was likely their subordinate. This helped me add connections between various elders and deacons to my list.

Unfortunately, none of this brought me any closer to Elder Mu. He was never assigned to oversee any such competitions.

After a long, fruitless search, I gave up on trying to find the elder through these regular competitions and switched my focus to the outer sect preliminaries.

There were many testing locations for the preliminaries scattered around the city. I couldn’t find information on the elders who were in charge of each location, but I did learn the names of each of the presiding deacons.

Thanks to my lists, I was able to quickly eliminate many of these deacons as belonging to one of the factions I had previously identified. With the now much shorter list of proctors, I systematically worked through it and learned everything I could about each deacon, eliminating anyone who I could connect back to a faction. In the end, I was left with only two names that I couldn’t connect to a known elder.

Elder Mu could be behind both or neither of them. Either way, I no longer had the patience needed to continue my search. Both deacons were likely connected to elders who took a dim view of sect politics, so even if I didn’t find Elder Mu, I would still end up with an elder who would keep me out of any messy factionalism.

Was all this work a waste of time? Should I have just asked the system to magic me the answer to my question? Maybe. But there were two reasons I didn’t. First, the use of credits to purchase something I could learn on my own seemed frivolous. I wouldn’t get any more until after I died, and using them on something like this would have been a waste.

The second reason I did the research myself was because I had nothing better to do. My cultivation had reached Martial Disciple Peak, and I wasn’t keen on advancing without something better than a Mid-Yellow technique which I would only get after meeting with Elder Mu. Additionally, while my alchemy skills might still be limited, I didn’t know of any way to improve them further without learning how to use the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire. This research was the only thing I had to fill my time.

So, I filled my time with studying the sect’s factions and elders, and when it was time for the outer sect preliminaries, I chose one of the two unaffiliated deacons at random. When I arrived at their testing site, I was tasked with creating Qi Purifying Pills for people who cultivated earth qi.

I didn’t hold back. I swiftly created a Perfect pill and turned it in. It wouldn’t be appraised until later, so I had an entire night before I found out the results of the competition. I wasn’t nearly as worried about the results of this exam as I had been my first time through this. There were two possible outcomes, and I had a fairly good idea of which one would occur.

The next morning, I woke up and learned the results of the preliminaries. As expected, I had failed. I would not be allowed to proceed to the final competition.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 30 – Life 58, Age 17, Martial Disciple Peak

The outer sect disciple exam took place a few days later, but I didn’t attend. There was no point.

I was waiting.

A full six days after the exam, I was finally contacted. This suggested a level of secrecy and paranoia that I hadn’t expected, but it wasn’t overly surprising. By silently eliminating me from the outer sect exam, the deacon, or his elder, hid me from the other factions.

As I was leaving my apartment to study the fallout from the exam, an elderly-looking man wearing the pale blue robes of a servant disciple approached me. I didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t mean too much. There were still many deacons I had never seen before. I didn’t even know the names of most of the servant disciples, let alone their faces. I could only hope that I had been successful in attracting the attention of an unaligned sect elder.

He led me to one of the buildings at the entrance to my apartment block. While the building was in a conspicuous location, its facade was completely nondescript. It looked like every other building on the block. The only giveaway that it was a place of importance was a small group of disciples loitering nearby. As we approached, they gave us a brief, intense glare before turning back to their private conversation.

After entering, we walked toward the stairs, but before we reached them, we were stopped by a man in the unadorned robes of a deacon.

“Disciple?” His question was short and simple, forcing my guide to interpret his meaning.

My guide cupped his fists in a martial salute. “Deacon, I have brought another nominal disciple to see Elder Mu.”

The deacon raised an eyebrow at this. “Oh? Is he the last one?”

“No, deacon, the elder has indicated that there are a few more he wishes to meet with.”

“Very well, but ask the elder to please finish his business soon. These meetings are becoming disruptive.”

Without waiting for a response, the deacon turned around and disappeared into a side room.

My guide smiled at me and motioned toward the stairs. “This way.”

We exited the stairway on the second floor, and my guide knocked on the first door on the left. He didn’t wait for a response before opening it and ushering me inside.

At this point, I wasn’t surprised to see that this was not, in fact, an apartment. Instead, it was set up as a temporary office. The room was rather spartan in décor, with only a few mostly empty bookshelves lining the walls. The focus of the room was a large wooden desk with several documents piled atop it.

Behind the desk sat a large, wide man. He wasn’t fat, he was just big. I would have placed his age in the forties if he were a mortal, but if he was a Grandmaster with a lifespan of 300 years? He was maybe 150 years old? His robes were of the same cut and color as the elder I had seen during the alchemy portion of the entrance exam, but the embroidered bands around the cuffs and collar were solid gold. They lacked the snake motif.

He pointed to a chair in front of his desk and spoke in a commanding voice. “Sit.”

After I did so, he spent a long minute looking me over.

Then, he took out a pill bottle and set it on the desk between us.

“A Perfect Qi Purification Pill for earth qi. You’ve got my attention. What do you want?”

I cupped my hands to the man. “Hello, I am Su Fang. May I ask, are you Elder Mu?”

The man only nodded. I expected he was since the guide had said so downstairs, but it was polite to ask.

“Elder Mu, I wish to join the outer sect, and a mutual acquaintance has suggested that I seek you out.” I took out WuJing’s letter and passed it to him while holding it with both hands. “I was not told what this letter says, but I was given to believe that it will explain the situation in more detail.”

He opened it and read it without comment. Once he was finished, he set it down and looked back at me.

“So, what do you want?”

“I need a master. I need to learn more about alchemy. I need to improve my cultivation. I need to learn more about the outside world. Chen WuJing suggested that you would be a good fit for my needs. I want to see if he was right.”

I avoided directly stating that I wanted to become his disciple. That wouldn’t have been proper, and besides, I wasn’t entirely sold on that notion yet. Better to leave an out for myself than commit too quickly.

Elder Mu tapped his fingers on the letter while looking at me. He was deciding my fate, but he was also trying to understand how I might fit into his larger plans.

“I trust Manager Chen’s opinion. Chen has a powerful blessing that has helped him significantly over the years. While he has only introduced me to a small number of people, and things haven’t always worked out between them and me, they have all been people worth knowing.”

After a pause, he continued. “You, however, are different. Chen spoke very strongly about how I should treat you.” He pointed at the pill bottle. “This can explain some of it, but even if you have great potential as an alchemist, potential is far from a guarantee that you will be able to assist me.”

He gave me a sharp look. “You have secrets. As I see it, there are only three possibilities. Chen is mistaken about you, you are from a powerful clan outside the Wastes, or your blessing is extraordinarily potent. I don’t know which option is true, and it wouldn’t make any difference to me which one it is. In all three cases, my response is the same.”

He tapped on WuJing’s letter slowly.

“First, Manager Chen says he told you of our goal to ascend and become true Martial Lords.”

I nodded.

“I will be clear. That is my only priority.” Elder Mu’s voice turned cold. “Nothing in this entire sect, in all the Wastes, interests me unless it helps me reach that goal. If Chen is right, and you are able to assist me with this, I will owe you a favor. If you hinder me, I will kill you. It’s that simple.”

I nodded again. This is what I expected. This world wasn’t kind to obstructions.

“You are looking for a master. Do you understand what that means? A master-disciple relationship is of utmost importance. The master provides significant training and resources. In turn, the disciple competes to win glory and resources for their master. If I train you well and send you to the Flowing Mountain Sect, the Twin Mountains Sect will be rewarded by them, and I will be rewarded by the Twin Mountains Sect. If you do exceptionally well, I may even be recruited by the Flowing Mountain. Beyond that, any future glory you achieve will also belong to me, at least in part.”

His eyes scanned me closely, looking me up and down.

“If Manager Chen is correct, I am not qualified to be your master. If he is wrong, then I do not wish to be your master. Either way, the result is the same. I will not be your master. Instead, I will merely be your teacher.”

At the word ‘teacher,’ I winced. I had already had one teacher. Still, this situation was different.

“I will provide you with access to knowledge and resources. The faster and stronger you grow, the more help you will be to me. To pay for this, you will concoct pills for me.” He gestured to the pill bottle again. “This suggests that your skill in alchemy is impressive, at least with Rank 1 pills. That is good for now, but their value is limited. I will require a large number of Rank 2 pills from you, though Rank 3 would be even better.”

Elder Mu’s voice, while still cool, took on a hint of bitterness.

“While I am a Grandmaster Alchemist, my personal skills in the subject are lacking. That is why I am stuck here. If you want any hope of joining a major power outside the Wastes, Grandmaster Alchemist is the minimum requirement. To pull me up with you, you will need to be an exceptional one. I will give you a chance, but make no mistake, you are not my only path forward.”

We locked eyes. We understood each other. He helped me now, and I would help him later. Even if I couldn’t do anything for him in this life, if he remained true, then I would repay my debt to him. They say a teacher for a day is a father for a lifetime. For me, if someone truly helped me, a single lifetime would be insufficient.

“Very well. To proceed, I need to know everything you are willing to tell me about yourself. Every cultivator has their secrets, and you are entitled to yours, but hiding information will limit what assistance I can provide.”

I thought through the situation and nodded. “I understand. I will tell you what I can.”

“What is your affinity?”

“I have low eight-star affinities with all five basic elements.”

The elder frowned slightly.

“That is unfortunate. Most powers in the outside world will not look at you without at least one seven-star affinity. Still, we can work with it. I might be able to help you raise your fire affinity, but that will depend on you. What is your blessing?”

“It’s complicated… It has given me a strong ability in alchemy, at least in Rank 1. My soul was significantly strengthened, my qi control is excellent, and I have gained a minor understanding of how medicinal herbs can be combined. Even without a pill recipe, I can anticipate the general effect of a pill produced from a combination of ingredients. However, I have only experimented with Rank 1 pills so far.”

“So, close to the limit of a Disciple Alchemist? Have you acquired a spirit fire?”

I hesitated, not sure how truthful I should be here, but I didn’t have any other choice. If I wanted to learn, I would have to tell him about it.

“I have a seed of the Cold Mountain Fire in my soul, but I don’t know how to use it.”

Elder Mu’s face twitched, finally showing a reaction, but I couldn’t tell what it meant. “And how did you acquire such a thing?”

“It was also related to my blessing.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t press.

“Anything else?”

“My cultivation technique. I believe it is a modified version of the Peak-Yellow technique taught to nominal disciples of this sect.”

“Also part of your blessing?”

“Yes.”

I could tell that he was starting to doubt my story at this point. I doubted anyone else had received such a complex blessing. In any case, I was only telling him the truth.

“Very well, you seemed prepared to become a member of this sect. You have a cultivation technique and fire seed that will let you blend in perfectly. What do you want from me?”

The elder folded his hands in front of himself and waited for my demands.

“First, I need cultivation techniques. I only have a Rank 1 technique right now. I need access to high-Rank techniques. If they were at the Profound level, it would be even better.”

Elder Mu snorted at this. “What else?”

“Help with alchemy. I have reached the limit of what I can learn on my own. I don’t know how to progress further with Rank 1 pills, and I have neither the herbs nor the knowledge necessary to make Rank 2 pills. Also, while I have a fire seed, I don’t know how to use it.”

“What else?”

“Knowledge of the world outside the Wastes. I am leaving this place sooner or later. With a major power or not. I need to know more about what’s out there.”

“What else?”

“That’s all.”

“Fine.” Elder Mu took out a scroll and held it up for me to see. “This is the Peak-Yellow Rank 2 technique. I don’t know how your Rank 1 technique has been modified, but it should still be compatible enough to work with it. As for Profound-Rank techniques, that would be a waste of time. Cultivating a Profound Rank 2 technique will provide you no benefit since you cultivated a Yellow-Rank technique as a Martial Disciple.”

He placed the scroll on the desk and slid it toward me.

“Regarding alchemy. After this meeting, you will be returned to live as just another nominal disciple. Nominal disciples cannot access Rank 2 herbs, and Martial Disciples cannot be promoted to the outer sect. Focus on cultivating, raise your cultivation base to Martial Master 1, but go no further than that. Once you have done so, you will take the exam to join the outer sect once more.”

He resumed tapping his desk.

“As for information about places outside of the Wastes, don’t worry about it for now. Once you enter the outer sect, more information will become available. I will arrange for a deacon to take care of all your needs in the sect. This should avoid the problem of someone else noticing your abilities and trying to poach you.”

He adjusted himself in his chair and straightened his back.

“Finally, refer to me only as Elder Mu. Since you came here, people will guess at our relationship, but I have met with many people this week. No one should ask about this meeting, but if they do, you can decide what lies you want to tell them.”

With that Elder Mu signaled an end to our discussion, and I walked away with a Peak-Yellow Rank 2 technique and hope for future cooperation.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 31 – Life 58, Age 17, Martial Disciple Peak

I returned to my apartment.

Before I could advance to the outer sect, I would need to ascend to Martial Master. Elder Mu had provided me with a cultivation technique to do so, but to make real strides forward in this life, I needed more than just a technique.

However, before doing any of that, I needed to make sure Elder Mu was on the level.

I picked up the scroll he had given me and looked at it.

“System, how much to identify this technique?”

Cost 1,000 credits.

“How much to purchase an identification ability that will let me understand techniques up to at least the level of this technique?”

Cost 5,000 credits.

That would be a large chunk of my remaining credits. Was it worth the cost? Should I just buy the one-time identification and save the credits for later?

I had bought the mental library ability to be able to store any technique I saw for later usage. If I could, I would use that library to record every technique in the world. Then, I would be able to choose the best one possible for any situation I encountered.

If I had to run to the System every time I wanted to know what a technique did, the cost of doing so would eventually skyrocket. I wasn’t keen on spending so many of my banked credits this early, but this ability would pay for itself eventually, and it was better to let it start doing so sooner rather than later.

“Purchase the ability.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 5,000 credits. 7,040 credits remaining.

What I gained was not knowledge of how to identify scrolls. It felt more like a mental button I could press. I looked at the scroll Elder Mu had given me and hit that button.

Expanding Yang Mantra, Peak-Yellow Rank 2 Cultivation Technique, Fire Qi, Effects: Makes one less friendly and more aggressive. Makes one more suspicious of others.

It seemed like this was the sect’s answer to the problems caused by their Rank 1 cultivation technique. If a disciple proved himself, they would receive a Rank 2 technique that would balance them out mentally. It seemed highly unlikely the effects would truly cancel each other out, but I could only assume that the opposing impulses would at least help regulate each other.

My problem was that the Rank 1 technique I was cultivating no longer had the enhanced naiveté of the original. While the friendliness and aggression might balance out, this technique would make me more suspicious.

That might not be a terrible thing. One of my goals was to learn more about what was going on between the sect and the Su Clan, and being more suspicious of the people around me might be of benefit in this. Additionally, my enhanced soul strength had been rather effective in limiting the impulses from my cultivation technique. So, being more suspicious of people could be good. I just had to be careful where I pointed those suspicions.

With the cultivation technique issue settled, the next step was deciding on how to proceed with cultivating it. In the past, I had studied the Mid-Yellow Rank 2 technique on my own and, after a few lifetimes, was able to cultivate it to Martial Master Peak. I would much rather cultivate this new technique properly the first time. This meant that I needed to find someone to teach me.

The problem was that finding a teacher was a little trickier than in the past. I would need significantly more contribution points to pay for someone I could trust to teach me well, and I would need a way to gather said contribution points without arousing too many suspicions from the sect’s factions.

Elder Mu provided a solution to both of these problems, Deacon Ma.

Instead of visiting the regular halls to buy and sell, I was to contact Deacon Ma directly. He would provide me with ingredients, and I would turn them into pills. We would not be exchanging contribution points or gold. I was paid nothing for my pills, but when I needed something, there would be no cost. When the deacon, or possibly the elder, felt I had made sufficient contribution to be given a cultivation lesson, for example, I would be given a lesson for free.

This completely off-the-books exchange was not my favorite way of doing things, but I had understood what I was getting myself into when I agreed to it. Importantly, none of my dealings with Elder Mu were ‘official.’ If I decided I wasn’t getting fair compensation for my work, I could end our cooperation and join one of the larger factions.

For these reasons, while I wanted to focus on raising my cultivation, I first had to concoct a series of pills.

I spread my alchemy activities out across the various workshops in the city. For one, arriving to concoct pills only once every other week would make me more forgettable, but more importantly it would give me a better chance to observe the activities of others.

From my talks with Elder Mu, it seemed clear that there was no back door to becoming an outer sect disciple. He couldn’t just promote me. I had to go through the regular competition. This told me that while there may be a few who slipped in through the use of unconventional means, their numbers would be extremely limited.

Why was this so important?

Only five new outer sect disciples were chosen each year. The lifespan of a Martial Master was 200 years, and a Martial Grandmaster could live to 300. That would limit the maximum possible size of the sect to only around 1,500 people. Even adding in a few more who slipped through, when excluding the nominal and servant disciples, the sect couldn’t have more than 2,000 members. Of course, this only counted the alchemy branch, but in my mind, the alchemy and martial branches were more like two separate sects.

This city housed nearly 100,000 people. If 98% of the people in the sect were in this city, it would be impossible for the politics and factionalism of the greater sect to not impact the daily lives of the people here. This city was a massive workforce of alchemists producing a substantial number of pills every day. How did the factions decide how those resources were split? Was there any evidence of it in the city?

At first, I thought finding such evidence would be a lost cause, but it turned out the method of competition was staring me right in the face all along. The city held regular competitions between the nominal disciples every month. I knew this. I had participated in such a competition before, but what I didn’t take notice of before was where the competitions were being held.

There seemed to be two distinct arrangements. Most of the competitions were held somewhere in the middle of a grid section. These seemed to be intra-factional tests to see who in a given faction’s area would be worth nurturing. The more interesting ones were those held on the border of sections controlled by two different factions. These inter-factional competitions could be related to resource distribution, or really, they could be for anything. However, I was convinced that, whatever the prize was, it was important.

What caught my eye was that the reward for the individual winner was given out by a deacon from the opposing faction. This seemed to be a method devised to bring wealth into the fold of the winning faction. It might also be to dissuade the winners from competing again. If someone was handed a large enough prize, they might decide they needed to focus more on their personal advancement instead of low-level competitions.

While this research into politics was potentially useful for the future, my main focus was on making pills to earn a lesson on cultivation from a knowledgeable teacher.

After two months of hard work, I was granted a lesson from an inner sect disciple.

The disciple was already waiting for me when I entered the training room.

He was a lean, young-looking man with long black hair wearing a sky-blue hanfu robe without embellishments. I noted this down in my journal as the color corresponding to inner sect disciples.

“Take a seat. Deacon Ma has asked me to teach you how to cultivate as a Martial Master. While my knowledge is incomparable to one of the elders, I am a Peak Master working on breaking through to Grandmaster. I will be able to answer any questions you have.”

While he wasn’t impolite, his tone was perfunctory.

I gave a slight bow. “Thank you for your guidance, teacher.”

He waved away my bow. “Just call me elder brother.”

“Yes, elder brother.”

He didn’t give his name, so I didn’t ask.

“Advancing your cultivation as a Martial Master means forming meridians to guide qi as it flows through your body. Meridians are like blood vessels made from small strands of qi woven together. The warp and weft of these qi strands affect how efficiently the qi flows through the body as well as how easily it can leave the meridians when and where desired.”

He held up a hand and channeled his qi. Above his palm, thin strands of energy wove themselves into the facsimile of a meridian.

“You need to cultivate Peak-Yellow meridians. The main difference between Low-Yellow and Peak-Yellow meridians is in the structure of the weave of the meridians. Those formed through a Peak-Yellow technique are significantly stronger. However, Rank 1 and Rank 2 cultivation techniques need to be paired. If the Rank 1 technique’s level is lower, you will have difficulties utilizing all your qi. If the Rank 2 technique’s level is lower, then you risk damaging your meridians by passing too much energy through them.”

He passed a burst of qi through the meridian in his hand. The fragile weave of the false meridian burst apart.

“Before you start forming your meridians, you should practice by making simulated meridians outside your body. This will allow you to gain a better understanding of what you are doing wrong and what you need to do to fix it. Creating these false meridians is more challenging and taxing than creating real ones inside your body, so if you can master this skill, you should be able to create pristine meridians.”

He held up his right hand and quickly weaved strands of qi together into a tube once more.

“This is a crude example, but it is what you need to do. Try it.”

I held up my hand and began channeling my qi. It was difficult to stabilize it into the woven structure. As had he said, this was much easier to do when the qi was inside my body.

After a few minutes, I showed him my result.

His initial evaluation was brief and to the point. “Terrible.”

After saying this, he studied my efforts in greater detail. “If I’m being fair, it’s good for a first attempt, but if you try to use something like that as an actual meridian, you will just be crippling yourself. You need to focus a lot more on keeping the spacing of your weave even. The gaps between each qi thread should be perfectly spaced. The thickness of each thread also needs to be uniform.”

He pointed out numerous places where there were obvious problems.

“This is just down to practice. Practice making meridians over and over. Each time, check the consistency of your weave. Do not form a real meridian until you can do it perfectly. However, these are minor issues that you will be able to fix with enough effort. Let’s talk about the bigger problem.”

He held out his hand and formed an oversized practice meridian in his palm.

“This is what you are doing. Look at the qi strands. They are round. This is what you will find in Low- and Mid-Yellow techniques. Using rounded threads makes everything easier, but you will end up with meridians that leak like a sieve. They’re good enough when someone doesn’t have much qi because there is less pressure trying to force the energy out of the meridians. However, if your Rank 1 technique is High-Yellow or better, such meridians are nearly worthless.

He dispersed the qi in his hand and formed another example meridian.

“This is what you should be doing. The qi strands should be more like flat ribbons. This strengthens the meridians while trapping the energy inside. When you want to expel qi, you curl the ribbons of the meridian at the point you want to expel it, creating a series of small holes. This makes it so that qi will only leave your meridians where you want it to. These are harder to form and take more work to control, but if you want Peak-Yellow meridians, this is what you have to do.”

He dispersed his energy once more and looked at me.

“That’s all I can teach you. From here, it all just comes down to practicing enough to be able to make the best meridians possible. Work with practice meridians, and when you are confident, start forming real ones. Just remember to take your time. If you rush at any step, you could form a useless meridian. If that happens, the best-case scenario would be spending a long time dispersing and recultivating it.”

With that, the disciple left me to practice on my own. His entire lesson took less than fifteen minutes. Sure, he told me everything I needed to know, but it made me miss lessons where the teacher needed my money as much as I needed their help.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 32 – Life 58, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

I spent years practicing what I learned from the inner sect disciple. I could have advanced to Martial Master in a short period of time, but the consistency and uniformity of my meridians never felt like it was enough. I wanted to push for perfection, but I kept falling short.

After years of effort, I couldn’t ignore the problem any longer. My fire affinity was simply too low to cultivate a Peak-Yellow Rank 2 technique. I had thought that with enough practice I would be able to surpass the limits of my affinity. That might indeed be possible, but how many more years would it take? How many more was I willing to spend?

I was better at forcibly moving qi around than when I first started cultivating, but even having practiced qi control skills for centuries, I still wasn’t able to exert the fine control needed for weaving a perfect meridian.

A low eight-star affinity was simply not high enough for the delicate work I was trying to do. A higher affinity would allow me to control qi with far more precision.

I had the credits I needed to boost it slightly, but I didn’t know if it would be enough. A peak nine-star affinity had been invaluable when attempting to reach Peak Disciple with pure qi while using a Peak-Yellow technique. To cultivate to the limit as a Martial Master I might need a peak eight-star affinity.

Paying for a peak eight-star affinity was going to be a problem, though.

I could rush up to Peak Master with a weak foundation, grab the credits, and then use them to boost my affinity. But… that felt like admitting defeat. There had to be another path forward. Other people in the world managed to reach Grandmaster in a single life. Shouldn’t it be possible for me to do the same?

Of course, they all had their own affinities and blessings to help them. Compared to them, I had started from a uniquely poor position. But at this point, my situation wasn’t so terrible. There had to be a path forward for me.

So, I needed to increase my affinity, but I didn’t have the credits to do so. What should I do?

A new idea struck me, and I cocked my head to the side in contemplation. I didn’t have anywhere near the credits needed to permanently boost my affinity high enough, but I could reach that level with a temporary boost.

A temporary boost would raise my affinity for a single life, and then when I died, the affinity, and the credits I had spent on it, would simply disappear. Before, this had felt wasteful, so I had ignored temporary boosts and nearly forgotten they were an option. Now, I was starting to realize that they could be a useful tool for pushing further and earning more credits than would otherwise have been possible.

That was a real possibility, but I wasn’t ready to rush into anything. There might be an even better way forward, and I didn’t feel any urgency to rush.

Cao had told me that a Martial Disciple’s cultivation calcifies at age 30. While practicing as a Martial Master in Rudy’s workshop, I noticed a sharp decline in my cultivation speed at age 60. Improving to Martial Master had doubled my life expectancy, and it also seemed to have doubled the age of calcification.

That meant that I had 40 years to reach Peak Master. This wasn’t an eternity. Last time, I had only reached Martial Master when I was nearly 90. But it was long enough that I could take time to see if there was any other way to cultivate successfully.

Aside from practicing forming meridians, I spent a significant amount of time creating pills for Deacon Ma.

As stipulated in my agreement with Elder Mu, he didn’t give me any reward for this work. Every week, he would just hand me a bundle of ingredients, and I would hand him the pills I had made using the previous week’s bundle.

For anyone else, so much work with so little reward might have been demoralizing. Personally, I didn’t mind. It wasn’t any different than what I had done in Rudy’s workshop. Elder Mu was simply providing me with endless resources to practice with. The pills my efforts produced were meaningless since they would disappear the moment I died.

I did, however, hold back a few Qi Recovery Pills from each of my shipments. These pills were useful for keeping my energy topped up and allowed me to spend far more time practicing alchemy and cultivation.

As I was using them to help me make pills for Deacon Ma, I didn’t consider these Qi Recovery Pills as any form of payment, but maybe Deacon Ma did? Was that why I didn’t get any other reward? Because I held back a few pills? If so, Elder Mu was far more miserly than I had expected.

While the situation didn’t bother me overmuch, I also wasn’t thrilled by it. If things didn’t change, I wouldn’t consider working with the elder again in the future.

I spent all my time forming practice meridians and concocting pills. I didn’t improve much, but I did take a few small steps forward.

After three years of this routine, Deacon Ma finally stopped me. “You’ve just turned twenty, right?”

I wasn’t entirely sure. “I think so, Deacon Ma. That sounds right.”

“The outer sect competition is in five months. You need to advance to Martial Master before then and move up to the outer sect this year.” His voice was firm and unwavering.

“What? Why?”

“You’re 20. After 20, if a Martial Disciple hasn’t advanced to Martial Master, the energy in their body begins to stagnate, wasting their potential.”

My eyes widened in shock. “I thought I had another ten years. I was told calcification happens at 30.”

He shook his head sharply. “While calcification happens at 30, stagnation happens at 20. At 20, it will become more difficult to advance. At 30, it will become nearly impossible to do so. So, while it is possible to wait another ten years, if you want to be successful, you must advance before you stagnate.”

My mind began to race. “What about as a Master? What is the time limit after I advance?”

“Every realm adds 100 years to your lifespan, so as a Disciple, Master, and Grandmaster, you will live 100, 200, and 300 years, respectively. Stagnation sets in at 20% of this lifespan, so 20, 40, and 60 years old. Calcification sets in at 30% of this lifespan, so 30, 60, and 90 years old. However, once stagnation or calcification sets in, advancing will not reverse it. If you advance to Martial Master after 20, the effects of stagnation will continue to affect you no matter how quickly you advance to Grandmaster.”

“So, I need to advance to Master by 20 and Grandmaster by 40… I can manage that.”

Deacon Ma shook his head. “That will avoid stagnation, yes, but it isn’t ideal. To be treated as a true prodigy by the sect, you will need to advance to Grandmaster before 30. This isn’t crucial, and it won’t affect your further cultivation, but it will affect the value the sect places on you.”

“I… I understand. I can advance now, but my foundation will be weak. I’m still not able to form perfect meridians.”

“Yes, this is a problem the elder has considered. Your affinity is too low. Even if you become a Peak Master, it will be difficult for you to advance to Grandmaster, and even if you did, you would be at a significant disadvantage.”

He paused to give me a moment to consider my situation. It wasn’t good. I was starting to feel I had made a mistake when I raised all my affinities to low eight-star instead of focusing on fire. The other affinities had helped my alchemy, but it was at the cost of my ability to advance my cultivation.

Deacon Ma finally threw me a lifeline. “The elder has decided to give you an opportunity. The sect’s baptism pool will soon be opened. It is capable of greatly enhancing the fire affinity of anyone who enters. If someone with a low eight-star affinity were to enter the center of the main pool, they might be boosted to mid or even high seven-star.”

Before I could reply, he continued, cutting off any premature dreams. “Of course, you will not even be allowed near the edge of the main pool. Inner and outer sect disciples have been competing for places in the pool for months. You don’t qualify. However, the elder has been allocated a spot in a secondary pool, and he has decided to give it to you. The benefits are not nearly so great, but you should still be able to advance your affinity one or two steps.”

He gave me a meaningful look.

“I hope you understand. The value of this opportunity far exceeds what you have given us so far. You have provided us with a large quantity of Rank 1 pills, but the value of even Perfect Rank 1 pills is limited. This reward is a sign that the elder has recognized your diligence. Be sure to repay him.”

I didn’t know the value of an opportunity to raise an affinity, but I was certain the deacon was right about its value relative to the pills I had given him.

I looked the deacon in the eye and was filled with conviction.

“I will repay my debt.”

After meeting with Deacon Ma, I had to decide how to handle my affinities.

I had wanted to find a path forward without needing to rely on the System, and I had done so. Even if its effects would be limited in this life, this ‘baptism pool’ that could raise my affinities opened up a world of new possibilities for the future.

So, my goal had to shift. I didn’t need to find another new path forward, I needed to take best advantage of the opportunity and resources available to me.

I had no reason to distrust anything Deacon Ma had told me. I couldn’t confirm all of it, but everything matched up with my own experiences. While the information on stagnation was a surprise, it helped explain why my cultivation speed would slow down even before I reached calcification.

So, since I was already 20, I needed to advance as soon as possible. However, while waiting around for my cultivation to stagnate would be bad, advancing with a foundation made out of mud wouldn’t be any good either.

There was only one way to solve this dilemma, I needed to improve my affinity.

Elder Mu was going to let me enter the pool to do so, but Deacon Ma had said I should only expect it to boost my affinity by at most two steps. That would give me a high eight-star affinity. Was that enough? It felt… lacking.

My conjecture was that I would need a peak eight-star affinity to perfect my cultivation in the Martial Master realm. That had to be my minimum goal. To achieve that, I would need more than the sect’s baptism pool. I would need help from the System.

I pulled out my journal and did a bit of math. I needed to figure out how to best utilize my remaining credits.

Once I was satisfied with my plan, I set it into action.

“System, permanently raise my fire affinity to mid eight-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 2,500 credits. 4,540 credits remaining.

The cost of making that bump permanent was high, but buying it was a way to mitigate the risk of what came next.

I didn’t like the idea of spending credits on temporary boosts, but I could use them to raise my affinity far higher than would otherwise be possible. If I wanted a peak eight-star affinity, temporary boosts were the way to do it.

“System, raise my fire affinity to peak eight-star for the remainder of this life.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,250 credits. 3,290 credits remaining.

Now, could I go further? I thought I knew what the costs would be, but I needed to make sure.

“How much to raise it to low or mid seven stars?”

Temporary Low 7* Fire Affinity. Cost 1,000 credits.

Temporary Mid 7* Fire Affinity. Cost 2,500 credits.

I nodded. It was as I expected.

At this point, it was hard to know the best way to proceed. What would be best? The problem was that I didn’t know how much the baptism pool would help me.

I could only buy a single boost, from peak eight to low seven or low seven to mid seven. I wouldn’t be able to buy one from mid seven to high seven. The exact boost I got from the pool would affect which one of these options was the most cost-effective.

If it raised me a single step regardless of my starting affinity, buying the low seven-star affinity first would be for the best since it was the cheapest.

If the secondary pool I was being sent to was powerful enough to raise me from peak eight to low seven but not from low seven to mid seven, buying the more expensive one later would be better since it was the only way to reach a mid seven-star affinity.

It was even possible that I would be boosted to mid seven no matter what. In that case, no purchase at all would be the best choice.

There was just too much I didn’t know about how this pool was supposed to raise my affinity to make any firm decision.

After carefully considering my options, I chose to hold off on any more purchases until after the baptism. It might not be the most cost-effective option, but it was the one that gave me the highest chance to reach a mid seven-star affinity.

With that decision made, I returned to my practice with meridians.

This practice went significantly smoother than ever before. With my new peak eight-star fire affinity, I no longer felt like I was having to force qi to listen to me. Forming meridians started to almost feel natural.

It would only be a short period of time before I was ready to advance.

A month later, Deacon Ma came to take me to be baptized.

When he arrived, he was carrying a full-face mask which he immediately handed to me. “Put this on. After you advance to the outer sect, you can be more open about your connection to the elder, but fighting over nominal disciples is fair game, and we would rather avoid that. It would be best if no one knows who Elder Mu gave this opportunity to.”

Once I had donned the mask, he led me out of the city and onto a narrow path through the surrounding forest. It was exactly the same as when I went to gather the Cold Mountain Fire. The path was perfectly straight, and I saw nothing but trees that twisted strangely in the corner of my eye.

Unlike the path to the fire seed, this one ended at a large forest clearing where several people had already gathered. I noticed several sky-blue robes of inner sect disciples, but most were wearing robes of a paler shade. Possibly outer sect disciples? I didn’t have the opportunity to ask. Deacon Ma took me to the side and didn’t allow me to approach or be approached by anyone else.

The scene was eerily quiet. There were no sounds of anyone talking, only the sounds of the forest. With so many people, that seemed impossible, but clearly, there was nothing to hear but the forest. I saw people’s mouths move, but… no, just forest sounds. No one was talking.

When the group started moving, Deacon Ma pulled me along. It was hard to tell with the thick cover of trees, but it felt like we were walking away from the mountain. I wasn’t sure how long the trek lasted, maybe a few hours, and that entire time, the path ahead was perfectly straight.

Finally, we arrived at a cave opening. It looked just like the one that had led to the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire, but it couldn’t be the same one. The distances didn’t match.

Several deacons and a few elders stood around the cave. Someone from our group went up to them, but they didn’t say anything. After a moment, he gestured for us to enter, and Deacon Ma guided me inside.

While most of the group proceeded down the widest tunnel, he took me to a small branch path. At its opening, he gave me a sharp look and pointed down the small tunnel.

“This is a straight path to the pool. When you get there, stay on the outside edge. You are not allowed to go any further, and you will only cause trouble if you try.”

I nodded. I tried to respond, but I couldn’t force the words to come out of my mouth, so I gave up, turned around, and walked down the tunnel as ordered.

The cave looked natural and had a generally musty smell to it. However, the further I walked, the more I noticed an additional faint sulfurous stench. After I noticed that additional smell, it wasn’t long before I found the pond I was looking for.

The tunnel opened into a cavern with a pond close to twenty meters in diameter. A group of young men and women were already sitting in the water, fully clothed. No one even opened their eyes as I moved to join them.

I approached the pool and sat down in the water, staying right at the edge as I had been told.

As I sat there in the water, I realized that I had never been told what to do to raise my affinity. Deacon Ma’s behavior had indicated that I would know what to do, but sitting there, nothing seemed to be happening.

With no better idea of how to proceed, I looked at the water using qi sight.

What I saw was shocking. I had never seen anything like it before.

Large flecks of red energy floated everywhere in the water. They seemed to bubble up from the very center of the pool, and the disciples sitting there were pulling them into their bodies as fast as possible. Only a scarce handful of flecks escaped out to the edge where I was.

I cycled my cultivation technique to try to draw this energy nearer, but it didn’t have much of an effect. So, I reached out with my fire affinity and simply pulled on them with all the mental energy I could muster.

This worked, and the flecks of energy started migrating toward me. The moment they touched my body, they disappeared. I kept pulling, trying to grab as many flecks as possible, but even after several flecks of energy had entered my body, I didn’t feel much different. Still, I had to assume that this was what I was supposed to do.

The process went on for hours. As I watched the cultivators at the center of the pool gobble up most of the energy, I felt like I was only eating breadcrumbs dropped from the mouths of hungry vultures. I could only hope that the meager amount I obtained would be enough to improve my affinity.

During this time, I didn’t have much to do other than think, and that made my mind drift to questions of exactly what this energy was and how it could improve my affinity.

It wasn’t qi, I was sure of that, but that didn’t tell me much. In a way, it was like the medicinal energy in herbs. The red energy in some herbs was some type of fire energy, and my fire affinity could affect it, but it was distinct from fire qi and fire-based medicinal energy. This was a third form of fire energy.

I wanted to know what it was. I needed to ask the System, but I didn’t want anyone to hear me, so I tried to ‘speak’ to the System by subvocalizing, making no sounds and barely moving my jaw.

“System, how much to learn about the energy in this pool that’s capable of raising my affinity?”

The cost of this information is not possible to calculate at this time.

I ground my teeth slightly. I should have expected that answer.

While I didn’t know where this energy was coming from or why it could increase affinity, I did have a new potential goal for the future. Once my storage space was large enough, could I store a pool like this inside? If I did, would I be able to quickly raise my affinities at the beginning of every life without spending any more credits on them? I wasn’t sure about the feasibility of the idea, but it was worth keeping in mind.

All too soon, the fire energy in the pool dried up and no more entered. At that point, I stood and left to rejoin Deacon Ma.

We took our leave from the group, and he led me back to the city. On the trip, I subvocalized a few more questions.

“System, how much to upgrade my fire affinity to low seven-star?”

Processing… Information on affinity pricing. Cost 500 credits.

My steps paused at that response. Deacon Ma looked at me, and I hurried to fall back in step.

“System, how much to upgrade it to mid seven-star?”

Information on affinity pricing. Cost 500 credits.

“System, why are you charging me to learn a price? I’ve never had to pay before.”

System Message: The price of information depends on the degree to which it will affect the flow of karma and how much it will change destiny. If information from the System will affect the flow of karma, it must be purchased, even if that information is the price of a potential purchase.

I think I understood. When we got back, Deacon Ma would likely test my affinity to see how it changed. The results of that test would affect how he and Elder Mu treated me going forward. If I saw that a low seven-star affinity costs zero credits, that would inform my actions between now and being tested.

So, the knowledge of the cost of raising my affinity would have a direct impact on the actions of both me and Grandmaster Mu. That meant I had two options. Either I purchase the information, or I spend my credits blindly and hope for the best.

I needed to shine as much as I could to set up my future as a Grandmaster. The more I was valued, the more resources would be poured into me, pushing me even further.

A smile appeared on my face as I made my decision. I had already invested heavily into this life, and as they say, if the best choice is to not do something, but you do it anyway, then the second-best choice is to not stop doing it.

“System, boost my fire affinity to mid seven-star as a temporary upgrade.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 2,500 credits. 790 credits remaining.

I was now all-in on this life. How far could I go? Martial Grandmaster Peak? Martial Lord? Either would be a huge step forward.

Was jumping from low eight-star to mid seven-star in one go a bit too much? In retrospect, the elder might not be completely sanguine about such a large change. It was possible, but this boost should at least justify the importance WuJing put on me.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 33 – Life 58, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

After returning to the city, Deacon Ma took me to a seemingly random apartment. It was nearly completely empty. The only thing inside was a crystal orb like the one the Su Clan used to test affinities.

The deacon walked up to the orb and then turned to give me a careful look.

“You have multiple affinities, right? These things don’t work well with people like you, but it should be able to show us your highest one. That’s good enough for what we need. You know what to do, right?”

I nodded.

Expecting this and having been tested before, I stepped forward and put my hand on the orb calmly. When I pushed my qi into an orb in the past, it had always lit up with a dark red flame that slowly got brighter as I injected more energy. This time, that didn’t happen. All I could see was a chaotic mix of lines and colors.

My confusion must have shown on my face because Deacon Ma explained.

“That’s from your multiple affinities. The orb can only show a single affinity. If you try to use it with multiple affinities, they will cause interference and show you nothing. Your fire affinity should be above the others, though, so if you focus on your fire affinity and give it a mental push, we should see a clear picture.”

I did so. After exerting more will, a flame finally appeared. It was not the same red color as usual though. Instead, it was a brighter, more vibrant shade of red.

Ma looked annoyed. “Mid eight-star fire affinity, is that all?”

At his words, I pushed with all my strength. The flame grew once, then, after another pause, grew a second time. This should be peak eight-star. I pushed harder. The flame began to shrink and change. It became a small orange fire in the center of the orb. After a final push, I was able to increase its size once, but at that point, I knew I had reached my limit.

The deacon gave me a strange look. “Mid seven-star? I’ll report this to the elder. Go back and cultivate. The outer sect exam is in four months, and you need to raise your cultivation to Martial Master 1. Just don’t advance any further than that.”

I looked at him and spoke with confidence. “Yes, Deacon Ma.”

Before upgrading my affinities, trying to form threads of fire qi into perfect meridians had been a chore since the qi was constantly fighting against my efforts to shape it. Trying to shape it into smooth even ribbons required every ounce of willpower I could muster. Taking those ribbons and weaving them together without ruining them had been a nightmare.

After raising my affinity to peak eight-star, everything went much smoother. My qi was willing to go where I wanted it to go and be shaped how I wanted it to be shaped. At that point, with enough effort, I could have formed a perfect meridian. If not for the planned baptism, I would have already used the control granted by that increase in my affinity to advance to Martial Master.

Now, with a mid seven-star affinity, forming practice meridians was simple. It still took a little time to ensure that everything was perfectly smooth and uniform, but the qi felt like it would do anything I wished. It was almost like it wanted to weave itself into meridians on its own.

After a few days of practice, I began the process of weaving my first true meridian.

Having practiced forming the correct structure for years, I was confident in my ability to create a perfect meridian, so the only important variable I had to worry about was its positioning.

Each meridian I created had to be aligned as instructed in my cultivation technique. On its own, this wouldn’t have been too difficult, but the problem was that my body had natural qi flows that attracted the meridians and tried to pull them out of position. Constructing the meridians in accordance with the sect’s Rank 2 technique made me feel like I was fighting my own body.

Thankfully, my high affinity showed its worth here as well. It allowed me to keep the meridian locked down as I formed it. That said, even with my improved affinity, I had to maintain my focus. I was weaving tiny ribbons of qi into a complex tube that was over half a meter long, and I couldn’t allow for a single mistake.

Doing too much in one sitting meant my concentration could slip and small flaws would enter into the weave, so I had to take regular breaks. However, whenever I wanted to take a break, I had to suture the weave in such a way that it wouldn’t catastrophically unravel. Then, after the break was over, I had to shift the meridian back into the correct position, undo the suture, and fix all the small imperfections the pause had caused.

Working in this manner, I finished my first meridian after a total of two weeks. Once it was complete, it snapped into place and was no longer affected by my natural qi flows.

I had advanced to Half-Step Martial Master. Constructing that meridian had been stressful, but I was confident in my result.

Sadly, this was no time for a celebration. Completing one meridian just meant that I had to start working hard on completing the second.

The more meridians in my body, the longer each new one would take to create. Based on past experience, I estimated my second meridian would take a month and a half. That gave me two extra months of downtime.

I could have started on my second meridian immediately, but I needed a rest. Two straight weeks of focused concentration had left me mentally exhausted, so I took some time off to relax and practice a little alchemy.

This downtime didn’t last long. I didn’t want to feel rushed to complete my advancement before my deadline, so after only a week of rest, I began again.

Creating my second meridian, with it also being located in my chest, was significantly more difficult. Not only my natural qi flow, but also my first meridian worked to pull it out of position. Forming the second meridian was like a constant battle against two different sources of gravity, where if I stopped concentrating for even a moment, all my effort would be wasted.

The difficulties I faced were far greater than I had anticipated. When I had made weak meridians with a Mid-Yellow technique, the pull from them was nowhere near as strong. Because of this, my estimate for how long my advancement would take ended up being far from accurate. It took nearly three months of hard work before I was able to place the last thread, and the meridian snapped into place.

Once it did, I smiled. I had returned to Martial Master 1.

I circulated my qi with all the power my Peak-Yellow Rank 1 technique could muster. My meridians didn’t even tremble. They were built to handle this level of energy.

I had cut it a lot closer than I had wanted, but I was ready for the outer sect disciple competition.

Before the preliminaries, Deacon Ma told me which testing site to go to.

Once there, we were given a set of herbs and sent off to concoct them. As usual, we were not directly observed during our work in the preliminaries.

Before, I had thought that this was either because the sect trusted us or because observers were watching us in secret. Now, I was pretty sure that there wasn’t anyone watching. This wasn’t because I thought they trusted us. It was because I now understood how little this test mattered. Most of the victors would have been pre-selected. If someone did cheat and turn in a pill concocted by someone else, the judges simply wouldn't care.

For the test, we only needed to make a single Rank 1 pill that I could have finished concocting in only a few minutes. However, to avoid drawing too much attention, I forced myself to slow down. Turning it in too early would be bad, so I waited until after three hours had passed before even beginning my work.

The pill I needed to make was unfamiliar to me, but it was still only Rank 1, so I could have made a Perfect pill without too much effort, but that wasn’t the goal. I needed to focus on making the pill good, but not too good. It would be a delicate balance, but I was experienced enough to be able to roughly predict how my actions would affect a pill’s efficacy.

When I looked at the herbs, I was a bit surprised. One of them was completely new to me. It hadn’t existed in Rudy’s workshop. Looking at it, I could tell that it would add some kind of healing effect to the pill. I considered it in relation to the other herbs. They all had red fire-based medicinal energy, and every herb was focused on healing. So, this seemed to be some sort of fire-based healing pill. However, without being more familiar with the herbs, it was difficult for me to tell exactly what the pill would do.

Even though I had never seen one of the herbs before, concocting the pill was still simple. First, I melted the physical body of the herb. Then, I burned away nearly all of the pill toxins while purposefully damaging its medicinal power. Since this pill was new to me, it was hard to estimate the exact efficacy I would end with, but I could roughly guess what the results would be based on my experience.

When I judged the medicinal energy to be in an acceptable condition, I condensed it into a pill. After it solidified, I inspected it.

High-Purity Rank 1 Fire Qi Expulsion Pill, 57% medicinal efficacy. Value: 71 silver.

The name didn’t tell me everything, but since I was already confident that this was some type of healing pill, I had a decent guess at what it would do. If I was right, it would help heal people who had been injured by fire qi.

In the past, there had been times when I had lost control of my qi and accidentally burned myself with my own fire qi. When that happened, a small portion of that qi became stuck in the wounds. Before the injury could heal properly, the qi needed to be expelled. Likely, that was what this pill was designed to do.

It was a good pill to remember, so I noted the recipe down in my journal for the future.

After that, I turned in my pill and went home to await the results.

There were no surprises this time. I was confirmed to be in the finals and was placed in the top twenty. Not at the front of the pack, but not too far back. I figured this was so that I would be low-key while keeping my eventual win believable, but I couldn’t say if the organizers even cared about such things.

As always, the task of the finals was to create five Superior Qi Gathering Pills. Deacon Ma said that I should aim for a total efficacy between 460 and 480. This was supposed to be good enough that I could be passed through without challenge, but not so high as to draw undue attention.

At the same time, I also had to put on a bit of a show.

It would be easy to perfectly trim away all the pill toxins on the surface and then intentionally damage the medicinal energy just enough to drop the efficacy by a few points. This was what I had done in the preliminaries, but I couldn’t do that here. With a crowd of spectators, I needed to make everything look natural. The damage to efficacy had to come from proper errors.

Also, I had to mind my speed. I couldn’t do everything too fast. I had to watch the bright stars of the competition and spend a little more time on everything than they did.

Honestly, it was the greatest challenge I had faced as an alchemist in years. I’ll never know how successful all the ruses were, or if my acting even mattered, but I did it. I completed five sub-par pills to the best of my ability. I could only hope working with Elder Mu would be worth all the trouble.

After concocting my final pill, I moved to stand with the other contestants who had completed their work ahead of me, and we had to wait a couple more hours as everyone else finished up. Several of the contestants were extremely slow and methodical in their process, but no matter how much I wanted everything to wrap up quickly, I couldn’t fault them for their dedication to the craft.

Knowing that the pills we spent so much time on wouldn’t affect the final results in the slightest, I wasn’t worried about the quality of my pills. However, I was still anxious as I awaited the results of the exam. If Elder Mu’s plan fell through, I would be stuck in the outer sect for at least another year. I needed to move up if I wanted to continue advancing.

The announcer’s voice pulled me out of my reverie.

“First place, Wen Hao, 493 points.”

The crowd burst into cheers. This was considered an incredibly high score. Assuming he hadn’t made any Perfect pills, at least three of his pills had to have an efficacy of 99%. This showed that Wen Hao had a lot of potential.

I couldn’t help but wonder if his result was true. I doubted they would completely falsify the top score, but I wouldn’t rule anything out at this point.

Announcements for second, third, and fourth places all followed, but I didn’t hear my name.

“Fifth place, Su Fang, 476 points.”

I smiled. It wasn’t a high enough rank to receive a spirit fire, but I didn’t need one. I had to wonder if that was part of Elder Mu’s plan. This would get him an extra alchemist who could secretly concoct Rank 2 pills that no one knew about. It probably was.

The games of the powerful didn’t matter to me. They would do as they willed. I just needed to focus on my personal progression.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 34 – Life 58, Age 20, Martial Master 1

After the competition, I didn’t join anyone in a big celebration. I didn’t take part in any grand winner’s feast. I simply walked home.

On the way, I was stopped by Deacon Ma.

“Follow me.”

He took me once more into the forests surrounding the city. The more I visited this place, the more disturbing the landscape became. The fact that we only ever walked in a perfectly straight line and that there were never any hills or valleys on the path felt more unnatural the more I was exposed to it.

After a short walk, a building appeared in front of us. It was a normal building. It had gray-brick walls and a traditional ceramic tile roof. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in the sect or back in Dragon Gate City, but this perfectly normal building was standing in the middle of a dense forest.

Deacon Ma guided me inside, and the sounds of the forest disappeared.

Inside the building was a small, quiet reception room with a long wooden counter dividing the space in two. Manning the counter was an older-looking man in a deacon’s robes.

He looked up from a stack of papers as we approached. “Oh, hello, how can I help you?”

Deacon Ma spoke before I could even open my mouth. “New disciple for the outer sect. He needs to be registered and given his new jade and robes.”

“Name?”

This question was asked to me, but Deacon Ma quickly provided the answer before I could respond. “Su Fang.”

The man picked up some of the papers he had been looking at earlier and shuffled through them. “Here it is. Su Fang. Registered as an in-name disciple to Elder Mu. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” answered Ma.

The man cleared his throat and looked me squarely in the eyes.

“Su Fang, you are allowed to choose any elder who will accept you to be your master. You may also choose to have no master at all.” The deacon waved dismissively at Ma. “While he may wish to quickly sweep you up, it is your choice to make. Do you wish to be registered as Elder Mu’s in-name disciple, or do you want to take an opportunity to see if a different master would be a better fit?”

I had considered the possibility of this happening earlier. While I wasn’t entirely happy with the treatment provided by Elder Ma, he had helped me boost my affinity. That was a huge debt that needed to be repaid.

“I will stay with Elder Mu, deacon.”

“Listen for a moment. This is not a decision to be made lightly. Few would appreciate a disciple who abandons one master for another, so after you make this decision, it will not be something you can change easily. I do not know what promises Deacon Ma has made on behalf of Elder Mu, but as an in-name disciple, the resources and training provided to you will be limited. It would be better to find a true master, even if they are weaker than Elder Mu.”

Deacon Ma scowled at the other man, but he held his tongue. There seemed to be rules in place that prevented him from stopping this conversation. Even if they were just social conventions, not true rules, Deacon Ma was hesitant to break them.

“I understand, deacon. Thank you. I still wish to follow Elder Mu.”

“Very well. Here is your identity token as an outer sect disciple. Place a drop of blood on it now so that it recognizes you. After that, no one else will be able to use it.”

He handed me a palm-size jade token similar to the one I had been wearing as a nominal disciple. The only difference was the character 外, outer, was carved into it. I took a small knife from the deacon and cut the tip of my finger, allowing a small drop of blood to drip onto the jade. The blood quickly vanished, and I felt a small, nebulous connection form between me and the jade.

I replaced my old jade token with this new one and was now officially marked as an outer sect disciple for the first time.

“Here are the robes of an outer sect disciple. Wear them from now on,” he said, handing over a folded pale blue hanfu.

After I took them, Deacon Ma grabbed my shoulder to guide me out.

“That's enough, let’s go.”

The door opened, and I stepped out, but I was not greeted by a quiet forest. The entire place had transformed into a small mountain village. A low wall surrounded a collection of a dozen or so small brick buildings.

I looked to my right and saw the mountain where the core of the sect was located. Before, all I had seen was a blanket of trees covering nearly everything. Now, the trees had all disappeared. Instead, the mountain appeared to be little more than a series of rocky outcroppings with tall gray-brick buildings standing atop each cliff. Worn, carved stone paths crisscrossed the mountain to connect a series of small enclaves, and one large road led down to an opening in the village’s wall.

After staring at the scene for several moments, I turned my head to the left.

I saw the city I had lived in for so many years. Only a small line of sparse trees separated this village from that city. Standing where I was, I could see no sign of the ancient forest that I had walked through three separate times.

Deacon Ma chuckled slightly. “Welcome to the Twin Mountains Sect. Let’s get going.”

The deacon led me on a zig-zagging trail up the mountain. The path that had been carved into its face was long and winding, but it wasn’t too difficult a climb. At several places where the path became too steep, it transformed into a small set of stairs to help ease our passage.

As we walked, I studied my surroundings to get a better feel for my new home. Almost no vegetation grew on the mountain, with only a few hardy scrub plants occasionally appearing.

While the main path was wide and clearly marked, we passed several small side branches that led to parts unknown. At almost every branch, the smaller path would have a red paifang arch marking its entrance.

As we passed one of the arches, Deacon Ma pointed to it. “Those mark the domain of an elder. You should never pass through an archway without the express permission of one of the residents.”

There was no talk of penalty or punishment, and he did not say why I should not do so. It was simply a rule.

A little past halfway up the mountain, Deacon Ma finally took one of the side branches. We passed under an arch and entered the domain of Elder Mu. Along this smaller side path, there were several openings into the mountain. These were not simple caves but hand-carved openings into purpose-built rooms within the mountain.

Between these large openings, there were several sets of stairs leading to a network of smaller cave openings above and below us. In total, I spotted roughly three dozen entrances, but there were likely more.

Deacon Ma led me out onto a bluff that jutted from the mountainside. From this vantage, I could see the small village we had just left, the city I had lived in for several years, and River Rock, the town that served as a gateway into the sect.

Looking at River Rock, I could see the square where all the hopefully young men and women had gathered for the sect’s disciple selection. Two paths led away from it. One path went straight into a dense forest while the other was a very short path to another large plaza. That plaza was the place where I took the alchemy test. Two paths also split from that plaza. One of them curved around and led back to River Rock while the other led to the sect’s city.

Each time I had walked any of those paths, it felt like I had been teleported to a brand-new location, but from here, I could see that I had just walked a short path less than ten meters long. Everything else had been an illusion.

I looked at the second path leading away from River Rock. It looked like it led into a dense forest, but I was sure that wasn’t the case. Likely, this outer sect badge had only allowed me to see through the illusions that existed on the Alchemy Peak. I was still blocked from seeing the Martial Peak.

At the edge of the bluff stood a large, two-tiered brick building. Similar to those I had seen in the village, it was built from gray bricks and had a yellow ceramic roof. However, the wooden supports and door of this building had been carved into a variety of designs, such as dragons and phoenixes.

Deacon Ma took me into the building, through a small antechamber, and into a somewhat disorderly office. Paper and bamboo scrolls were scattered everywhere, and nearly every flat surface was covered with them. Behind a desk stacked with parchments, Elder Mu sat studying a book.

The deacon gestured for me to sit across from the elder and then left the room and closed the door behind him.

I waited there for over ten minutes before Elder Mu closed the book he was reading and put it on the desk between us.

“You don’t have a proper spirit fire. This is a problem.”

He studied me with narrowed eyes.

“To concoct Rank 2 and above pills, you must have a spirit fire, but you only have a fire seed. This should be better, but no one in this sect can teach you how to control it. It is only possible to claim a fire seed after you have entered the ruler tier, but even a Martial Lord would still have a tough time surviving the process. This means that no one in the entire sect has any experience with them.”

I waited for him to continue, but it seemed like he was waiting for me to speak first.

“What can I do?”

“I will give you this.” He tapped the book he had just set down. “It has some information on controlling fire seeds, but it isn’t perfect. This is not a technique scroll. It’s more of a journal from someone learning to use a fire seed. While it should help, it will still take you time to learn to use the fire seed properly, and that is a problem. Until you learn to control it, you will not be able to compete against the other disciples in the outer sect. You need to be able to create at least mediocre Rank 2 pills if you want a chance to make a name for yourself.”

Learning that I would need to control the seed from this type of journal was a bit disappointing, but I would find a way to manage it. Even if it took me longer to ‘make a name for myself,’ I didn’t care overmuch. I would just do what I needed to do and rise as far as I could.

My main concern was that I wouldn’t be able to learn a complex skill from a simple journal. Without a proper technique scroll, I wasn’t sure I would have the information needed to do it. If not, I would have to hope that my remaining credits would be enough for the System to help me out.

After giving me the book, Elder Mu changed the topic of the conversation.

“You have lived in the city of the nominal disciples for several years now. What do you think of it?”

I didn’t know what he wanted to hear, so I spoke honestly.

“It feels like a prison. It’s a big place, and it provides everything the people need, but those who live there are stuck there. After so many years, many don’t even think about the outside world anymore. The cultivation techniques they’re taught coerce them to be obedient workers, and they lose the desire to learn and grow.”

Elder Mu nodded. “And what about the sect rules? Have you considered them? No fighting. No bullying people for resources. No physical confrontations at all. Have you noticed how there are no fighting techniques in the Technique Hall? Have you noticed that no one even talks about fighting?”

I paused to carefully consider this. I, myself, hadn’t thought about fighting or improving my martial strength since I left the Su Clan. Part of the reason had to be my negative experiences in the clan, but was that all? I had largely adopted the viewpoint of most nominal disciples, and none of them seemed to even think about fighting either.

This seemed… strange. All I needed to do was learn to cultivate and practice my alchemy, I knew that, but it felt a bit off that I hadn’t even considered learning to defend myself.

“Why? Why don’t you train us to fight? Is it just so we don’t rise up against the sect? I don’t think that would happen even if you did.”

He looked me straight in the eye. “Because this is the path the leaders of the Wastes have chosen for it.”

He paused briefly to let me consider, but I didn’t have the knowledge to understand his meaning, so he continued.

“There is a saying. ‘Wherever there are people, there are rivers and lakes. There is the Jianghu.’ In the outside world, the Jianghu is a simple fact of life. No matter where you go, you will always find people fighting against each other to succeed. In some places, that will be through martial conflict, but in others, it will be through political maneuvering. No matter what form it takes, it is the Jianghu, the struggle to survive.”

His stony face cracked, and he gave a wry chuckle. “But not in the Wastes. There is no such struggle here. It is impossible for anyone at the level of Martial Lord or stronger to enter the Wastes, and it is impossible for anyone to ascend to that realm while inside it. This means there are no powerful demon beasts to harass the locals, and there are no overly powerful threats to young cultivators. It is a perfect little garden for growing low-level herbs and training the next generation.”

Elder Mu pointed to an old map hanging on the wall. In its center was a large, empty area. The entire place only had three marked dots. ‘The Twin Mountains Sect,’ ‘Dragon Gate City,’ and ‘The Verdant Fields Sect.’ Around this empty area were several nations with countless dots marking important locations.

“The powers surrounding the Wastes have turned it into a playground, and to protect this… resource, they have worked hard to stop the Jianghu from infecting it. The sect’s city for nominal disciples is a pure expression of this desire to eliminate the Jianghu. You may pity those who have chosen to live there and never strive for more, but they are safe there. Those people would never survive the Jianghu.”

Was this also the explanation for the actions of the Su Clan? While the Wastes might be protected from ‘infection,’ if that protection didn’t extend inside the sect, it likely didn’t extend to the Su Clan either. The Twin Mountains Sect provided a place for those who couldn’t survive in this world to live and prosper, but the Su Clan had simply decided to ruthlessly discard those who could not survive the Jianghu.

“You, however, were able to overcome this… gelding and become an outer sect disciple. You are now part of the true Twin Mountains Sect, and this mountain does not have the protections from the Jianghu that the rest of the Wastes have. You will now be part of the struggle. Inside the sect, it is still tame, and as your in-name master, my presence will shield you from the worst of it, but you will still need to strive for advancement.”

I nodded. I could see potential benefits to needing to struggle to advance. So far, the only thing pushing me forward was a personal desire to improve. I didn’t care much about competing, but if it helped me improve, I would do my part.

“Does this mean I will be taught fighting techniques?”

“No, you walk the Dao of alchemy. That must be your focus. The Jianghu isn’t simply about martial combat. To rise to the top of this sect, you must compete with others in alchemy. While you will now have access to a limited selection of martial skills, do not let them distract you from this core mission. If you try to learn everything, you will learn nothing.”

He took a deep breath and looked deep into my eyes. “The more you compete in the sect and the better you do, the more credit I receive and the higher I will rise. I have recruited several disciples like you, but if Manager Chen is to be believed you may be the most influential. If your efforts earn me enough credit, I will reward you. If they do not, I will discard you. If you hinder me, I will kill you. That is the deal I am offering. Do you understand?”

I nodded solemnly. I didn’t care much about competing against the other disciples. That wasn’t important to me. I just wanted to improve my cultivation and alchemy. However, I owed Elder Mu a debt, so I would do my best to repay it.

“Deacon Ma serves as my eyes and ears in the city, so he cannot attend to you any longer. He will introduce you to the new contacts you should use instead.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 35 – Life 58, Age 20, Martial Master 1

After leaving Elder Mu’s office, Deacon Ma guided me out of the buildings and back down the bluff. Once we got back to the cliff face, he took me into the first cave opening we came to. Like all the others, it was a perfect rectangle, showing it was manmade, but what set this one apart was that around its entrance was a wide, delicately carved border with a floral design. While the entrance was clear, a heavy wooden door was set well back within the tunnel.

Inside this cave, we found a nice homey cavern that felt like someone’s personal study. Bamboo mats covered the ground and tidy bookshelves lined the walls. Two small desks, one against the left and one against the right, provided workspaces for the cavern’s two occupants. Glowing orbs set on sconces around the room provided them light as they scanned through stacks of ledgers.

Deacon Ma approached the old man who was working at the desk on the right.

“Old Chen, we have a new in-name disciple. He needs someone to show him around.”

The old man looked up from his work and gave me a warm smile. “Oh? A new disciple? Yes, yes. Jun’er, come here.”

The girl working at the other desk stood up and walked over.

“Yes, Deacon Chen?”

“Jun’er, this is a new in-name disciple. Show him around and assign him a cave.”

“Yes, deacon.” She turned and bowed to me. “Come with me, please.”

I followed the girl out of the deacon’s cave and back to the cliff face while both deacons stayed behind.

Once we were outside and under the bright sun, the girl looked up into the sky happily before turning to face me.

“Hello, I am Chen YanJun. You can call me Little Jun. That was Deacon Chen. He’s the head administrator of Elder Mu’s enclave. Try not to disturb him.”

“Little Jun? Is that appropriate? Shouldn’t I call you senior sister?”

She laughed and tugged at her pale robes. “No, I am only a servant disciple. Because we share the same name, Deacon Chen took me in to assist him, but I have no official position. As you are a disciple of the elder, it’s proper to call me Little Jun.”

“Alright, so, what do I need to know?”

She pointed to our right. “First, that direction leads to the deacons’ caves. You should never go down that path without permission. The same applies to the elder’s abode. While you may not face any official punishment for violating this rule, your fellow disciples will not be so kind.”

I nodded, beginning to get a sense of how this place worked. “Are most of the rules going to be like that? No official punishment, but social conventions are enforced by the other disciples?”

“Yes. Cultivators strive to defy the Heavens, so of course they would be willing to defy the elders. Instead of rules from above, it is the rivalry between disciples that maintains order.”

That seemed impractical. Trusting rivalry between children to maintain order seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. However, the effects of cultivation techniques combined with an invisible guiding hand might make it possible.

Jun waved at me and gestured to the left. “Follow me.”

This was the same path the deacon and I came from earlier.

We walked back to the place where the path split apart and led to stairs up and down the mountain face. “The upper caves are the residences for inner sect disciples. The lower caves are for outer sect disciples. Those in the middle are shared areas. You will be able to handle most of your day-to-day transactions there, including selling pills and buying herbs, techniques, and basic resources.”

“Do they use the same contribution points as the rest of the sect?”

“No, the halls here are run by Elder Mu, not by the sect. They do not operate on a strict point basis, and what you are allocated is determined by the deacons. The more you contribute, the more resources you will be allocated. As an in-name disciple, your base allocation is extremely limited, so you will need to amass significantly more contributions than a direct disciple would.”

“So, all my supplies have to be given to me by Elder Mu? I can’t earn and use regular contribution points at all anymore?”

While I had become accustomed to this under Deacon Ma, I had expected the situation to only be temporary.

“No, you can still go down to the village and trade using points like normal. The sect operates halls there that run on the standard contribution point system. They have more resources available, and the prices may be better or worse than they are here. However, by going through the sect halls, you are not contributing to the elder. That is your choice to make, but it could limit your access to any special opportunities he could provide.”

I put the situation in a context I could better understand. I had to choose between operating under a hard currency exchange or a favor system. I liked the former more since it was more structured, but in truth, I didn’t know which would be better for me. Ideally, I would be able to make enough pills to work both systems simultaneously.

After explaining the halls, she took me on a path to one of the lower caves. The entrance was bare rock and lacked the flourishes of Elder Chen’s room. The inside of the cave was barren except for a bed roll and a ratty bamboo mat on the ground. Its only saving grace was its relatively large size. It was a square nearly three meters to a side. If I could get furnishings, it wouldn’t be a terrible place to stay.

Jun winced slightly at the sight. “This is your cave. Since you’re new, your cave is the worst one available. If you want a better place to stay, you’ll need to defeat others in challenges for the right to claim their place as your own.”

“Can I buy furniture?”

“Yes, but none is available from the elder. Some furnishings are available in the sect halls, but you’ll need to carry whatever you purchase up the mountain. Most people find it easier to simply focus on winning a better cave than trying to improve the one they were assigned. If you do make improvements, you may find yourself losing this cave in a challenge.”

“They get to keep anything I place in it?”

“You’ll have a short time to move, but it will not be enough to take everything away.”

So, either way, I needed to be able to win challenges. Doing any work to improve my living situation first would be futile.

“What are the challenges? How do we compete?”

“Everyone here is an alchemist. You’ll have to compete by concocting pills. There are many different ways to compete though. If you compete on quality, both of you will be given the same ingredients and whoever makes the best pill wins. You can compete in speed, to see who can make pills the fastest. You can compete in value, to see who can make the most profitable pills. You can pretty much compete in any way you wish.”

“Can I challenge anyone? Can they refuse?”

“Yes to both. However, challenging a disciple who is considered far more or far less skilled than yourself risks offending the other disciples. Likewise, refusing a challenge may be seen as cowardice. Of course, if a highly skilled alchemist is challenged by a weak one, they will usually refuse. There are no real rules about challenges, but you need to understand how others will react to everything you do.”

I thanked Jun for her tour, and she left me alone to consider the new situation I had found myself in.

Without being able to use my fire seed, I couldn’t concoct Rank 2 pills. That meant I couldn’t compete against the other disciples, and I wouldn’t be able to succeed in any challenges. If I couldn’t win any challenges, I would be stuck in this moldy cave until Elder Mu kicked me off the mountain.

The more people talked about these competitions, the less interested I became in them. I had lived a long time without having to compete against others for standing or resources, and changing my mindset now was difficult. I could only take things one step at a time and see what happened.

Before anything else, I had to understand how to use my fire seed. It could provide me with an important advantage, but if I couldn’t control it, it was little more than ballast weighing me down.

Alone in my cave, I sat down and got to work.

I opened the book that Elder Mu gave me and began reading. As he had told me, it was nothing like a technique scroll. The books detailed the experiences of a cultivator as he tried to master his own fire seed.

The cultivator in the book had absorbed a seed of the Tidal Waters Fire. It was, as its name suggested, a water-based spirit fire.

I didn’t know how a spirit fire’s element affected it, and the book didn’t explain anything on the topic, but I didn’t get the impression that a fire’s element would have too much of an effect on the basics of how to control it. Though, it was likely a cultivator's affinity for said element would play a part.

The book described a process of opening one’s soul and allowing a tendril of the fire seed to enter the body. If I had only absorbed a spirit fire like normal, the energy would be fused with my body, and I would use my qi to empower and control it. With the seed, the first step was to get the energy into my body. The biggest difference was that the fire would be empowered by the seed, not by my personal qi.

From what I read, it seemed like the biggest roadblock ahead of me was simply opening my soul to allow the fire to flow from my soul into my body in a steady, controlled way. Without opening my soul, I would not be able to reach the fire. If I opened my soul too widely, fire would flood out of the opening and rampage through my body. In that case, surviving with only serious injuries would be the best-case scenario.

Without an actual technique or any real instructions for what to do, attempting to do anything with the fire seed would be extremely risky. I needed to rely on the System for assistance.

“System, how much to learn how to control my fire seed?”

Mastery of Seed of the Yellow-Rank Cold Mountain Fire. Cost 100,000 credits.

I had checked this back when I was secluded in Rudy’s workshop, and even with Elder Mu’s journal, the price hadn’t changed. I would not be able to purchase such a skill without the credits from a death as a Martial Grandmaster.

“How much to learn the skills described in this journal?”

Partial Mastery of Seed of the Profound-Ranked Tidal Waters Fire. Cost 5,000,000 credits.

“No, I just want the cost of learning the information that’s described in the journal as it pertains to the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire.”

Cost 5,000 credits.

That was much better. It was clear I’d be missing out on a lot of valuable insights, but if I had the basics, I could begin practicing alchemy again and would be able to learn to use the seed better in the future. Still, the price was too high. Maybe I should have saved more credits earlier, but unfortunately, everything is useful and everything costs money.

“Okay System, what about only the basics for opening my soul to release the fire? I don’t want mastery of the skill, but I need enough expertise that I can successfully release the fire into my body without significant risk of injury.”

Cost 500 credits.

Good enough. I could try to add a few more features, but it was unlikely my remaining credits would be able to make much of a difference.

“Purchase it.”

Purchase confirmed. 290 credits remaining.

The information I received was as limited as I had expected. With only this knowledge, I would not be able to make any Rank 2 pills for a long time, but I did gain a starting point to work from.

Using my newly gained understanding, I opened my soul and allowed a small trickle of spirit fire to seep into my body. It felt strange, like an alien presence had invaded my body and was squirming around my chest cavity. I quickly closed my soul, and the invading energy stopped increasing, but what was already inside me did not dissipate.

My chest began heating up, and I started feeling sharp bursts of pain in several locations around my torso. It was similar to what I experienced during my death when I first absorbed the seed. However, with my soul closed off and the energy inside me limited, the sensation remained bearable, for the moment.

I was supposed to use the qi in my body to control the spirit fire energy, so that is what I tried to do. I wrapped the foreign energy in my qi and tried to force it to move. When I did so, I faced complications I did not expect.

The Cold Mountain Fire was mainly made up of a type of earth energy, but it also had a trace of water energy inside it. My qi was fire qi. When I tried to control the spirit fire’s energy, its water energy eroded my control over my fire qi. At the same time, my fire qi fed the earth energy, making it stronger.

This was part of the basics of the five-element system. Water extinguishes fire. Fire produces earth.

These interactions didn’t just make controlling the energy from the spirit fire more difficult, they made it life-threatening. As my fire qi fed the earth energy, the pain in my chest steadily increased. To combat this, I sent all the qi I could out of my chest and into other parts of my body.

Somehow, regular sect alchemists could control the Cold Mountain Fire, but I didn’t know the details. Since I had the fire seed, neither Elder Mu nor Deacon Ma had seen fit to explain how to use a normal spirit fire, and at that moment I was in no condition to go ask. I needed to do something quickly to save myself.

Controlling the fire’s energy through qi didn’t work, but I had another option. I had affinities in both earth and water. They were only low eight-star, but I didn’t need deft manipulation. I just needed to expel the energy.

I mentally connected with the fire and pushed. It was not as easy to manipulate as the medicinal energy in herbs, but it still gave way. Slowly, ever so slowly, it emerged from my chest.

While inside my body, the spirit fire had been able to use my qi to sustain itself. Once expelled, it no longer had a power source and dissipated, vanishing into thin air.

With the immediate danger dealt with, I collapsed to the floor in exhaustion and a smile appeared on my face. This incident had been dangerous, but it had been a success. I had tapped into the seed and controlled a spirit fire. From here, all I needed was practice.

A note from G Tolley

Hey, so I've been getting some requests for shout outs recently. I don't plan to do them much, but this one looked interesting. I've read Chinese webnovels based on farming, but this one looks quite a bit different and I'm going to try it out when I get some free time.

My Demonic Farm: A Progression Fantasy LitRPG

by WhisperingSnow

[Alert: Shadowshade Potato has matured. Beware of its mood swings!]

"Mood swings? It's just a potato!" Theo exclaims.

[Warning: Shadowroot Carrots are now carnivorous. Offer veggies to sate their hunger.]

"Always said you should eat your greens, not the other way around," Theo muses.

[Alert: The Abyssal Asparagus has grown taller... and it's looking down on you.]

"Size isn't everything, you know." Theo retorts, clearly offended.

This is no typical farming saga. It's a roller-coaster of survival, kingdom-building, power struggles, and hidden conspiracies, sprinkled with a dash of dark humor. Because in this world, every crop could be your last, and the line between good and evil is as thin as a blade's edge.

Dive into "My Demonic Farm," sow the seeds of your destiny, and brace yourself for a farming adventure like no other.

Are you ready for the harvest?

My Demonic Farm: CHAPTER 1

Chapter 36 – Life 58, Age 25, Martial Master 3

Even though the knowledge from the System helped, I still had a long way to go before I would be able to use my spirit fire seed properly.

Knowing that I needed to gain mastery over it as quickly as possible, I secluded myself in my musty cave and did nothing other than practice different ways of expelling and controlling the spirit fire. I didn’t make or sell any pills, but no one came to hassle me about contribution points. Whenever I had questions about what to do to improve, I just needed to search out one of the deacons and they would give me whatever advice they could.

This was far different from the treatment I had received elsewhere in the sect. While it was possible that Elder Mu’s enclave just functioned differently, I didn’t believe it. In my mind, the only possible explanation for these differences was that the elder must have made it clear that I was to be allowed to focus on my task.

When I asked the deacons about how normal cultivators absorbed and used spirit fires, the answer I got was something I didn’t expect. During the normal process of absorbing a spirit fire, a cultivator’s body is flooded with low-level energy. When I first opened my soul to use the seed, a large amount of spirit fire energy was expelled directly into my chest. For a normal cultivator, that same amount of energy would be spread out through every part of their body.

As for controlling a spirit fire, the deacons said that they never try to do so directly since it would be impossible without the proper affinities. Instead, their control comes through feeding the spirit fire qi.

Fire produces earth. When fire qi is applied to the earth energy of Cold Mountain Fire, flames of earth energy burst forth. To create a spirit fire flame in one’s palm, a normal alchemist would direct their fire qi to the spirit fire energy at that location. They are not controlling the spirit fire itself. They were only manipulating where an external flame would appear by controlling their qi.

What I did, expelling the energy of a spirit fire from my body and letting it dissipate, might work too, but it would be incredibly wasteful. For someone without a seed, any energy used in this manner would be permanently lost. Repeatedly accessing a spirit fire by expelling it from one’s body would only lead to the complete loss of the spirit fire.

Learning the way normal cultivators used spirit fires was helpful, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to apply it to my situation. While I could direct my qi to my fist, it wouldn’t do anything. The fire seed was in my soul, and when I opened my soul the spirit fire’s energy entered my chest. There wasn’t even a trace of it in my hand for me to manipulate.

From the deacons’ information, it was clear that before anything else, I needed to figure out how to produce a spirit fire in my hands. If I wanted to perform alchemy, that was where it was going to need to be.

The System had given me the most basic of basics for opening my soul to extract energy. Using this knowledge, I was able to extract a thread of spirit fire into my chest. I could look at ways to slowly transfer that energy from my chest to my hands, but that felt like a suboptimal strategy.

Another option was to flood my body with a low level of spirit fire energy like normal cultivators did. Then, I would be able to control it like a normal alchemist using the same well-known and easily understood methods that the sect taught everyone else. However, this would be throwing away any advantages having a seed might provide me. It would turn the fire seed from a blessing into a curse.

I needed a better way. I wanted to be able to open my soul in my hand, not in my chest. Then, I could extract a flame directly into my palm without needing to worry about moving it or manipulating it with qi. The knowledge of how to do this wasn’t included in the limited information I had purchased from the System, but that just meant I needed to figure it out for myself.

With this conviction, I focused my efforts and began spending all my energy on searching for a way to control where I opened my soul. Such determined focus was physically and mentally exhausting, so when I needed a break from working with the fire seed, I cultivated. I didn’t rush my cultivation, but while I was focused on learning to control the seed, I was able to break through two stages, reaching Martial Master 3.

After five years of diligent work, I finally succeeded. I figured out what I was missing. I not only learned to create flames of the Cold Mountain Fire anywhere in my body, but I also gained a decent amount of control over the intensity of the flames produced. It wasn’t yet perfect, but when combined with my earth affinity, I thought my control over my fire seed might be a match for anyone at my level.

After learning to control the fire seed and ending my seclusion, the first place I visited was the elder’s pill hall. When I walked in, I saw the deacon tending the shop and smiled at him.

“Hello, Deacon Liu.”

Deacon Liu, the manager of the elder’s pill hall, had been extremely helpful to me when I was trying to learn how to control the fire seed. Knowing my situation, he did everything he could to help me learn a way to control the seed. While this hadn’t helped me directly since it mainly just involved telling me about how regular disciples controlled their spirit fires, I was still grateful.

“Little Fang, how are you doing today?”

“Very good, deacon. I finished my training and now have my seed under control. I’m ready to begin working on pills.”

The deacon laughed at my eagerness. “Not so fast, boy. Don’t worry about jumping into alchemy right away. Let me show you something first.”

The deacon led me outside and into a different cave. This one was much more spacious than the pill hall, but the walls were only roughhewn stone. An assortment of random objects was placed around the room, including a large tree trunk, a block of dirt, and coils of ropes.

“Elder Mu doesn’t have many disciples, so this place isn’t used much. That means there isn’t a deacon permanently stationed here, so if you want to use the place you should just grab anyone free.”

“Okay… What is this place?”

Deacon Liu beamed a smile at me. “This is where we can assess your abilities with your spirit fire. This can be considered your first competition against your fellow disciples. The more promise you show here, the more resources you will get, and everything you do here will only be known by us, so you can openly display your abilities without worry.”

“Do I still need to keep my abilities secret? Is that still a problem? I thought everything was settled after I officially joined the elder.”

“Normally you’d be right, but we can’t let anyone know about your fire seed. That would cause problems when people began asking questions about where it came from. The Twin Mountains Sect has the only recorded seed of the Cold Mountain Fire, and people would be extremely interested to learn how you, a Martial Master, both found and bonded a second one.”

“So, I need to make sure that what I display lines up with what someone possessing a common spirit fire could be capable of?”

“Exactly, and that is why we are here. We need to know what you are capable of. Where do you need to hold back, how much you need to hold back, and where your current skills still lag behind those of other disciples.”

“Sounds good. How do we start?”

The deacon pointed at a massive log of wood. It was a meter round and over three meters long. From my position, I could see several deep holes drilled into its end.

“We’ll start with something you should excel in. Power. Every disciple of the elder uses the Cold Mountain Fire. Wood depletes earth, and the Cold Mountain Fire is mainly an earth-attributed spirit fire, so wood is a good material to test its power. All you have to do is drill a small hole through the log. The further it penetrates, the better. For now, just do the best you can.”

I nodded, approached the log, and touched it with the tip of my index finger. I opened my soul in that spot and allowed flames to gush out freely. The energy for the flames was provided by the spirit seed, but I used a thin tendril of qi along with my affinities to try and guide it forward in a straight line. I didn’t have any problem cutting through the log, but after the flames got too far from my body, I was no longer able to control them, so the total depth I could drill was limited.

When I finally cut off my flames, I backed away and allowed the deacon to approach. He took out a rod and measured my work.

He laughed happily. “A good bit over two meters deep. A normal disciple has difficulty reaching forty or fifty centimeters. Also, from the looks of it, control was your problem, not total power. This is certainly an area where you will have to limit yourself. The fire seed can provide you much more power than someone with your cultivation base should have.”

He gave the log one last look and then turned to a brick of dirt.

“Let’s get to the second test. I expect you’ll find it much more challenging.”

I looked at the brick but wasn’t sure what to expect.

“This is a test of your isolation ability. This is a one-kilogram block of ice that’s been covered in a thin layer of earth. With a bit of effort, your fire will be able to burn away this shell of earth, but your goal is to do so without melting the block of ice hidden within. Earth obstructs water. If your flames touch the ice, it will quickly destroy it. Your result will be based on how much the block weighs after you have removed all the dirt.”

While I had more practice with qi isolation than anyone in the sect, isolating the spirit fire’s energy was a different beast entirely. It didn’t behave the same way qi did, it was wilder. Where qi went where I told it and stayed there, the spirit fire would go where I wanted it to and then wander around unless I maintained focus on it at all times.

Covering an entire block with flames and burning away the earth wasn’t difficult, but controlling the fire while I did so and not letting it touch the ice felt nearly impossible. Whenever I increased my energy output enough to make the dirt disappear, the flames quickly ate into the ice. I would have to spend time to figure out the trick to this. My earth affinity simply wasn’t high enough to control the spirit fire properly.

“Zero kilograms remaining. It’s not surprising. Most disciples feel this is the hardest of the tests. Let’s move on.”

Saying this, the deacon moved to a rope and shaped it into a coil on the ground.

“For the test of speed, you need to use your fire to burn this rope. It’s somewhat wood-aligned, so it won’t be the easiest thing to burn, but it doesn’t take too much effort. Start at the outside end. You must burn it by following the path of the rope, like a candle wick. If you lose control and burn part of the coil before you reach it by following the path of the rope, this test will be considered a failure.”

I thought about how to approach the task, but I went with my first idea. I put my index finger above the rope and released a small amount of fire. I then just used my hand to trace the coil. Once I locked in the right amount of energy to use, the test wasn’t too difficult. I singed the inner coil a couple of times, but I never destroyed it.

Deacon Liu nodded. “Twenty-three seconds. Not bad. That’s in line with where most disciples are, but you were a little sloppy. You should work on that. Let’s get to the final test, accuracy.”

He took me to a small desk upon which sat a few sheets of paper. The paper was stamped with a red wax seal, and the grooves in the wax were inlaid with small shards of wood.

“The red wax is infused with cinnabar, a fire-attributed material. The goal is to destroy the seal without damaging the wooden inlay or the paper beneath. The wax will not be difficult to destroy, and the wood of the inlay and paper will resist being burned by your fire. However, fire produces earth, so the cinnabar in the wax will naturally increase the intensity of your spirit fire.”

Even with my lacking earth affinity, the last test wasn’t too difficult. Since I was able to use the flame at low intensity, it was well within my control. The only hard part was the wax trapped between the inlay and the paper. I destroyed a few shards of the inlay before I got the fire under control, but near the end, I didn’t have any problems.

“Thirty percent damage. It isn’t bad for your first attempt, and from the swift progress you made during this attempt, I’m sure you’ll do better next time.”

“What’s next?”

“Now we talk. Except for your power, everything else was somewhat mediocre. It was in line with the other disciples, and you showed potential to quickly improve in some areas, but before you can compete openly, you need to understand your strength and the strength of a regular disciple better.”

He tapped his chin in thought. “Go and practice each of these skills, but remember what you were able to accomplish today. After you practice, come back and use the testing log a few times. You need to give off a natural look of struggling to reach past forty centimeters.”

“What about the other tests?”

“Your fire seed doesn’t seem to be helping you out with anything other than raw power. In fact, it seems to be actively hurting you in some areas. So, you don’t need to worry about learning to hide anything other than your power. Your isolation is a problem though. Most disciples have problems with it, but the fire seed seems to be making things even worse than normal. You’ll need to find a way around that.”

“So, I just need to go practice my fire skills more now?”

“No. You need to practice your skills, but they are still sufficient for you to move on to other tasks. Don’t compete with any other disciples until you’ve improved, of course, but we can get you started on advancing your alchemy. Come back to the pill hall with me and I’ll teach you about Rank 2 pills.”

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 37 – Life 58, Age 25, Martial Master 3

After we returned to the alchemy hall, Deacon Liu placed five herbs on the counter.

“These are the herbs needed to concoct the most important Rank 2 pill, the Meridian Builder Pill. This pill increases the flow of qi, like a Qi Gathering Pill, while also improving the ability to focus. While this combination of effects might be useful in a combat setting, the inevitable buildup of toxins when consuming pills means that it is only used when necessary, such as when constructing meridians, thus the name.”

I nodded at his explanation and studied the herbs.

“These herbs are harder to process and use than Rank 1 herbs, and I’ll need to be able to maintain control over all five herbs at once? Isn’t there an easier place to start? Like, a pill that uses fewer herbs?”

“Yes. The Meridian Builder is far from the easiest Rank 2 pill, it is actually one of the more complicated ones. However, it is also by far the most common. You could learn to make Rank 2 Earth Skin Pills, but how many would you be able to sell? How many cultivators would be willing to put pill toxins in their bodies to harden their skin for a brief time? At most, a martial cultivator would carry a single pill and only use it in the direst of circumstances. It is better to simply start by learning Meridian Builder Pills since the demand for them is far higher than anything else.”

I nodded, eager to get started. “I understand. What do I need to do to receive ingredients to practice with?”

The deacon raised a hand to stop me. “Hold on. Take a close look at these herbs in qi vision first.”

Doing so, I noticed that they were almost entirely composed of chaotic, toxic energy. Very little medicinal energy existed in them.

“Rank 2 herbs are significantly harder to grow. While a normal farmer can grow Rank 1 herbs with consistently high and standardized amounts of medicinal energy, the same cannot be said for Rank 2 pills. To concoct a pill with 100% standard efficacy, not only do you need to be a good alchemist, but you also need to start with high-quality ingredients. These herbs were grown by a mortal farmer with no understanding of how to care for them properly. They are complete trash and useless for pills.”

“They are worthless for pills, but you kept them…” I thought through the situation. “So, they are useful for something else. Training?”

He grinned at me, “Right you are. We didn’t just keep them. We commissioned them as a resource to train new Master Alchemists. Herbs like these are far cheaper to mass produce than proper ones. Based on your performance earlier, you can be allocated five sets of training herbs for Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pills. If you are able to use them to create just a single pill of any quality, you will be given access to more. If not, you will be assigned to assist with other tasks.”

I nodded and reached forward to grab the herbs. My first impulse was to seclude myself in an alchemy workshop immediately to figure out how to use them, just like I had always done in the past. With enough time, I was confident that I would be able to learn how to use Rank 2 herbs just as well as I could use Rank 1 herbs.

As my hands neared the herb, I stopped them and pulled them back. I had a support system around me now. I needed to use it.

No one had known how to use a fire seed, so no one could help me learn how to use it, but this was different. Everyone in the elder’s enclave would know how to make this Rank 2 pill. I didn’t have to struggle alone in the dark this time.

It was time to ask for help.

“Deacon Liu, can you teach me to make this pill? I know that the sooner I learn this, the better, and I don’t know how long it will take me to learn on my own.”

The deacon looked at me with a kind smile. “Of course.”

I bowed to him. “Thank you.”

He caught my shoulder, stopping me. “No need for that. Let’s just go to a workshop.”

The deacon began explaining as he laid everything out on a workbench.

“You can already make excellent Rank 1 pills. Rank 2 pills aren't too different. There are just a few extra complications you need to worry about.”

He picked up one of the herbs and handed it to me. “Try to use your fire qi to work on this like you would with a Rank 1 pill.”

I looked at the herb in my hand. It looked like nothing more than a spout of sage but looking at it in qi sight showed thick toxic energy with just a hint of green at the core.

The deacon motioned once more. “Try using your fire qi to burn away the toxins.”

I took a strand of fire qi and attacked the chaotic energy with it. It worked. Where my qi landed, the toxins vaporized and drifted away, but the process was very, very slow. Cleansing this herb would take far more energy than it had with the lower-level ones. Even if I completely drained myself, I doubted I would be able to remove all the toxins.

“Now you see why we need spirit fires.” Deacon Liu picked up another herb. “What do you know about pill toxins? What can you tell me about them?”

I thought about it. I realized I had never thought to ask that question. I was just told they were toxins, and toxins were bad. I knew from experience that if the herbs retained too many toxins, it would be impossible to form a final pill, but that was about it.

“Not much… I just know that I need to remove them.”

Deacon Liu nodded, expecting my response. “I’m no master herbalist, so I only know the basics myself. As herbs grow, they pull in energy from the environment. If grown in the perfect environment, with the right energy balance, the herb’s medicinal energy will be extremely pure. These herbs are in such a bad state because they were contaminated by other energies as they grew.”

The deacon placed the five new herbs in front of me. “For a Meridian Builder Pill, you need an herb of each basic element. This water-affinity herb has mainly been contaminated with an abundance of wood energy. The other four have been contaminated with an abundance of water energy. The reason your fire qi did so poorly at purifying that first herb was because fire qi is terrible at cleansing water-based toxins.”

“So, using an earth-based spirit fire is far more effective.”

“Exactly. Your spirit fire is great for dealing with water toxins and okay with fire toxins. Your fire qi will work well on metal toxins and should suffice for wood. You should only have any real problems when dealing with strong earth toxins. You’ll have to use your spirit fire against them, but earth against earth will make things difficult. You may also occasionally find herbs contaminated with more exotic energies, but those are usually impossible to properly cleanse and simply need to be discarded.”

The deacon again handed me the herb with wood energy that had been contaminated by water toxins. “Try to cleanse this one again, but this time use your spirit fire.”

I placed the herb in the workbench's pill furnace and started the fire. Using my fire qi and heat from the natural fire, I slowly melted the physical structure of the herb and exposed its energy.

Then, I held my right hand close to the herb and expelled a tendril of spirit fire from my soul. The moment the energy touched the toxins, both energy and toxin almost seemed to instantly vanish without any effort on my part.

Using my wood affinity to rotate the herb and my earth affinity to control my spirit fire, I worked to carefully expose the core of medicinal energy trapped under layers of toxins. My control and isolation of the spirit fire wasn’t great, so I nicked the green energy a few times, but it wasn’t catastrophic. When I finished, there wasn’t much medicinal energy remaining, but what was there was extremely pure.

Once my task was complete, my concentration lapsed, and the small ball of energy quickly dissipated. With the herb’s physical shell destroyed and its toxins having been burned away, there was no structure to keep the remaining medicinal energy together.

Deacon Liu smiled and nodded at my results. “Not bad. Even if you did hurt the medicinal energy slightly, it was still a respectable job. However, I recommend not using your spirit fire so much. Without a high earth affinity, your control of the spirit fire will never be as strong as your control of qi. Nicking the medicinal energy with a wood herb wasn’t that much of a problem, but even getting close to water-based medicinal energy with it is a problem.”

He picked up another herb and began working on it as he explained. “Use the spirit fire to remove the bulk of the toxins but leave a thin membrane around the core. Then, use your fire qi to remove whatever remains. This is a way to balance out efficiency and efficacy. Doing everything with your qi would take too much energy, but doing the detail work with your spirit fire is too difficult, so just switch between the two as needed.”

“I understand.” I was happy to be making progress in alchemy once more. “What’s next?”

“Next? Here are the other four herbs from that set. You need to be able to cleanse five simultaneously. You’ve done three before when working on Rank 1 pills, so begin by moving up to four.”

I accepted the bundle and got to work.

The water herb, being contaminated with wood energy, was easy to deal with since I could use my fire qi. However, the other three all had to be dealt with using my spirit fire. These were more challenging, but they were still within my capabilities. I followed the deacon’s advice and only focused on removing the bulk with my spirit fire while using my fire qi for the finishing touches.

“Good job. You got the hang of it a lot faster than I expected. Now, let’s try all five at once.”

Again, I set to work. Another herb meant additional complications, but since it was the wood herb, which was the easiest for my spirit fire to deal with, it wasn’t too bad, and having more practice, I was able to clean these five slightly faster than I had the previous four. I was not focusing on making a pill though, so once I relaxed the energy lost cohesion and quickly dissipated.

Deacon Liu looked excited. “Good, good. We still have three sets of ingredients to work with, and you’re already at this point. That’s excellent work.”

“I just need to combine the energy now, right?”

“Yes, but have you ever worked with a pill using ingredients of different elements before?”

“No, deacon.”

“Alright then. When working with multi-element pills, you need to consider the cycle of elements when combining the energies. If you simply push water and fire energy together, the result will never be good. Also, with a five-element pill, you need to think about what the final goal should be. We want to make a Meridian Builder Pill, but what kind of meridian do we want to use it to make? You have fire qi, so you will have fire meridians.”

Deacon Liu placed the fire herb in front of me.

“A fire meridian is our end goal.” He placed the wood herb to the left of the fire one. “Wood feeds fire, so the wood energy needs to be fed into the fire energy.”

He then placed all five herbs in order. “Earth produces metal. Metal generates water. Water nourishes wood. Wood feeds fire. By starting the cycle from earth, the energy will be enhanced each time, and you will end up with a Meridian Builder Pill tailored for fire meridians.”

I took the herbs to the pill furnace and began to work. Cleansing the herbs went more smoothly than before, and I finished it having expended less energy than the previous two times. After that, I quickly moved to combine the energies together.

I fed the earth energy into the metal energy. When I did so, it wasn’t a simple matter of 1+1=2. It was more like 1+1=3. The combined energy felt at least 50% more potent than when they were separate. This didn’t create new… ‘particles’ of medicinal energy. It simply enhanced the medicinal energy that already existed.

This gave me new questions about the nature of energy in this world, but I didn’t have time to dwell on them, I had work to do.

I fed that combined energy into the water energy, then that into the wood energy. Each time, the energy transformed into a more excited state. After finally feeding it into the fire energy, the cycle was complete, and energy blossomed again.

The growth of the medicinal energy’s potency was surprising, but the final bundle of energy I was left with was still somewhat underwhelming for a Rank 2 pill. The final product felt like it was only about twice as powerful as one of my normal Rank 1 pills. This was due to the extreme lack of energy in the herbs I was using.

This wasn’t necessarily terrible for my first real attempt at making a Rank 2 pill. Because the total energy was close to what I was used to working with, I was able to condense it and form a pill without any added difficulties.

When the final pill dropped to the bottom of the pill furnace, Deacon Liu picked it up and examined it. “Looks to be barely Mid-Purity with about 3% standard efficacy. It’s barely acceptable, but it’s good for your first attempt.”

He looked at me with a slight smile. “You have two more sets of ingredients here. Get to work and bring me the results when you can.”

With that, the deacon left me alone in the workshop.

Practicing with the herbs and making the pill had used up quite a bit of my energy, but I had sufficient reserves to finish the other two sets. To try and improve my final products, I was more careful when cleansing and mixing the energies, and it seemed to help.

In less than an hour, I was able to produce two more pills. I took them and returned to the pill hall to see how my results stacked up.

“Deacon Liu, please check these for me.”

He blinked at me. “Already finished? I didn’t think you’d have the energy to make any more today. Let me see them.”

The deacon took the pills and spent several moments examining them.

“4% and 6% of standard efficacy, and both are solidly Mid-Purity. I would say these are about the best pills you could make from those waste herbs.” He gave me a somewhat wicked smile. “Good job. Now it’s time to start earning your keep.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 38 – Life 58, Age 26, Martial Master 3

Earning my keep meant producing pills.

I spent a year doing nothing but constantly making as many pills as I could, doing my best to concoct at least a dozen pills every single day. Not all of them were high-quality. In fact, many of them were far below my personal standard, but Deacon Liu’s rules were simple. I only needed to make a profit. As long as my alchemy was profitable, I would be provided an endless stream of ingredients to work with.

For this reason, I focused on using lower-quality herbs. The final result I could achieve with them was nothing amazing, but it was far easier to turn a profit with low-cost herbs. Another benefit was that they were available in much greater supply. I might only be able to get a couple of sets of high-quality herbs a day, but Deacon Liu was able to provide me with limitless low-quality ones.

Using this strategy, the number of Meridian Builder Pills I was making each month was more than some alchemists would make over the course of multiple years. There were a few reasons for this, but the most important one was my seed of the Cold Mountain Fire.

One of the biggest limitations to an alchemist’s ability to produce pills was the amount of energy it required. While I was able to make over a dozen pills a day, a normal Martial Master 3 would only be able to make two or three. This was because they needed to use a large amount of energy to empower and control their spirit fire. In contrast, my fire seed only cost me the mental strain of manipulating it through my affinities. I still needed to use fire qi in some places, but the amount I used per pill was far less than other alchemists.

That said, while my production capacity was far above normal, there was another reason the number of Meridian Builders was greater than most alchemists. It was because most alchemists didn’t focus so much on a single pill type like this.

Most of the alchemists in the sect would move on after being able to concoct a pill at High-Purity. While they could spend time perfecting a pill to improve its efficacy as high as possible, there wasn’t much of a reason to.

For example, let’s say that with a given set of herbs, I could create a pill with 86% of standard efficacy. If I made that pill a hundred times, I may be able to improve that number to 87%. If I made it a thousand times, I might be able to get it to 88%. It may take the experience gained from making a pill a million times to improve the pill to 90%.

Was it worth spending the time to make one pill thousands of times to improve the efficacy by 1%? How much does an extra 1% improve the value of a pill? Not much. If someone needed a pill of higher efficacy, they could also just use higher-quality herbs to begin with. There were few economic incentives to encourage such focused improvements.

If these improvements led them to being able to concoct Perfect pills, that calculus would shift dramatically, but Perfect pills were considered more rumor than fact by most disciples.

So, while they would still concoct a few Meridian Builder Pills to earn contribution points, their main focus would shift to new types of pills. This was because it was commonly believed that the fastest way to become an Alchemy Grandmaster was by mastering as many different pills as possible. It was a quick path to advancement, and for young cultivators fighting a futile war against stagnation and eventual calcification, speed was vital.

Elder Mu had made it clear that I would need to ascend to both Martial and Alchemy Grandmaster before stagnation hit at 40 to even be considered by a sect outside the Wastes. Even then, the odds would be low. The most promising disciples were those who reached Grandmaster before 30. That didn’t leave time for a budding new alchemist to slowly perfect every single pill.

As for myself, quick advancement and being recruited by another sect didn’t interest me too much. Advancing to a more powerful sect would be nice, but I didn’t need to rush it.

The way Elder Mu talked, I got the strong impression that ascending to Martial Lord was no simple process. While I didn’t know the details, I had to believe that a solid foundation in the Master realm would be necessary for long-term success.

While I could follow the normal route to Grandmaster and focus all my energy on reaching it within that thirty-year time limit, doing so would have little meaning. If I didn’t establish a solid foundation, I would never reach Martial Lord anyway.

As long as I ascended to Grandmaster before 40, I shouldn’t have any trouble reaching Peak Grandmaster in this life. That would be enough. I could take this time to firm up my foundation as an Alchemy Master to set myself up for even greater success in a future life.

With that being said, I didn’t personally get to choose my path forward. Deacon Liu decided which pills I would concoct and only gave me the exact herbs I needed. In the end, I was only making what he told me to make. While I could have challenged his decisions, I didn’t have enough experience to know how to set up a proper training regimen for myself.

The deacon was acting as my teacher, so I let him do his job. Since my alchemy was improving, I was happy with his decisions.

During the first couple of months of my alchemy training, I only made Meridian Builder Pills. Typically, he would give me five sets of herbs at a time, one decent-quality set and four low-quality sets. I would make all five pills to the best of my ability and then return for a new batch of ingredients two or three times a day.

A few weeks into this process, he started including ingredients for a new pill. After three or four batches with ingredients for this pill, he would change the additional ingredients to a different type of pill. After that, he might switch back to only giving me herbs for Meridian Builders. By doing this, I was able to apply what I learned from the other pills to improve the Meridian Builder Pills even further.

At the end of my first year following this schedule, I was able to create many different Rank 2 pills at High-Purity. I wasn’t sure how my efficacy compared to other Alchemy Masters in the sect, but I was happy with the progress I had made.

A little over a year after my training began, my life took a sudden turn when I brought my most recent concoctions for Deacon Liu’s inspection.

“Little Fang, is the new batch already done?”

“Yes, deacon. I came to get the next set of ingredients.”

“Good, good, but before that, let’s have a little talk. You’ve been an outer sect disciple for six years now, but you haven’t competed with your fellow disciples yet. You’ve made great progress in your alchemy, but if you want to make a name for yourself in the sect, if you want any hope of being recruited by the Flowing Mountain Sect and leaving the Wastes, you need to compete against and defeat your fellow disciples.”

I grimaced slightly. “I understand, deacon. I know the elder considers this important, but I don’t know if I’m ready yet.”

He smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “I know, but Elder Mu is interested in seeing how you fare. He wants to know if you will be able to rise to the challenge. Go down the mountain, go to the sect’s pill hall in the village, and spend some time looking at the various bounties available. Try to find a competitive mission that you feel is suitable, but only select one if you are certain you can win. If you aren’t sure, just complete a normal bounty.”

I frowned at that. “I have a decent understanding of the quality of my pills, but I don’t know how good the other disciples are. How can I be certain of success?”

“Just do your best. This is also a test of your judgment and discrimination.”

I nodded in agreement, but it lacked conviction. If I had my choice, I’d rather not compete at all and just return to my alchemy workshop. I wanted to find a way out of this situation.

“Alright, but is this really okay? You and Elder Mu have helped me a lot these past years. It doesn’t feel right to be making pills to assist the other factions.”

“When you make pills here, you are turning inexpensive ingredients into expensive pills, improving our enclave’s total wealth. When you make pills out there, you are bringing resources into the enclave and denying them to the other elders. We profit either way, so don’t feel guilty. It will be good for you to go and experience something new.”

Giving up, I gave a slight bow. “Yes, deacon.”

The streets of the sect’s village were veritably bustling compared to what I had become accustomed to. I encountered no less than six people on the streets while walking from the village’s entrance to the pill hall. That was six more than the zero I had encountered on the mountain paths of the elder’s enclave during the last few years.

The pill hall didn’t stand out amongst the other buildings in the village, so it took me some time to find it. It was made of the same gray brick as every other building and also had the same yellow-tiled roof. The only distinguishing feature was a wooden sign above its entrance with the characters 丹堂, meaning Pill Hall.

The inside of the hall was far more chaotic than I had expected. The walls were lined with several bulletin boards, and numerous paper notices were pinned to each of them. At each board, several disciples were examining the various pieces of paper.

Unsure of what to do, I approached a receptionist at an open counter. She was an older woman dressed in the robes of a servant disciple.

“Hello, this is my first time here. Can you please explain how everything works?”

She smiled and responded in an old but powerful voice. “Of course, it’s all very simple.”

She waved at the bulletin boards around the room. “You just need to search through the boards and find a mission you like. When you do, pull it down and bring it back here. If only one person is allowed to take the mission, bring me the entire notice. If the mission allows for multiple parties to accept it, there will be tabs on the bottom with numbers. Tear one off and bring it over.”

“Are there any rules about which missions I am allowed to accept?”

“No, but you need to pay contribution points to accept a mission. So long as you pay the cost, you can accept anything. However, missions that involve rare ingredients may also have a large failure penalty, and you’ll need to have enough points to cover any fees before you are allowed to accept one of those.” She pointed to the right side of the room. “The easiest missions are there, and they get harder as you move around the room.

“Thank you, but… I don’t know how many points I have. Is there a way to check?”

She just smiled. “Give me your identity jade.”

I handed it over and she placed it onto a stone block. “You have one thousand points.”

“Thanks.”

I turned and headed toward the board with the easiest missions. After scanning several of them, I soon lost interest. They were all for extremely high-purity versions of various Rank 1 pills. I could easily make points by completing them, but I wouldn’t learn anything in the process. I wanted to find something that would stretch my abilities.

After a bit of searching, I finally found a notice that seemed well within my capabilities. If I couldn’t complete this one successfully, sending me out to compete at all was a fool’s errand.

Requestor: TianHuo, Martial Peak Outer Sect Disciple

Request: Meridian Builder Pills of the highest quality. Pills must be fire-aligned.

Specifics: Upon acceptance, each alchemist will be given five sets of ingredients. After all pills have been submitted by all alchemists who accept this mission, the Pill Hall will select the five highest quality pills for delivery.

Cost to Accept: 500 contribution points.

Mission Time: 3 days.

Compensation: 1,000 contribution points for each selected pill. Submitted pills that are not selected will be purchased by the Pill Hall at 60% of their normal value.

I could make meridian builder pills. I had done so countless times already. Creating them wouldn’t stretch my abilities like I might have wanted, but Deacon Liu wanted me to compete, and the best place to start would be with the pills I knew the best.

While I had no idea what the normal value of a Meridian Builder Pill was, I wasn’t too concerned about it. Even if I did win this one competition, mass producing the pills and selling them at their normal value would likely be more profitable than only selling five at a steep markup through this mission, but the point was to compete.

If I was going to compete, this had to be the mission I did it with.

However, when I reached up and tore off one of the tabs to claim the mission, a piercing voice rang out throughout the entire pill hall.

“What do you think you are doing!”

I looked over to see a young man and woman standing next to each other. Both were dressed in the robes of outer sect disciples. The man’s face was expressionless, but the woman next to him was staring at me with a face filled with fury.

“How dare you accept a mission that Senior Brother Wen Hao has already claimed! Who do you think you are?!”

I blinked at her, confused. “What? I just picked a mission that looked interesting. Is something wrong?”

“Is something wrong?! You are challenging Senior Brother Wen Hao! How dare you do such a thing! Who do you think you are?”

The woman’s yelling attracted the attention of everyone in the Pill Hall. They were all staring at us, and the commotion prompted a deacon to walk over and intervene.

She gave me a quick, dismissive look and then turned to the man and woman with an ingratiating smile.

“What is the problem here?”

“This… This bastard is causing trouble! He came in here just to insult Senior Brother Wen Hao. Deacon, I seek justice. Throw him out right now!”

“Oh?” The deacon turned and glared at me. “Is that true? Are you here to cause trouble?”

“No. No, deacon.” Under her gaze, I couldn’t help but stammer my reply. “I’m just here to accept a mission. I just pulled one down when that woman started yelling at me.”

The ‘woman’ didn’t like that answer. “How dare you! You tore off that mission just to insult Senior Brother Wen Hao. If that isn’t causing trouble, what do you call it?”

I turned to the deacon to try and get a hold on the situation. “Deacon, I just wanted to complete a mission. If this one is a problem, then I’ll choose something else.”

The deacon sneered at me. “You want to just change your mind after having already torn off a mission slip? It looks like this young woman is right about you. If you want to change your mission, then change it. But first, you need to pay the 500-point acceptance fee.”

The young woman began laughing at my misfortune.

I took a deep breath. Getting angry in this situation wouldn’t help anything. “Deacon, you are saying that I must pay the acceptance fee no matter what, right? Then, can I please just accept the mission and complete it?”

This infuriated the female disciple. “You dare! You are just wasting the sect’s herbs. Deacon, throw him out of here! Ban him from the pill hall.”

The deacon gave me a death stare. “By the rules, I must allow you to accept the mission, but I will not allow anyone to come here to cause trouble. If you waste the sect’s herbs you will be held accountable.”

“I understand, deacon. I will do my best.”

The young woman snorted at me derisively. “Do you want to make a bet? I doubt you can even make a single acceptable pill. If all your pills fail, I want you to kneel on the ground and bark like a dog!”

At this point, I was starting to have a hard time holding back my anger at this repeated provocation. “And what if I win that bet?”

“You won’t win!”

I took a deep breath to stop me from snapping at her. “But what if I do?”

She only gave me a snuggly satisfied look. “You won’t.”

I looked at her like she was an idiot. “So, if I win, then nothing? I’m going to have to decline that bet.”

“What are you, afraid?”

At this point, I just shook my head and ignored her. The conversation was going nowhere, and I had better things to do than talk down to an idiot.

I walked up to the counter, submitted the ticket for acceptance, paid my points, and collected the ingredients. After that, I walked out of the pill hall calmly. While I did this, the young woman continued her tirade against me.

During the entire exchange, the young man who was with her never said a word.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 39 – Life 58, Age 26, Martial Master 3

I spent a few contribution points to rent a room in the village. While I could have returned to the elder’s enclave to concoct the pills, I was enjoying the change of scenery. It was a little wasteful, but these few contribution points didn’t matter much to me.

In total, it took me three days to make the five pills needed for the mission. Why three days? Because that was the maximum time allowed. I could have finished them all in only a few hours, but that would have been too revealing. I had been told a regular Martial Master 3 could only make two or three pills a day, so erred on the low end and only made two pills a day.

However, since I had the extra time, I spent far more time than usual on each of these pills. I wanted to make them as perfect as I possibly could. I wasn’t sure how good my competition would be, so I had to do my best. I was exceedingly careful with my spirit fire, and I always made sure to only use fire qi when cleaning near medicinal power.

Concocting these pills consumed far too much time and energy, but the five pills I made were undoubtedly my best work to date. In the end, I couldn’t find even a trace of pill toxin. They were as close to Perfect as I could possibly make them without peak eight-star affinities for every element.

Still, while I did spend significantly longer on these pills than usual, it was only a fraction of the time I was allocated. I wanted to use the remaining time to continue improving my alchemy, but the entire point of taking so long was to avoid showing off my concoction speed. Using the time to make pills would be defeating the purpose of waiting so long in the first place. Instead, I spent my free time cultivating.

As I did, I realized that it had been a long time since I sat down to work on my cultivation. I had been so focused on improving my alchemy skills. Taking a break to cultivate reminded me of its importance. An improved cultivation base would improve my alchemy. I needed to work on both of them, not just one.

The three days quickly passed me by, and all too soon I had to leave my rented apartment and return to the pill hall. It was time to see the results of this competition.

The hall was bustling with activity when I entered. There had to be more than twice as many people as there were last time.

When I stepped through the door, I heard a loud, familiar voice.

“There he is! That’s the idiot who thinks he’s better than Senior Brother Wen Hao.”

The same young woman from last time was standing in the middle of the room with a manic look on her face.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked over at the commotion.

I saw the same deacon from last time in the corner of the room. She was observing the situation, but she didn’t step forward.

The female disciple continued her rant against me. “We all thought you gave up and ran away like a coward. I don’t know what’s more shameful. Running away or proving to everyone how worthless you are.”

Again, like last time, I decided to just ignore her. The sect rules were clear. Neither she nor anyone else here could do anything physical to me. All she could do was talk. I could talk back to her, but what was the point? How could that possibly benefit me? There was zero chance anything I said would change anyone’s mind, and even if it did, that would all get reset in the future anyway, so why bother?

This was not a battle of words or a battle of martial skills. It was a battle of alchemy. Anything else was meaningless.

Walking past the yapping girl, I stepped up to the counter and placed my pill bottles on it.

“Disciple Su Fang, turning in his mission.”

The receptionist’s face was a mask of professionalism.

“Hand over your jade.” Even as others in the hall jeered and mocked, he calmly noted everything down. “As you are the last to turn in this mission, the results will be announced shortly. If you wish to leave, you may do so. The credits you are awarded will automatically be added to your account in a few days."

I decided to wait since the goal of this mission was to compete with others. Alchemy was an individual pursuit, so only by knowing the results would the competition be meaningful.

I stepped away from the counter and walked to a less busy part of the room.

The young woman sneered at me. “Running away? Hmpf, we all knew you were a coward, but now you’re running away before completing your part of the bet. Are you even a man?”

I raised an eyebrow. “What bet? When did you hear me agree to any bet?”

“Denying it? Everyone here heard you bet that you would beat Senior Brother Wen Hao. Don’t think you can lie about it.”

“I don’t know what you heard, but I know I never said any such thing.”

“How dare you! Do you think…” She continued talking, but I tuned her out.

It took a quarter-hour before the results were ready. I didn’t have a System-granted skill to assess Rank 2 pills, but I had learned a bit about how to do it on my own.

I had made many Meridian Builder Pills over the past year, and that had given me a good feel for the pill’s ’standard efficacy.’ Based on previous results, I estimated that the ones I had made for this mission all had an efficacy above 90%, and a couple were above 95%. I may not win all five spots, but I expected at least one to pass.

The receptionist quieted the room as he began to read the results. “The five pills selected were all concocted by Master Alchemist Wen Hao. The efficacies were 135%, 136%, 139%, 140% and 143%. He will be awarded the full 5,000 points. All others will be compensated at 60% of the normal value of the pill.”

The room burst into applause. The young man who had been with the screaming girl earlier stepped forward and handed the receptionist his jade token to collect his points.

After the room quieted down, I stepped forward to do the same.

The receptionist gave me a polite nod. “Disciple Su Fang, you are awarded a total of 642 contribution points.”

After paying the initial cost of the mission, my five pills had only netted me 142 contribution points. The points weren’t the biggest issue, though. I needed to go back to Deacon Liu and learn how Wen Hao had made pills with greater than 100% efficacy.

I stepped away from the desk and began walking toward the exit.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The screaming girl and several other disciples moved to block my way. “You aren’t leaving here until you get down on your knees and bark like a dog.”

I replied calmly, knowing they weren’t allowed to hurt me. “I’m leaving. I didn’t bet with you. Anyone who was actually there can confirm it. Please move out of the way.”

The people around me began to laugh. “Do you think this is a joke? Kneel!”

The people around me took a step forward, closing the circle tighter.

I looked the girl in the eye as she gave me a malicious smirk.

I turned my head to look at the deacon who was standing in the corner.

“Deacon, are you just going to stand there while these disciples violate the sect rules?”

The deacon gave me a furious glare. “What did you say?”

“Are you going to stand there as these people threaten me with violence?”

She waited for several moments with a scowl across her face. “Make a path. Let him through.”

“Deacon! We can’t—”

The deacon cut her off with an angry expression. “Let him through. Don’t touch him.”

I gave the deacon a short bow and walked through a small gap that opened in the circle.

I hadn’t made any friends in the pill hall, but I had done my best. I didn’t know what else I could have done.

After exiting the pill hall, I went back to the elder’s enclave to talk with Deacon Liu about everything that had happened.

He smiled as I entered. “Little Fang, welcome back. How was your mission?”

“Deacon… I wanted to ask you about something that happened. There’s something I don’t understand.”

“Hold on, let’s start from the beginning. Just tell me everything.”

So, I did. When I told him about my first encounter in the pill hall with the woman and the deacon, his smile began to fade. When I told him about the five pills Wen Hao made, his face showed no reaction. After I talked about the final confrontation and how I had to force the deacon to intervene, he began to frown.

His voice turned cold. “Su Fang, how would you grade yourself during this trip?”

“I’m not sure. Regarding the mission, I didn’t succeed, but I made the best pills I possibly could have. I don’t know how he made pills with that kind of efficacy. I never had a chance.”

“And regarding your interactions with the other sect members?”

“Everyone seemed completely unreasonable. I believe I handled it the best way I could, but it all left a bad taste in my mouth.”

The deacon’s face twisted in a way I hadn’t seen before. A lot of the warmth he had been showing me for several years now had seemingly vanished in an instant.

When he spoke, his voice was cool and detached. “I see. For the first encounter, I would give you a poor grade. It was bad, but not disastrous. For the second, I would rate it a complete failure.”

“What? Why? What else could I have done?”

He gave me a somewhat cold, analytical look, as if he were trying to decide the value of explaining things.

“Before anything else, you need to better understand the sect and the disciples around you. One of your failings was rushing to accept a mission before adequately understanding the situation around you.”

I nodded in acceptance.

“The young woman in your story. What is your evaluation of her?”

“She seemed crazy. I didn’t do anything, but she wouldn’t stop yelling at me.”

“And why do you think that was? She has the same cultivation techniques you do. Rank 1 reduced aggression. Rank 2 increased aggression. These don’t cancel each other out. They both form distinct pathways for your thoughts. With a balanced individual, they’ll even each other out, allowing the cultivator to consider different ways to handle each situation.”

I tried to feel what he was talking about within my own thoughts, but it was difficult to sense.

“I don’t know this woman, but I can make a few solid guesses about her. The situation isn’t uncommon here. She is probably a Martial Master 9 or 10, but she could well be a Peak Master. She rushed her cultivation. Likely, she sped through the entire Master realm in only two or three years. This has completely unbalanced her mental state, and it may take a decade or more for her to completely recover.”

“Is that possible? Rushing cultivation has that much of an impact?”

I thought about my own experiences. I had assumed the strong changes in my mental states had simply been a result of a poor cultivation technique and having cultivated incorrectly, but if simply cultivating faster made the effects stronger, it would explain some of the more powerful influences I had been under.

“Yes. This is a frequent problem in the sect. Everyone wants to advance to Grandmaster before 30, but trying to do so can cause serious problems.”

I nodded in acceptance. “I understand, deacon, but I don’t know what I could have done to change anything.”

He waved that off. “For now, you just need to better understand how the sect operates. Let’s talk about the deacon in your story. What is your assessment of her?”

“She… Her actions showed a strong bias toward the other disciples. She wouldn’t even hear me out and allowed them to threaten me. What was I supposed to do?”

Deacon Liu grunted. “You were supposed to handle it by yourself. I can’t tell you what you should have done. I wasn’t there. I don’t know. But you were supposed to deal with everything yourself while following the rules of the sect and not bringing shame to the elder’s name.”

My jaw dropped in disbelief. That… That was impossible, wasn’t it? Was there any scenario where I could have pulled that off?

Deacon Liu continued. “The deacon didn’t violate any rules or cause any problems for you. You accepted the mission, turned it in, and were graded fairly. According to what you said, none of the other disciples even laid a hand on you. You could have stood there and stared them down until they gave up and left. Instead, you called out a deacon and accused her of not doing her job.”

I closed my eyes silently in thought. It had been a possibility. If I had thought it through, if I had a better understanding of the culture here, I might have even been able to find a different solution.

“Disciple Wen Hao is a genius alchemist with a bright future. The deacon is doing everything she can to climb up his tall tree. It is a little unsightly, but as long as she does her job fairly, no one is going to overly criticize her for her words. She would have prevented any actual violence from breaking out, but in a battle of mere words, she was always going to side with the known genius.”

“That seems… wrong…”

“If what you described is accurate, I doubt her actions would even tempt Wen Hao. She went too far, but she did not violate any rules.”

The situation was unfair, but I had to accept that was just how things were here. “Yes, deacon, I just don’t know what I could have done better. Please, help me.”

Deacon Liu breathed out heavily and his chilly expression thawed slightly.

“Your mistake was picking a mission that a far superior disciple had already chosen. From the moment you tore off that slip of paper to accept the mission, you were fated to lose face for the elder. In truth, the only thing you could have done to prevent this situation was to have chosen a different mission.”

“But… How was I supposed to know he chose it? When I selected it, it looked like no one else had picked it yet. Was I supposed to stand around and listen in to everyone else’s conversations?”

Deacon Liu shook his head slowly and considered his words very carefully.

“Elder Mu wishes to ascend to Martial Lord. I believe you know this.”

I nodded.

“What Martial Lords care about more than anything else is karma. You could not have known he would choose that mission. You unknowingly selected a mission that put you up against the most talented young alchemist in the sect. That is your karma. That is your fate.”

The deacon paused to gather his words. “You have a talent for producing a large number of pills, but to the elder, that isn’t as important as your fate. He needs subordinates with powerful karma that can help him rise. I told you that this was a test of your judgment and discernment. It was more than that. It was also a test of your fate. You…”

The deacon trailed off, not willing to finish that thought.

After closing his eyes for several moments, he changed the topic.

“For now, just remember this. Never call out a deacon for their behavior. If you think they did something wrong, report it to one of us and let us handle it. Always show deference to their authority. You may continue accepting missions if you wish, but it might be best if you simply return to focusing on producing as many pills as possible.”

“I understand, deacon.”

I wasn’t sure about fate and karma. Did they still apply to me? Even if I ran into an unpleasant situation in one life, I would just need to learn from it and fix it in the next.

That produced a new thought.

Was I born with terrible karma and simply fixing it step-by-step with each life? Had my ‘fate’ in this life not yet reached the point where I could benefit Elder Mu? I wasn’t sure. I was providing him with a large number of pills. That should be helping him, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was the help he needed.

I sighed and shook my head. There were no answers to these questions. I could only do my best and leave the rest to fate.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 40 – Life 58, Age 26, Martial Master 3

While I didn’t know how to deal with issues of karma and fate, what I did know was that I needed to improve my alchemy skills. Wen Hao’s results in our competition were beyond anything I believed possible. I needed to know how to match them.

“Deacon, I will try to manage the situation better next time, but can you tell me how to make pills with more than 100% efficacy?”

He sighed and softened his demeanor. “Very well, let’s move on. Pill efficacy. What is pill efficacy? Let’s start from the basics. When you make a pill, there are two basic ways to judge the result, efficacy and purity.”

I nodded. This information was familiar.

“You have made ‘Perfect’ pills before. What does that mean? What is a ‘Perfect’ pill? It is a pill where all of the toxins have been eradicated. There can be a Perfect pill because there is an absolute limit to a pill’s purity. Once there are no more toxins, purity can no longer be increased.”

I furrowed my brow. “And efficacy is different? If I don’t harm the medicinal efficacy of the herbs, they retain 100% of their power. Isn’t that perfect efficacy?”

The deacon shook his head. “No. There is no such thing as ‘perfect’ efficacy.”

He ducked behind the counter and searched around a moment before standing back up and setting down two blue peonies. One was in pristine condition while the other was filled with toxins and barely retained any medicinal energy.

“What would happen if you made Perfect pills with both of these flowers without harming any of the medicinal energy they contain? You would end up with two pills with wildly varying amounts of medicinal energy. Their effectiveness would be completely different. That is why we cannot grade pills based on the amount of energy retained from the original herbs. Instead, they are graded based on a ‘standard efficacy.’ A pill with 100% efficacy simply means it has 100% of the energy that should be expected from such a pill.”

I cocked my head to the side. “So, 100% efficacy just means it contains a specific, arbitrary amount of energy?”

Deacon Liu winced slightly. “It’s… It’s a little more complicated. As I understand it, the efficacy ratings originated from blessings. They aren’t arbitrary. They are the values assigned by the Dao.”

I raised an eyebrow. Just because they were assigned by the Dao didn’t mean they weren’t arbitrary. However, I didn’t comment and moved the conversation along.

“So, how can I improve my pill’s efficacy?”

“There are three ways that I know of, though there may be more. The first is the easiest. Use better herbs. A pill will have 100% efficacy if it is equal to a pill made by extracting 100% of the energy from top-quality common herbs. Herbs have a natural maximum amount of energy they can hold. If you use herbs that are all at that maximum, and then extract and use all that energy, you have made a pill with 100% efficacy. However, herbalists are capable of pushing the energy in herbs above their natural maximum. If all your ingredients have 150% of their natural maximum energy, you can make pills with 150% efficacy.”

“Is that what Wen Hao did? He used abnormally powerful herbs?”

The deacon scoffed. “No, that was an open competition. The hall wouldn’t have provided herbs of that quality, and using them in such a way would have been extremely wasteful. No, there is no question that Wen Hao went with the second method. He used his blessing.”

I dropped my jaw a bit in surprise. Of course this was possible, blessings could be anything, so there would certainly be people who had blessings to improve the quality of their pills.

“He can directly make his pills stronger? How does that work?”

“I don’t know how his particular blessing works, but based on the results, I would say he can somehow mimic the effects an herbalist would have when increasing the potency of herbs, but this is just a guess. This is why I said it was your fate to lose the moment he was your competition. If he can transform regular herbs into pills with 140% efficacy, there is no way to compete against him.”

“That seems incredibly powerful…”

“Yes and no. It’s a nice ability to have, but it wouldn’t be too attractive to more powerful forces. His blessing can easily be replaced with a good herbalist. Even if he can add his blessing’s power on top of herbalist-boosted herbs, the benefits are limited. Perfect pills will always be more valuable than High-Purity pills of any efficacy. If his blessing doesn’t help purify the herbs, its benefits are limited.”

I nodded in agreement, but in my head, I still wished for such an ability. I wanted to eventually learn herbalism so that I could make better ingredients for myself, but doing so was a problem. Without cultivating wood qi, learning herbalism wouldn’t be possible, but if I did that, I would no longer have access to fire qi for alchemy. This kind of blessing would be a nice shortcut.

“It would still be nice to have.”

The deacon smiled at me. “Yes, it is one of the reasons Wen Hao is considered a genius alchemist and so many people try to curry favor with him. In this sect, he can be considered a top-tier talent.”

“Better herbs or a better blessing. Neither is a solution for me. Is there something else I can do to improve pill efficacy?”

“Yes, but it’s more limited. I have held off on this because you needed a good foundation first, but you should be ready. There is a skill in the elder’s technique hall that you can use to improve efficacy. The general idea is to use your qi to enhance the medicinal energy of herbs. Your qi is fire-based, and you have an earth-attributed spirit fire. Have you tried using them to boost the power of pills before? Using your earth-based spirit fire to make metal energy more powerful, perhaps?”

“Yes, deacon, but it doesn’t work. If I inject metal energy with the spirit fire, or earth energy with my fire qi, it seems to make the energy stronger, but the pills always collapse in the end.”

“That’s because there are limitations. You can only extract enough power to raise a pill to around 110% efficacy, 120% would be the absolute maximum. That’s why I say Wen Hao must have used a blessing to get his pills so high. Aside from that, you should only try to enhance the first portion of medicinal energy in the pill’s energy cycle. So, if you are making a Meridian Builder, you can start by enhancing the earth energy with your fire qi before combining it with anything else.”

“If the pills don’t start with earth or metal energy, there is nothing I can do?”

“It’s worse than that. You need to learn a skill from the technique hall to be able to do this at all. You won’t have enough control of your spirit fire, so you can only use it with your fire qi, So, you will only be able to enhance pills that start with earth energy.”

I had hoped for a skill to easily push myself further, but pies wouldn’t fall from the sky.

“Is there anything I can do to improve the efficacy of other pills?”

“Nothing I know of. Honestly, if you could make Perfect Rank 2 pills, it would be far better than worrying about an extra 10 or 15% efficacy. The ability to consume countless pills without worrying about pill toxins is of far, far more value.”

Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen. I would need a peak eight-star affinity in all five basic elements to completely cleanse the toxins from Rank 2 herbs, and I couldn’t get that in this lifetime.

“I understand, deacon. I’ll go to the technique hall to see what I can learn.”

I turned to leave, but the deacon stopped me.

“One moment.” He looked at me carefully. “You need to start working on cultivation again. Reaching Grandmaster before thirty is out of reach, I believe. You would need to advance at least twice every year, and that would lead to an unstable foundation and mental state. Instead, try to advance once every year. You should be able to break through before 35 at that rate.”

The deacon put a small box on the counter. “Here is a set of ingredients for a Meridian Builder Pill. Your pills are of sufficient quality now that they are worth taking. Only use a single pill per meridian, though. The pill will add toxins to the meridian you use it on, so you will want to use them as sparingly as possible, but a single High-Purity pill per meridian is not enough to worry about.”

“Thank you, deacon.”

After leaving the pill hall, I went straight to Elder Mu’s technique hall.

While I had been looking forward to visiting this place, I hadn’t been allowed to go inside without permission. Today, Deacon Liu had finally given me permission.

Like everywhere else in the enclave, the technique hall was also inside of a room carved into the mountain, so it was still basically a cave, but unlike the pill hall, some amount of effort had been put in to make the place feel more welcoming. Instead of the ground being bare rocks, wood flooring had been installed. There was even a red-painted wooden wainscoting around the room to add some color to the environment.

Near the entrance, an elderly woman with iron-gray hair sat behind a desk. She wore plain deacon’s robes and was reading a thick tome. In the middle of the room, there were several desks where disciples could sit and study techniques. Large bookcases packed with various scrolls stood along the left and right walls. The shelves on the left held the Rank 1 techniques, while those on the right held Rank 2 techniques.

When I entered, I approached the deacon.

“Name?” She spoke in a clipped tone, and her eyes only briefly left her book.

“Su Fang.”

The deacon glanced at a scroll on the side of the desk. “You’re permitted to read one Rank 2 manual each month. Unlimited access to Rank 1 manuals. You are not allowed to take anything out of this room.”

I waited for her to say more, but nothing else was forthcoming. That being the case, I walked away to begin looking through the technique manuals.

My pretense for coming here was to study a Rank 2 technique for improving pill efficacy, so that was where I started. Since I could only look at a single Rank 2 manual each month, I would have to be satisfied with that one.

The number of techniques in the library was ultimately limited, but there were still a few dozen different manuals neatly sorted into fighting, alchemy, and cultivation techniques, so it wasn’t hard to find the one I was looking for.

Reading the manual was the simplest part of learning a technique. After that, I would need to practice it countless times until it became second nature. For me, though, just reading a technique had the far more important effect of adding it to my mental library.

I had already learned that the mental library ability I had purchased was not nearly as powerful as I had hoped. The main problem was that it did not record techniques I knew, it only recorded what I read. If I read a manual but skipped over a few words, the words I skipped over would not appear in my copy. If I was reading too quickly and read a word wrong, then the wrong word would appear in my copy. Thus, I had to spend an inordinate amount of time carefully reading each word to ensure I obtained a flawless copy.

The manual I was interested in was the Rank 2 Pill Empowering Technique. It would allow me to infuse earth medicinal energy with fire qi. This had to be done carefully, in a controlled way, to ensure that every part of the earth energy was raised evenly. Essentially, my fire qi would function as a sixth herb at the start of the chain. If everything were done perfectly, it would add up to an extra 20% to the pill’s final efficacy, but that assumed no losses at any stage of pill production.

I carefully read the manual three times to ensure everything was copied over correctly. After that, I returned the manual and looked through the Rank 1 techniques.

I wanted to copy everything, but that would take time. I first needed to focus on what would give me the most immediate benefits. I skipped the fighting manuals for the moment. Learning to fight would eventually be necessary, but I didn’t need them while in the sect, and I had no real desire to pursue that path. Every time I thought about fighting, the memories of my previous deaths in the Su Clan flashed through my mind.

I also skipped over the pill techniques. They might be helpful, but I could easily make any Rank 1 pills I wanted with what I already knew. I would still copy them when I had time in the future, but they weren’t a pressing concern.

Instead, my first focus was on the cultivation techniques. To be fair, these also wouldn’t provide me with any immediate benefits, but they held the most importance for my next life. The library had a complete set of Peak-Yellow Rank 1 techniques. There was one for every basic element. The mental effects on some of them might be suspect, but simply having the option to use them would be extremely nice.

I did not jump to copy those techniques, though. Instead, I focused on three others. There were two Low-Profound techniques and a single Mid-Profound one.

The two Low-Profound techniques were both for cultivating fire qi, and they had rather simple effects. They maintained the perfect qi purity of a Peak-Yellow technique while adding a single extra benefit. The first made qi denser, increasing its overall power. The second made qi easier to control. As Low-Profound techniques, these additional benefits were minor but definite improvements.

The Mid-Profound technique was something completely different. When cultivated, the qi purity would be roughly the same as a Mid-Yellow technique, and it provided no benefits to the qi itself. Instead, this technique allowed one to cultivate both fire and wood qi simultaneously. However, the total qi in the body wouldn’t change, so a cultivator of this technique would only have half the fire qi of someone who cultivated a pure fire technique.

This technique had very clear drawbacks in both quality and quantity of qi, but the benefits were equally clear. It would allow me to use wood qi. This would help with my alchemy, allowing me to enhance more pills and cleanse a wider variety of toxins more easily. One of my biggest problems was isolating my spirit fire so that it didn’t harm the medicinal efficacy of pills. Wood depletes earth, so wood qi would help me form a perfect isolation layer against the Cold Mountain Fire.

It also gave me a starting point to begin learning herbalism. I wasn’t willing to commit lifetimes to that pursuit yet, but setting up a small garden on the side wasn’t out of the question.

The most valuable benefit, though, was that through the elemental cycle, I should be able to use the wood qi to significantly boost the effectiveness of my fire qi. That would need time and effort to accomplish, but it should be doable.

Importantly, after checking, I found that the technique hall had the Rank 2 versions of each of the Profound-Rank techniques. They were still only Low- and Mid-Profound techniques, but after this life, I might have enough credits to upgrade one of them to Peak-Profound.

With a new goal in mind, I sat down and got to work copying the valuable Rank 1 techniques.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 41 – Life 58, Age 27, Martial Master 4

The following year, I studied and practiced the various Rank 2 alchemy techniques in the elder’s library. The limit of only being allowed to view one technique per month gave me just enough time to grasp the basics of one technique before moving on to the next.

This didn’t allow me to reach any level of mastery with the techniques, but that wasn’t my goal. Instead, I wanted to gain a basic understanding of all the techniques first. Then, I would be able to build out a more comprehensive methodology for studying them in further detail.

During this year, I also took the time to carefully read through every Rank 1 technique in the elder’s library. I didn’t need the fighting or cultivation techniques yet, and the alchemy techniques were all inferior to the Rank 2 manuals I already had access to, but I diligently copied them down in case they proved useful in the future. I wanted to read the Rank 2 cultivation and fighting manuals as well, but since I could only read one a month, I had to first focus on what would bring me the most immediate benefit.

After this year of study, I was able to make Meridian Builder Pills efficacies as high as 105%. This was still far from what Wen Hao’s blessing was able to accomplish, but it was a definite improvement over my previous efforts.

At the same time, I took Deacon Liu’s advice and started slowly increasing my cultivation base. When I hit Martial Master 4, I began to feel changes in my thought processes, but they were easy enough to suppress when necessary.

I would have continued this slow improvement in seclusion, but Deacon Liu interrupted it. The competition to select new inner sect disciples was about to take place, and he wanted me to watch so that I could better understand my place in the sect.

There were no venues capable of hosting large competitions in the village or on the mountain, so the Inner Sect Challenge was held in the same arena in the city as the Outer Sect Competition.

No nominal or servant disciples were allowed to attend, nor were they even informed about the event. The stands held only inner sect disciples, outer sect disciples, and deacons. The competition was to be judged by a panel of three elders who were sitting on a large dais at the front of the stadium.

Below them, twenty competitors stood on the gray brick arena floor. Next to each of them was a well-maintained alchemy workbench made of burnished dark wood, and atop each workbench was an aged, well-used pill furnace.

Standing on a small, raised platform behind the elders, placed above everyone else in the arena, a man dressed in elaborately embroidered robes of a dark blue hue oversaw the final preparations for the impending competition. He monitored the deacons as they delivered bundles of herbs to each of the competitors, and the elders occasionally approached him for short discussions.

When everything was ready and the audience had all been seated, he walked to the front of his podium and turned to face the crowd.

“Welcome, everyone. I am Tan GaoFeng, the Deputy Sect Master for the Twin Mountains Sect in charge of the Alchemy Peak. If you are new to the sect and this is your first time at one of these competitions, I welcome you.”

There was a subdued, polite applause at these words, but it was quickly cut off.

“The Inner Sect Challenge is held once every three years. Every outer sect disciple who has reached the realm of Martial Grandmaster has been invited to participate. Unlike the competition to become an outer sect member, there is no set number for how many may be promoted to the inner sect. Instead, our panel of esteemed elders will decide who would be a good fit for the inner sect. This is done on an individual basis, so each competitor only needs to worry about doing their best.”

While the Sect Master’s words indicated the participants weren’t competing against each other, there was no way that was true. If promotion were only about individual merit, there would be no reason for such an open competition. No, I was sure the disciples’ relative performances would be taken into account. It would be difficult for the people at the bottom of the pack to advance no matter how well they did.

The Sect Master, unaware of my inner monologue, turned to the competitors and continued his speech.

“For this competition, you will all be making three pills. We will start with the most straightforward, a fire-focused Meridian Builder Pill. This pill should be familiar to everyone, so I hope you will use it to show off the true height of your abilities.”

I watched as the alchemists on the arena floor turned to their workbenches and inspected their ingredients. As I had rarely interacted with the other disciples in the sect, almost no one down there was familiar to me, but there was one person I recognized. Located in the middle of the front row was the young man I had competed against in the Pill Hall, Wen Hao. I was looking forward to seeing how he could make such high-efficacy pills.

For the most part, the process the other disciples used to concoct pills mirrored my own efforts. After melting and purifying the herbs, they used the Pill Empowerment technique to enhance the medicinal power of their creations. There were only minuscule differences in the skill levels of the various disciples, and it was clear that everyone here was an expert with Meridian Builder Pills.

The only outlier was Wen Hao. As he worked, streams of energy flowed into his pill furnace. I had never seen anything like it before. While the Empowerment technique used personal qi to fortify a pill, he was pulling energy straight from the air and infusing it into his herbs. This had to be the effect of his blessing, but I couldn’t even begin to understand what it was doing.

After everyone was finished, their pills were collected and taken away to be judged. The results were not immediately announced, and I couldn’t accurately estimate the potency of pills from so far away, so it was hard to know who was doing well and who was failing. However, since I didn’t see many notable differences in the concoction processes of the various competitors, I guessed that everyone was roughly equal at this stage, except for Wen Hao, of course.

Once the judging was complete, Sect Master Tan GaoFeng stood and walked to the front of his podium once more.

“Next, you will all need to make a water-focused Meridian Builder Pill. Everyone has a natural advantage when making the fire version, but this one should stretch your abilities slightly more.”

Everyone turned to their workbenches once more, but this time, no one was able to use the empowerment technique to enhance their pill’s efficacy. They would all be limited to the base maximum efficacy of 100%, except for Wen Hao. Once more, the blessed alchemist pulled energy from the surrounding environment and infused it into his pill, raising it beyond the level that anyone else could even hope to match.

My eyes were so focused on Wen Hao’s process that I barely noticed when the young woman next to him began acting strange. Instead of working on her pill, she called a deacon over and asked him a question. After listening to her request, the deacon approached the Sect Master and then went off to an area under the stadium. Shortly after, he returned and handed an additional herb to the female disciple. Looking at it, I could see that it had some form of water-attributed medicinal energy, but I was unfamiliar with its exact effect.

It appeared that she was going to add an extra herb to the beginning of the ingredient chain to boost the pill’s efficacy. This wasn’t impossible, but randomly adding an herb could have disastrous effects on the medicinal properties of the final pill, and finding a suitable sixth ingredient for this pill would be incredibly difficult.

To my surprise, she did not add this additional pill directly into the pill furnace. Instead, she used a technique to forcibly rip the medicinal energy out of the herb. In doing so, the energy lost its structure which in turn caused it to lose all its medicinal properties. She was left with pure, wild water energy. She then infused this water energy into the wood-based herb and began concocting her pill.

I had never even heard of such a process before. Doing this would require an extremely high water affinity, some type of blessing, or possibly both. If this were possible with only a high affinity, it should be a common technique for use with fire herbs since every alchemist had a high fire affinity.

After considering this for a moment, I realized why I may have never run into this technique before. There was no reason to use it unless you had an extremely high affinity for a qi type you weren’t cultivating. I was already using fire qi to boost the efficacy of my pills. Using medicinal energy ripped from an herb instead would just be wasteful.

The second round quickly ended, and I was sure that Wen Hao and this girl had outperformed every other disciple present. They were all good, but no one else had shown anything special. With the difficulty I had in entering the outer sect, I was worried about my prospects for entering the inner sect, but my skills were not much different from the average competitor. Only Wen Hao and the young woman had shown skills I couldn’t currently compete against.

Once the judging for the second round was complete, Sect Master Tan made his way to the front of his podium once more.

“The final pill for today will be a Rank 2 Health Rejuvenation Pill.”

Rejuvenation pills were not popular since they slowly healed injuries over an extended period. The overall effect was better than pills that healed wounds instantly, but they were only useful when a person was injured enough to require a pill to help them heal while not injured to the point of needing instant healing. Deacon Liu had me make a few of them over the years, but they were among the least requested.

These pills only required three herbs. One with metal energy, one with water, and one with wood. This formed a constructive sequence to empower the final wood-based healing effects.

At this point, several of the competitors must have been feeling uneasy. Only two people so far had stood out, and this would be their last chance to do so.

Except for Wen Hao, no one had a way to boost the effectiveness of this final pill. Even the girl from before didn’t use any fancy techniques and started concocting the pill in a conventional manner. However, around half of the contestants decided to push their limits.

They began the concoction process by infusing the metal-based herb with the Cold Mountain Fire. They lacked the finesse required by the empowerment technique, and rashly infusing an herb with one's spirit fire would lead to heartache more times than not, but this rough application of energy at least gave them a chance to make something exceptional.

I watched as one pill after another began to collapse. Nearly everyone who tried to use their spirit fire to enhance their pill failed immediately. Of the dozen who made the attempt, only two succeeded. I didn’t know how powerful their final pill would be, but the smiles on their faces showed they believed it would be enough.

When the final pill was removed from the pill furnace and placed in a pill bottle, the Sect Master stood once more.

“Congratulations on completing the Inner Sect Challenge! Please wait while the elders discuss your results.”

To me, it seemed clear that Wen Hao and the female disciple who had been able to control the water herb were going to be selected. Aside from them, only the two who had enhanced their pills with spirit fire stood out. Everyone else, excluding those who failed the third pill, seemed to make pills of roughly the same quality, so it would be hard to promote anyone from that group over the others.

The discussion between the three elders on the judging panel lasted far longer than I expected. It was only after what looked to be a rather heated disagreement that one of the elders stepped forward to announce the results.

“Deputy Sect Master Tan, we have reached our decision.”

At this announcement, a few whispers broke out in the crowd. It was improper, and slightly disrespectful, for the elder to specifically call out Tan GaoFeng as the Deputy Sect Master. Normally, he should simply be referred to as Sect Master Tan.

“The elders have decided to promote Disciples Wen Hao, Mu QingFei, and Du RanHo. Congratulations to you all.” After speaking, he turned away and walked out of the stadium.

Mu QingFei was the girl who used the water herb earlier, so it made sense that she was promoted.

Du RanHo, however, was one of the many people who only concocted normal pills. Neither of the two disciples who enhanced their pills with spirit fire were chosen for advancement.

This choice seemed strange. Even if his pills were the best of the normal pills, why him over the two who had done something special? This could be a result of the factionalism I had observed in the past. Three elders were acting as judges, and I had identified three factions.

The elder who announced the results seemed to be unhappy with Sect Master Tan. Could this be the reason? Was Du RanHo a member of the Sect Master’s faction and opposed to this elder? I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed likely. Still, selecting a single inner sect disciple shouldn’t have been enough for him to breach public decorum. There had to be more going on beneath the surface.

Of course, it could also be that the elders in charge felt that the disciples who had enhanced their pills with spirit fires were simply lucky. They had taken a risk, and it paid off, but that didn’t mean it had been the right thing to do. The elders might prefer disciples who follow the safe, traditional route to success.

Was this a plot between factions? Was this just the elders choosing who they felt was the best alchemist? I couldn’t know.

The results of this competition reminded me of the need to learn more about the undercurrents that were swirling around me. I could ask Deacon Liu about why the elders made the decisions they made, but even a completely honest response would only tell me his opinion, not the reality of the situation. If I wanted to know more, I would need to become more involved in the world around me.

I watched as those who weren’t chosen for advancement slowly filed out of the stadium. Their dejection was obvious from their slumped shoulders and the looks on their faces. Very few of those who failed would remain outer sect disciples. As Martial Grandmasters, they would be encouraged to transition to deacons of the nominal disciples. Some might persist and attempt this challenge again in three years, but with the way the sect operated, it was unlikely they would be any more successful on the second attempt.

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Chapter 42 – Life 58, Age 27, Martial Master 4

After the Inner Sect Challenge ended, I returned to the elder’s enclave to talk with Deacon Liu. I needed more knowledge of the sect, and I wasn’t getting it by trapping myself in Elder Mu’s enclave.

“Deacon, I want to spend more time making pills for the sect in the village. I want to try to better understand my place here.”

Deacon Liu froze for the slightest moment and then scanned me from head to toe while he thought through the situation.

“I see. This might be a good use of your time, but I hope you won’t stop working with the elder during this period.”

My response was instantaneous. “Of course not.”

The deacon’s help and the elder’s library had been the greatest boons I had received in this life, and I was sure that if I maintained this relationship, I would gain access to Rank 3 manuals after reaching Grandmaster. My current mental library couldn’t hold Rank 3 techniques, but I could still do my best to memorize the most important ones, and hopefully, I could create a copy of a Rank 3 cultivation technique that was small enough to fit in my storage space.

Not only would working with Elder Mu continue to benefit me greatly, but I also felt indebted to him for everything he had provided. Yes, I might have been able to reach this level on my own eventually, but it was the elder’s guidance that encouraged me to spend points temporarily boosting my affinity, the elder’s book that helped me learn to control my spirit fire, and the elder’s library that provided me with an abundance of new cultivation and alchemy techniques.

While I might have been able to achieve all this without his assistance eventually, the fact was that I didn’t. He provided me with the means to push myself forward in this life, and the benefits from that assistance would continue for many lives to come. If practicing my alchemy would serve as a down payment on the debt I owed, I was more than willing to do my part.

“Deacon, how many pills can an average Martial Master 4 create in a day?”

“It will vary a little, but you can expect the average Master to be able to make one per level of cultivation, so a Martial Master 4 would be able to create three or four pills a day.”

I nodded. “Then I can plan to make four per day for the sect. That will leave me with a significant amount of free time which I can spend concocting pills for Elder Mu. Just give me a week or two’s worth of ingredients at a time, and I’ll make them in my spare time. If possible, you could have a servant drop them off for me in the village.”

The deacon rubbed his chin in thought, “Hmm, that should be acceptable. It will cut down on the pills you can help us with, but you will still be contributing more than most of our disciples.”

As Deacon Liu was speaking, an idea seemed to occur to him.

“You should also know that the elder has emphasized the importance of your entrance into the inner sect. Ascending to Grandmaster and joining the inner sect will allow you to learn to make Rank 3 pills. Given the rate at which you can concoct pills, getting you trained up to make Rank 3 pills might let us reach our goals much sooner. Going out and making a name for yourself by doing work in the Pill Hall will make it easier for us to get that promotion.”

“Is there a way I can begin working through the Pill Hall without risking another incident? I would like to get my bearings before being confronted by another unusually gifted alchemist.”

Deacon Liu winced.

“Yes, that would probably be for the best. Just focus on the sect’s bounties. There are always a few types of pills in high demand, and the sect will buy as many as you can make at 100% of their normal value. If a pill isn’t on the bounty list, you will receive significantly less when selling directly to the sect, so make sure to only focus on what’s on the list. Just go to the pill hall, buy the ingredients, make the pills, and turn them in. No one will complain about you completing the standard bounties.”

After a few parting words with the deacon, I left and made my way to the village.

I entered the Pill Hall once more and looked around. It wasn’t too different from my first visit. Various bulletin boards had missions posted to them, and several disciples were browsing through the available assignments.

It took me a few moments of searching, but I finally found the board where the sect’s bounties had been posted. The types of pills listed were all basic, but it was easy to understand why they were on the list. Rank 1 Healing Pills, Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pills, Rank 2 Healing Pills, Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pills (fire, earth), Rank 3 Healing Pills, Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills (fire, earth).

These were the most common healing and cultivation pills. Likely, these were also the pills that cultivators on the Martial Peak needed the most. Additionally, these were almost certainly the pills that were easiest to sell to forces outside the sect.

The only real surprise was that this list included Rank 1 pills. Those should mostly be handled by the nominal disciples, and these bounties were only available to outer and inner sect disciples. Once I remembered that some outer sect members weren’t granted spirit fires on their advancement, I realized that these bounties were intended for them.

After considering my options, I decided to start by making a large quantity of Meridian Builder Pills until I was more familiar with the Pill Hall’s system.

Purchasing the necessary herbs from the receptionist went smoothly, and no one tried to bar my path. I was free to leave, but I didn’t exit the hall immediately. Instead, I slowly perused the posted missions.

I had no interest in accepting any of them. My goal was to simply wait and observe the interactions between the various disciples. After about twenty minutes, however, nothing of note had happened, so I gave up on the fruitless task.

If situations like what happened between me and Wen Hao were common, I would have plenty of chances to observe them in the future. There was no reason to rush it.

For each pill I made, I earned roughly 100 contribution points after deducting the cost of materials. These contribution points could be used to buy various resources and time with mentors, but thanks to my position under Elder Mu, I didn’t need to purchase either of these. Instead, I used all the points I earned in the sect’s Technique Hall.

The sheer number of techniques available there was far greater than what was contained within the elder’s library, but the overall quality of these techniques was slightly inferior. It held only a single Low-Profound cultivation technique for fire qi that provided all the benefits of a standard Peak-Yellow technique while also slightly increasing the density of the user’s qi.

While the elder also had a technique for improving qi density, this one did so in a unique way. It didn’t increase the power of qi. Instead, it was more like a way to increase a cultivator’s qi capacity, letting them use more energy for longer periods.

The cheapest manual in the Technique Hall was a Rank 1 Low-Yellow alchemy technique for only 100 contribution points. The most expensive one was a Rank 2 Profound-Rank fighting manual for 500,000.

At the rate I was currently earning points, I would need years to earn enough to purchase this technique, and that was the point. People weren’t supposed to buy it. The sect made fighting techniques available, but they put up as many roadblocks as possible to stop disciples from buying them. This was annoying, but if the techniques were available, I would eventually get my hands on them. It was only a matter of time.

After looking through the available techniques, nothing seemed to be of immediate importance to me, so I didn’t worry too much about what I bought. I just purchased the cheapest techniques available that I didn’t already have a copy of in my library. My goal was to slowly copy down the entire collection, so it didn’t matter where I started.

I wanted to get my hands on that Profound-Rank fighting technique, but I was in no rush. It was too far out of my price range, and I wasn’t completely convinced it was truly worth the price. At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the sect were selling a defective technique at an extortionate rate to anyone who decided they wanted to learn to fight.

My time in the Technique Hall proved to me that quality techniques were expensive. However, as time passed, my mental library would slowly expand, and I would own them all.

For the next couple of weeks, I maintained a steady rhythm of purchasing a large number of ingredients, concocting pills, and returning to the Pill Hall to sell them, but I never saw any altercations break out. Had my experience been so out of the ordinary? Was choosing a mission that had already been picked by another disciple uncommon, or was it just rare to be berated for it?

As it turned out, the answer was that I was just too impatient. Spending only twenty to thirty minutes in the place for a few days over the course of a couple of weeks wasn’t enough time to see the drama unfold. On the third week of my routine, I finally saw what I had been waiting for.

The moment a small, young man reached up and tore a tab from a mission, and a burly older disciple jumped in front of him. Both were wearing the robes of outer sect disciples.

The burly man’s nostrils flared, and he spoke loud enough to quiet the entire Pill Hall.

“What do you think you’re doing? This mission has already been claimed by me, Tao GuFei. No one else is needed!”

The young man gave the brute a slight frown. “Arrogant and arrogant. Your father doesn’t need any help deciding which missions he will take.”

After saying this, the young man pushed past the burly man and walked straight toward the counter, but the burly man jumped in front of him once more, blocking his path.

The brute looked at the young man with a snarl. “A frog at the bottom of a well, let me teach you a lesson in place of your parents.”

The young man looked up at him. “A good dog doesn’t block the way.”

“You dare!”

It looked like the large man was about to take a swing at the younger guy, but at that instant, the deacon who had been silently watching from the sidelines finally spoke up. “GuFei!”

The hulking man looked at the deacon with hatred for a moment before turning back to the young man.

“Do you dare to make a bet? If I defeat you in this mission, kneel down and call me grandfather.”

The smaller man just smirked. “And if you lose?”

“I won’t lose!”

“Same rules. If you lose, kneel down to your grandfather.”

The burly man gritted his teeth. “Fine!”

I watched the entire exchange, a bit shocked. The way the burly man acted was almost exactly the same as how that girl had acted. Was it a coincidence, or was this some kind of strange ritual? If it was a ritual, what was the point? Both participants were putting their entire reputations on the line here. This couldn’t just be about someone being annoyed at someone else’s mission selection.

To understand the situation better, I needed to see how it ended.

I carefully monitored the pill hall over the next few days. I had to see how this drama was supposed to play out.

On the third day, the burly man entered the pill hall early in the day and turned in his pills. After that, he stood around and talked to anyone who would listen.

“That coward doesn’t dare to show his face around here. He’s already abandoned the mission and run away. I want to see how the sect punishes him for treating missions in the Pill Hall as games.”

About an hour after he arrived, he started berating the receptionist.

“Call the mission already. That fool is too late. It’s clear he isn’t coming.”

This behavior continued for a long while before the shorter man finally entered. He walked right up to the counter and turned in his pills. The burly man continued to boast about his inevitable victory, but eventually, the victor was called. The younger man had won.

Once the younger man’s victory was announced, the burly man began trying to sneak away, but he was blocked by a group of disciples led by the younger man.

“Running away? Are you even a man? Kneel before your grandfather!”

“How dare you! Do you know who I am? I am Tao GuFei, disciple of Elder Tang!”

“So, disciples of Elder Tang don’t honor their word?”

“You!”

With a face filled with rage, the burly man knelt and growled his response. “Grandfather.”

The younger man snorted and turned away. “I don’t have a grandson as unfilial as you.”

I could only watch in shock as the drama unfolded before me. Was this what Deacon Liu had expected me to do? While the emotions of both men seemed genuine, the entire performance was more like a play than an actual argument.

I tried to take everything I had seen and knew and put it all together into a framework that could make sense of this situation.

I thought back to what Deacon Liu had told me. It was common for disciples who rushed their cultivation to become overly aggressive. Was this entire sequence a script the sect had created and taught to the disciples as a way for them to let out their pent-up aggression? Did it give them a way to flex these impulses without causing any real damage?

Giving the disciples an actual script and telling them to recite it would be meaningless, but in the city, the sect sold novels for people to read for enjoyment. Was this how arguments were resolved in them? Were those novels intended as guides for how to act in the outer sect?

One important piece of data stuck out to me. In all my observations, I hadn’t noticed anyone besides these two reach for a competitive mission. Was this interaction just the expected result of choosing one? When someone chose a competitive mission, was another disciple expected to throw down the gauntlet in this exact manner? If this was the script for when the first person agreed to the contest, was there also a way to concede early?

If my speculations were all true, why hadn’t Deacon Liu told me about it? Shouldn’t he have prepared me to deal with this situation? Was it all just a test to see what ‘fate’ had in store for me?

I couldn’t help but wonder at Elder Mu’s and Deacon Liu’s true motives. They had been of immense help in my study of alchemy, but they had done nothing to prepare me for interacting with the other disciples in the sect.

Was there a reason for this, or was it simply a lack of foresight on their part? Unfortunately, I had no way to find out. Only time would provide me with the answers I sought.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 43 – Life 58, Age 28, Martial Master 5

For the next several months, I followed a set routine. Concoct pills from the bounty list for the sect, use my spare time to make a considerable number of extra pills for Elder Mu, observe the other disciples in the sect, and cultivate enough to advance one stage each year.

A few months into this regime, I broke through to Martial Master 5. When I did, I felt my mental state shift once more. The pathways I had initially begun to feel when I reached Martial Master 4 had become stronger, and my thoughts flowed along them more naturally, but I was still in complete control of the situation. If I wanted to, I could cut them off, but I allowed myself to use these new thought patterns to try and develop new perspectives.

This led me down the path of wondering about Deacon Liu’s motives. Ever since I failed in my competition with Wen Hao, Deacon Liu had seemed different, more distant. I couldn’t help but think that he felt my karmic ‘fate’ was insufficient and that this feeling had irreparably changed his attitude toward me. Was he still worried about what was in my best interest, or was he now only concerned with extracting as much value out of me as possible?

The strategy Deacon Liu had laid out for me was to ascend one step every year until I reached Martial Grandmaster. That would mean I would reach Martial Master Peak at age 35, and I would have a maximum of five years to learn how to break through to Martial Grandmaster. Was five years enough time? It should be, but I had never attempted that breakthrough before and knew nothing about it. Should I be giving myself more time?

Also, Elder Mu had stressed the importance of breaking through to Grandmaster before reaching 30, but by following the deacon’s guidance, I would only be Martial Master 7 at that point. Was that acceptable? Even if it meant my mental state was slightly unstable, achieving the elder’s goal of Grandmaster by 30 should be a priority, shouldn’t it? Was Deacon Liu simply ignoring the desires of Elder Mu?

I cut off those thoughts and tried to return to my more natural thought patterns. I felt a slight resistance when doing so, but I quickly got myself under control.

There was a good reason to delay my cultivation and only advance once a year. I had agreed with the deacon when he proposed it. Rushing could easily lead to a weak foundation and a poor mental state.

On the other hand, I was privy to information the deacon didn’t have. Even if he wasn’t intentionally sabotaging me, that didn’t mean his advice was correct in my situation.

I had been cultivating as a Martial Master for several decades, and I had constructed dozens of meridians. Even if I continuously raised my cultivation base all the way to Peak Master, I shouldn’t have to worry too much about creating a weak foundation. I knew how to create meridians well enough to push forward confidently.

Also, my goal wasn’t to reach Peak Master within a year. I only needed to reach it by the time I turned 30. That would only require raising my level two or three times a year.

Additionally, my soul had become much stronger over the past few decades. I could easily handle mental pressure that would cripple most of the other disciples. If I was careful and assessed my mental state after each advancement, I should be able to cultivate more quickly than Deacon Liu believed possible for a regular disciple.

Was it worth it to push for Grandmaster before 30? Maybe not. From what Elder Mu had told me, there wasn’t too much to be gained by doing so.

However, the real gains I needed weren’t sect points or System credits. What I needed was information. I needed to learn more about cultivation, and I needed to learn more about what was possible.

Was it worth testing myself to see what my actual limits were? It should be, as long as I was careful.

Martial Master Peak by 30 may have been a dream of golden millet, but that would be my goal. To accomplish it, I needed to advance three steps every year, so that was what I changed my cultivation pace to. After four months, I advanced to Martial Master 6. After eight, I reached Martial Master 7, and a year after I began this push, I ascended to Martial Master 8.

The entire time I was cultivating, I paid close attention to my qi and ensured that my meridians were as perfect as possible. After each advancement, I did my best to perform a mental balance test to ensure I remained mentally stable. Martial Master 8 was halfway to the goal, and after one more year of this schedule, I would reach Peak Master.

I could have continued this push, but I held back. I wanted to spend time at Martial Master 8, explore the power of my new cultivation base, and examine my mental state.

The main reason for this was that after my most recent advancement, I began to feel a powerful mental strain. My thoughts wanted to fall into the patterns created by my cultivation technique. I could still control it, but doing so had begun to require effort.

Having decided to take a break from cultivation, I decided to visit the Pill Hall. Over the past couple of years, I had started using it as a resting spot of sorts, and I wasn’t the only one. Several disciples came here to spend time chatting with friends.

Unlike in the nominal disciples’ city, there wasn't much to do for entertainment on the mountain, and since we were all alchemists, the Pill Hall became a natural gathering spot.

When I walked in, I saw someone I was hoping to see. “Senior Sister Jiao! How are you doing today?”

Senior Sister Jiao, or Jiao XinYan, was an older inner sect disciple I had met my first year completing missions in the Pill Hall. She had been in the sect long enough to learn a lot about its inner workings, and she was one of the best fonts of information available to me. She spent a lot of time hanging out, talking to other disciples, and just watching people work. Since she was in the inner sect, she had access to gossip from the Martial Peak, and she shared it freely.

“Junior Brother Su, nice to see you. Have you eaten yet?”

“No, I just took a break and came to visit. Has anything interesting happened?”

She sighed and shook her head. “It’s been quiet all day. The deacon posted a few new competitive missions, so I was hoping for some entertainment, but no one has been willing to step forward and sign up for them.”

“Oh? Anything special?”

“One is Rank 3, so it’s only for the inner sect, and those always take more time. The other is for the self-proclaimed genius of the Martial Peak. Some guy named TianHuo. He’s a Tiger, so there aren’t too many people fighting to take his contract.”

The ‘Tigers’ were one of the factions I had noticed in the past. They were led by Elder Hu and were mainly composed of disciples from wealthier families around the Wastes, though the Su clan was notably absent from their ranks. Of course, that wasn’t a surprise since no official members of the Su clan ever joined the sect.

The Tigers were the smallest of the three factions, and they didn’t have a particularly good relationship with the other two. They tended to see themselves as half-noble and above the common sect members. This attitude led to fewer people being willing to step forward and help them, so it was mainly their secular wealth and influence that sustained them. Those things couldn’t be felt in the lower rungs of the sect, but they seemed more important at higher levels.

My mind returned to what Jiao had said.

“TianHuo… I think that’s the guy I was making pills for when I was challenged by Wen Hao a while back.”

She bobbed her head. “Makes sense. Brother Wen is a Tiger too, so I doubt he was keen on letting money leave the family. He wouldn’t want a non-Tiger to complete such a lucrative mission.”

“But why did you call TianHuo a ‘self-proclaimed’ genius? Is he not very talented?”

Jiao laughed. “No, he’s got talent. But when he joined the sect, he kept talking about how he was the number one disciple. To be fair, he wasn’t too wrong. From what I hear, he has an incredibly powerful blessing that can turn a large area into a fiery hellscape. He just isn’t good at cultivation, so he’s taking a long time to advance. He also burns through resources like crazy. Cultivating like that is expensive, but for him, the Tigers are willing to pay the price.”

As we talked about TianHuo, my cultivation technique’s suspicion circuits started tingling. I allowed my thoughts to travel down those paths, and I tried to understand what my mind was telling me.

Hazy memories began to flit through my thoughts. A long time ago, I encountered someone who called himself ‘TianLei.’ That name meant ‘Heavenly Lightning,’ and the very first time I entered the sect, someone launched a powerful lightning attack around the fighter’s gate.

Next, I encountered ‘TianBing.’ He looked exactly like ‘TianLei,’ his name meant ‘Heavenly Ice,’ and he attacked me with a powerful ice attack.

Now there was ‘TianHuo.’ When I entered the sect in this life, there was no lightning attack in front of the fighter’s gate. It was a fire attack, and ‘TianHuo’ meant ‘Heavenly Fire.’

Were these all the same person? Did his blessing keep changing? If he was given an unusually powerful fire blessing, I could understand why he might name himself ‘TianHuo,’ but why did his blessing change to fire?

Was Jiao’s information accurate? Maybe she was trying to trick me.

When I had that thought, I forcibly yanked my mind away from the suspicion pathways.

I looked at Jiao. I couldn’t trust everything she told me since she would have her own agenda, but it would be silly to lie about public knowledge.

But… Why was I even questioning Jiao’s trustworthiness? She had shared a lot of information with me over the years, and I never knew it to be wrong. She might have her reasons for sharing it, and I could consider why she would do so, but the information should be true.

I stopped myself again.

I felt my mind. The suspicion circuits were not engaged, so why did I keep drifting to that train of thought? I considered a worrying possibility.

“Senior Sister… I want to test something. Can you tell me a few things about a random disciple?”

“Huh? Okay. How about Wang Shun? Do you know him? He entered the outer sect as part of the Snakes during the last competition. He didn’t do too well as a nominal disciple, but he was able to do enough to help the Snakes win a few of those competitions in the city. They probably felt he should be given a shot, so they got him promoted to the outer sect, but he didn’t get a spirit fire. Right now, he’s doing some hard work in the Pill Hall to try and earn a shot at getting one, but it doesn’t look too promising.”

I thought about what Jiao told me for a few moments, and then I took out a notebook and started writing my thoughts:

The ‘Snakes’ is a faction focused on personal improvement. Their core motivation is to find ways to push forward and ascend further. They want to help anyone who seems capable and is driven to improve. Based on the Snakes recruiting him, Wang Shun sounds like a traditional example of someone who is not too talented but is willing to work hard. Even though he might not be the best cultivator or alchemist, he fought for prizes in the competitions and is still fighting to try to become a Master Alchemist.

After I noted this down, I flipped on my suspicion circuits and considered the situation again. I thought about why he was recruited, and what more could be at play. After a few moments of thinking, I jerked my thoughts away from that line of reasoning and disabled those pathways once more.

I gave myself a few moments to relax, then I turned the notebook to a new page and wrote down my thoughts:

Wang Shun seems to be a hidden factor for the Snakes. He successfully hid himself in the city and only appeared when he was needed to secure a victory. Likely, he already has a spirit flame and is hiding it so other factions will remain unaware. If he appears to challenge me or is part of my Inner Sect Challenge, I need to be extremely careful.

After writing that down, I flipped back and reread my original note. It seemed extremely naïve. There was no chance that Wang Shun was just some regular hard-working disciple. He was definitely a hidden dragon.

While I was writing, Jiao gave me a strange look, but she didn’t stop me or ask what I was doing. After I finished, I looked back up at her.

“Hey, thanks for the help. I need to get back to my room.”

I thought hard about Wang Shun, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a hidden trump card for the Snakes, but why did I think that? I looked back at what I wrote after Jiao told me about him, and nothing even hinted at this possibility. This told me something important about how the cultivation technique was affecting me.

I had noticed before that with the Rank 1 technique, when I was made more susceptible to suggestion, those suggestions still carried weight in my mind and informed my decisions even after I died and reset. The altered perceptions of my memories lingered even after the direct effects of the cultivation technique were removed.

The same thing seemed to hold true with these suspicions. If my mind determined that someone or something was suspicious while I was allowing myself to be influenced, the belief that they were suspicious would remain even after I removed the influence.

I wasn’t sure if this was good or bad. Wang Shun could, indeed, be a plant for the Snakes, and all my new suspicions could be true. Either way, I needed to be exceedingly careful about allowing myself to fall into that suspicious mindset.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 44 – Life 58, Age 32, Martial Master Peak

After learning about the potential permanent side effects of my cultivation technique, I knew that I needed to be much more careful. Allowing myself to fall into a paranoid mindset and corrupting my memories of the sect would do inestimable damage to this and countless future lives. To prevent that, I needed to ensure I was always in complete control of the cultivation technique’s mental effects.

The mental pull from my newly established mental pathways was strong, and if I continued advancing, those pathways might take over my entire psyche. I needed to give myself time to let them settle.

After juggling some numbers in my mind, I decided to go back to the once-a-year approach to advancement. One year should be long enough for my mind to settle down and return to normal. Then, I would advance.

I still need to be careful, though. Each advancement had a compounding effect on this mental pulling, making the strain from each new stage of cultivation significantly worse. If this mental strain hadn’t completely settled, a single advancement might be able to directly carry me over the edge of madness.

I was in a dangerous situation, but as long as I was cautious, I would be able to make it through safely. I just needed to slow down and take my time.

After each advancement, I secluded myself in my rented apartment and didn’t talk to anyone. This allowed me to stabilize my mind without having to worry about a random conversation accidentally engaging the cultivation technique’s suspicion circuits.

During this time, I never returned to my cave in the elder’s enclave on the mountain.

Renting an apartment cost me 100 contribution points a day, which was roughly equal to the profits I made from selling a single pill. My estimates put that at a cost of 50 gold a day to rent this room, a completely insane price. However, I didn’t care too much about contribution points. They were easy enough to earn, and I would much rather live in a well-furnished apartment than return to the elder’s enclave and live in a cave of bare rock.

I spent years in the city slowly raising my cultivation level to Martial Master Peak. In all that time, I never saw Deacon Liu, and I never received any messages from Elder Mu. My only contact with them was through a servant disciple who continuously delivered herbs and picked up my completed pills.

As long as I provided them with a dozen or so pills every day, they were content to let me live however I wanted to. They got countless free pills, and I received unlimited resources to practice with. They made more immediate profit from the exchange, but I was the only one who would get to keep my gains. In a way, it was a win-win, but personally, I felt that I was the one coming out ahead in the deal.

This status quo lasted years, but eventually, I completed my final meridian and advanced to Martial Master Peak. It was time for me to ascend to Grandmaster and join the inner sect.

After breaking through, I spent a few months completely stabilizing my cultivation. Once I was confident my mental state was stable, I returned to the elder’s enclave to talk with Deacon Liu.

I bowed slightly when I saw him. “Deacon, long time no see!”

He blinked in surprise at me. “Little Fang, what brings you back?”

“I broke through to Martial Master Peak. I need to learn how to advance further.”

A mask of false calm suddenly appeared on the deacon’s face. “I see. That was quicker than expected. I hope you didn’t rush your cultivation.”

“No, deacon. I was careful. I believe my foundation is solid.”

“Very well. I will send a message to Elder Mu. You will need to discuss your advancement with him directly. Just wait in your room for now, and I will get you when he’s ready.”

I spent three days in my cave as I waited to meet with Elder Mu. Those few days drove home how different my life had been over these past few years. I had started to become used to living in a decent room and having regular interactions with people. Returning to the ascetic life was uncomfortable.

Still, it was familiar. The deacon continued to provide me herbs to work with, and I was able to continue slowly refining my alchemy skills. Even after all these years, I didn’t feel that I had truly perfected Rank 2 alchemy. I had nearly reached the limit of what was possible with my knowledge and affinities, but I still wanted to keep pushing to improve even the slightest bit more. Returning to this simple lifestyle resonated with a small piece of my soul, and I was able to refocus on what was important.

My concentration on this task consumed me, and days passed. I didn’t even realize how long it had been until Deacon Liu interrupted me.

“Disciple Fang, it’s time. Follow me.”

As we walked, Deacon Liu felt distant, almost like I was a stranger to him. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I could tell something had changed with him.

When we entered the elder’s office, I was shocked by its emptiness. The countless scrolls and papers that had littered the room were gone. The bookshelves that lined the room stood completely empty. Only a single scroll was left. It had been placed on a small silver tray that sat on top of the elder’s desk.

After ushering me inside, the deacon closed the door, leaving me alone in the room with Elder Mu.

The elder gestured to the chair across from him. “Take a seat.”

I sat down and waited patiently as he examined me. He was using his qi vision to look at my energy body. That allowed him to closely examine my cultivation state and check for any problems. After talking with Jiao a while back, she taught me the basics of doing this, and it was how people had been able to tell what my cultivation realm was in the past. I wasn’t sure what the elder could see with his soul power, but mine allowed me to have a detailed view of a person’s meridians. This let me see and understand all the tiny imperfections in them.

After over a minute of careful examination, Elder Mu pronounced his judgment.

“Better than I expected. How do you assess your mental state?”

I bowed my head. “Elder, the last time I advanced, the new impulses were difficult to control. However, after two months in seclusion, I do not believe they pose any risk to my stability.”

He paused briefly to consider. “What if the sensations were ten or a hundred times more powerful? Do you think you could keep them under control?”

I hesitated. “I don’t think so. Even doubling the intensity might be a risk.”

He let out a soft sigh. “Yes, Deacon Liu has failed you in this. He was supposed to keep you balanced so that this wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Elder, I must accept blame for this. My doubts caused me to briefly rush my cultivation a few years ago. I cannot blame Deacon Liu for this.”

It wasn’t my place to contradict the elder, so this was slightly improper of me to say, but I couldn’t throw the deacon under the bus here. Even if I still harbored doubts about the man’s motives, I would accept personal responsibility for my actions.

Elder Mu waved my objection away. “It makes no difference. What’s done is done. We have to work with what we have.”

The elder tapped the scroll that had been sitting on his desk. “This is your Rank 3 cultivation technique. It is Peak-Yellow and is a match with the ones used previously. Use it to raise your cultivation base to Grandmaster. If you need advice, contact Deacon Chen in the administration office. He will assist you.”

I hesitated before taking the scroll. “What are the mental effects of this technique?”

“Rank 3 techniques are a bit simpler than those that come before it. There are only two basic effects, and nearly every technique has one of the two. They can either increase or decrease the effects of the previous techniques you used. This one decreases the effects, so you should have no problems controlling yourself after cultivating it.”

I suddenly felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

“That’s great. I can finally stop worrying so much.”

“No, it isn’t. Techniques that decrease the effects of previous Ranks don’t just affect the mental component. They also result in significantly reduced total power. By cultivating this technique, your qi will be crippled compared to someone who cultivates an empowering technique.”

“So… should I wait and cultivate the more powerful technique?”

Elder Mu shook his head and looked down at his desk, not wanting to meet my eye.

“There isn’t time. You only have a limited window to break through, and I do not believe you can reach a stable enough state in time. However, even if you could, it wouldn’t matter, and it wouldn't be worth the effort anyway. Yes, by following this technique, your qi will be weaker than others, but for you, that won’t be much of a problem. With your fire seed, the strength of your qi is much less important.”

“I understand, elder.”

I had already questioned him twice during this conversation, and it would be poor form to press further. This was the technique he was giving me, so I would have to accept it.

“The next Inner Sect Challenge will take place in one year. You will need to advance to Martial Grandmaster before that time. As long as you do, I am confident that I can secure your promotion to the inner sect so that you will be allowed to begin learning Rank 3 alchemy.”

“Yes, elder.”

With that, I left. The need to intentionally weaken myself left me feeling dissatisfied, but I knew that I should accept Elder Mu’s decision.

I didn’t return to my cave in the enclave. Instead, I went back to my rented room in the village since it provided a much more comfortable environment to cultivate in.

Once I was seated and was able to calm my thoughts, I looked at the scroll the elder had given me.

The way he had described this technique had left me disappointed. A cultivation technique specifically designed to make me weaker than others at my same level wasn’t what I had been hoping for.

I wanted something better. Was this really the only technique suitable for me? Could I try pledging myself to a different elder in exchange for something better? Maybe, but whether I succeeded or not, doing so would completely burn my bridges with Elder Mu, and it was extremely likely I would just be turned away.

Also, even if this technique wasn’t what I had been hoping for, Elder Mu was still providing me with a pathway beyond anything I had accomplished before. This only added to the debt I owed him. I couldn’t betray him.

Thinking about the technique, I considered if Elder Mu might not be correct in his decision.

Assuming everything he told me was true, having less strength wouldn’t be all that bad. I wouldn’t have to worry about the mental effects of cultivation anymore and should still be able to learn Rank 3 alchemy.

The mental effects of the Rank 2 technique had started to be a slight problem, and if a strengthening technique made these effects ten or a hundred times more potent, I could be in serious danger. A weakening effect could be considered a blessing.

If everything the elder said was true, I would use this technique. I just needed to know if I could trust him.

Knowing I needed a second opinion, I visited the Pill Hall to find the only person who might qualify as an outside expert.

“Senior Sister Jiao, can you help me with something?”

I had come to learn that Jiao was not simply hanging around the Pill Hall for fun. She was there to keep an eye on things. This was because she was a member of the faction I had dubbed the ‘Eyes.’ This was the Sect Master’s personal faction, and its members were his eyes and ears in the sect.

While Elder Mu was an independent, he was most closely aligned with the Snakes. This put Jiao slightly at odds with him. By relying on this adversarial relationship between the two groups, I hoped to use Jiao as an independent check on the information I got from the elder.

She smiled when she heard this. “Younger Brother Su, what do you need?”

“Elder Mu gave me a new cultivation technique today. I was hoping you could take a look at it and tell me what you think.”

“Oh… Oh!” Her eyes widened in surprise. “You reached Martial Master Peak. Congratulations! Here let me see!”

I handed her the technique. When she opened it up and read it, I noticed her wince slightly. After only a glance, she gave it back to me with a look of pity.

“Yeah, that one’s pretty standard. Sorry about that. I know you’ve been working hard, but, well, it happens.”

“What do you mean?”

She sucked in a breath through her teeth as she thought through her words.

“If you cultivate that technique, your future will be limited. You will never be able to grow much beyond where you are now. Even if you reach Peak Grandmaster, you will be weaker than a Martial Grandmaster 2 that used a more powerful technique.”

“Is that the only downside?”

She let out a soft, wry laugh. “Isn’t that enough? I’ve never heard of any other problems, but being weaker than every other Grandmaster is already too much.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. “Anyway, it’s what you got. Once an elder decides something, it is nearly impossible to get them to change their minds. At least this means you won’t have to worry about the mental issues that cultivation can cause.”

I gave her a bow. “Thank you, Senior Sister Jiao.”

Since both my sources gave the same information, I could proceed.

Being weaker than other Grandmasters was fine. As Elder Mu said, I relied on my fire seed more than my cultivation base, and even if my qi wasn’t as powerful as other Peak Grandmasters, I would still be able to earn just as many credits from the System.

The situation might not be ideal, but it would help me create a solid foundation for success in future lives.

A note from G Tolley

Cultivating Insanity: Xianxia and Strategy

[Classic Xianxia meets Reverend Insanity]

Xun had it all. In the span of a couple hundred years, he cultivated well, started a family and founded a sect. But on his deathbed, listening to those closest to him argue over who would inherit his wealth, he realized how ordinary his life had been.

Given a second chance at life, he vowed not to make the same mistakes again. This time, he only had a single goal. Cultivate and reach eternity.

—

Edited by RC Joshua, author of Deadworld Isekai (1.5 million+ views).

Expect:

+ Daily 2k+ chapters

+ Strategic MC who doesn't use brute force to win every time

+ Huge Xianxia world

Chapter 45 – Life 58, Age 32, Martial Master Peak

As a Martial Disciple, cultivating meant pulling qi from the environment and infusing it into one’s muscles. When working to advance their cultivation base, Disciples could only focus on drawing qi into a single section of their body at a time. Once the muscles in this chosen section were filled to capacity, they would then be able to use this stored energy to open an acupoint in that part of the body, allowing the connected muscles to constantly, passively gather energy.

For Martial Disciples, qi was mostly locked in the muscles. To create a flame in their right hand, a Disciple would channel the qi from their lower-right arm into their palm. If their lower-right arm ran out of qi, it was possible to slowly drag additional energy from other parts of their body to replenish it, but they were usually better off waiting for it to recover.

After opening acupoints in all parts of one’s body, a cultivator was ready to advance to Martial Master.

The goal of a Master was to create meridians throughout their entire body. These were essentially blood vessels for qi, allowing it to flow quickly and easily throughout one’s body. After the proper meridians were in place, it no longer mattered how much qi was in a cultivator’s lower-right arm since they could seamlessly pull qi from anywhere in their body.

It should be said, the total amount of qi a Martial Master could access was greater than that of a Martial Disciple, but the difference wasn’t as significant as one might think. The massive quantity of qi needed to advance as a Master was locked into static structures within their bodies, the meridians, so it was not usable for powering techniques.

The primary difference between a Master and a Disciple was simply that a Master had the ability to transfer and use qi from anywhere in their body. This made it so that even if a Master were exhausted and had significantly less qi in their body than a Disciple, they would still have an advantage because they could use what energy they did have exactly when and where they wanted to.

So, what was a Martial Grandmaster?

Within a cultivator’s body, there was a place in the torso located slightly above the navel. This place was called the dantian. The dantian was a natural gathering point for the body’s qi, but it was only noticeable in people who hadn’t yet started cultivating since cultivating shifted a body’s natural qi flows. However, even if it was difficult to detect, the dantian still existed, and it was where qi wanted to accumulate.

To break through to Martial Grandmaster, a cultivator needed to create a structure within their dantian capable of containing a vast amount of qi and then integrate this new structure into their meridians. This reservoir would greatly increase a person’s qi capacity, and all of this stored energy could be delivered on demand, through one’s meridians, to any place in the body.

To Grandmasters, this qi reservoir became their new dantian, and their dantian was this reservoir. The two were synonymous.

Having received a Rank 3 cultivation technique from Elder Mu, and having had Jiao confirm that the technique was legitimate, I was nearly ready to begin my breakthrough to Martial Grandmaster. However, after reading the details of what I would need to do several times, I understood that advancing to Grandmaster would not be quick. I needed to prepare myself for a long stint in seclusion.

The first thing I did was sell scores of pills to the Pill Hall. As a Martial Master Peak, it would be normal for me to be able to create ten to fifteen pills a day, and I pushed what was ‘normal’ to the limit in order to build up points as quickly as possible. While I didn’t touch the competitive missions, I grabbed every regular mission that offered a decent return, and if one wasn’t available, I focused on the pills the sect had put a bounty on.

The main reason I needed to do this was because of the excessive cost of renting my apartment. At 100 contribution points a day, if I wanted to be able to seclude myself for a month, I would first need to save up the profits from selling thirty pills. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by just returning to my cave in the elder’s enclave, but I considered the comfort I gained from staying in this apartment more than worth the added cost.

After thinking through everything I would need to do to complete my breakthrough, I knew that I needed to be prepared to spend at least a year in seclusion. This was costly, but with the rate I was concocting pills, it only took me two weeks to save up enough points to pay for rent.

After that, I prepared pills. Of utmost importance were Meridian Builder Pills. These would provide me with the qi and focus I would require if I wanted any hope of completing my dantian in a single sitting. I also needed Fasting Pills and Restorative Pills. These were simple Rank 1 pills that would alleviate my need for food and sleep.

Using such pills was usually considered a bad idea. Few alchemists in the sect were able to concoct them with perfect purity, so consuming them was a quick way to absorb untold amounts of pill toxins. Even beyond the toxin problem, a body needed real food and rest. These pills could alleviate that need for a time, but eventually, the lack of true sustenance would damage one’s foundations.

However, this was a special situation. First, I was one of those few alchemists who could make Perfect Fasting and Restorative Pills. Second, if I stopped cultivating for any reason, my dantian would be irreparably damaged. The minor damage my body would suffer from not eating or sleeping for a few days paled in comparison to what would happen if I ruined my breakthrough.

Finally, while my rented apartment was appointed with well-made furniture, none of it was ideal for long stretches of cultivation. To provide myself with as much of an advantage as possible, I spent several thousand contribution points on a top-notch cultivation mat. While this mat may have appeared to be little more than a thick woolen blanket, a complex formation had been woven into it that would allow me to completely block out the world around me and avoid distractions.

Once everything was in place, I returned to my room and sat down to begin my breakthrough.

I started by weaving together a small, tight ring of qi. Once everything was complete, this ring would serve as the interface between my dantian and my meridians. Then, using that ring as a starting point, I slowly worked my way outwards and created a large quarter sphere with the ring in its center.

When building meridians, the qi strands were slightly loose and had a bit of separation between them. This was to allow qi to enter and exit them as needed. My Peak-Yellow technique used flat ribbons that could expand and contract so that I could more carefully control the rate at which this process happened.

Building a dantian was different. Qi should only be able to enter and exit through the meridians, not through the dantian walls, so it needed to be weaved together tightly enough that nothing would be able to leak out. This requirement, the need to create a woven surface with absolutely no gaps, made creating a dantian a far more difficult and time-consuming task than creating a meridian. It took me more than a week just to create the first quarter sphere.

The cultivation technique I was using called for the creation of four such pieces. This was to allow for four openings in the dantian. My Rank 2 technique created two meridians in my torso, and each of them would need a pathway in and out of the dantian.

After the first piece was complete, I then needed to continuously expend a bit of my focus to hold it in place as I worked on the second piece. After the second piece was complete, I had to keep both completed pieces locked into place. While working on the final piece, I was not only concentrating on weaving a perfect quarter sphere with zero gaps, but I was also burdened with stabilizing all three previously created pieces. If I let up for even a second, there was a significant chance that one of the pieces would begin to unravel and wreak havoc within my body.

While constructing the first piece only took me a little more than a week, because of the growing burden with each new section, constructing all four took me a total of three months. Even with the help of Restorative Pills, my mind was slipping, and I needed to sleep, but I couldn’t. Not yet.

With all four pieces complete, I refocused and began the tedious process of knitting them together. This used a completely different weave, and again, it had zero room for error.

Slowly, I placed one stitch after another. A few times, the threads and the pieces didn’t line up perfectly, so I had to carefully pluck out the stitches and try again. This caused damage to the weave, but I didn’t have a choice. It was the only option available.

Weaving an entire dantian in a single sitting was far too complex a task for me to complete perfectly on my first attempt. Before weaving meridians, I had spent months practicing and perfecting the process, but dantians were different. They were nearly impossible to practice. I could only do my best and accept that the final result would inevitably be flawed.

Finally, after a total of five months without rest, my dantian was completely formed. It sat silently in the middle of my torso and showed no signs of collapse or unraveling.

At this point, I wasn’t yet a Martial Grandmaster since my dantian wasn’t connected to my meridians. However, because the initial structure was complete, I could rest. I no longer had to fear that it would unravel.

When I started connecting my meridians, I would be in a race against time, and I wouldn’t be able to pause the process until it was complete, so I took this time to eat, sleep, and recover.

After two days of rest, I resumed my seclusion.

From my dantian, I created four meridian-like branches and extended them until the ends were nearly flush against the two meridians in my torso. Then, I tied off the ends of three of them and slowed down the movement of qi within my body.

Working as quickly as I safely could, I sliced open one meridian and wove one of the connecting branches into it. Even with my qi slowed, it still leaked through this opening and made connecting the branch challenging. Using all the willpower I possessed, I forced everything into place and knit it together.

Qi began flowing from the newly connected meridian into my dantian. It pooled there, but if too much accumulated, it would begin to be forced out, causing it to burst through the three branches I hadn’t yet connected.

Swiftly, I made another slice further down in the same meridian and connected the next branch to it. This allowed qi to flow from my dantian back into that meridian, greatly reducing the risk of pressure build-up.

Then, I repeated the same process with my other torso meridian, cutting it open and connecting one branch for qi to flow in, and then connecting the final branch to allow qi to flow back out.

Once everything was complete, I could finally relax.

When I woke up from a deep slumber, I couldn’t help but smile. I had reached Martial Grandmaster 1.

Of course, while I now had a dantian capable of storing vast quantities of qi, it was currently sitting empty. My new dantian didn’t provide me with too many benefits unless there was energy stored inside of it. So instead of immediately ending my seclusion, I sat down and cultivated.

I didn’t have any Rank 3 pills to help me, and the effects Rank 2 Meridian Builders had on a Grandmaster were limited. So, I just focused on cycling my cultivation technique to slowly gather energy.

To advance as a Grandmaster, I would first need to completely fill my dantian with qi. When it reached its limit and no more could be added, when the walls of my dantian started to buckle from the pressure of the qi my dantian contained, I would need to use my affinities and willpower to compress and compact my qi, making it denser and more potent. Each compression would be an advancement in my level as a Grandmaster, and my qi could be compressed a total of nine times. A Martial Grandmaster 10 was a Peak Grandmaster.

I studied my qi as I cultivated. I watched as it slowly drained from my muscles, entered my meridians, and was deposited into my dantian. Being empty of qi, the acupoints in my muscles then pulled in qi from the environment at an accelerated rate. My dantian was nearly empty, but the qi inside of it was slowly accumulating with every second that passed.

As a Martial Master, I hadn’t needed to worry about cultivating regularly. The qi used when creating meridians was drawn in from the environment as they were being built, so Master-level advancements didn’t rely on stockpiling qi.

Living as a Grandmaster would be different. Gathering enough qi to advance would take a significant amount of time, and any time I wasn’t cultivating, I was delaying my advancement, and using qi for any reason could mean ruining all the work I did to advance to the next stage.

When concocting Rank 2 pills, I hadn’t needed to worry about the qi I was using. Performing alchemy had essentially been free. But now, spending qi to concoct Rank 3 pills would mean depleting my cultivation base. I would need to become far more calculating when deciding which pills were worth such a price.

Of course, I wasn’t going to eschew Rank 3 alchemy entirely. Learning Rank 3 alchemy was far, far more important to me than simply advancing my cultivation base, but I needed to keep the costs and benefits of doing so in mind. If I spent energy concocting meaningless pills that didn’t teach me anything, I would only be damaging my future.

As a Martial Grandmaster, I could live for 300 years, and my cultivation base wouldn’t start to stagnate until age 60. After that, if I still hadn’t advanced, it wouldn’t calcify until I was 90. This meant I had time. I had time to both learn alchemy and advance my cultivation.

While I had originally been hesitant to use the weaker cultivation technique provided by Elder Mu, it did provide me with a backup plan for the future. If I couldn’t learn alchemy and advance my cultivation at the same time, I could learn alchemy first and stockpile Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills. Then, I could use them to quickly advance my cultivation. This might not be ideal, but it was nice to have the option of cultivating recklessly without needing to worry too much about my mental state.

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 46 – Life 58, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 1

On the day of the Inner Sect Challenge, I met Jiao near the entrance to the stadium.

“Are you ready?”

I nodded with confidence. “Yes. My skills with Rank 2 pills have hit a point of diminishing returns. Without a significant time investment, a better affinity, or a blessing to help me, I’m basically at my limit. If this isn’t enough to join the inner sect, then that’s simply my fate.”

Jiao smiled at me. “Just remember, to join the inner sect, you need powerful abilities and influential connections. The more of one you have, the less of the other you need. Since you’re an independent, you won’t have to compete with the faction disciples, but that also means you need to shine bright enough to stand out on your own. Your elder can only do so much for you.”

The unwritten rules of this challenge had become clear to me over the years. Each of the three factions would always receive the same number of inner sect disciples, so the real competition was within the factions, not between them. If one were the second-best alchemist in their faction, it would be incredibly difficult to advance to the inner sect.

Of course, the same number for each faction didn’t mean only one from each faction. As long as the numbers were balanced, two or three disciples could be selected from each. The complication was that if the Snakes had three excellent alchemists, but the Tigers only had one, they were incentivized to only allow one person per faction to pass.

Since I was under Elder Mu, an independent elder, the faction games didn’t affect me too much. I wouldn’t be excluded because someone better had already been chosen, but I also wouldn’t get included just because there was an extra slot. So, more than anything, I needed the elders to see value in promoting me to the inner sect.

This ‘value’ was about both the quality and the quantity of pills an alchemist could produce. The elders didn’t just want someone who could give them a single excellent pill once a month, they also needed those who could produce dozens of high-quality pills every week.

After contemplating my odds of success, I gave Jiao a reassuring smile.

“Elder Mu sent me a message. He said everything was taken care of, and he seemed confident that I would succeed.”

“Really? That’s odd. I heard that Elder Hu decided to attend personally this year. This made Elder Long and Elder Tao come as well. These three are each the heads of their faction’s Alchemy Peak branches. The judging panel is completely stacked against the independents.”

I could only shrug. “I don’t know. He seemed sure that as long as I produced pills at my usual level of quality, it would be enough.”

Jiao threw her hands up in defeat. “Well, good luck then. I’ll be rooting for you.”

“Welcome everyone. I am Tan GaoFeng, the Deputy Sect Master for the Twin Mountains Sect in charge of the Alchemy Peak. If you are new to the sect and this is your first time at one of these competitions, I welcome you.”

I stood silently alongside my eighteen competitors as the audience politely applauded.

“The Inner Sect Challenge is held once every three years. Every outer sect disciple who has reached the realm of Martial Grandmaster has been invited to participate. Unlike the competition to become an outer sect member, there is no set number for how many may be promoted to the inner sect. Instead, our panel of esteemed elders will decide who is most deserving of this honor. This is done on an individual basis, so you only need to do your best.”

I looked to where Elders Hu, Long, and Tao sat in judgment over us. They would be the ones deciding my fate.

After allowing his words time to linger, the Sect Master continued.

“For this competition, you will each be making three pills. We will start with the most straightforward. You need only concoct a fire-focused Meridian Builder Pill. This pill should be familiar to everyone, so I hope that you will use this opportunity to show off the height of your abilities.”

This was the pill I felt the most confident about. Without a specific blessing to aid them, none of my competitors would be my match. Of course, it seemed unlikely to me that no one would have such a blessing. I just had to hope that the number who did was limited.

I carefully prepared and began working. After melting the herbs’ physical structures, I burned away any and all of their visible pill toxins. As I was doing this with my spirit fire, I was careful to leave a thick layer of toxin whenever I came close to the medicinal energy. With the qi of a Grandmaster, I was more than capable of supplying enough fire qi to eliminate such dregs, so there was no need to risk damaging the medicinal energy by allowing my spirit fire to get too close to it.

When the medicinal energy was all prepared, I used my Empowering Technique to strengthen the medicinal earth energy with my fire qi.

Finally, I combined each portion of medicinal power in sequence and then compressed it.

The energy crystallized, and a small, perfectly round pill dropped to the bottom of my cauldron.

I picked it up and examined it. I didn’t have any abilities or techniques for analyzing Rank 2 pills, but based on my experience, I could still do a rough appraisal. I estimated that it was a peak High-Purity pill with 118% efficacy. Since only Perfect pills were capable of achieving a base efficacy of 100%, and the theoretical maximum bonus of the Empowering Technique was 20%, I was confident that this pill would be enough to secure one of the top spots in this round of the competition.

I had taken my time, so I wasn’t the first to finish concocting my pill, but I wasn’t far behind. I wasn’t sure how much importance would be placed on speed, but I didn’t want to lose points in this regard if I didn’t have to.

Once everyone was finished, the pills were all taken away to be judged.

Sect Master Tan GaoFeng returned to the front of his podium.

“Next, you will all need to make a wood-focused Meridian Builder Pill.” He chuckled slightly. “Everyone has a natural advantage when making the fire version, but this should stretch your abilities slightly more.”

The elemental cycle to create a wood-focused pill began with fire. I couldn't empower the medicinal fire energy the same way I had with the earth energy, but that didn’t mean I was helpless. After studying countless techniques in the libraries of Elder Mu and the Sect, I was able to create a derivative version of the Empowering Technique.

I focused on the medicinal fire energy and carefully began adding my fire qi to it. This would not improve the fire energy in any way, and trying to force the issue would only damage the efficacy of the final pill.

Instead, I wove strands of qi throughout the structure of the medicinal energy without ever touching it. In most pills, this would be futile at best as the qi would never truly integrate with the medicinal energy, but making the medicinal fire energy more potent wasn’t my goal.

After this initial stage was complete, I integrated this amalgamation of qi and medicinal energy with the medicinal earth energy. As the two were merging, my fire qi excited the earth energy, causing it to become slightly more potent than usual. This technique couldn’t be used to produce any shocking alchemic wonders since using too much fire qi would overwhelm the mixture. However, it did allow me to improve a pill in ways the other disciples wouldn’t be able to match.

After completing my pill, I examined it. My estimate put it at 106% efficiency. This was far worse than what the Empowering Technique could accomplish, but it was still better than nothing.

As I was the only one who added this extra step to the process, I was the last to finish in the second round, but I didn’t worry about the loss of time. My improved pill should be considered far more valuable than completing the task a few minutes earlier.

After our pills were taken away, the Sect Master assumed his position on the podium once more.

“The final pill for today will be a Rank 2 Explosive Pill.”

Explosive pills were tricky, and I was surprised to see them as part of this competition.

This pill consisted of four herbs: one wood herb, one metal herb, and two fire herbs.

I didn’t have any special method to help me here because I had never wanted to risk experimenting with explosives, so I could only execute the basic pill to the best of my ability.

First, I combined the wood herb with one of the fire herbs, strengthening it. Then I wove the empowered fire herb together with the unempowered one. These two energies did not merge. Instead, they formed a structure resembling a large ball of twine with two different-colored strings mixed haphazardly together. This combined ball of fire energy was completely inert since the energies could neither move nor combine.

The ball of fire energy was then wrapped in fire qi, and the fire qi was wrapped in the energy from the metal herb. Finally, the energy ball was compressed until it crystallized into a solid form.

I carefully picked up the final pill and gingerly placed it into a padded pill bottle.

The fire qi acted as an insulator between the metal and fire energies. When crushed, the metal energy would pierce through the layer of qi and into the fire energy, destabilizing it. This would create an explosion, and I had no desire to be anywhere near this pill when that happened.

When I was finished, I placed my pill bottle on a jade tray to be judged and quickly escaped to the edge of the arena. Some of the competitors were doing their best to fight for a place in the inner sect, and I wanted to be far away from them if their attempts ended in disaster.

Fortunately, disaster never struck. Many people had their pills collapse, but this was always before they would have begun working with the metal energy, so there was never any true danger.

After all the completed pills were collected, the Sect Master addressed us once more.

“Congratulations on completing the Inner Sect Challenge! Please wait while the elders discuss your results.”

Had I done enough? My first pill could easily contend with anything a regular disciple could produce, and my second pill used a unique refinement process. That should be enough. The only thing that could keep me out of the inner sect was politics, and for that, I had to rely on Elder Mu.

After half an hour of deliberation, the elders reached their verdict, and Elder Hu stepped forward and spoke in a voice loud enough to be heard everywhere in the arena.

“Sect Master Tan, we have reached our decision. The first disciple promoted is Hu JinPo.”

As he announced this, a wide, proud grin broke out on the elder’s face.

Then, Elder Long stepped forward. “Next is Bao DuPing.”

Finally, it was Elder Tao’s turn. “Third is Jiang FeiLong.”

After each name, a small burst of applause could be heard from different parts of the stadium from the members of the chosen alchemist’s faction.

After glancing at the other elders, Elder Hu spoke once more. “We will also promote Wen Hong.”

Wen Hong? Was he related to Wen Hao? Wen Hao was in Elder Hu’s faction, so were they advancing two people each?

Elder Long lifted his chin to address the audience. “And Bao DuJin.”

Elder Tao glanced around at each of the remaining alchemists. “I congratulate everyone for their accomplishments today. However, the final inner sect disciple this year will be Su Fang.”

At this pronouncement, he looked directly at me with a wide, inviting smile.

After the selections were complete, the disciples who were not chosen quietly exited the arena while those who had been picked walked toward their respective elders.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Had I just been poached by the Eyes? As a disciple under Elder Mu, wouldn’t it be improper for me to join Elder Tao? I didn’t know how to react, but Elder Tao represented the Sect Master. I had to give him face.

I walked to where Jiang FeiLong was already talking with the elder and gave a deep bow. “Hello, Elder Tao. Thank you for allowing me to join the inner sect.”

He placed a hand on my shoulder and forced me to rise. “Disciple Su, I’ve heard a lot about you. Welcome to the Righteous Defenders of the Twin Mountains.”

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 47 – Life 58, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 1

The Righteous Defenders of the Twin Mountain, or the Eyes as I called it, was the faction controlled by the Sect Master. Jiao was a member of this faction, so I had assumed that her influence had something to do with the reason I had been recruited, but when I met with Elder Tao the day after the competition, he made everything clear.

“Elder Mu has made significant contributions to the sect over recent years, so he has been recruited for a position within the Flowing Mountain Sect. As he was leaving, he discussed your future with me, and we decided it would be best if you stayed within the sect to further develop your talents. So, he has transferred you into my care.”

I parsed the message behind his words. Elder Mu’s ‘significant contributions’ likely involved all the pills I had provided him over the years, and once he accumulated enough to advance, he discarded me. Likely, he believed that the cost of teaching me Rank 3 alchemy wasn’t worth the eventual return he would receive whenever I was able to start producing pills for him again. He had sold me for a quick buck and was willing to let others deal with my further education.

It was a cold calculation, but I understood and accepted it. I wouldn’t begrudge him following his own path of advancement. ‘Everyone has their own dreams.’ Besides, in recent years, Elder Mu had done little more than provide me with countless herbs. I was somewhat hopeful that a true faction would be able to do more.

Still, I couldn’t deny that I had gained a lot from my time with the elder. While I likely could have found a different path and arrived at this same place, and while that other potential path might have even been superior, the fact was that I had chosen to learn from Elder Mu, and I was where I was at this moment because of his help. If this were my only life, I would consider the debt between us square, but the assistance he provided me would have ramifications through many future lives, and I had only helped him in this one.

I didn’t know where that left us. I didn’t know if I could or should help him in the future, but I would remember him. He helped me learn Rank 2 alchemy, and he helped me reach Martial Grandmaster for the first time. In my soul, I knew that there was still a debt here that needed to be repaid.

I returned my thoughts to the elder in front of me and gave a slight bow. “Thank you, Elder Tao. I will do my best to contribute to my new faction.”

This made him laugh. “I’m sure you will, but before we discuss how you will contribute, we should talk about your current situation. I believe that only a better understanding of the position you are now in will ensure that you do your utmost to improve upon it.”

His words felt slightly ominous, but I didn’t feel he was directly threatening me.

“You are now a Martial Grandmaster. This is the final realm of what is commonly referred to as the ‘Warrior Tier’ which includes Disciple, Master, and Grandmaster. This tier of cultivation is all about self-improvement. For advancement, you only need to rely on yourself.”

Something had been slightly bothering me for a while, and after hearing the name ‘Warrior Tier,’ I wanted to know more. Thankfully, there was someone here who might be able to tell me what I wanted to know.

“Elder Tao, why Warrior? Why Martial? I never understood this. We aren’t fighters, so why are we referred to as Martial Disciples and so on?”

He sighed. “Others will tell you that it is because we are all ‘fighting against the Heavens,’ and that even alchemists join in on this fight. I believe that this is just a rationalization. Cultivation began as an extension of the Martial Dao. Since the earliest and most powerful cultivators followed that Dao, they were the ones who got to choose the names.”

I nodded.

“Returning to the topic, while you still have a long way to go within the Grandmaster realm, this is the final step of the Warrior Tier. Martial Grandmaster Peak is the end of cultivation for nearly everyone. Only a small percentage are able to advance further.” He gave me a penetrating look. “Are you familiar with the realms above Grandmaster?"

"No, elder. I only know that after Martial Grandmaster is Martial Lord."

He folded his hands, thinking before speaking. “Disciple, Master, and Grandmaster form the Warrior Tier. After that is the Ruler Tier. The realms are Lord, King, and Emperor.” He turned and looked off into the distance. “These are not just names. To become a Martial Lord, you must become a city lord and infuse karmic energy generated from your city into your cultivation. As the city prospers, so will its Lord. To become a Martial King, you must rule a kingdom, and Martial Emperors must rule an empire. It is possible to advance to False Lord, where your cultivation base lacks this karmic energy, but while this will give you a modicum of additional power, it will not extend your lifespan, and you will never be able to progress any further.”

This, I realized, was Chen WuJing’s and Elder Mu’s goal. They were aiming to take control of a city. They had said that it was impossible to advance to Martial Lord in the Wastes and that they needed to find a way to leave, but they could have left at any time. Their goal wasn’t just to leave, it was to leave in such a way that they would gain control of a city. I was still confident that my pills had something to do with Elder Mu’s ‘contribution,’ but there was no way any number of Rank 2 pills would be able to buy an advancement to Martial Lord on their own.

After a moment of internal musing, I looked back at Elder Tao. “So, when you said that Elder Mu had been promoted to a position in the Flowing Mountain Sect, you meant that he had become a city lord, right?”

“Yes. His contributions reached the level where he was granted control of one of their minor cities. If he rules well, he may be able to advance to Martial Lord one day. His cultivation has already calcified, so it will be extremely difficult to do so, but it is possible.”

“When you say you are certain that I will contribute to the sect, do you also mean that if I contribute enough, I will be granted a city?”

Elder Tao hesitated only slightly. “It is possible, but that takes time. The Flowing Mountain Sect doesn’t have an unlimited number of cities to send people to, but when there is an opening, if your contributions are substantial enough, then yes, you will be able to apply for a position as a city lord.”

I wasn’t sure if False Lord would get me the same credits that a proper ascension would, but I doubted it. If necessary, I could leave the Wastes and make a false ascension near the end of my life, but there was no reason to do that until I knew for certain that achieving a true ascension was impossible.

“What do I need to do?”

The elder folded his hands in front of him. “Make pills. I will ask for nothing more from you than Elder Mu did. We will train you in alchemy, and you will use what we teach you to provide the sect with pills.”

I nodded.

How many pills did an average Grandmaster make? I needed to figure out what production numbers I could hit without appearing suspicious.

As I was thinking this, Elder Tao dumped a bucket of cold water on me. “Elder Mu has told us about your fire seed and how it allows you to produce pills at higher-than-normal rates.”

I froze and a hint of worry crept into my eyes.

The elder smiled and patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry. Yes, possessing treasure is the worst crime a person can commit, and any fire seed is enough to cause a war between kingdoms. I’m also certain that nearly anyone in this sect would kill you if it meant they could extract your fire seed for themselves. The thing is, they can’t. Only a Martial King or higher can safely bond with a fire seed, and they can’t come here.”

I hesitated, but I spoke my thoughts aloud for him. “You can’t bond with it, but you can use it to give more people spirit fires.”

While I didn’t want him to attack me, I needed to understand where he, and by extension the Sect Master, stood.

“That would allow us to create a few more people capable of making Rank 2 pills every year. I won’t say it isn’t an attractive option, but it is the inferior one. Our best disciples already receive spirit fires, so any extras would only go to subpar alchemists who will never advance far enough to make anything of any real value. You, however, will potentially be able to produce several times as many Rank 3 pills as the best inner sect disciple we have. This is clearly our better option.”

Again, this appeared to be an exchange of benefits. They use me, I use them. Elder Mu had used me, but I had profited greatly from my time under him. The same would hold true for the Sect Master.

However, one worrying detail was left unsaid. Why bring up both the need to leave the Wastes to ascend and my fire seed in the same conversation? Because while I would be relatively safe as long as I remained in the sect, if I decided to leave, then I would be attacked and killed for my ‘treasure.’

There was a warning buried in the subtext of this conversation, and I would have to be wary of it.

The truth was that they were paying me in fairy dust. If I helped them, if I contributed enough, I might get a chance to ascend to Lord, but if I left the Wastes to pursue that dream, I would almost certainly be killed for my fire seed. It was an option to consider later in life, something I could try just to see if it would work, but until I had wrested everything I could from this place, I would be a good and proper member of the Righteous Defenders of the Twin Mountains.

I bowed to the elder. “I can do that, but I need someone to teach me.”

Again, he pulled me up straight. “Of course, you are already familiar with Grandmaster Jiao. She will take care of the basics and get you settled. I understand that you have been living in a rented apartment in the village. You may stay there if you wish, but we will provide you with a proper abode within the Righteous Defenders’ Enclave. It would be best if you stayed there for the time being as it will make it easier to provide you with the support needed to learn Rank 3 alchemy.”

“Thank you, elder. I will follow your advice.”

When I reached the foot of the path leading up the mountain, Jiao ran forward and gave me a big hug.

“Welcome to the Defenders! Let’s go, I’ve got to show you around.”

She led me up to a small enclave near the very top of the mountain. There were only a few cave openings here, and she took me to one that looked to be in need of serious repair.

“We need to get your badge updated first.”

We passed inside and found a tidy, well-maintained office space within. While the furniture and decorations were nice, I couldn’t help but focus on the light pouring in through open windows and making everything bright and lively. Where had the windows come from? This was supposed to be a cave inside a mountain.

Jiao approached an open counter where a young woman was busy with paperwork.

“Sister Lu, Brother Su was just promoted to the inner sect as a new member of the Defenders. He needs his new jade.”

‘Sister Lu’ flashed me a bright smile. “Congratulations! Just give me one second.”

After a bit of rummaging around, she produced a new jade with 內, the character for inner, carved into it. I handed her my old jade and attached this new one to a loop on my waist.

Sister Lu clapped her hands together. “You’re all set! Do you need anything else?”

Jiao stepped in with the answer. “No, Elder Tao has already arranged everything for us.”

With that, we left the office and stepped back out onto the side of the mountain.

Everything had changed. Instead of being a barren mountain with only a few visible caves, the area around me had turned into a small settlement carved deep into a massive cavern with one side entirely open to the sky beyond.

I couldn’t help but mutter in a mix of annoyance and wonder. “It’s the same as last time. Was Elder Mu’s place like this too? Was everything there just an illusion?”

Jiao giggled. “No. What you saw there was all real. Only the factions have a place like this. The independent elders don’t have the resources for it.”

As she spoke, I looked around and then out across the open vista.

My eyes were drawn to the mountain where the Martial Peak was located. Instead of just seeing the same wooded mountain I had seen in the past, I saw a complex, walled fortress. A tall wall wrapped around the middle of the mountain, and another wrapped around its base. Then, two more rings circled the mountain from further out. The total encircled area was massive, but only small pockets showed any signs of habitation. Most of it was a blasted wasteland where only scrub bushes were growing.

Jiao turned solemn when she saw where I was looking. “That’s the Martial Peak. People from the inner sect can go there, but you have to be careful. If someone doesn’t realize you’re an alchemist, or they just don’t care, you can be attacked at any time. We are supposed to be protected from their internal conflicts, and since you are with the Defenders it will be even safer for you, but safer doesn’t mean safe, you know?”

“We can go there? Can we visit their technique halls?”

Jiao hesitated. “Sure, but they don’t have much that will help you. Everything they have is focused on the Martial Dao. Even their cultivation techniques aren’t of any use to us. The elements they use are no good for alchemy. Well, I mean, they might have some fire techniques, but we have all those over here already.”

“But I can study them?”

“Yeah… sure… Both peaks use the same contribution point system. Again, just be careful. Some of the disciples might not like you poking around in their techniques. Mostly, the only reason to go over there is if you want to specially recruit people to go out on a mission for you. Like, if you need a rare ingredient. You can request it from the pill hall, and they will issue a mission to the Martial Peak, but if you want to personally choose someone for the mission, you will have to go there yourself.”

“Missions to gather rare ingredients? Can I leave the sect to do something like that too?”

Jiao snorted. “If you want to, I guess you could, but you would probably die out there. There’s always a lot of competition for anything of importance. It’s not just our sect that’s out there searching for valuables, after all. The powers surrounding the Wastes also send their youths here to hunt for resources. Besides, what’s the point? Just stay in the sect, earn contribution points, and send others out to do your dirty work. Alchemy will earn you points far faster than any gathering mission will.”

I wasn’t in any hurry to leave the sect, but I was happy that it seemed like a lot of my restrictions had been removed.

The elders and Sect Master expected me to be pumping out pills for them, so I doubted I truly had the freedom to go wherever I wished, but they were at least providing me with the illusion of freedom.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 48 – Life 58, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 1

After showing me around the important places in the Sect Master’s enclave, Jiao then showed me my new residence.

“Here we are, what do you think?”

The house she had brought me to was in a secluded corner of the enclave with several other small homes. The place wasn’t large, but it met my needs. It was clean, and it had well-made wooden floors. The walls were covered in a smooth chalk plaster, and several windows let in ample amounts of natural light.

There was only one problem. The home possessed no bed, chairs, or any other furnishings.

“It’s good… but what about the furniture?”

Jiao snorted. “You have to buy it yourself, of course. You can’t expect the sect to just give you everything, right?”

“I guess not, but…” I had to think about how to phrase my worries. “When I was given a place in Elder Mu’s enclave, I was warned that anything I did, including adding furniture, might cause other disciples to challenge me for ownership of the place, and if I lost, I would lose everything I put in there. It made me unwilling to buy anything.”

“Really? Were you given one of the top places to stay or something?”

“No, it was little more than a hole in the ground.”

“Strange. Still, you don’t have to worry about that here. Not with this place at least. There are luxury residences that you can challenge for if you want, and the living conditions there are a bit better, but that’s more about status than anything else. This is just a basic home. You won’t be challenged over it. Feel free to make it as lovely as you wish.”

After a short discussion, Jiao left and allowed me to get settled.

While I needed to decide what kind of furniture to buy, and I needed to move my nice cultivation mat over from my place in the village, that was a job for the future. Instead, I needed to take stock of where I was and what I needed to accomplish.

I thought back to the list of goals I had made at the start of this life.

I had obtained a good Profound-Rank cultivation technique for both Ranks 1 and 2, but I still needed to get a copy of the matching Rank 3 technique. I had gotten the earlier volumes from Elder Mu. With him out of the picture, I wasn’t sure if I could find a copy of the Rank 3 technique, but I needed to try.

I had learned to use my fire seed, and I could make Rank 2 pills exceptionally well. Now, I needed to move forward and learn Rank 3 alchemy.

I had learned a bit about the Wastes and the political pressures surrounding it, but it would be good to get more information on the topic.

As far as information about the fight at the Su clan, I had learned TianLei was a member of the Tigers and was thus from a rich, noble family. So, it was possible that the fight had nothing to do with the sect but was instead some kind of power grab by these noble families. That attack wouldn’t occur for another 60 years, though, and getting any solid information about it beforehand would be difficult.

The only goal I had made absolutely no progress on was finding a spatial spirit fire seed. I needed to keep my eyes and ears open for one. I could consider purchasing the information about where to find one for the System, but I was going to be stuck in the sect for most of this life anyway. There was no reason to spend credits on this yet.

Did I need to add any goals?

I needed to clean out the faction’s technique hall and visit the Martial Peak to pillage what I could from there. I regretted not being able to store Rank 3 techniques in my mental library, but the cost to do that before this life had just been too extravagant.

I also wanted to keep an eye open for any information I could get related to auctions of valuable goods, hidden treasures, or any other important discoveries. I needed to do some basic information gathering and uncover anything that might be of interest to me later.

This would be a bit of a hassle, but there was no reason I had to do it myself. I should be able to use my alchemy skills to hire people to collect the information for me. It shouldn’t even be that hard. I was mainly interested in open, freely available news about the recent past. I just needed to gather anything that seemed important and sort through it for the bits I could use.

Learning Rank 3 alchemy would be a major time sink, so I didn’t want to add too many goals, but one final item I decided to short-list was at least learning information about joining the Flowing Mountain Sect. I wouldn’t put my hopes on moving up and claiming a city this life, but I did want to know the requirements so I could consider pursuing that path in the future.

I took out my mental journal and jotted down some notes.

1. Get the Rank 3 Profound technique

2. Learn Rank 3 alchemy

3. Get more information about the area

4. Learn about the Su Clan(?)

5. Look for information about a spatial fire seed

6. Pillage techniques (faction, fighters, more?)

7. Gather valuable intel

8. Learn more about the Flowing Mountain Sect selection

There was one more potential goal that I had to consider. Elder Tao had said that to become a Martial Lord, I would need to become a city lord and use the karmic energy the city generated to advance. While this might be possible to do through the Flowing Mountain Sect, I had to wonder if there was another way.

“System, is it possible to become a Martial Lord without first being a city lord?”

Cost of information is not possible to calculate at this time.

Maybe I could try approaching the question from a different direction?

“Is it possible to become a Martial Lord without using karmic energy?”

Cost of information is not possible to calculate at this time.

Neither a yes nor a no. Such a path might be possible, but it didn’t seem to be one I could aspire to walk in this life, so I set such thoughts aside for the future.

Satisfied with my plans, I put away my journal and got busy with decorating my apartment.

The next day, Jiao arrived to begin my lessons on Rank 3 alchemy.

“Alright, so, Grandmaster Alchemy.” She tapped her chin with one finger while thinking about how to explain. “Really, there isn’t much to say about it. Let’s just get some ingredients and get to work.”

“Wait… what?”

“Yeah, you’re already pretty good with Rank 2 pills. Rank 3 is just more of the same. Nothing much changes between Master and Grandmaster. Melt the physical shell. Burn away the toxin. Combine the energy. Compress it into a pill. Boom, you’re done.”

“Then, why did Elder Tao say I would need help to learn it? I should just be able to do it now, right?”

She gave me a sly grin. “Sure, as long as you’re good enough. Go ahead.”

Her response made me hesitate, but she didn’t allow me to back down.

“Wait here a moment.” Upon saying this, she ran off and disappeared somewhere. A few minutes later, she returned with a small jade box. “I got some herbs. Let's grab a cauldron and see what you’ve got.”

We walked into one of the private work areas, and Jiao showed me what she had brought.

“These are for a Rank 3 Regeneration Pill. It’s one of the easiest pills, so it’s a good place to start. Basic sequence of metal, water, wood, and you’re done.”

I picked up the herbs and was about to get started immediately, but when I looked at them in qi sight, I was stunned.

“What the hell?”

A wide grin spread across Jiao’s face. “That’s what you have to expect from Rank 3 herbs.”

The herbs she had given me were the nastiest things I had ever seen. Not in regular sight, though. In normal vision, they were perfectly normal plants, but in qi vision, they were living nightmares.

All the herbs I had seen before had a core of medicinal energy surrounded by a layer of toxins, and while burning these toxins away might be difficult, the process was rather straightforward. Working with Rank 1 herbs, I had learned that there were flecks of toxins mixed in with the medicinal energy, so it was nearly impossible for the average alchemist to completely cleanse an herb’s energy, but that was just a matter of a few flecks here and there.

These herbs were more like demonic Rorschach tests. The toxins and medicinal energies twisted upon each other in random ways. There were globs of medicinal energy stuck in layers of toxins, but also some globs of toxins stuck in layers of medicinal energy.

There was no way to preserve all the medicinal energy in these herbs. Some of it had to be destroyed just to access the toxins it was protecting.

Jiao patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t just stand there. Get to work.”

I set my mind to the task and began.

The herbs she had given me had been mostly contaminated with metal-based toxins. Even the toxins in the metal herb she gave me seemed to be mainly metal-based. That seemed odd since from what I knew, the herb should have absorbed and incorporated that energy, but I didn’t have the herbalism background needed to understand it.

The fact that it was all metal-based, though, made the toxins a lot easier to deal with. Fire melts metal, so my fire qi would be excellent here. Not only did it have an elemental advantage, but it had also just gotten an upgrade from my advancement to Grandmaster and was far easier for me to control than my spirit fire. I focused my qi and sent a strand to start the work of destroying the ball of toxin in front of me.

Nothing happened. My qi just bounced off the herb’s toxins.

I increased the amount of qi I was using, and then doubled it, and then doubled it again. Finally, the toxins started to evaporate, but the drain on my qi reserves had become extremely noticeable. I would be able to complete the pill at this rate, but it would take nearly everything I had.

I continued slowly until finally the first area of medicinal energy was nearly exposed. However, I wasn’t used to performing alchemy with this intensity of qi, and a small strand of my energy split off and hit the metal-based medicinal energy. In a flash, all the medicinal energy in that entire region vanished. While stepping up to Rank 3 herbs had meant the toxins I needed to deal with were significantly more robust, the medicinal energy of such herbs had become equally fragile.

At that point, the metal herb was little more than waste material, so I put it down.

Jiao reached into the box of herbs and took out another one. “Try the next one with your spirit fire.”

My spirit fire was earth-based, and it was usually a poor idea to use earth against metal, but I followed her advice. At first, the spirit fire had no effect, but the more I opened the floodgates of my soul, the more powerful the fire became. Usually, earth would make metal stronger, but there was a breaking point where earth would overwhelm it.

Jiao smacked my shoulder. “What are you doing? Use your qi to control it properly.”

I had never practiced using my fire seed like normal spirit fire users did. I had never needed to. Instead, I had developed my own ways of manipulating it that were impossible for people without a fire seed. This had worked well in Rank 2, but with the extreme amounts of energy it would take to concoct Rank 3 pills, it looked like I might need to learn some new skills.

Instead of just controlling the direction and intensity with my soul, I began trying to also use threads of qi to empower and direct the flames. This combined force of qi and spirit fire would have been complete overkill in Rank 2, and it likely would have ended up with any herbs I was working on instantly turning to ash, but for Rank 3 this was what was needed. With both qi and spirit fire combined, the flames cut through the toxins like butter.

My lack of control with this method was my undoing. While it cut through the toxins cleanly, the intense power the flames contained was able to completely vaporize the herb’s medicinal energy whenever it even got close.

Jiao shook her head in mock sadness. “Let’s put the third herb away for now. I think you’ve learned what you needed to.”

I looked at the herbal remnants in front of me. “I’ve learned that I’m completely incapable of Rank 3 alchemy. How does that help me?”

“Because now it’s time for you to go to the technique hall. There are a lot of helpful techniques in there that you need to learn to use. I watched you during the Inner Sect Challenge, and you didn’t use any techniques when concocting your pills besides Empowerment. That’s normal for someone at your level who has never needed them before, but now you do.”

I thought about all the alchemy techniques I had copied down in my mental library. I had dozens of them, but I never even considered using them because I didn’t see their value. Why use a technique to help me see or one to help me control the flow of qi? I could do everything I needed to do without them.

However, without any strong advantages to help me with Rank 3 alchemy, I would need to rely on those techniques to bridge the gap between what I was capable of and what I needed to be capable of. I hoped that I eventually wouldn’t need to use any extra techniques since they added significant complications to the concoction process, but I already knew the truth. Eventually, I wouldn’t need them for Rank 3, but things would only get tougher from there. Once I advanced to Rank 4, I would once again need those same techniques or better, so it would be best to get used to using them now.

“What do I need to do to access the enclave’s Technique Hall? Rank 3 techniques must cost a significant amount of contribution points, right?”

“For anyone in the faction, it’s free. You can access any alchemy techniques you want, but you may be limited if you want to look at other kinds of techniques since the higher-ups want you to focus on alchemy. The sect’s Technique Hall has a wider selection of manuals available, and those will cost you a fair number of points, but you should hold off going there for now anyway. The enclave’s library will have most of what you need, and you should only need to go to the sect to fill in a few small gaps.”

I nodded and breathed out a puff of stale air. “Alright, I guess I should start studying.”

Jiao stopped me before I could leave. “Just a recommendation… Go back and make some Rank 1 and 2 pills. Create a foundation with any techniques you want to learn with them before trying them on Rank 3 herbs. It will be easier with the reduced qi demand.”

I bowed my head slightly. “That makes sense. That’s what I’ll do. Thanks.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 49 – Life 58, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 1

I followed Jiao’s advice and began making Rank 1 pills in significant quantities. I started with Basic Qi Gathering Pill which required only a single peony to concoct. At this point, I could turn such a flower into a Perfect pill as easily as turning over my hand, but I didn’t.

I didn’t rely on my various affinities, and I did my best to dampen the effects of my strengthened soul. I wanted to simulate being an average Disciple Alchemist working on his first pills.

I had copied dozens of Rank 1 alchemy techniques, and I had studied them enough to know what they did. I just hadn’t used them much, and I had certainly never relied on them to make pills before. Now, I was intentionally suppressing my abilities so that I would have nothing to depend on other than the techniques I was attempting to master.

I continued this for several weeks and produced hundreds of pills, and I didn’t just focus on Basic Qi Gathering Pills. After I was confident in my ability to handle the simplest pill recipes, I branched out and practiced over a dozen different types of Rank 1 pills. Nothing I made during this time was Perfect since I still didn’t know how to make Perfect pills without relying on my affinities, but I was eventually able to consistently make High-Purity pills with an efficacy of 99%.

During this time, Jiao helped take care of ingredient deliveries and pill pick-ups, so I never had to step away from the workbench except to take care of the basic necessities like sleeping and eating.

It didn’t take me long to understand what Jiao was. She was my handler, much like Deacon Liu had been when I worked under Elder Mu. I wasn’t sure when that started. Perhaps she was scouting me out as a possible recruit from the very beginning, but after I arrived in the enclave, her role became far more obvious.

I wasn’t entirely happy that someone I had considered a friend turned out to be nothing more than a recruiter, but I did my best to not let it bother me. This new knowledge simply allowed me to clearly define what our relationship was and would be.

After picking up my pills one day, Jiao broached an important topic.

“Brother Su, how are you feeling about your progress with the Rank 1 techniques? Think you’ll be ready to move up to Rank 2 soon?”

I considered her question from a few angles. The faction leaders probably wanted me to hurry up and start making more valuable pills for them. They bought a workhorse, and they wanted it to work. I could sympathize, but their concerns didn’t faze me.

My only concern was if I knew everything I needed to know and was ready to begin working on more difficult pills.

On the face of it, a few weeks to practice dozens of techniques was wholly inadequate, but I was simply learning to use different tools to accomplish tasks that I was already intimately familiar with. Once I understood the hows and whys of these new tools, it wasn’t difficult to slot them into the process I had already mastered.

After careful consideration, I was able to give a firm answer. “Give me one more week. There are still a few more tests I want to run at this level. After that, I will start working on Rank 2 pills.”

Jiao clapped her hands together. “Alright, I’ll plan future deliveries using that schedule then. By the way, the Flowing Mountain Sect will be scouting for new disciples during the next few months. If you’re interested in getting recruited by them, you might want to try out this year. Next time they come you’ll be close to the age limit, so it’ll be a lot harder.”

I thought back to my conversation with Elder Tao. If I left to join the Flowing Mountain Sect, someone would no doubt tell them about my fire seed, and that would certainly end with my swift death as soon as I left the Wastes. I was supposed to stay here obediently.

If I wanted any chance to leave the Wastes in this life, I needed to first build a base of personal and political power. Even hinting that I wanted to leave before then would be a terrible idea.

I looked at Jiao and tried to project a firm resolve. “No. I’m not looking to join them. If there’s an open competition for the selection, I’d be interested in watching it, but I have no interest in participating.”

She shook her head sadly. “It’s all done behind closed doors, unfortunately. Really, it’s a good thing you didn’t set your heart on joining them because it almost certainly wasn’t going to happen.”

I didn’t want to join, but I still had at least a little pride, so I bristled a bit at that comment.

“Why do you say that?”

Jiao laughed, “They only accept true standouts like Wen Hao. He’s practically guaranteed a slot this time.”

“Is he that good?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘good.’ From what I hear, his technical skills aren’t the best, but his blessing is more powerful than you would believe. It lets him fortify the medicinal energy in the herbs so that they take much less damage from any small slips he makes while concocting. That lets him make Rank 3 pills with outstanding efficacy far earlier than almost any other alchemist I’ve ever heard of.”

Was Wen Hao’s blessing really that powerful? I wouldn’t be willing to trade the System and reincarnation for it, of course, but I wished I could do something like that myself.

Jiao patted me on the back before heading to the door. “If you have any problem, let me know. If not, I’ll go ahead and schedule the delivery of Rank 2 herbs for you starting next week.”

After Jiao left, I sat down to have a discussion with the System. I didn’t have much in the way of credits, but I wanted to check some prices for the future.

“System, how much would it cost to buy an ability that mimics Wen Hao’s blessing?”

Cost of such an ability is not possible to calculate at this time.

I had assumed as much, but it was worth a quick check.

“What about a similar ability that is only able to affect herbs up to Rank 3?”

Rank 3 Complete Herbal Enhancement. Cost 1 billion credits.

“How much if it only affected Rank 1 or 2?”

Rank 1 Complete Herbal Enhancement. Cost 100,000 credits.

Rank 2 Complete Herbal Enhancement. Cost 10 million credits.

So, even buying an ability that could only affect Rank 1 herbs was out of the question. I would need more credits than the total of everything I had earned to date. Then, even if I bought it, it would be impossible to maintain it as a relevant ability as I climbed through the realms of cultivation. Even now, Rank 1 enhancements would do me little good when I could just make Perfect Rank 1 pills instead.

Instead of going down the rabbit hole of trying to get this kind of blessing, what I needed to do was learn herbalism so that I could simply create far superior herbs to start with. That would require both a source of knowledge on the topic and the space to grow said herbs. I didn’t have either of these yet, but this path offered far more possibilities for the future.

This made me wonder about a few other prices.

“System, how much to learn Rank 1 Herbalism?”

The complete skills and knowledge of a Disciple Herbalist. Cost 10 million credits.

It was the same as when I asked about alchemy long ago. Thinking about it…

“System, how much to master Rank 1 Alchemy?”

The complete skills and knowledge of a Disciple Alchemist. Cost 9.9 million credits.

There was definitely something suspicious about those valuations.

“Why are those prices so high?”

Relevant information. Cost 8 million credits.

Definitely suspicious.

“How much to learn Rank 1 herbalism to a level similar to that of my ability in Rank 1 alchemy?”

Cost 100,000 credits.

The cost of purchasing new skills from the System was just too high. If I had that many credits, there were other things that I would want to purchase first. Instead, I would need to start trying to learn herbalism on my own. As long as I was still producing pills, my taskmasters shouldn’t mind if I engaged in a few other pursuits.

Aside from herbalism, I also wanted to start learning to create formations, but that had its own problems. Formation specialists used earth qi. I had a dual-element fire and wood qi cultivation technique which would allow me to practice both alchemy and herbalism, but adding earth qi to the mix would, I assumed, require an Earth-Rank cultivation technique. I had never even heard of anyone mention one of those.

Retreating from thoughts of System purchases and plans for the future, I returned my mind to the present.

I had told Jiao that I would finish my work with Rank 1 within one week and that I would then begin a focused study of Rank 2 techniques. In truth, I already felt that my grasp of Rank 1 techniques was sufficient. Instead of using my time to study alchemy, I took the herbs that I was meant to use during this week and transformed them into pills as quickly as possible.

I was able to finish everything in less than a single day, giving me six days of free time before the elders would expect me to delve back into my studies.

While I had been told that I could leave the sect whenever I wished now that I was an inner sect disciple, I knew that the situation was a bit more complicated than that. There would likely be a subtle but fierce resistance if I showed any desire to do so. Therefore, I needed to find other ways to accomplish my goals.

Instead of leaving the sect, I went to visit a place I hadn’t been in a long time, the city of the nominal disciples. Working with outer sect disciples could get complicated, but given the mental state of the nominal disciples, things would proceed far more smoothly.

It took me a bit more searching than I had expected, but after a few hours, I finally found my target.

I walked up to my oldest friend in this world and gave him a martial salute.

“Disciple Bao, please follow me. There is something I wish to discuss with you.”

Bao was someone I trusted. I didn’t know him at all in this life, and I didn’t know where his experiences this time around would have taken him, but I knew that he would not be involved in the deep politics of the sect. After all, he was only a simple low-level nominal disciple.

Bao gave me a deep bow.

“Senior Brother, how may this one serve you?”

“Let’s talk in private.”

Bao didn’t protest, but that could have been because I didn’t give him an opportunity to. I firmly guided him to a private dining room in one of the larger restaurants around the city.

After ordering some dishes, I got to business.

“Junior Brother Bao, how is your life in the sect? Are you well?”

He answered without hesitation. “Senior Brother, thank you for your concern. I am very well.”

“Junior Bao, let’s drop the formalities. My name is Su Fang, just call me Fang.” It was nice having a higher position. It let me set the rules of decorum. “Bao, I have a project that I’m working on, and I would like your help with it if you’re willing.”

“Senior… Fang. I… I don’t think… I mean, I’m just a nominal disciple.” He gestured at his disciple robes as he stammered his response.

I kept my voice calm to try and soothe him. “Please listen. I’m only making an offer, and you should feel free to decline it, but I know that you can do what I need.”

“Al… Alright.”

“Great. I need knowledge and information that isn’t available to me in the sect. Books, techniques, anything of value. If someone finds an old tomb that holds a valuable relic, I want to know about it. Mostly, though, I want information on herbalism, formations, refining, and beast taming.”

“But the sect—”

“What I want isn’t available in the sect, and I can’t do this myself, so I need someone to help me. I chose you.”

“But I don’t know you… and… I can’t leave the sect…”

I folded my hands in front of me and gave him my best winning smile.

“You will have to quit the sect, yes, but if you work with me, you and your family can live happily for years to come. I will provide you with as many pills as you need. Right now, I can provide you with countless Rank 1 and 2 pills of extremely high quality. You just need to sell them and use that money to buy information. Gather as much as you can. Especially books on low-level herbalism and formations. I don’t care how much money you keep for yourself. As long as I get the information I need, I will be satisfied.”

I could see the struggle that was happening inside Bao’s mind. His dream was to prosper in the sect, and in a single sitting, I, a completely unknown person, was asking him to throw it all away. How many people would be willing to do such a thing, especially for a stranger?

There was only one thing that weighed heavily in my favor. Bao had been cultivating a technique that encouraged trust and naivete.

Finally, after several minutes, he nodded his head. “Alright. Bring me the pills. I’ll do it.”

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

(Non-canon) Bonus Chapter – Life 58, Age 36, Marital Disciple 1

Note: This chapter was posted for April 1st 2024. Non-canon chapter just for fun.

Feel free to read or skip at your leisure.

---------------------------------------------------------

After finishing all my pills for the day, I left the workshop and headed home.

“Jiao,” I said upon entering, “How was your day?”

“Ugh, same as every other,” she said. “There’s a new guy in the outer sect that keeps causing problems. No matter what happens, he just keeps shouting at people to kneel.”

I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “It will get better,” I said. “He just needs some time to calm down.”

She shook her head at that. “It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just a normal disciple, but he is a Hu, so we can’t do anything about it.”

There was nothing I could say to that, so I decided to just change the subject.

“So, I think I want to take a short trip this weekend,” I said.

“Oh? You’re getting out of the sect? Where are you going to go?”

“I want to go back to Dragon Gate City for a couple of days. WuJing and Mei were the ones who suggested I join the sect, so I just wanted to visit and thank them for their advice.”

“Who is Mei?” she asked in a strange inflection.

“Oh, she’s one of the attendants at the Blue Wind Pavilion. She’s a beautiful girl with long, flowing hair and bright red lips. Her blessing makes her amazing, too. She always knows just what to say,” I said, thinking back to my short time in the Pavilion.

“Really?” said Jiao with a sharp tone, “she sounds nice. And you are going there to see her?”

As she spoke, Jiao walked over to where I was standing.

“Yeah, it’s been a while since we have seen each other, and I would like to reconnect, ya know?”

“That sounds great,” said Jiao with a flat expression. “Just one thing.”

Before I knew what was happening, Jiao punched out and hit me directly in the chest. Her strength was immense. Her fist went directly through my ribcage and exploded my heart.

“Have a good time on your journey,” she said.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Marital Disciple 1. 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 10

My eyes opened.

I was standing in front of a large crowd and Jiao was next to me. We were both wearing bright red and gold robes. Jiao’s hair was done up in an elaborate bun with jade and gold ornaments. In the crowd were various elders from the sect, and even Sect Master Tan had shown up.

While I was trying to get my balance, she took my hand and led me to a chamber at the side of the large hall we had been standing in.

After we entered, Jiao reached up and kissed me.

“Husband,” she said with a soft smile.

“Uh… Jiao… did you just kill me?” I said, trying to get my balance.

“What?” she said with a shocked expression, “Why would I kill you? What are you talking about?”

“It’s just, I thought, we were talking and I said I was going to go visit Mei for a few days and you killed me,” I said in a bit of a daze.

“Who is Mei?”

“She’s the beautiful attendant at the Blue Wind Pavilion. I was just going to visit her for a few days when you killed me, right?”

“I see…” said Jiao, “was it something like this?”

She punched me in the chest. My heart exploded.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Marital Disciple 1. 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 20

As soon as I opened my eyes, I saw Jiao.

“What the hell?” I shouted. “Why are you killing me just for saying I want to visit Mei?”

The entire hall fell silent. The dozens of guests stared at me.

“Who is Mei?” said Jiao in an icy voice.

…

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Marital Disciple 1. 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 30

When I woke up, I stayed quiet, and kept my speech perfunctory until I could find a moment alone. While the wedding reception was still going on, I ducked into a small room by myself.

Something was wrong, and I didn’t know what. For some reason, Jiao just suddenly became murderous sometimes. I needed help, but there was only one place I knew I could go.

“System,” I said quietly, “I need to buy information. I want to understand Jiao’s actions.”

The cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Fine. Just, why did she kill me?”

The cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

So, I couldn’t buy the information I needed. Was there another way to approach this problem?

“System, I want to raise my affinity.”

Permanent Low, 9-star Marital Affinity. Cost 100 credits.

I could just buy the temporary one for cheaper, but it would be best if I bought the permanent version. That way, even if I made a mistake, I wouldn’t be out the cost. I just needed to gather some credits first.

I walked back into the reception room and found Jiao. She was talking with a few of her friends. I decided to just walk up and join the conversation.

“Hey husband, welcome back,” she said happily. “We were just talking about you, where’ve you been?”

I set myself for what was about to happen. “Yeah,” I said, “I was just in the other room thinking about Mei. Have I ever told you about her?”

The expression on Jiao’s face dropped in an instant. “Who’s Mei?”

…

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Marital Disciple 1. 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 40

“Jiao,” I said when I revived at the altar, “about Mei…”

You have died. Calculating…

…

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Marital Disciple 1. 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 100

“System,” I said short of breath. Constant deaths were draining. A single death wasn’t a problem, but I think the constant torture damaged my soul.

“System, raise my affinity.”

Permanent Low, 9-star Marital Affinity. Confirmed. Cost 100 credits. 0 credits remaining.

Information flooded into my brain.

“Oh…OH!” I said as things began to click into place. “Oh no…”

I hurried out of the small room I had secluded myself in and rushed into the reception.

I saw Jiao talking with her friends, but I didn’t hesitate. I reached out to her shoulder and turned her to face me.

“Jiao,” I said solemnly. “I just want to say, I’m sorry about Mei.”

She blinked at me and then smiled sweetly. “Husband, who is Mei?”

…

You have died.

A note from G Tolley

Short bonus chapter for you guys to see the interworking and difficulties of a lowly Marital Disciple.

I just had the one joke, so better to keep it shorter.

Chapter 50 – Life 58, Age 39, Martial Grandmaster 2

Unlike with the Rank 1 techniques, it took me years to perfect the sect’s Rank 2 alchemy techniques. The primary problem came down to managing my fire seed. The sect had several techniques and methods for working with a normal spirit fire, but I was forced to adapt and change them to work properly with the seed.

During these years, my focus was on alchemy, but I also spent enough time cultivating that I was able to save up enough qi to push myself to Martial Grandmaster 2. This had involved filling my dantian to the limit and then compressing the energy it contained until it stabilized into a denser form of qi. Jiao guided me during this process, but her assistance wasn’t necessary. Everything went smoothly and I was easily able to advance.

This breakthrough made my qi more powerful, so I needed to use less of it when concocting pills, but I also had to cultivate for longer periods to restore my energy afterward. In the end, my advancement had little impact on how quickly I could produce pills.

For a fighter, advancing was important because it meant they could use more concentrated qi to send out more powerful attacks, but that wasn’t important to me. All I cared about was how efficiently I could use my time to concoct pills, and advancing did nothing to improve that. I would still need to advance to ensure I earned as many credits from this life as possible, but after learning how little of an effect it would have on my alchemy, I no longer saw it as a priority.

My main task these years had been producing pills for my faction. We all implicitly understood that everything I made truly belonged to the faction, but everyone maintained the façade that it all belonged to me and that I was willingly selling it to the sect for contribution points. Because the produced pills were ‘mine,’ I was allowed to send a small portion of them to Bao for him to sell in the outside world.

Since I wanted to maintain my polite fiction with the sect, what I sent him was just a tiny fraction of what I made, but a steady supply of nearly perfect Rank 2 pills was a fortune in this part of the world. Bao used the profits from selling these pills to set up a small intelligence-gathering organization to gather any information I might find useful.

Selling only Rank 2 pills didn’t provide him with enough resources to extend the reach of this organization outside the Wastes, but paying for dozens of mortals to gather information inside of it was nearly free compared to what I could produce.

This organization gathered an assortment of random bits of information about happenings around the Wastes, but it was all pretty tame. The only bit that really interested me was that there was about to be a large festival where sects from outside the Wastes were coming to recruit new disciples. According to Bao’s information, such an event happened once every 10 years.

This looked like it might be a different path I could use when I decided to leave the Wastes in the future. Working my way up in the Twin Mountains Sect might have advantages, but being directly recruited by the Flowing Mountain Sect would certainly be faster.

On a related note, Bao was also able to get me solid information about the powerful organizations that existed in the Wastes. These were the Su Clan, the Blue Wind Pavilion, the Twin Mountains Sect, and the Verdant Forests Sect. Where the Twin Mountains Sect was focused on alchemy and martial arts, the other, the Verdant Fields Sect, focused on herbalism.

This limited number of powerful forces in the Wastes was part of why Bao had a hard time purchasing information about the outside world. Any information would have to come through one of these four powers. The two sects didn’t share information with outsiders, and the Su Clan outright rejected any and all overtures from Bao’s people, so the only source of information was the Blue Wind Pavilion. They were willing to sell it, but it didn’t come cheap.

Even with the steady stream of Rank 2 pills I was able to provide him, Bao had to carefully choose what he spent his money on, and he chose to focus most of it on buying the techniques I had requested.

Over the years, he was able to gather a handful of Rank 1 and 2 herbalism techniques and a few Rank 1 formation techniques. The quality of these manuals seemed questionable, and he hadn’t been able to get me any information at all on beast taming or refining, but I just had to accept that such techniques were out of my reach for the moment. While I couldn’t use the techniques he bought for me without the appropriate qi, I still diligently copied them down for the future.

Aside from what Bao was able to get for me, I also pillaged everything I could from the faction’s Technique Hall. There wasn’t much new there, but they did have the Rank 3 version of the Mid-Profound dual-element wood and fire cultivation technique.

Since it was a Rank 3 technique, I couldn’t copy it into my library, so instead, I painstakingly copied it onto small ten-centimeter by ten-centimeter sheets of paper. I had to write as small as I could, and there were several diagrams in the book that were difficult to copy accurately, so this process took a significant amount of time, but I was persistent. Each time I finished a sheet, I tucked it safely away in my storage space, and over the course of years, I managed to copy the entire manual.

At the end of six years, I determined that my practice with Rank 2 techniques was sufficient. It was time to move on.

When I told Jiao I was ready to start working on Rank 3 alchemy, she seemed more than a little excited. She quickly ran out and brought back a jade box containing a couple of sets of ingredients.

But before handing anything over, she calmed down and checked if I was really ready.

“Alright, you have the foundation you need now, right? This should have all been taught to you by Elder Mu, but… Well… Anyway, you’re ready now? You’ve got all the techniques memorized, right?”

I gave her a confident smile. “Yes.”

I had tried using Rank 3 techniques on Rank 2 herbs, but they were far too powerful. The low-Rank herbs simply couldn’t withstand that level of energy, so I hadn’t been able to practice them properly. However, I had studied them enough that I felt I had a solid understanding of how they were supposed to work.

Rank 3 techniques differed from the Rank 2 ones a bit, but these differences mainly centered around focusing and directing significantly higher quantities of qi. The basic ideas of how they worked and when to use each technique weren’t any different.

Jiao reached into the jade box, took out an herb, and carefully handed it to me.

“Okay, here, take a look.”

It had the same mess of toxins that I had seen in the ones the last time we did this.

“So, there are pockets of toxins trapped within the medicinal energy, right? You have two options there. Do them first or save them for last. Doing them first allows you to throw away the herb if you mess up without wasting time on the rest of it. That’s what most skilled alchemists do. But you need practice more than anything. Clean up the easy spots first as practice, then do the harder bits. Save the enclosed bits for last. If you burn off too much efficacy there, it is what it is. You will just need to do better the next time.”

I did as she suggested. Using a combination of spirit fire and fire qi, I began by burning away the toxins at the edges. My flame made quick work of them, slicing and incinerating them cleanly. Then, I slowly approached the medicinal energy and methodically cleaned the toxins surrounding it.

I had learned a technique to make my flame incredibly smooth on one side so that it could get right up against the medicinal energy and clean it without any risk of damaging it. The downside of the technique was that it made the opposite side of the flame wild and completely uncontrollable, so I had to ensure that it was always pointed away from any other pockets of medicinal energy.

After that, I had to work on the bits of toxic energy that formed a kind of weave with the medicinal energy. This was more difficult since having any part of the flame uncontrolled in such tight confines would be a disaster. Instead of boring through the weave, I trimmed it on one side and then the other, slowly flipping back and forth until all the toxins were gone.

Finally, I had to do the globs of toxins that had been completely surrounded by medicinal energy. There was no perfect way to handle this. Ideally, I would have affinities that would let me control the medicinal energy and expel the toxins to where they could be more easily eradicated, but I didn’t have that luxury.

I formed my spirit fire into a thin needle and used it to puncture the medicinal energy. Instead of creating a small pinprick, a large hole opened up. I slowly passed my flames through this hole and into the cavity beyond to remove the toxins trapped within.

At that point, my concentration slipped, and I made a mistake. The needle that was guiding the energy into the cavity sputtered and a small lick of flame danced out and hit the side of the opening. After that, a series of chain reactions caused the herb to completely collapse.

The herb had turned to ashes, but Jiao didn’t look upset. “That was good. Really good. You did great. Once you have some practice with Rank 3 herbs, you shouldn’t have any problems at all.”

“Thanks.” I gave her a chagrined smile. “It was difficult, but it didn’t take nearly as much qi as I had expected. Once I get this down, I should be able to manage making several pills a day.”

A grin spread across Jiao’s face. “That’s the spirit, but remember, Rank 3 herbs are expensive, and you can’t destroy too many. Our goal is to make money, not burn it, right? So, be a little more careful. You were doing your best to make a top-of-the-line High-Purity pill there. You wanted to eliminate everything and make the best pill possible, but that isn’t exactly necessary.”

I blinked in confusion. “Wh… What? Isn’t that the goal? Get rid of all the toxins?”

Jiao shook her head sharply. “No. The goal is to make money. Burning herbs in pursuit of perfection is not how you do that. If some of the toxins are difficult to cleanse, leave them be. A Mid-Purity pill is always more valuable than no pill at all. You didn’t have to worry about this much at lower levels, but these herbs are significantly more valuable, so we need to be more careful.”

She was right, of course. I had long since stopped making anything but High-Purity pills. In my book, anything else was defective, but now, I was entering a new stage with exponentially more expensive herbs. I needed to make everything count, and if that meant avoiding toxins that appeared too tricky to deal with, that’s what I would have to do. Some trapped toxins would have to just remain trapped if the cost of destroying them risked the collapse of the entire herb.

Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good enough.

With that thought in mind, I returned to work.

A week later, I presented my first Rank 3 pill to Jiao.

“What do you think?”

Jiao picked it up and examined it closely. “Mid-Purity. I’d say it has an efficacy of about 72%, but I’ll need to take it to one of the deacons to be sure.

My smile dropped a bit. That estimate was a bit lower than I expected. I was hoping for something closer to 80%.

Seeing my expression, Jiao laughed. “Don’t worry too much. This is more than good enough. The herbs we’re sending you aren’t the best, so this kind of result is expected. If they were easier to work with, you might have been able to achieve a higher level of purity, and I’m sure the efficacy would be much better. 72% is pretty good for the materials you’re working with. Most importantly, it’s profitable.”

I let out a light sigh. “Alright, I understand.”

“How many of these do you think you can do in a day?”

I wasn’t sure what a normal disciple could manage, and that hurt me in negotiations here. I couldn’t lowball my answer or it could be scrutinized too much, but I didn’t want to commit to spending all my time on alchemy either. Thinking about all the energy costs and comparing them to my regeneration speed, I figured I could easily make twelve pills a day right now, but there was still a lot of room to improve my efficiency.

“Eleven. Right now, I believe I can make eleven pills like this one a day. With better herbs that require less work, maybe a few more, I’m not sure. I need to work on my efficiency. I’m not sure how far I can take it, but I should be able to reduce how much I have to spend on each pill by quite a bit.”

Jiao tapped her chin in thought. “Hmm, improving your alchemy is important, but you should be able to work quicker after you advance your cultivation. Let’s put the number at ten pills a day for now. Then, once you make a bit more progress and can make solid High-Purity pills, we can look at getting you some ingredients to make a couple of Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills for yourself as well, but we shouldn’t do that now. No reason to add extra pill toxins to your body unless you have to.”

Whether it was just the faction being cheap or whether they were really concerned about pill toxins, I still had to agree with the sentiment. I had no need to rush my cultivation. Aside from any problems that may come from doing so, my main concern was that it would mean I would need to spend more time making pills every day, and that would chew into my free time for my extracurricular studies like learning fighting techniques.

I had pillaged everything I could from the libraries on the Alchemy Peak, and I had already set my sights on visiting the Martial Peak. As an inner sect disciple, I was allowed to do so, but from what Jiao had told me of the place, I couldn’t help but feel that visiting the Martial Peak with zero knowledge of combat techniques was simply a death wish.

Before I went there, I needed to be prepared.

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 51 – Life 58, Age 60, Martial Grandmaster 5

Years slowly passed me by, and I spent my days steadily improving myself.

The greatest of these improvements was to my skill with alchemy. After two decades of practice, I had become far more adept at handling Rank 3 herbs, and the number of Rank 3 pills I concocted during this time reached into the thousands. While I couldn’t always cleanse enough of the toxins for a pill to be rated as High-Purity, I could almost always create something. I was able to turn nearly any set of herbs into a pill that Jiao deemed good enough to be ‘profitable.’

Part of the reason I wasn’t able to make higher-quality pills was simply because of the ingredients I was given to work with. Jiao openly admitted that the best herbs were given to other disciples and that I was only given the dregs no one else wanted. I was happy with this arrangement, though. I didn’t need easy profit-making opportunities. Such profits were meaningless to me. I just wanted as much practice as I could get.

While my alchemy skills grew steadily during this time, improving my cultivation base had been far more challenging. My ascension to Martial Grandmaster 2 had been extremely smooth, and I had hoped that had been a sign of things to come, but with each advancement, compressing my qi sufficiently to take the next step became more difficult.

The biggest factor in this increasing difficulty was the poor job I had done when constructing my dantian.

Ideally, to advance as a Grandmaster, I would have poured qi into my dantian until it was filled to capacity. Then, I would have forced even more qi inside, causing its density to slowly increase. Once the pressure caused by this excess energy became too much for my dantian to handle, I would then use my qi control to compress the energy until it locked into place, advancing me to the next stage of the Grandmaster realm.

However, my advancements didn’t go so smoothly.

As soon as pressure began to build within my dantian, its walls started to buckle. At this point, to prevent my dantian from rupturing, I was forced to begin the compression process immediately. This limited the amount of qi that I could use during my advancement, and that in turn meant that I had to compress it into a far smaller ball than normal. The smaller the surface area of qi I had to push against, the harder it was to continue compressing it further.

These problems with my dantian were originally caused by small errors in the weaves of qi that I had used to create it. This created weak points that made its structure more prone to splitting than it should have been. At first, this was barely noticeable, but with each advancement, these small errors only grew and compounded upon themselves.

After each compression, my dantian required minor repairs in areas where it had suffered damage. Then, during subsequent advancements, while the areas I patched and fixed were able to hold without any problems, the process of patching those areas had weakened the structure of my dantian in the surrounding area and created even more weak spots.

All of this meant that I was becoming less than optimistic about my chances of ascending to Martial Grandmaster Peak in this life.

That was fine. Peak Grandmaster was a goal that I had been hoping to reach, but it wasn’t essential. I had been able to reach Grandmaster 5. That was enough. When I died, the credits I gained would be more than sufficient to set me up for a far better run the next time around.

That being the case, I shifted my focus to other areas of study.

While I was working hard in my alchemy workshop one day, Jiao stopped by for one of her rare visits. She had been coming around far less frequently ever since I had reached the point where I could consistently make high-quality Rank 3 pills.

“Disciple Su, how have you been recently?”

I gave her a slight bow. “Very well, Elder Jiao. Thank you.”

Jiao’s promotion to elder had happened several years ago by this point, but she still maintained her position as my primary handler.

“Disciple Su, you will be turning sixty this year, and qi stagnation will soon begin to set in. Before this happens, you will need to undergo an evaluation for your promotion to elder.”

I nodded. “Yes, elder. I know. When will it take place?”

“In two weeks. Be prepared at that time.”

“Yes, elder.”

I gave another small bow, and she began walking away, but I quickly spoke up to stop her.

“Elder, I plan to go to the Martial Peak to look through their technique libraries before my evaluation. I hope that this will be allowed.”

She hesitated before answering. “You are still an inner sect disciple, so it is within the rules. Be careful, though. There’s no true danger within the sect, but certain disciples may still threaten or attack you. If you meet anyone who tries to do so, just say that you are with the Defenders, and you will be safe.”

“Thank you, elder.”

I had gotten the permission I needed. In two weeks, I would undergo my examination for elder, and I was guaranteed to fail it. After that, I would almost certainly be named an outer sect deacon. While my alchemy skills might be sufficient to compete with nearly anyone in the sect, both my cultivation base and political clout were severely lacking.

I cared little about what title I was given, but outer sect deacons were not allowed to visit the Martial Peak, so if I wanted to go there, it needed to happen before I was removed from the inner sect.

Regardless of Jiao’s reassurances, I needed to treat preparing to visit the Martial Peak as if I were preparing to die. I wasn’t sure of the exact situation over there, but I had heard horror stories from others who had made the trip. So, I had spent the last several years finishing up everything that I felt I needed to get done before I died.

Aside from copying all the information I had gathered from both the sect and Bao into my mental library, the main preparations I made for my next life were tucked away in my storage space. I couldn’t store much there, but I had the essentials. First was a small, thin copy of the Rank 3 dual-element wood and fire cultivation technique. This took up a significant amount of space, but it was my most valuable possession by far.

Other than that technique manual, I mainly stocked up on a few pills I considered important.

I didn’t need to worry too much about cultivation resources, but I still stored a few Perfect Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pills and near-Perfect Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pills. I didn’t bother with any Rank 3 cultivation pills, though. I couldn’t make them at a high enough quality that I would want to take them.

Truthfully, I wasn’t exactly excited at the idea of taking these Rank 2 pills either. I would prefer to only use Perfect pills, and I would hopefully be able to increase my affinities enough to make such pills before I next needed them, but I still went ahead and stored them just in case.

Another type of pill I stored a decent supply of was Qi Purification Pills. Unfortunately, the Profound-Rank technique I had gotten from Elder Mu had a problem with qi purity. I could fix that by going through the System, but that would eat up a lot of credits. I had ideas for ways to fix this problem without the System, but until then, I would have to use a combination of wood and fire Qi Purification Pills to keep me going strong.

The last jade bottle I placed into my storage space contained my ultimate escape plan: the most powerful Rank 3 poison pills I could concoct. This was an idea that had been running through my mind for a while, but it had taken me time to develop the finished product.

I used all my alchemy skills to make the deadliest, quickest-acting poison that I possibly could. Importantly, I also worked to make it as painless as possible. As soon as I placed one of these pills in my mouth, I would die and know no more. After perfecting the recipe for this pill, I then practiced taking pills from my storage space and having them appear directly in my mouth. This way, even if I was tied up and my body was searched for any hidden items, I could still instantly pop a pill, die, and escape back in time.

Finally, I filled what little room remained in my storage space with gold and silver coins. I had considered using this space for trade goods since a Rank 3 pill took up little space and would be immensely more valuable than a few gold coins, but selling a Rank 3 pill as a Martial Disciple would be extremely dangerous. It was much safer to use a bit of gold as starting capital and exploit my alchemy skills to make any money I needed.

Along with my preparations for death, I also prepared ways to prevent it. For years I had been studying a variety of martial techniques, but I had little faith in my ability to use them properly. If it came to a fight, I was confident that I would be able to hold out against most Martial Masters, but I was certain that any competent Grandmaster would be able to take me down without much difficulty.

So, instead of planning to fight such cultivators, I would just buy them off. I couldn’t skim many Rank 3 pills off of what I made for the sect, but Bao was able to purchase several sets of herbs for me from the Blue Wind Pavilion at an exorbitant price. I used these herbs to generate cash, and then I used that cash to buy even more ingredients. After a few rounds of trading, I was left with enough pills that I was confident I could buy off nearly anyone on the Martial Peak.

Just in case, I also removed a stack of gold coins from my storage space and placed a bottle of explosive pills inside. I didn’t want to carry them around openly since I was worried they might randomly blow up if I got into a fight, but held within my storage space, they would remain safe until they were needed. I didn’t want to use them since I didn’t think killing people would help my situation with the locals, but I took them with me just to be safe.

Getting permission from Elder Jiao to visit the Martial Peak had been the last step of my preparations. Now that I had her consent, I was ready to begin my journey.

The Martial Peak was divided into four large regions separated by high walls. They were the Upper Mountain, the Lower Mountain, the First Ring, and the Second Ring with each section housing the elders, inner sect disciples, outer sect disciples, and nominal disciples, respectively.

As an inner sect disciple of the Alchemy Peak, I was allowed to visit the Technique Hall in every region except for the Upper Mountain. The nominal disciple’s Technique Hall held the least interest for me since I could guess that the sect wouldn’t allow them to study anything but the weakest of skills, but I still wanted to copy down everything I could, so that was my first destination.

There was no direct path to the Martial Peak from the Alchemy Peak. To get there, I first had to walk back to the village of River Rock, located right outside the sect.

When I got there, I took a moment to stand in the square where the young hopefuls would gather each year to be tested for acceptance into the sect. The place was much as I remembered it, but the lack of young, boisterous cultivators gave the place an eerie silence. In front of me stood two paifang arches. Before, I had always walked through the one on the left. This time, I went right.

There was no sense of teleportation or disorientation as I passed through the arch. Those past perceptions had all been illusions. Instead, I walked a short straight path to a wide opening in the outermost wall of the Martial Peak. No guards were present there, and no one tried to stop me from entering. An illusion and shielding formation was the only barrier preventing access to the mountain, and my jade identity token allowed me to pass without hindrance.

On the other side of the gate was the blasted wasteland that was the Second Ring. A few weeds were scattered around on the ground, but in nearly every direction, the place was simply barren dirt that had been turned over and scorched by countless fights and explosions.

A path continued straight ahead of me, but that led to the First Ring which contained the outer sect, and I wasn’t yet ready to go there. I needed to visit the Technique Hall of the nominal disciples.

Following directions that I had purchased long ago, I followed a different path in a counterclockwise direction around the mountain. As I walked, the ground around me gradually became rockier, and massive boulders that must have tumbled down from high atop the mountain in ages past dotted the landscape.

Not too far ahead of me, three men sat around on large rocks. They made no effort to conceal their presence. They were just sitting there, talking and laughing. As I neared, the three of them stood as one and walked in front of me to block my path.

The burly man at their center lifted a large club and rested it against his right shoulder.

“Alright, pay the toll.”

All three of these men were tall and had bulging muscles. The sleeves of their robes had been cut off, and they were dirty, but it was obvious that they were all wearing the robes of nominal disciples.

I looked at them in qi vision and saw that the two on the sides were Martial Disciple 7s and the man in the center was a Martial Disciple 8. The idea of three Martial Disciples stopping a Grandmaster and asking for some kind of toll almost made me laugh.

“How much is it?”

The men’s faces turned serious, and their leader scowled at me. “You look like a fancy one. How about you give us everything you got?”

These boys had clearly never seen an inner sect disciple’s robes before and didn’t know what they meant. This wasn’t that surprising, but they should have at least been able to tell that something was wrong with my demeanor.

I waved a hand and responded with a light tone. “No, I don’t think so. I just wanted to walk peacefully by, but if you want me to give you a free lesson, I will oblige.”

As my Martial Grandmaster cultivation base grew, I had no longer needed to worry so much about the mental effects of my previous cultivation techniques. They had become like subdued circuits in my brain that I was able to access, but I wasn’t compelled to use them. However, I still tended to keep the friendly circuits from my Rank 1 technique active as they helped me be cordial when dealing with people I didn’t trust.

That said, a wise man adapts to different situations like water adapts itself to different vessels. In this situation, friendliness wasn’t helping. I turned those circuits off and flipped on the aggression that was intrinsic to my Rank 2 technique.

The group’s leader snarled at me. “Get him!”

His lackeys rushed me from either side. I could see that they were using some type of earth technique to enhance their movements and that the qi in their arms was concentrated to deal a devastating blow.

I didn’t even bother defending myself.

They both rushed in and threw their punches. One was aimed at my head, the other at my torso.

I didn’t dodge or defend. I let them connect.

I wasn’t being cocky here, and I wasn’t taking any pointless risks. I wanted to leave an impression on these boys to make the rest of my time here easier. By using my qi vision, I had already gained a solid understanding of my opponents’ strengths, and I knew exactly what they were capable of.

Right before their blows landed, I channeled a small thread of qi into a basic shielding technique to protect my body from any damage from the physical power behind their punches.

Then, using my significantly higher affinities, qi control, and cultivation base, I wrested control of their qi from them, and the moment their fists made contact with my barrier, I channeled their energy into the ground.

When the punches from my two opponents landed, their entire bodies froze in place out of shock.

I looked at them and cocked my head to the side.

“Interesting. Let me try.”

My qi exploded outwards and slammed into my opponents.

Since it was fire qi, it wanted to scorch and burn, but I used a technique to force this explosive energy to be purely kinetic.

The two men were blasted away and fell to the ground. They weren’t hurt badly since I had limited my power output, but hopefully, they got the message that I wasn’t someone to mess with.

I looked at their leader.

“Let’s talk.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 52 – Life 58, Age 60, Martial Grandmaster 5

The bandits’ leader screamed as he ran at me.

He activated some type of earth qi technique, but I didn’t stand around and wait for it to hit me. I used a Master-level movement technique to blink forward right in front of him. Then, I simply tapped his fist, and his gathered qi dispersed. With him now defenseless, I slapped him hard enough to make him fly to the side and fall to the ground. As I did this, I added in a small bit of energy to stabilize his body so that his neck didn’t just snap.

The facts were simple. A Martial Disciple cannot fight a Grandmaster. The innate defenses one gains by ascending to Grandmaster and compressing their qi make it impossible for a low-level cultivator to do any real damage. Even if I hadn’t defended myself at all, these Disciples wouldn’t have been able to hurt me.

I walked to where the leader was lying on the ground. He was big and burly, but he couldn’t have been older than eighteen or nineteen years old. I did my best to loom over him.

“Are you ready to talk now?”

He growled at me. “You better pay the toll and compensate us for our injuries! You don’t know what you’ve done. We are Boss Hong’s men. If you even think about touching us, Boss Hong will make you regret it.”

“And who is Boss Hong?”

“Hah! What are you, a bumpkin? Boss Hong is the master of this territory. He is a Martial Disciple 9! You might be able to defeat me, but you’re nothing compared to him. Kowtow and admit your mistakes. If you do, I’ll make sure Boss Hong leaves you with an intact corpse.”

The boy’s face showed a level of confidence that I just couldn’t understand. He was lying in the dirt, covered in wounds, and he was still threatening me.

I wanted to use these kids to show me exactly where to find the Technique Hall and other hidden caches of knowledge, but since Boss Hong was their leader, he should have more information than they did.

I gave the leader a toothy smile. “Alright, take me to see Boss Hong. I will apologize to him personally.”

The kid just laughed at me. “You think you are worthy of seeing the Boss?”

I stepped on his right arm, shattering it. “Take me to see Boss Hong. I need to apologize to him for breaking both of your arms.”

“Idiot, only one of my arms is broken!”

I sighed. Was this the cultivation technique they gave the nominal disciples here? It had similarities to the Earth Heart Mantra, but it also seemed to give them a strong belief in their leader, not just themselves. These guys were destined to be nothing more than foot soldiers for the rest of their lives, and they didn’t even realize it.

Knowing I had to play out the rest of the scene, I stepped on his other arm.

“Now, take me to Boss Hong so I can apologize for your arms and for miscounting earlier.”

He began trying to scurry away. “You’ll… You’ll regret this!”

I picked him up by the nape of his neck and set him on his feet. “Move! Take me to Boss Hong.”

I followed the three men through the wasteland until we arrived at a small village of broken buildings. There were only half a dozen structures here, and they all showed signs of battle damage. Every wall had at least half a dozen holes that had been patched up with broken boards, and the formally tiled roofs had all been covered over with waxed canvas.

The sight was far worse than I had expected. “This is Boss Hong’s place?”

The leader smirked at me. “Yeah, just you wait.”

He led me to the center of the small settlement and began shouting. “Boss Hong, someone’s here looking for trouble! We need your help to put him down!”

I almost laughed, almost, but the aggression circuits in my mind kept me from doing so. I wanted to slap the fool back to the ground, but I decided to wait for the main character in this charade before making a move.

A young man walked out of the building at the center of this decrepit village. It was still little more than a shack, and the door had been broken off at some point, but it was still the most impressive structure here.

“Oh? Let’s see who dares to cause trouble in my territory.”

I looked at ‘Boss Hong.’ He was maybe seventeen years old and had long hair tied up in a tight queue. He was wearing the pristine nominal disciple robes, and looking at him in qi vision, I saw that he was a Martial Disciple 9 with a perfect foundation.

The moment the man saw me, his eyes widened in shock.

Enraged, he ran forward and slapped the trio’s leader to the ground.

“How dare you!”

I mentally flipped off my aggression and reengaged the friendliness circuits.

Boss Hong gave me a deep bow. “Lord Disciple, please forgive me for the impertinence of these fools. I assure you, they will be punished for their actions.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “No need. They brought me here to talk with you, and that’s all that matters.”

Boss Hong hesitated a bit but mustered his courage to speak. “Lord Disciple, I must punish them. If I do not, it will only cause more problems in the future.”

“Handle your affairs as you see fit. They don’t need to be punished on my account, but your family business is none of my concern.”

“Thank you, Lord Disciple.”

Boss Hong looked in the direction of a couple of houses where high-level Disciples were hidden from view. “Take them away!”

Three men walked out and hauled the trio somewhere else. Their fate was no longer any of my concern.

Boss Hong dipped his head toward me. “Lord Disciple, how may this one be of service?”

I smiled. “Let’s find a place to sit down and talk.”

Boss Hong led me into a small sitting room in one of the dilapidated houses. There wasn’t much inside, and the walls and floors showed signs of wear and damage, but it held two chairs and a small table. After we were seated, one of Boss Hong’s men brought in a pot of tea and served us while two more stayed stationed near the door. The idea of sharing tea in this situation almost made me laugh.

“Boss Hong, as you may be able to tell, I am from the Alchemy Peak, and I’m new here.”

Boss Hong's eyes widened a bit, and he began sizing me up. Was he going to try to attack me now that I revealed I wasn’t a fighter?

I looked at him. “I had planned to travel alone, but your men decided to show me around.”

Boss Hong winced at the mention of his men attacking a Grandmaster.

“After a bit of thought, I realized that it might be nice to have a guide who can show me around the place. I am looking to visit your Technique Hall, and I would be interested in gathering any other information you would be kind enough to share with me.”

Boss Hong nodded frantically. “I can help with that. I’ll send my men to gather anything you want.”

“I’ll let you decide what’s important. My main focus is on technique manuals, but any extra information is appreciated.”

Boss Hong glanced at someone who had been standing just outside. After a nod, the man disappeared.

“It will take him some time to prepare.”

“Of course.”

I leaned back in my chair and started sipping my tea.

Boss Hong was intelligent, and it didn’t seem like I would have any problems working with him, but I knew that a clear exchange of benefits was expected. If he didn’t see any return for his kindness, there might be problems later. Not with Boss Hong directly, of course. I doubted he could do anything to me even if he wanted to, but if he had strong connections with a deacon, things could become problematic.

As we sat, I decided to probe for more information about the Martial Peak.

“Boss Hong, why did your boys attack me earlier?”

“They didn’t—”

I waved a hand, cutting him off. “I just want to understand the situation here. Why were they sitting by the road? Why were they stopping travelers?”

“They… They need to earn contribution points, the same as everyone. At our level, there are only two ways to do that. The first is to take a mission and leave the sect to collect resources such as wood or bricks, simple things like that, and then bring them back to the sect.”

I nodded. They couldn’t concoct pills, so this was the way they contributed.

“The other way to get points is through robbery. When a group is returning resources, we can rob them, taking either resources or contribution points from them. Though, we usually just impose a toll. That helps ensure Disciples continue passing through our territory. If we took everything from them, they would either find new paths or stop taking missions altogether.”

“But I wasn’t delivering anything. That should have been obvious.”

He shook his head and snorted in disgust. “They thought you were an outer sect disciple. Gangs in the outer sect send their weaklings to collect things from our Mission Halls. They have to pay a toll, or we beat them up. Their gang leaders could stop us if they wanted to, but they just blame their newbies for being too weak.”

“Your boys can take down a Martial Master? They didn’t seem that strong.”

“Not a powerful one, no. Only the ones who get sent on messenger runs.”

So, were the messenger runs some type of hazing ritual? Perhaps a way to punish the new guys by proxy?

“What kind of toll do they pay?”

“A pill. We get one Qi Gathering Pill a week, but that isn’t enough for most people. If we capture an outer sect disciple’s identity jade, we can turn it in for another one. Instead of losing their token, most people would rather just hand over a pill directly.”

It was all about cultivation resources in the end. That was something I could deal with.

“Do you have one of these pills? Let me see it.”

Without hesitation, Boss Hong went to a side room, retrieved a pill bottle, and handed it to me.

I took out the pills and examined them.

“Mid-Purity Basic Qi Gathering pill? This is what they give you?”

“Yes.”

I looked at Boss Hong in qi vision once more. His foundation was nearly perfect.

“You’ve never taken one of these pills yourself, have you?”

“No… I haven’t… How did you know?”

“Your qi is too pure. These pills will mess you up quickly. They aren’t too effective at your level, and with the toxins they contain, they will do you more harm than good. If your boys have been taking these, that’s the reason their growth has slowed down so much.”

Boss Hong gave me a solemn nod. “I understand.”

I placed two pill bottles on the table in front of us.

“Here is my offer. First, five Perfect Superior Qi Gathering pills. Just one will be enough for you to reach Peak Disciple, and it won’t introduce any toxins into your system. The rest can be spread around to your subordinates. Second, three High-Purity Meridian Builder pills. These will be of great help to you as a Martial Master.”

Boss Hong stared at my pills with greed in his eyes. However, he had enough control to not simply try and grab them.

“What do you need?”

“As I said before, information. Anything that might be valuable. Tell me about any notable events, or about important people, or interesting discoveries. I don’t need to know any secrets you don’t want to share, but the more you can tell me the better. Even if the information is decades old, it can still be of use to me.”

“Yes, yes, I can do that. Some guys have been here a long time. They should know a lot of what you want.”

I nodded at that. “Also, techniques. You and your boys are using different cultivation techniques. That is clear enough. If they are available in the Technique Hall, I can grab them from there, but if not, I would like access to the manual you are using.”

“They’re using the standard sect cultivation technique…” Boss Hong paused briefly before continuing. “That one is available in the hall, but mine isn’t. I won it in a competition. They keep a copy in the outer sect library, but you won’t find it anywhere out here in the Second Ring. I only had a few weeks to study it, and I wasn’t allowed to keep a copy.”

I waved this away. “No worries then. I can get it later. While your men get to work gathering and writing down information, why don’t you take me to the Technique Hall?”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 53 – Life 58, Age 60, Martial Grandmaster 5

Boss Hong led me to the large settlement where the nominal disciple’s Technique Hall was located. When the deacon in charge noticed that I was from the Alchemy Peak, he gave me an unfriendly look, but he still allowed me unfettered access to the manuals.

The main benefit of coming to this hall over the one on the Alchemy Peak was that it had techniques for all of the five basic elements. The main downside, however, was that it only contained techniques related to cultivation and martial arts. It didn’t have any manuals related to alchemy or any of the other professions.

After copying down everything that I wanted from the library, I asked Boss Hong about the possibility of hidden caches of knowledge tucked away somewhere, but he didn’t have any information about such places. While most of the gang leaders were using more advanced cultivation skills, these were all from the outer sect’s Technique Hall, and I would have access to them once I ascended the mountain.

I wasn’t entirely sure how much to trust the man, but it didn’t matter too much in the grand scheme of things. A few extra techniques here or there weren’t make or break for me.

While Boss Hong couldn’t help me much with techniques, he was able to provide a bit of information on the factionalism that existed in the sect. Apparently, the divisions I had noticed on the Alchemy Peak were much starker on the Martial Peak, and small gangs from different factions constantly fought against each other.

One interesting tidbit was that Elder Hu’s faction, the Tigers, had been able to recruit several promising disciples with powerful blessings in recent decades. This had nothing to do with their own efforts, though. It was all because the noble clans around the Wastes had started producing children with strong blessings at a far greater rate than normal, and most of them were focused on improving a person’s combat abilities.

I made a note of these observations in my journal for future reference, but I didn’t think too much more about the situation. While I was nominally a member of the Eyes, I had no desire to get involved with factional power struggles.

With everything I wanted to accomplish in the Second Ring complete, Boss Hong led me to the entrance to the First Ring where the outer sect was located. When we arrived, I passed him an extra pill bottle.

“Thanks for the assistance. Good luck on advancing.”

Boss Hong gave me a deep bow. “Thank you, Lord Disciple.”

The passage to the outer sect was a simple opening in the wall that surrounded it. There was no gate, and there were no guards. Instead, access was controlled through the sect’s jade tokens, and unauthorized visitors were blocked from entering by a large-scale defensive formation.

As I passed through the wall, I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to people who lost their identity jades. With nominal disciples regularly robbing the weaker outer sect disciples, there had to be some standardized protocol in place, but I had never run into this problem myself, so I didn’t know how it all worked. I made a note in my journal to look into this in the future.

Following Boss Hong’s information, I smoothly made my way to the outer sect’s Technique Hall.

Passing through the outer sect, I felt that conditions here were a bit better than what the nominal disciples had to put up with, though only slightly. The First Ring was a mostly open grassland with a few small stands of trees dotting the area. There were no signs of the large-scale fighting that had churned up the earth in the Second Ring and turned it into a wasteland.

As I walked along the path to the Technique Hall, I saw a few small groups of houses in the distance. I noticed that such places tended to have arenas made from packed dirt where cultivators were practicing martial arts, but I didn’t approach too closely. I wasn’t confident that I would be able to fight against a large group of Martial Masters, so I did my best to avoid provoking anyone unnecessarily.

No disciples were lying in wait on my path, and I was able to smoothly access a town that served as a central hub for outer sect disciples. It had a Technique Hall, a Pill Hall, a Mission Hall, and a few other buildings.

I was interested in visiting the Pill Hall to check its prices, but I refrained from doing so. As I lacked any solid information on the mental compulsions the people here were under, I couldn’t predict how they would react to my probing. Poking around buildings at random might cause unnecessary problems, and I wanted to avoid that if possible.

The Martial Peak’s outer sect’s Technique Hall wasn’t much different from any of the others I had visited. It contained rows of bookshelves and desks, and an elder watched over everything to ensure no one caused any problems. The only thing that set it apart was that there were many more people here than I was used to. Over a dozen disciples were spread out around the room and studying various manuals.

After checking my jade, the elder gave me a disgusted look, but he said nothing and allowed me to browse the library.

My first stop was at the shelves containing cultivation techniques. I had already encountered many of these techniques in other libraries, but they did have one important manual that I had been hoping to find, a dual-element fire-earth technique. It was only Low-Profound, and I might never use it, but it represented a huge boon for future potential research into creating a three-element Earth Rank technique.

After paying the required contribution points, I took the manual, sat down, and began reading it.

Unexpectedly, this drew the attention of nearly everyone in the room. Evidently, it was uncommon for someone to purchase access to the Profound-Rank techniques, and seeing an inner sect disciple in the outer sect Technique Hall was even more unusual.

A big, muscular man lumbered over to me. “Who are you? I don’t recognize you.”

Tapping into my aggression circuits, I gave him a disdainful look. “Oh? Should I take that to mean you are familiar with everyone in the inner sect?”

He slammed a fist down on my desk in a poor attempt at frightening me. “This is our hall. Get the hell back up the mountain and stop bothering us.”

The deacon in charge cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention.

This caused the burly man to back up a step. Even in his rage, he wasn’t willing to break the sect’s rules.

“Let me guess. You aren’t capable enough to get into the inner sect’s library, so you think you can come down here and avoid a fight. Step outside. Let me teach you exactly how bad of a decision that was.”

He punched his right fist into his left palm a few times in a gesture that I’m sure he felt was intimidating, but I just shook my head in derision.

I looked at the man in qi vision and saw that he was a Martial Master 7. I wasn’t sure how my limited combat skills would fare against members of the Martial Peak, so I was slightly worried by his high level of cultivation, but his foundation was terrible. Even without knowing his cultivation technique, I could easily see that his meridians were poorly positioned, and they were so leaky that I doubted they would actually function as intended.

Slapping down this idiot wouldn’t be a problem, but he might have a powerful backer. If he had a boss with a solid foundation at Martial Master 9 or higher, I might be in trouble. So, while going outside and giving this fool a proper beat down might be satisfying, I needed to find an alternative approach to dealing with him.

However, there was no reason to hurry. The sect’s rules protected me while I remained in the library, and an annoying fly wouldn’t stop me from copying down everything of value. After grabbing the Rank 1 and 2 Profound-Rank cultivation techniques, I swept through the fighting manuals and copied down everything I didn’t already have.

I also checked some of the manuals that were duplicates of ones I had gotten on the Alchemy Peak. I was slightly worried that the versions I had copied earlier had been tampered with in some way, but after carefully checking a few of them and finding no differences, I stopped worrying about this so much.

After filling my mental library with everything that interested me, I stood up and stepped outside.

By this point, dozens of cultivators had gathered to form a solid ring around the entrance of the Technique Hall. I had expected a few people to want to mess with me, but I was a little surprised that so many had decided to join in on the fun.

However, after thinking about it, I realized that if nominal disciples could earn rewards by stealing an outer sect disciple’s token, outer sect disciples were probably rewarded for stealing the token of an inner sect disciple. Most of these people likely didn’t care at all that I had used their Technique Hall. Instead, they were here to earn rewards.

The brute who challenged me in the Technique Hall was the first to lumber forward.

“You finally came out. Ready to be taught a lesson?”

I held up a hand and smiled at him. “Not quite yet. Give me one moment.”

I then used a Rank 2 movement technique to flash outside of the circle quicker than anyone could react.

While I might have been able to use this technique to escape my pursuers and quickly make my way to the entrance of the inner sect, that would have been a risk. This technique was only intended for short bursts of movement and consumed a large amount of qi. Without knowing the extent of this group’s capabilities, using my energy in such a way would be dangerous.

So, instead of making my way out of town, I simply flashed to the entrance of the Mission Hall and ducked inside. Like with the Technique Hall, no one would be able to cause any problems inside.

The Mission Hall on the Martial Peak was similar to the Pill Hall on the Alchemy Peak. The room was filled with bulletin boards that listed a variety of missions of various types and difficulties, and directly across from the entrance was a long desk where busy receptionists greeted sect members and recorded who had accepted which missions.

As soon as I entered, I walked straight to a waiting receptionist and handed her my identity jade.

“I would like to place some missions.”

She gave me a strange look. “Place?”

“Yes, let’s say two, I want to place two missions.”

“Sir, you cannot—”

“I’m from the Alchemy Peak. As I understand it, I’m allowed to place missions here, correct?”

This caused her eyes to widen. “Yes… yes. What missions would you like to create?”

“First, I want to hire a group of high-level Masters who can safely escort me to the entrance of the inner sect. I will offer ten High-Purity Meridian Builder pills of the highest quality for this. However, the failure penalty should be… 100,000 contribution points.”

“Escort… to the inner sect? But that’s…” She looked at me with a confused expression as she spoke.

“Yes, that’s all. One group escort, ten pills.”

While I was pretty sure I could make it there on my own, there was little downside to paying for an escort. I had pills to spare, so using a few to stop anyone from causing me additional headaches was a worthwhile investment.

After just staring at me for several seconds, she finally responded. “Yes, I’ll confirm this mission.”

I handed over the necessary pills and then told her the next mission I wanted to post.

“Second, I want to offer a mission for a friendly spar. Anyone who accepts this mission must be at least a Martial Master 7, and they should be someone currently in the city. For accepting this mission, I’ll offer two Rank 2 healing pills. If I am defeated, I’ll award the victor with five Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pills.”

“A spar…” She began writing but paused upon hearing my details. “Sir...”

“No failure penalty there, right… that’s a problem. Let’s say… This is supposed to be a friendly spar. If anyone who accepts this mission decides to cause trouble for me afterward, the mission will be considered a failure. The penalty will be 100,000 contribution points. How about that?”

“This…” After hesitating, she finally began writing again. “I can’t make that mission. The penalty is too steep for the reward offered.”

“Oh? Then raise the reward for defeating me to ten pills. That works, right?”

She reluctantly dropped her head. “Yes, sir.”

“Great! Then let’s get these missions posted.”

Outside, the crowd had grown even larger. It seemed that once people started gathering, everyone in the area wanted to come and join in on the fun. The moment I opened the door to leave, the burly man growled and began marching up to me.

“Enough. Time for your lesson!”

I remained in an open doorway so that he couldn’t do anything rash and raised a hand to stop him.

“One moment.” I looked around at the crowd. “I have just posted two missions. I believe their rewards will satisfy everyone here.”

This caused people in the crowd to start shouting and confusion.

“A mission? How can you post a mission?”

“He’s an alchy!? A damn alchy was stealing our techniques!”

The crowd became much more hostile at this revelation, so I backed up into the Mission Hall and gestured for everyone to come inside.

“I’ll just wait in here for someone to accept my mission then.”

This caused most people in the crowd to begin looking around uneasily at their compatriots. Almost no one was willing to be the first to move, but the burly man just gave me a menacing look and stomped his way into the hall.

“Let’s take a look at these missions of yours.”

He first picked up the posting for an escort, and upon reading it, he growled. I could see his hand twitch to crumple it up, but he refrained. That would have been a huge breach of the Mission Hall’s rules. So, he had to settle for giving me an evil glare.

“No one’s taking this mission, coward.”

I just smirked and waved his comment away. “I can wait.”

After that, he picked up the mission for a spar and started laughing. “Yes! I’ll accept! Let’s do this!”

He walked toward me like he wanted to hurl me outside, but I pointed to the counter. “Go officially sign up first.”

“Of course, young master. We should do this properly.” A grin was plastered to his face as he handed over his jade to sign up for the mission. Then, he came back to me and gestured welcomingly at the door. “Shall we?”

We walked outside together and were instantly surrounded.

The burly man shouted and started shoving people away. “Back off! He’s mine.”

I looked around the crowd and gave everyone what I thought was a calming smile.

“Don’t worry. If anyone wants to fight, all you have to do is sign up for the mission. Just let me finish this one first, okay?”

The crowd fell into a stunned silence, but it didn’t last long as the burly man charged me.

I could have met him strength against strength, but I wasn’t confident in doing so. Without knowing anything about his blessing or which techniques he knew, a direct conflict, even against a Martial Master, was risky. There were several metal techniques in the sect's library for temporarily enhancing a person’s bodily power, and I didn’t have anything equivalent for use with fire qi.

However, I had learned several fire-based movement techniques. The flashing I had used previously was one of the more powerful ones, but it took too much energy. Instead, I simply focused on increasing my speed to cleanly dodge every punch he threw. As I did so, I kept my qi vision running to watch for any techniques he might try to use to surprise me.

The burly man couldn’t land even a single attack, and as the fight wore on, he became enraged.

“Do you only know how to dodge!? If you’re a man, stand still and fight me!”

His shout shocked me enough that I paused my movements momentarily.

I looked at him with scorn. “Are you a child? Why would I just let you hit me?”

“How dare you!”

He lunged at me, and it appeared as if he had been utterly consumed by his rage. As he closed, I dodged his punch, but it had just been a feint. He pivoted on his right leg and swung at me with his left.

However, I had been ready for this attack and was able to narrowly slip past it. This left the burly man completely exposed, so I swung a qi-empowered fist right at his solar plexus.

The brute was blasted backward and collapsed to the ground.

“Thanks for the spar.” I looked around at the crowd. “Anyone else?”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 54 – Life 58, Age 60, Martial Grandmaster 5

After the first man fell, several more stepped up to challenge me. They wanted to fight immediately, but I made sure that they all went through the mission hall to make sure that there would be no problems in the future. While not everyone was happy with this, the promise of ten Meridian Builder Pills if they won was more than enough encouragement to ensure everything went smoothly.

I sparred with these random cultivators for nearly half a day. None of those who stepped forward were particularly powerful, so I could have just used my higher cultivation base to suppress them, but my focus was on honing my martial skills.

A couple of times, I lost a bout because my opponent was a better fighter than me, and when the people surrounding us saw the payout these winners received, dozens more combatants stepped forward to accept my challenge. This gave me a chance to practice nearly all the fire-based martial skills I had learned, and it gave me a lot more confidence in my ability to defend myself in the future.

Finally, a group of people stepped forward to put an end to the fighting before anyone else could challenge me.

Their leader looked me up and down with a faint smirk on his face.

“Hey, are you the one looking for an escort to the inner sect?”

This question brought me out of my battle frenzy. “Oh… Yes, yes that’s me. Are you ready to go?”

The leader nodded. “Let’s go.”

Our trip to the inner sect didn’t take too long, only about 15 minutes. Earlier, the receptionist was trying to stop me from creating this mission since she must’ve known how short it would be. After all the sparring, it seemed less likely that anyone would cause trouble for me, so I may have been able to make the trip alone without any problems, but I didn’t regret this small expenditure. My guards ensured the trip was smooth, and paying for them didn’t cost me anything of real value.

When we reached the opening to the Lower Mountain, I handed them each an extra bottle of pills.

“Thanks for the help.”

The leader smiled as he accepted my pills. “No problem. Let us know if you have any more well-paying jobs in the future.”

The group laughed as they walked away, and I knew that they were mocking me, but really, what did it matter? I got what I needed to go, and I gave them things that I didn’t.

After they left, I stepped through the opening in the wall and entered the inner sect. Like before, neither a gate nor guards checked those who entered. A simple formation controlled who was allowed to enter or leave.

However, upon entering the inner sect, I was not alone. An older servant disciple was standing there, waiting for me.

“Alchemist Disciple Su?”

Slightly confused, I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Disciple Su, the elder has been waiting for you for several hours. Please follow me.”

My eyes narrowed at the mention of an elder. I had no idea why an elder would be waiting for me on the Martial Peak, but I chose to follow him instead of insulting an elder by refusing.

“Which elder is waiting for me?”

“Elder Tian. He is very eager to meet you.”

At the mention of Elder Tian, my mind went to TianLei. Did TianLei want to meet me for some reason? Why?

Seeing a possible gain beyond mere techniques, I walked with anxious anticipation as I was guided to our meeting.

The inner sect was quite different from those areas below it. The Lower Mountain was covered in dense bamboo forests, and as we walked, the breaks in the foliage gave me glimpses of the small cottages hidden within.

We walked along a dirt path that meandered through this overgrown bamboo, and only brief streaks of light were able to pierce through its canopy to illuminate the world around us. If someone wanted to stage an ambush, this would be the perfect place to do it. However, the serenity of the inner sect seemed to preclude any such possibility.

We took a turn onto a narrow branch path and passed under a short arch. This led us to a modest, wood-frame building with white paper walls. Its roof was covered in wooden shingles, and small gold-painted ornaments could be seen decorating its ridges.

When we reached the door, the servant disciple I was following opened it and gestured for me to enter.

The room inside was small, but it was tastefully appointed. Various poems written in a grass script were hanging on the walls, and in the center of the room, a man who looked to be the same age as me sat at a small wooden table.

The servant disciple guided me to sit and then poured a small cup of tea for both of us.

I looked at the man across from me and instantly recognized him as TianLei.

“Welcome, I am Elder TianHuo. I am glad we are finally able to meet.”

Why did this man want to meet with me? I couldn’t think of any reason except that I had seen him in previous loops. If he were somehow also retaining memories of those loops, this could be a disaster.

I cupped my hands to him in a martial salute. “Elder, how may I be of service?”

TianLei took a sip of tea as he looked at me.

“Elder Hu has mentioned you several times. He says that you’ve been able to provide a substantial number of pills to the Sect Master. From what I have been told, you are able to produce that at a rate several times that of any other disciple, and you use some of the cheapest herbs available to do so. While we wouldn’t dare covet anything belonging to the Sect Master, we would be interested in having you make some pills for us as well.”

This wasn’t the direction I expected this conversation to take, but I wasn’t completely surprised by it. While my alchemy activities had been rather private, my actions over the last 30 years could not be completely hidden. The other factions had to know at least a bit about what had been going on.

I bowed my head slightly. “Elder, I don’t know if that will be possible. I have commitments to the Defenders of the Mountains. I am not against the idea of making pills for others, but my energy is limited.”

This made him smile. “Of course, we can’t allow you to neglect the Sect Master. However, we have a proposal which you might find interesting.”

I cocked my head in consideration. “I’m listening.”

While I was currently working for the Eyes, I didn’t mind helping the Tigers. In truth, I was willing to help whoever gave me the most benefits. If that was the Tigers, so be it.

“Right now, you are a Martial Grandmaster 5. Due to your age, it will soon be significantly more difficult for you to advance. We are willing to help you with this… as long as you are willing to help us.”

I blinked in surprise. “How?”

“Pills. We have access to a special herb, the Fire Dragon’s Tongue Fruit, which will allow you to craft a Rank 3 pill capable of significantly boosting your fire affinity. The duration of this boost is rather short, but it should be enough to help you advance. This ingredient is rather rare, and the quality of our supply is quite poor, but we are willing to trade five sets of ingredients in exchange for half of your future production.”

I immediately wanted to accept the offer. I saw no real downside to it. If this deal would allow me to advance to Peak Grandmaster, I wanted to accept it immediately. However, doing so was a bit problematic. I wasn’t sure how the Eyes would react if I suddenly started giving the Tigers so many pills. The struggles between these two factions didn’t matter to me, but pills to increase my cultivation base didn’t mean much if I couldn’t survive long enough to use them.

“How will the Sect Master react?”

TianLei tipped his teacup in my direction. “He has already agreed. As long as you’re willing, you can accept this deal without fear of reprisal.”

Did the Eyes expect my production to more than double after I reached Peak Grandmaster? That was possible. While I didn’t gain much immediately after an advancement, I was able to slowly improve my efficiency over time. That was the only reason I could see for them being okay with this deal, but there could have been more going on beneath the surface. Sect politics aside, this was a good deal for me.

“I’m in.”

TianLei flashed a toothy smile. “We will have the ingredients delivered to you as soon as you return home. I assume you’re planning to visit the inner sect technique hall?”

“If I’m allowed.”

“Of course. Please don’t let me keep you.”

He waved a hand to dismiss me, but this meeting presented me with an opportunity to learn more about the time loop. I didn’t want to waste it.

“Before I go, can I ask you about your blessing? I’ve heard a lot about it.”

TianLei’s cheek twitched slightly in annoyance, but he nodded his head graciously.

“Oh? What have you heard?”

“Just that it’s an extremely powerful fire ability. I’ve not seen anyone use a combat-focused blessing before, so I wanted to know more about it.”

Suddenly, TianLei’s arms exploded in flames nearly 3 feet high.

He turned his head and looked deep into these flames.

“They are beautiful, aren’t they?”

I couldn’t help but stare at the dancing fire. “Yes… How does it compare to others? Have you ever fought anyone with a lightning or ice-based blessing?”

“There have been a few. No one with lightning, but I have sparred with a few warriors with ice blessings. Nothing has ever been able to withstand my flames.”

His expression didn’t betray any hint that he had previously had a different blessing or that he had chosen a fire blessing specifically. From what I could tell from his behavior, as far as he was concerned, this was the only blessing he had ever been given. He could have been acting, but I felt that everything had gone too far for that. If he remembered the loops and having different blessings, why the act? Something else had to be going on.

If TianLei was unaware of the situation, why was his blessing changing? There was only one possibility left in my mind. A being that had called itself the incarnation of the Earthly Dao had once told me that it had been the one to give me my blessing. This incarnation was likely also the one giving TianLei his blessing. But why was it making these changes?

Dismissing these thoughts for the moment, I turned my attention back to the elder, cupped my fists, and gave a slight bow. “Thank you, elder. I won’t disturb you any further.”

After leaving TianLei’s house, the servant disciple who guided me earlier took me to the inner sect Technique Hall. Either because of my deal with TianLei or simply because I was an inner sect disciple in the inner sect hall, no one came to cause me any trouble during my stay in this library.

After recording everything I needed, I left and made my way back to the Alchemy Peak.

With the deal in place to provide pills to the Martial Peak, I buckled down and got to work concocting. The ingredients that the elder promised me were delivered before I even arrived home, but I didn’t plan to put them to immediate use. I wanted to study them first to ensure that nothing was wasted.

On the promised day, Jiao came to take me for my evaluation to become an elder.

I was taken to the peak of the mountain, where a massive, cathedral-like structure had been erected. It was dozens of meters wide, and there were two rows of columns in front of the entrance. Each column had been carved with scenes depicting great battles where qilins, dragons, and phoenixes fought against taoties, taowus, and qiongqis.

Instead of passing through the main entrance of this building, Jiao took me to a side door that led to a modestly sized room where three elders sat upon cushioned chairs.

The man in the middle seat waved for me to stand in front of them.

“Su Fang, you are now 60 years old, and your cultivation base has only reached Martial Grandmaster 5. We have unanimously agreed that you do not meet the qualifications to become an elder.”

At this point, the man on the right began to speak. I recognized him as Elder Hu. “While I have my reservations, we have agreed to appoint you to the position of inner sect deacon. We hope that you will dedicate yourself to this position and use it to provide guidance to our young disciples.”

Finally, the man on the left, Elder Long, began to speak. “As an inner sect deacon, you may choose up to three nominal disciples to be your personal disciples. Using your own contribution points, you may purchase techniques and items for them. To repay this, they will provide you with a portion of the pills they produce which you can then sell back to the sect. However, you must refrain from using any form of coercion during these transactions.”

I gave them a deep bow. “Thank you, elders.”

The elder in the middle shooed me away with the wave of his hand. “You may leave.”

With that, Jiao guided me out and back down the mountain.

I was extremely surprised by my appointment to the inner sect. From previous conversations, I had expected to only become an outer sect deacon. I had to assume that my deal with TianLei had played a large part in this decision. I would need to be careful, but hopefully, this partnership would provide me with what I needed to both advance my cultivation base and gather important information.

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 55 – Life 58, Age 92, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Over the following years, I considered accepting a few personal disciples, but I never did.

I liked the idea of taking a talentless youth, teaching them everything I knew, and watching what they became, but being stuck in an endless time loop, this felt hollow. When I died, they would disappear, and all the effort I put into teaching them would vanish. While I had a desire to form this kind of connection, until I was able to bring people back in time with me, either through the use of my storage space or through some other means, it would have to remain a dream for the future.

Instead, I spent my time mastering everything the sect could teach me about Rank 3 alchemy and pushing my cultivation base to Peak Grandmaster. With my limited affinities, neither task was simple.

One thing that kept alchemy interesting was that there were always new techniques to explore. While the improvements to the quality of my pills were marginal, only an extra one or two points to efficacy, those small improvements represented an extreme level of refinement in my use of various techniques and ability to control my qi. My ability to squeeze an extra point or two of efficacy out of a pill that was already highly optimized meant that I would have a huge advantage when I began learning Rank 4 alchemy.

The difficulties I faced with cultivation, however, were meaningless challenges with little reward. While gathering qi for regular use became easier and faster with more practice and a higher cultivation base, gathering enough energy for a breakthrough became needlessly difficult after stagnation began setting in when I turned 60.

Thankfully, Elder Tian had fulfilled our agreement and provided me with five Fire Dragon’s Tongue Fruits. Using them as the main ingredient, I was able to concoct five Rank 3 Fire Affinity Boosting Pills. The effect of those pills didn’t last long, so I could only use them at a critical moment during each breakthrough, but they provided just enough of a boost to allow me to continue advancing.

At 80 years old, I was a Martial Grandmaster 9, and my cultivation base began to calcify. After that, advancement became nearly impossible. It was only after consuming a copious amount of pills and more than a decade of hard work that I was finally able to lumber my way to Martial Grandmaster Peak.

At age 92, I had accomplished nearly everything I wanted out of this life. I was ready for what came next.

After advancing to Peak Grandmaster, I only had one month or so before the deadly attack on the Su Clan, so I began using my agreement with the Tigers as a pretext to get into contact with more people from that faction.

When I had learned that TianLei was a Tiger, I started to think that the attack on the Su Clan might be some kind of coordinated effort involving the entire faction. So, as the date of the attack approached, I had regular conversations with the faction’s members to try and tease out any information I knew about the faction’s plans for the near future.

I heard a lot from them about how the Su Clan had been oppressing the other nobles in the Wastes, and since it was generally assumed that I was a discarded member of the clan, they felt free to share their grievances with me. Everyone was willing to tell me just how much they hated the Su Clan, but at no point did anybody even hint at an imminent plan to take revenge.

I continued probing for additional information for several weeks with no luck, but only a few days before I expected the attack to take place, Elder Tian came to see me.

After a series of pleasantries, he got to his reason for visiting me.

“Deacon Su, you’ve been in the sect now for nearly 80 years. Do you remember much about your life before coming here?”

Knowing that he was about to launch a full-scale attack against the Su Clan, my mind raced to try and figure out how I should handle this conversation.

“A little… Why do you ask?”

He steepled his hands and looked at me with a sharp, appraising glare.

“Were you a member of the Su Clan?”

I couldn’t help but swallow involuntarily.

“No, elder, not exactly. My father was, but he was expelled from the clan when he was young. He died when I was only eight. Before that… he did tell me a little about them. But I don’t remember much. Only that he had a deep grudge against them.”

After speaking, I realized how suspicious my answers sounded. I could only rely on the fact that he shouldn’t know that I knew about his attack to keep me safe. Without that knowledge, he shouldn’t have any reason to suspect me of anything.

TianLei’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “And what are your thoughts about the Su Clan?”

“I don’t have much knowledge of them, elder. But based on what other disciples have told me, they seem extremely tyrannical.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. They have been suppressing anyone who might challenge their rule for far too long, but that should end soon.”

He seemed to hesitate about whether or not to say more, but in the end, he must have decided against it.

“Thank you for your time, deacon. We’ll talk more in the future.”

I wasn’t sure if he had been deciding to eliminate me or if he had been deciding whether he should recruit me. In the end, it didn’t really matter. I had no desire to be a part of his plot. I already knew what was going to happen, and now I had a pretty good understanding of why. The only things left to find out were how the attack would take place and what the aftermath would be.

In these circumstances, the best thing to do was watch from the sidelines.

The next week was quiet. I expected the lead-up to the attack would see a lot of activity within and around the sect, but to my surprise, everything seemed completely normal.

It wasn’t until the morning of the eighth day after my discussion with TianLei that a servant disciple came to my house and informed me that I was required to attend a meeting in the Grand Hall, the building where I received my promotion to deacon.

That morning, the mountain was unusually subdued. There were no disciples out and about studying or worrying about concocting their next pill. It seemed that either everyone had already been informed of what happened at the Su Clan, or they could simply sense the tense atmosphere. While I had yet to hear any news about the attack, I didn’t doubt that others would be able to get insider information from their factions.

As I walked up the mountain to the Grand Hall, a long line of deacons and elders followed alongside me. This was the first time I fully realized just how many of us there were. In just the small section of the trail that I could see, there were dozens of Grandmasters trudging up the mountain.

At the hall, we did not go into the side door that I had used previously. Everyone went in through the main entrance.

Inside, there was a sunken amphitheater with rows of seats in a horseshoe shape. The elders were seated in the lowest level, inner sect deacons were seated in the middle levels, and outer sect deacons were seated in the top levels. Every seat was positioned so that it faced a dais in the middle of the room that held three ornate chairs, the middle of which was sitting atop a pedestal.

After the elders and deacons were all seated, three men walked out from a screen behind the dais and sat upon the chairs. The left chair was taken by Deputy Sect Master Tan, the head of the Alchemy Peak. I didn’t recognize the other two, but it was easy enough to guess that the man on the right was the Deputy Sect Master in charge of the Martial Peak. The man in the middle had to be the Master of the Twin Mountains Sect.

After they were seated, Sect Master Tan cleared his throat to get our attention.

“As you may have heard, the Su Clan has been attacked. What we know so far points to this being an internal coup. However, witness reports indicated that four outsiders participated in this attack.”

At these words, everyone became serious. No one seemed surprised, but everyone understood the gravity of this situation.

The head of the Martial Peak continued where Sect Master Tan left off.

“All Su Clan buildings in Dragon Gate City have been obliterated. Both their palace compound and their training complex have been demolished. From what we can tell, everyone inside these buildings at the time of the attack has perished. All that remains are open fields of scorched and blackened earth."

Then, the Sect Master spoke. “This is the gravest possible violation of the accords which govern the Wastes. The Flowing Mountain Sect, the Verdant Forest Sect, and the Rising Sun Empire will all be sending forces to investigate and punish the perpetrators. The Blue Wind Pavilion, as arbiter of the accords, will have direct authority over all parties involved in this investigation. Investigators will enter our sect. Do nothing to impede them and keep all disciples on a short leash while they are here. We cannot give anyone grounds for accusing our sect of taking part in this attack.”

Murmurs of discontent sounded out when the idea of outsiders having free rein to investigate the sect was mentioned.

Emboldened by the people around him, one of the outer sect deacons stood up and pounded a fist on the table in front of him.

“We cannot allow this! We can handle our own investigations. Send the outsiders away.”

This outburst caused the Sect Master’s eyes to widen in anger. His face turned red, and he began shouting at the fool who contradicted him.

“Quiet! If anyone tries to block the investigation in any way, they will be put to death immediately. This is not a joke. The very existence of this sect and the lives of everyone here are at stake. If anything goes wrong, no one will be able to escape execution.”

As fear began to fill the room, Sect Master Tan spoke up again.

“We have already met with the leaders of each of our sect’s factions, and we are confident that none of them were involved in this attack. While we have not spoken to all of the independent elders, we have no reason to suspect any of them were involved either. Our sect had no connection to this tragedy, so there is no reason for us to worry. Just cooperate with the investigators and provide them with any assistance they require.”

Finally, the Sect Master gave one last command.

“Until this situation has been resolved, we must seal the mountain. No one is allowed in or out without the express permission of the Sect Masters, and any such traffic will be recorded and reported to the investigation team. Dismissed.”

Over the next few days, a semblance of normalcy returned to the sect, but it was shattered when the investigators arrived. Four dozen Peak Grandmasters swarmed the sect in search of any information related to the attack.

I did my best to keep a low profile. I had most of the information they wanted, and if I were interrogated, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to hide it. Simply telling them everything I knew could have led to interesting results, but I wanted to see what happened without my intervention. So, I did my best to avoid being questioned.

The focus of the investigation was on people with powerful fire abilities. The Su Clan had been turned into a smoldering wreck, and that meant that a fire cultivator or someone with a potent fire blessing was involved.

Typically, the sect wouldn’t ask any questions about a person’s blessings and affinities. They didn’t care about such things. The methods used for selecting and promoting disciples were purely sink or swim. One only needed to be good at either alchemy or fighting to become a member of the sect.

However, during this investigation, everyone was required to report both their blessing and their fire affinity. Not only that, but their blessings also had to be demonstrated to the investigators.

I told them that my blessing had given me a fire seed. At this point, it was public enough knowledge, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hide it from the investigators. However, while having a fire seed might make me a target of greed, I wasn’t worried about it implicating me in the attack. The Cold Mountain Fire couldn’t cause the kind of destruction that was reported. It wouldn’t scorch the earth, so it wouldn’t make me a suspect.

The only danger I might face would be if someone accused me of being involved in the attack in an attempt to steal my seed. If that happened, I would need to pop a poison pill to escape.

I was questioned a couple of times, but they only asked me rudimentary questions. I was in the sect during the attack, and that was easy enough to verify. If they believed that I was connected with any of their suspects, there was no sign of it during this questioning.

Since I was keeping my distance, I didn’t know what the investigators found or didn’t find, but after a week of searching, they left.

Everyone was shaken by the experience. It showed us exactly what our place was in the world. If outsiders decided we needed to be searched, we would be searched, and there wasn’t a thing we could do to stop them. No one liked this fact, but the worst thing was that there was nothing we could do to change it.

Thankfully, as the days passed, things slowly returned to an illusion of normalcy.

A note from G Tolley

Mark of the Hidden

Inspired By The Last Orellen & Mother of Learning

According to the once-in-a-millennium prophecy, the Time God's end draws near. But with the power to see endless possibilities, he was able to find one future where he may have the slightest chance at survival. He splits his divine essence into seven beings across the countless realms in hopes of averting fate.

Darian, a young hunter in a small village, meets a gruesome end. But when he awakens 24 hours in the past, he realises that his life is not so simple. With gods in pursuit, Darian will do anything to protect his family, even if it means meddling with the space-time continuum itself.

The Mark of the Hidden is a long, character-focused epic fantasy progression webnovel. It's about a boy's journey to become a god.

What you can expect:

• smart protagonist

• slice of life, lots of it

• slow-burn and I mean really really slow

• multiple worlds & cultures

• different types of magic

• old-school epic fantasy

Chapter 56 – Life 58, Age 92, Martial Grandmaster Peak

My life continued on as normal for the next month, and it felt as if the attack on the Su Clan had never happened. However, when I was doing alchemy in my workshop one day, a voice boomed across the entire sect and crushed the hopes of everyone who thought that we had escaped the investigation unscathed.

“Twin Mountains Sect, you have been found guilty of training and harboring the criminals TianHou, Wang SuPing, Wang SuFei, and Du RanJing. For this crime, the sect shall be abolished, and all members shall be put to death as proof that justice has been carried out.”

What happened next could not be described as killing a chicken to scare a monkey. It was more akin to slaughtering a herd to eradicate a disease.

From my position in the faction enclave, I could see tens of thousands of warriors encircling both mountains of the sect. As I watched, their formation slowly closed in around the base of each mountain simultaneously.

It was difficult for me to see what was happening around the Martial Peak, but I could see those around the Alchemy Peak clearly enough. The first target of our attackers was the city of the nominal disciples. As the circle of warriors closed in upon it, a line of cultivators broke off to wrap around the city and form a barrier to stop anyone from escaping.

However, the attackers didn’t bother entering the city to fight people man to man. Instead, they sent out massive waves of energy that rippled out of their formation and tore apart the buildings one by one. Large apartment buildings collapsed like they were built out of mud and rotten sticks.

These attacks didn’t consist of just a single element. There were bursts of all five basic elements. Gouts of fire, blasts of ice, giant slashes from invisible swords, huge swaths of earth overturned, and creeping vines attacked both structures and humans alike, but these attacks formed only a portion of the onslaught. Buildings were also struck by thick columns of lightning, hurricane-force winds, and other attacks I couldn’t even see.

I had never seen the warriors from the sect’s Martial Peak fight, and I didn’t know if they were able to cause this level of devastation, but this was far beyond what I had imagined a Grandmaster was capable of. If a Grandmaster could easily destroy a building single-handedly, what might a Lord, King, or Emperor be able to do?

The encroaching army had paused their march toward the mountain as the city of the nominal disciples was attacked. They wanted us to watch, to bear witness to their vengeance.

It was hard to see too many details from my vantage point high atop the mountain, but even as far away as I was, I could still hear the screaming as a hundred thousand souls met their end. They knew they were doomed. They had no way to defend themselves, no way to fight back. All they could do was wait to be slaughtered.

As building after building was demolished, slowly, trickles of blood that turned into small rivers began flowing down the streets.

While I hadn’t known that this attack was coming, I was prepared. I had long ago placed everything I needed in my storage space, read all the sect’s technique manuals that I could, and pushed my alchemy skills to their limits. I was ready, but I didn’t want to die immediately. The longer I survived, the more I would learn. At this point, anything I learned might be of dubious value, but I still wanted to learn what I could.

Staying in my workshop gained me nothing, and going down the mountain was just another form of suicide. Part of me wanted to attempt to steal another copy of the Cold Mountain Fire, but the ring of warriors had already blocked off the entrance to its cave. So, with no better options, I decided to go up the mountain and visit Grand Hall. If anyone in the sect knew anything, that was where they would be.

The paths up the mountain were crowded with frantic people scrambling to get to its peak. Everyone seemed to have the same idea, get to the hall and ask the Sect Master what to do. Even if they knew he couldn’t do anything about this calamity, it was the only thing people could think to do.

Just outside the Grand Hall, I saw someone who had faded from my life over the past couple of decades, Elder Jiao. She was in a frantic state. I had become used to seeing her as a proper, composed elder. She had become the epitome of a well-groomed and well-dressed lady. Now, though, her hair was in a tangled mess and her robes were dirty and disordered.

“Jiao, what’s going on? Do you know why they’re attacking us?”

“What… who are… Fang… Deacon Su…” Her eyes were wild, and she was shaking. “The Sect Master is gone, and all of the top elders have vanished. No one knows what happened. We’ve been abandoned.”

“Where did they go?”

I was shocked that the leaders would disappear. What did that mean? If the entire sect was to be held liable for TianLei’s actions, shouldn’t they be the first on the chopping block? Perhaps they were… They might have been taken away weeks ago.

“We don’t know. They may have been taken, or they may have escaped. Those bastards had to know this was coming. They knew, and they abandoned us to save themselves!”

Panic had set in, and Jiao wasn’t the only one feeling it. High atop the mountain, as everyone came to realize that the leaders of the sect were gone, people were going crazy. If this had been my only life, I might have joined them.

“Elder Jiao.” I tried to speak in a calm, soothing voice. “What do we do now? We just need a plan. What are we going to do?”

“There’s nothing we can do!” As she screamed, her façade of being a lofty sect elder vanished entirely.

I gripped her shoulders to try and steady her. “We can fight. We can defend ourselves.”

She laughed mirthlessly in my face. “No one here knows anything about fighting. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“What about the illusion formation? There are illusions guarding the sect from outsiders. That should slow them down, right?”

“Those were built by the Flowing Mountain Sect. They were disabled before this attack even began.”

Jiao collapsed on the ground and started crying, but she wasn’t alone. Left with no other option, others also began falling to their knees in defeat.

As Jiao sat there, sobbing, her demeanor slowly shifted from grief and terror to utter desperation.

“I know what comes next. I won’t let that happen.”

She stood up and looked around. Spotting a small outcropping that stuck out over the mountain, Jiao began to run and didn’t stop. With all the speed she could manage, she threw herself off the cliff.

I only stood there and watched.

I could have stopped her. I could have saved her life.

I had martial techniques that would have allowed me to move far quicker than she was running, but I just watched.

I knew what she was afraid of. While I didn’t know what it was like to be a woman in this world, I knew what happened to women in most wars, and so did Jiao.

This was her choice to make. I couldn’t stop the oncoming army, so I wouldn’t stop her.

Would such a fall kill a Martial Grandmaster? Normally, maybe not. But as she was falling, Jiao severed her meridians and dispersed her qi. When she hit the ground, she was no different than an average mortal.

I stepped up to the edge of the cliff and looked down. I didn’t focus on the broken body below. I looked only at the army making their slow march toward the peak. The sect village had already been overrun, and all that was left before the oncoming tide was the mountain itself.

I expected the advance to slow significantly at this point. The mountain paths were narrow, and there was no way to march an entire army up them. I thought that if people made a concerted effort, they might be able to form last stands at the various chokepoints.

I was wrong.

As the army approached, the earth moved. New paths and stairways appeared out of nowhere as if welcoming the invaders in. In qi vision, I saw thick streamers of earth qi carving up the entire mountain at a frantic pace. This wasn’t the effort of just a few individuals. Platoons of earth cultivators rotated one after the next to quickly construct a path forward.

The army’s advance was not quick, but it was relentless. Enclave after enclave was wiped out until only the peak remained.

Should I have used my last moments to turn around, run into the Grand Hall, and look for things to steal? Maybe, but my storage space was already full, and I didn’t want to make any mistakes by swapping out items at random. There might have been valuable technique manuals that I could have found and copied into my mental library, but I lacked the concentration necessary to read them with enough care to ensure that any copies I made were free of errors.

So, with no way to carry any potential loot into a future loop, I just stood there and waited for the advancing soldiers.

I couldn’t fight an army, but I wanted to see how I fared against an experienced soldier. I had only trained my martial arts in private, and I had only sparred with significantly weaker opponents. How did my skills compare to someone who had actively trained in the Martial Dao?

When the first enemy crested the cliff face, I charged. My goal was to knock him back. I would use a technique to send a burst of qi which should have a strong enough force to blow him away.

I channeled my qi and sent it out.

The soldier’s face showed no reaction. He just swiped his arm and let loose his qi. It wasn’t a type I recognized, but it instantly dispersed the energy I had sent at him and created a gust of wind that threw me to the ground.

As I struggled to get to my feet, another soldier walked forward and stabbed me in the gut. His attack destroyed my dantian, crippling my cultivation, and severed my spine so that I couldn’t move. He didn’t kill me instantly, though. He left me there so that I could watch as the army moved forward and dispatched the remaining sect members one by one.

As I lay dying, I looked out over the cliff and down at the ruins where the Twin Mountains Sect had once stood.

A member of the sect had destroyed the Su Clan. In retaliation, the entire sect was laid to waste.

I could understand the actions of TianLei. He wanted more power for his family. For his clan to rise, the Su Clan had to fall. I didn’t agree with what he did, but I could understand it. There was just no way that he could have understood the magnitude of the firestorm his actions would unleash. After the sect was destroyed, I did not doubt that the families of those who had participated in the attack would meet a similar end.

I could also understand the response of the powers that destroyed the sect. Someone in the sect broke a pact that all powers involved abided by. As a result, the sect had to face swift punishment. If they didn’t, then no such agreements would have any teeth. Again, I didn’t necessarily agree with their actions, but I could understand them.

There was one thing that troubled me, though. There was one aspect of all this destruction that I couldn’t quite understand. There was only one place I could turn to for an answer. Did I need the answer? No. But I wanted to understand.

“System, the blessing TianLei receives has changed multiple times. It looks like it is being adjusted to be as destructive as possible. This is the work of the Earthly Dao, right? Why is the Earthly Dao working so hard to destroy everything?”

Calculating… the cost of the information is… discount applied… cost 0 credits. Purchase confirmed.

Suddenly, a voice echoed in my head. It was one that I hadn’t heard in a long time. It was the voice of the incarnation of the Earthly Dao.

Stagnation. This entire place has stagnated. To better this world, all beings must strive to advance. The accords protecting this area made everything far too peaceful. Will this war change things? I do not know. You have yet to live long enough for me to see the effects of my efforts here. Until then, I can only work on making this conflict itself as momentous as possible.

It made sense. It was ruthless, and cruel, but I could understand it. Years ago, Elder Mu had told me: “Nothing matters unless it helps me reach my goal. If you get in the way, I will kill you.” This was the exact same logic. The Earthly Dao wanted the world to advance, and the people here got in its way.

Could I stop it? Could I prevent this tragedy from happening? Possibly. I could try to stop TianLei early on, before he gained any strength. If someone else rose to take his place, I could gain enough strength to stop them too. But that would be putting myself directly at odds with the Dao. It wanted this to happen. If I tried to stop this attack, I would be the one standing in the way.

I owed the people of the sect a debt. For all that I had been used to further the goals and schemes of others, they had taught me earnestly and had provided me with a vast amount of knowledge and guidance. That was something I would need to repay.

I was not willing to oppose the Earthly Dao, but I would find a way to repay all my debts.

I just needed to gather the strength and knowledge necessary to do so first.

With a final gasp, I slipped away into unconsciousness.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Grandmaster Peak. 1,000,000 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 1,000,790

.

End of Volume 1.

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Addendum: Earning and Spending Credits (Contains Some Spoilers)

Below is information that is found in Volume 1 or was used to inform prices there in. There are a few spoilery things.

Before the tables, I want to quickly repost something from my Chapter 45 Author's Note to make it a little more visible since I've learned that it is possible to disable the notes. Chapters 1-15 underwent major revision on Mar 24. The changes shouldn't have much effect going forward, they were mainly to clean up the first arc, but here are the key takeaways:

The appearance and attitude displayed by the incarnation of the Earthly Dao has been changed significantly. He now presents as an imperious lord commanding Su Fang to behave properly, and it is clear he is gaining knowledge from each reset. I really hopes this fixes the main issues with this chapter. At this point in the story, along with the information in this conversation, you may begin to be able to see why I think it's important this character was established.

Knowledge of credits received upon death has been moved to chapter 1 and is told to him by the System itself. The rule is that it will simply be based on his cultivation level.

Based on the feedback I got, alchemy is unchanged, but I did change the names of Low- Mid- and High-Quality Qi Gathering Pills to Basic, Improved, and Superior.

It will no longer be referred to Martial Disciple Level 1, I’ve removed the word ‘Level’. I’ve been doing this with Martial Master for a while, so the change shouldn’t be noticeable.

The death notification has had a slight formatting change to reduce the vertical space it took up.

A change that has no practical effect now but clears up problems people had with the early story: He is warned that ‘Quick, repeated, intentional deaths may result in administrative action.’ This ‘administrative action’ is what provokes the interaction in Chapter 11, and he is told that any future abuse of this nature will result in the loss of his blessing.

Since a it has been brought up a lot in comments, I slipped in Mei explaining the Heaven/Earth/Profound/Yellow ranking system at the end of chapter 13.

Known tiers of cultivation:

Warrior Tier

Ruler Tier

??? Tier

Martial Disciple

Martial Lord

Martial Sovereign

Martial Master

Martial King

???

Martial Grandmaster

Martial Emperor

???

Credits gained upon death for each known cultivation level:

Martial Disciple

Credits Awarded

Martial Master

Credits Awarded

Martial Grandmaster

Credits Awarded

1

10

1

1,000

1

100,000

2

20

2

2,000

2

200,000

3

30

3

3,000

3

300,000

4

40

4

4,000

4

400,000

5

50

5

5,000

5

500,000

6

60

6

6,000

6

600,000

7

70

7

7,000

7

700,000

8

80

8

8,000

8

800,000

9

90

9

9,000

9

900,000

Peak

100

10

10,000

Peak

1,000,000

Half-Step Master

200

Peak

20,000

False Lord

2,000,000

The cost of increasing affinities for the five basic elements:

Note: Prices are cumulative. You can't just purchase Peak 7, you have to purchase ever step before it too.

Basic Affinity

Permanent Cost

Temporary Cost

9*

Low

100

10

Mid

250

25

High

500

50

Peak

750

75

8*

Low

1000

100

Mid

2500

250

High

5000

500

Peak

7500

750

7*

Low

10000

1000

Mid

25000

2500

High

50000

5000

Peak

75000

7500

Miscellaneous Items:

Knowledge

Cost

General Knowledge priced based on the effect it will have on the world.

Note: Asking seemingly unrelated questions that tell you something important will cost the same or more than simply asking for that important information directly. Both ways of asking questions result in the same effect on the world, so the price is the same.

Western Han Language

100

Item

Cost

Rank 1 Minor Healing Pill

10

Rank 1 Minor Healing Pill (Recurring)

200

Rank 1 Minor Strengthening Pill

25

Storage Bag, 10 m^3

1000

Su Fang's Storage Space

30M per m^3

Skill

Alchemy (Disciple Alchemist)

10,000,000

Alchemy (Master Alchemist)

10,000,000,000

Appraisal (Rank 1 Pills, Limited)

10

Appraisal (Rank 1 Pills, Majority)

5,000

Appraisal (Technique)

Lvl 5 of Rank

Mental Bookshelf (Rank 1)

1000

Mental Bookshelf (Additional Ranks)

x10

Mental Journal (Rank 1)

100

Mental Journal (Additional Ranks)

x10

Mastery of a Yellow Rank fire seed

100,000

Mastery of a Profound Rank fire seed (limited)

5,000,000

Techniques

Cost

Rank 1 Low-Yellow -> Mid-Yellow

200

Rank 1 Mid-Yellow -> High-Yellow

400

Rank 1 High-Yellow -> Peak-Yellow

700

Increased Rank (Disciple, Master, etc.)

x100

Ex: Rank 2 Low-Yellow -> Mid-Yellow = 200*10

2,000

Increased Power (Yellow, Profound, Earth, Heaven)

x10

Ex: Rank 1 Low-Profound -> Mid-Profound = 200*100

20,000

Ex: Rank 3 Mid-Profound -> High-Profound = 400*100*100*10

40,000,000

Multipliers refer to improvements of techniques of different levels. Upgrading Profound techniques cost 10x the cost to improve when compared to Yellow. They do NOT refer to improving a technique from Yellow to Profound.

Rank 1 Yellow Change Effect (with reference)

100

Increased Rank

x100

Increased Power

x10

Rank 1 Yellow Change Effect (no reference)

10000

Increased Rank

x100

Increased Power

x10

A note from G Tolley

I've included all the pricing I have listed in my current excel spreadsheet. Honestly, I didn't start the spreadsheet until about 20 chapters ago. Before that, I was keeping track of everything in a notebook, and I may not have everything listed here, but it should be the key things.

Patreon Announcement

Hello everyone,

Thanks for your support. With volume 1 completed and volume 2 starting up tomorrow, I thought this would be the perfect time to finally release a Patreon page. Over time, I hope to make it more robust, but for now, we will only have two tiers.

The Undying Immortal System Patreon

$3 Tier - Martial Disciple - 5 chapters ahead of Royal Road

$5 Tier - Martial Master - 10 chapters ahead of Royal Road

A $10 tier is planned for the future, with 25 ahead, but I do not currently have the chapters to support that.

For all those who want to stay only on Royal Road, I appreciate your support here and hope we can push the follower count past 3,000, but for anyone who wants advanced access to volume 2, you have your chance.

Finally, for everyone, if you want a spoiler for what to expect out of volume 2, here is the cover:

Chapter 57 – Life 59, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

After I died in the attack on the Twin Mountains Sect, I woke up in my tiny house inside the Su Clan with no desire to jump right back into the meat grinders that were my lives. My last life was the first one that felt like a real, full lifetime. I had lived to a similar age in the past, but those lives were like shadow plays where every day blended into the next. This past life had been a complete experience.

I needed to take some time to breathe and assess everything that happened. I made extraordinary gains, both in knowledge and credits, and it would take time to work out how I wanted to move forward.

I only had a few hours until someone from the clan came to take me to be tested, and I needed to prepare before that happened. How did I want to play this? Everything the clan did after the testing was based on my affinities. I had a mid eight-star fire affinity, low eight-star affinities in the other four basic elements, and a million points to play with.

I just wanted to be left alone for a short while to figure things out, and a good way to get that time was to appear to have no affinities. I could do what I had done in the past and pay for the system to hide them, but now that I had a little more understanding of the testing apparatus, I had another option.

“System, permanently raise all my basic affinities to mid eight-star.”

Permanent mid eight-star Water, Earth, Wood, and Metal Affinities. Confirmed. Cost 10,000 credits. 990,290 credits remaining.

Now I should appear completely worthless to the clan which meant I would be thrown right back in here for a week without interruptions.

I knew I would be summoned for testing soon, so I didn’t bother diving too deeply into research. Instead, I spent the few hours I had organizing my thoughts. There were a few things I wanted to try now that I once again had a clean slate to work from.

“What is your name?” asked the elderly man who always tested affinities.

“Su Fang.”

“Place your hand on the orb and channel your qi into it.”

I channeled my qi into the orb, but only a flicker of chaotic lines appeared. I pushed harder, showing that I was trying, but nothing more happened.

“Zero elemental affinity,” the elderly man said.

“What can you tell us about the blessing you have received?”

“I don’t know. My body feels a little stronger, but that’s all.”

The old man gave me a look, and I could feel energy from him lightly probe my body. After that, he nodded to the scribe.

“He will be given the Earth Heart Mantra and returned to his original quarters.”

Returning to my house, I sat down and got to work.

I had obtained a myriad of cultivation techniques in my last life, and I wanted to see what I could do with them. Most important to me were the two dual-element techniques I had obtained.

I had studied the wood-fire cultivation technique a bit in the past, and it had given me a few ideas. Put simply, a single-element Rank 1 technique floods all the muscles in a part of the body with qi of that element. This dual-element technique sections off muscle groups, flooding some with fire qi and some with wood qi.

There were two main things I wanted to look into. First, this technique was only Mid-Profound, and that seemed to be because it only provided limited qi purity. Could I adapt the filtering systems from a Peak-Yellow technique and implant them into this one to make a Peak-Profound technique? Second, this dual-element technique divided the muscles into two groups. Could I divide them into five groups, creating a five-element cultivation technique?

While I believed a five-element Rank 1 technique should be possible for me to create, I was extremely doubtful I could make the Rank 2 version. The Rank 2 dual-element techniques created separate meridians for both elements, so a five-element technique would need separate channels for each element. That would be extremely complex to design. Still, the fact that I wasn’t ready to begin with the Rank 2 version wouldn’t stop me from attempting a Rank 1 version.

First, I wanted to check on the pricing.

“System, how much to change this Rank 1 Mid-Profound technique into a Peak-Profound one?

11,000 credits.

That was ten times more than upgrading a Mid-Yellow to Peak-Yellow.

“System, how much to change this Rank 2 Mid-Profound technique into a Peak-Profound one?

1,100,000 credits.

Those two prices gave me the answer to my next question, but I wanted to ask it anyway. I took out the copy of the Rank 3 dual-element technique from my storage space.

“System, how much to change this Rank 3 Mid-Profound technique into a Peak-Profound one?

110,000,000 credits.

I was somewhat confident I could alter the Rank 1 technique to become Peak-Profound on my own, and I believed it should be possible to do the same for the Rank 2 version, but I had no confidence at all in changing the Rank 3 technique. I had several lifetimes of experience to draw on when working with Rank 1 and 2 techniques, but only a single experience with Rank 3, which made it much trickier.

Upgrading Rank 1 wouldn’t do too much good unless I could upgrade all of them, but I didn’t lose anything by trying. I wasn’t willing to spend credits on this, however. Unless I could upgrade all three ranks, any upgrades could be more detrimental than helpful.

By the end of the week, my experiments had hit a brick wall, and my cultivation base was a complete mess.

I had quickly reached Martial Disciple 2 by practicing the basic wood-fire dual-element cultivation technique on my upper right arm. This was mainly to get a general feel for how the technique should work and try to see how I could go about changing it. Then, on my upper left arm, I switched to the fire-earth dual-element technique to see how that one worked. Having two completely different techniques for different element combinations in my body caused a bit of havoc with my energy, and I sustained a few internal injuries.

These techniques used very different qi filtering principles. The fire-earth one was a lower tier, and that may have been the reason for the differences, but it felt like they were built from two completely different perspectives on how a dual-element technique should work. Knowing only that the wood-fire technique had a higher rank, I chose to focus on it.

To avoid the chaos of energies that was my chest, I began cultivating in my lower right leg. The dual-element technique had a single qi filter that separated wood and fire qi into two separate streams and directed them to different muscle groups. After reviewing the Peak-Yellow techniques I had for the two elements, I began working to modify that filter. It went poorly and collapsed, flooding my muscles with impurities. Switching to my lower left leg, I tried again, but the results were no different.

As the end of the week approached, I sighed and decided to give up. I needed far more experience with dual-element cultivation to make this work, and there were other things I wanted to get done. I would spend some time cultivating this technique normally instead. Then, I would have a much better starting point for modifying it.

These difficulties also meant that my dream of creating a five-element cultivation technique wouldn’t be coming true any time soon. Upgrading the dual-element technique would become a long-term goal, but creating a five-element technique would need to be completely shelved until I had a wider knowledge base to work from.

At this point, my cultivation base was in tatters, and I had been marked as having no affinities by the Su Clan. I was about to be targeted, and I wasn’t going to let the instructor take out his aggression on me during the end-of-week training session, so I popped a poison pill into my mouth.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 1. 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 990,300

The assessment of Martial Disciple 1 was a little surprising since I should have technically been a Martial Disciple 3. I had completed cultivating both my upper arms, after all. Possibly, it was the unresolved wood and earth clash that caused me to have a reduced evaluation.

I didn’t want to spend too much time stuck on the problem of cultivation, so I put that aside to think about later. Having mid-quality techniques would mainly affect my qi purity, but that could be handled through qi purifying pills. The only problem was that after taking too many of those pills, the toxins would begin to build up. That just meant I needed to be able to make Perfect pills so that wouldn’t be a problem.

I could already make Perfect Rank 1 pills, but to make Perfect Rank 2 pills I needed at least a peak eight-star affinity in all elements, and for Rank 3 I needed at least peak seven-star.

“System, what is the cost to permanently raise all my basic affinities to peak seven-star?”

Permanent Peak 7-star Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, and Metal Affinities. Cost 862,500 credits.

That was a serious chunk of my profit from the last life, and I didn’t think it would be wise to spend everything on this one area. Better to spread the wealth out a little more. I could still buy temporary affinities at 10% of the cost of permanent ones. Over time, permanent would be a better value, but I had seen the effectiveness of temporarily raising one beyond normal bounds.

“System, after I raise my fire affinity to peak seven-star, what is the additional cost to raise it temporarily to low six-star?” I asked just to be sure.

Temporary Low 6-star Fire Affinities. Additional cost 100,000 credits.

“That doesn’t seem right. The cost of affinities only increased by ten times for each star level. Shouldn’t it be 10,000?”

9, 8, and 7-star are considered lower affinities, so the costs increase by ten times. 6, 5, and 4-star are middle affinities with a cost increase of one hundred times. 3, 2, and 1-star are upper affinities which increase the cost by one thousand times for each star increase.

Upgrading my affinities was going to be a huge black hole. I could use the spring in the Twin Mountains Sect to improve my fire affinity, but it was limited in how much it could help. It would only help with fire, and it couldn’t push an affinity past peak seven-star. Also, I didn’t like the idea of needing to sneak into the sect after every restart just to boost an affinity. I needed a better solution.

I put a pin in that topic since I needed to move on. I wasn’t ready to commit so many credits just yet.

Thinking back to my goals from my previous life, the only thing I wanted that I didn’t accomplish was acquiring a spatial spirit fire seed. I hadn’t even heard mention of a fire seed other than the Cold Mountain Fire. The sect was not a place where I would find such opportunities. I could venture out and explore, trying to find something, but I had no idea how long that would take.

“System, how much to purchase the cheapest spirit fire seed capable of helping me expand my storage space?”

Space-attributed spirit fire seed. Cost 500 billion credits.

So, not going to happen.

“System, how much to learn information about the location of a spatial spirit fire I could acquire myself along with the time and circumstances under which I could get it?”

Cost 350,000 credits.

It was expensive, and it would eat into what I needed to raise my affinities, but getting that seed was my most important goal by far. Every moment without it was a moment my storage space wasn’t growing.

So, upgrading cultivation techniques was put on hold, but I needed to purchase affinities and this information. Was there anything else I needed immediately?

I was going to use the wood-fire dual-element technique, but I needed to rework the mental effects to be more suitable for what I wanted to accomplish. I had dozens of cultivation techniques with a variety of mental effects now, so I had a little more freedom to choose how I wanted to modify them.

I carefully considered my options. What did I want in this life? I wanted to head outside the Wastes this life, and I knew who I would work with to do that. What would help me there?

The Rank 3 cultivation technique I was going to use would only make the effects of the Rank 1 and 2 techniques more intense, so as long as I was happy with the Rank 1 and 2 effects, I didn’t need to worry about Rank 3, which would make things cheaper.

I would need to deal with many different people. The techniques I had been using increased my friendliness, which I had begun to not like. The friendliness made it so I capitulated very easily to the demands of others. This wasn’t a horrible problem for me, I still got what I needed in the end, but I wanted to go in a different direction. Instead of being friendly, I just wanted to be personable. I wanted to feel free to say ‘no’, but I didn’t want to be constantly starting fights.

I wanted to find novel solutions to problems, so something tending toward inventiveness? I didn’t have any techniques to help me there though.

I would need to spend long stretches of time simply improving my alchemy. My Rank 1 skills were solid, but I could still see room for improvement in Rank 2, and my Rank 3 skills had massive gaps. That doesn’t even begin to consider the higher ranks I hoped to reach.

Most importantly, I needed the techniques to only affect my behavior and not my perceptions or memories. That way, when I cut off the mental effects from the techniques, there should be minimal lingering effects.

“System, how much to change the mental effects of the Rank 1 and 2 fire-wood dual element cultivation techniques so that they improve personability while also making one more dedicated and focused?”

Cost 101,000 credits.

Did I need anything else?

“System, how much to upgrade my mental technique library so it can hold Rank 3 and 4 techniques?”

Upgrade to Rank 3. Cost 90,000 credits. Upgrade to Rank 4, an additional 900,000 credits.

“Alright System, purchase the Rank 3 mental bookshelf.”

Confirmed. Cost 90,000 credits. 900,300 credits remaining.

“System, purchase requested information about a spatial seed.”

Confirmed. Cost 350,000 credits. 550,300 credits remaining.

Formation Emperor Du XiongMing is currently in possession of a spatial spirit fire seed that meets your requirements. In 127 years, he will die in the Brilliant Sun Empire, located in the southern part of the continent. Upon his death, a war will erupt with many sides fighting to claim his fire seed. If you are present in the capital of the Brilliant Sun Empire at the time of his death, and you have a connection with its ruling dynasty, it may be possible for you to claim this seed as your own upon his death.

Credits expended, transaction complete.

Formation Emperor. Alchemists were divided into Disciple Alchemists, Master Alchemists, and Grandmaster Alchemists for Ranks 1 through 3. Above that, Rank 4 would be Pill Lord, Rank 5 was Pill King, and Rank 6 was called Pill Emperor. Formation Emperor Du XiongMing was a Rank 6 formation master, and to get a spatial spirit fire seed, it sounded like I would need to rob his corpse. To even have a prayer of pulling that off, I would need to be close to him when he died, which meant I needed to be his peer. A peer to a Formation Emperor had to be at least a Pill King, if not a Pill Emperor. I wasn’t sure it was something I could accomplish in a single lifetime, but I would give it my best effort.

Truthfully, this mission might be easier if I approached it as a formation master, but that would mean learning an entirely new set of skills all the way up to Rank 6, and I had no idea how many lives that would take me. It would mean starting from nothing again. No, I would first try approaching it as an alchemist. If this path didn’t seem likely to succeed, I would at least be able to parlay my alchemic skills later in life into some basic knowledge of formations to establish a firm starting point.

I still needed to raise my affinities and fix my cultivation manuals, but I didn’t want to rush that. WuJing had a Profound level cultivation technique he had promised me in a past life, and I was ready to claim it.

“System, teleport me to Dragon Gate City.”

Confirmed. Cost 30 credits. 550,270 credits remaining.

Chapter 58 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

I appeared in the poor district of Dragon Gate City and began to make my way towards the Blue Wind Pavilion.

How did I want to approach this? Mei should be at the front door of the Pavilion, and it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to simply recreate my first visit, but was that what I wanted? Did it matter? Mei and WuJing both had powerful social blessings, so nothing I did would have too much of an effect on them, but I wasn’t sure about the others in the Pavilion.

WuJing was the floor manager of this branch of the Blue Wind Pavilion, so he wasn’t the top brass, and I had no information about the people above him. Placing him in a managerial role, showed some level of trust, but how much would those people believe in me?

Unless I was willing to be WuJing’s pet alchemist, like I had been for Elder Mu, I needed to put on a show for the higher-ups to make myself appear valuable. At the same time, I needed to make sure it was me that appeared valuable, not one of my possessions, such as the fire seed. Even if the Pavilion was trustworthy, owning a treasure was a crime everywhere, so it needed to be clear that I was the treasure, not my possessions.

“System,” I said after ducking into a side alley, “I want to purchase robes that would be worn by a respectable Disciple Alchemist, a young prodigy who is considered to have a bright future.”

Cost 1,000 credits.

That seemed outrageously expensive for a few pieces of clothing, but I had to put my trust in the System here. Was it including a price on information about what young prodigies wear? I had only lived in the Su Clan and the Twin Mountains Sect, so I didn’t know much about local fashions.

“Purchase it,” I quickly decided.

Confirmed. Cost 1,000 credits. 549,270 credits remaining

The robes appeared in my system storage, but I didn’t rush to put them on. Just by looking at them, I could tell they were something no one in this part of town would be wearing, so I held off until I reached a nicer part of town.

The Blue Wind Pavilion was a massive eight-story pagoda that stood on a large marble foundation. The exterior walls were painted a bright red. Azure tiled eaves stuck out at every floor, and brightly decorated blue beams at the top of the walls, under the eaves, tied everything together. At the corners of the roof, small ridge beast adornments had been placed as auspicious totems.

To someone standing on the street in front of it, the Blue Wind Pavilion’s presence was supreme. It towered over the small two- or three-story wooden buildings surrounding it.

I walked down the street towards the Pavilion dressed in my new hanfu robes. They were made of deep black silk. The torso of the robes was pitch black, but below the waistband was a light gray which darkened back to the same black at the hem. Strands of flames had been embroidered in gold and red thread, and as the fabric sifted, the flames almost seemed to dance as sunlight sparkled off them. And, more than just looking impressive, I found that formations have been sewn into them to keep them clean and control the temperature.

I was the epitome of a young master. I looked like the master of all young masters. I walked down the street with complete confidence, knowing that no one would even think of stopping me, and I felt like a complete fraud.

I would never have even considered wearing such an ostentatious outfit on my own, and even though this is what the System had implied would be the normal dress for someone with my abilities, I still wasn’t very comfortable in it. The only thing that kept me walking forward was knowing that no matter what I was wearing, Mei would know how to handle it. In all my time in this world, she was the only person I had ever felt completely comfortable around.

I entered the Pavilion and was greeted by the noise of countless customers browsing and shopping for goods. The entire place was brightly lit by large windows on every wall and small glowing orbs in dozens of chandeliers.

I looked around to see if I could find Mei, but as I was turning, a young woman dressed in the blue and silver qipao dress of a Pavilion attendant approached me.

“Hello, sir. My name is Ye SuYin. How can I help you today?” she said, clasping her hands and giving a bow.

SuYin was young and pretty, and her smile revealed dimpled cheeks. She was a little shorter than the other attendants, but since everyone was wearing the same qipao, and everyone’s hair was fixed in the same elaborate bun with a jade hairpin and golden comb, it was hard to tell one attendant from the next.

I had wanted to speak with Mei first, but as a budding, young, magnanimous alchemist, it would be wrong to simply turn this girl away. While I hadn’t cultivated the technique to force myself to be more personable yet, that was still the persona I wanted to embody.

“Hello,” I said, nodding my head to SuYin, “I would like to see your alchemic pills. Please show me what Rank 1 pills you offer and let me know their prices.”

“Right this way, sir,” she said, guiding me to the right side of the Pavilion.

She led me to rows of glass counters that held a wide variety of jade pill bottles.

“We have a variety of Rank 1 and Rank 2 pills for sale. We also have contracts with Grandmasters Alchemists who can help us procure most Rank 3 pills. All our pills are High-Purity with an efficacy of over 90%, and for a small premium, we can guarantee pills above 95% efficacy.”

“And what types of pills do you sell?”

“We maintain a stock of all commonly requested pills, including Qi Gathering Pills, Purifying Pills for every qi type, Healing Pills, Antidote Pills, Qi Empowerment Pills, and even Explosive Pills.” As she talked, she gestured to various counters. “For less common pill types, we have alchemists that can prepare most pills you could request. If the request is exceeding rare, as long as you provide a pill formula, if we have the herbs in stock, we guarantee a High-Purity 90% effective pill within a day for any Rank 1 pill. We cannot guarantee a timeframe for higher-rank pills, but we can procure them. If the recipe uses especially rare ingredients that we do not stock, further negotiations may be required.”

“All of your pills are High-Purity?”

“Yes,” she said confidently. “And not just passible. Our Rank 1 pills are among the best High-Purity pills available.”

“Do you sell Perfect Pills?”

For the first time, SuYin became hesitant. “Perfect pills are exceedingly rare, and they are unavailable at this branch. If that is what you require, they are possible to procure, but they will need to be ordered from another branch. If you are willing to wait, they can be added to a standard delivery, but if you need them soon, the extra fee would be substantial.”

“What are the costs?” I decided to ask. “Let’s say for a Basic Qi Gathering Pill.”

“The basic price is twenty silver. If you want one with guaranteed higher efficacy, it is twenty-five.”

“And for a Perfect one?”

“The base price would be fifty silver, with a guaranteed efficacy of at least 99%. However, again, we do not carry them in stock. Ordering them from another branch would require time and money, and most customers would consider the exchange unacceptable.”

“What if I do not lack money and am willing to wait?” I asked.

“We can accommodate you, but I would recommend a higher-level pill. We can guarantee the same efficacy on a Perfect Superior Qi Gathering Pill for two gold. Since you would be delayed anyway, the extra time could be used to prepare to absorb the more powerful pill.”

I nodded at her explanation. While she was trying to up-sell me, it did make sense in this situation, as long as I wasn’t concerned about the price.

“What are the prices for purifying pills?”

“The base price is one gold each, with a 10% additional cost for higher guaranteed efficacy.”

“What if I sold you a High-Purity Water Qi Purifying pill at 95% efficacy? How much would you pay?”

SuYin seemed to have expected that question and quickly responded. “Our general price for buying pills is 35% of the profit plus the cost of ingredients. Such a pill would sell for one gold, and the cost of ingredients is forty silver, so the standard purchase price is 61 silver, but that can fluctuate with availability and demand.”

It was interesting that she freely shared a solid calculation with me. In the past, I was just given a purchase price. I doubted she had a blessing like Mei’s, so was this just the effect of presenting myself as a respectable person?

“Can you take me to see your herbs?” I asked.

“This way, sir.”

She guided me to a nearby collection of shelves. The moment I passed an invisible threshold, my nose was assaulted by the fragrance of the various herbs. Many of them were sitting openly in bins where customers could pick up and examine them. Some had been placed in sealed boxes, and a few were locked under a glass display case.

As expected, the Rank 1 herbs were all pretty standard. Since mortal farmers could easily harvest high-quality Rank 1 herbs, they held little value, and I had never seen examples that had been improved by an herbalist.

The Rank 2 herbs were surprisingly high quality, though. Those displayed openly were nearly the same quality as the Rank 1 herbs, and those held under lock and key had an immense amount of medicinal energy stored within. It would be a joy to work with them.

I considered my situation. I didn’t have much money. While I could buy some from the System, that would be a ludicrous waste of credits. Hopefully what I had would be enough to get started, but I could sell some of the pills from my storage space to gather more if needed.

Still, this entire encounter wasn’t going the way I had initially hoped. I had planned to quickly get into contact with WuJing in a way that he would treat me as a friend. I guess it didn’t matter too much. It was all an act anyway, and he would only be behaving as directed, but I longed for a feeling of camaraderie. Even if he was just trying to get something from me, he would at least know how to act like that wasn’t the case.

I sighed and pondered my options as I continued to peruse the herbs. After a few moments, I walked back over to SuYin.

“Could you please show me around a little more? What else do you offer?”

“Of course, sir. I can give you a tour.”

As she began to guide me away from the herbs, another woman dressed in the same blue and silver qipao approached us.

“SuYin,” she said with a smile, “let me take it from here.”

“M…Mei,” SuYin stuttered. “But…”

“Don’t worry,” said Mei, “you’ll receive proper credit and compensation, but I need to handle this.”

Then, Mei turned to me and smiled. “Welcome back to the Blue Wind Pavilion. Our manager, Chen WuJing, is eager to meet with you. Please, follow me.”

I smiled at Mei and nodded. “Sure. Let’s go.”

Chapter 59 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

“Welcome, come on in!” said WuJing in a happy voice as Mei and I entered his office.

He walked up to me and held out his hand for a firm handshake. “I’m Chen WuJing, floor manager of this branch of the Blue Wind Pavilion. I’m glad you came to visit.”

“Thank you,” I said, returning his handshake. “My name is Su Fang.”

WuJing led me to the armchairs at the side of his office, and we sat down for a conversation.

Even though I knew this was an act, and he was just following Mei’s instructions, it felt genuine. I had to wonder how long the two of them had been working together to have such a fluid working relationship.

“How can I help you today?” asked WuJing. “I heard you were looking at pills and herbs. Are you an alchemist?”

“Yes,” I said, “and I am hoping to explore cooperation with the Pavilion if you are interested.”

“Wonderful, what type of cooperation are you looking for?”

I paused for a moment. I had thought about what to say, but I still wasn’t completely sure. The fact was, the people in this building had incredibly powerful social blessings, and I almost certainly couldn’t bluff my way through things. Also, I was presenting myself as a young master this time. I should be direct and honest with my goals and allow the chips to fall where they may.

I looked WuJing directly in the eyes as I spoke. “I am an alchemist, and I need to improve to the level of Pill King, possibly even Pill Emperor, as soon as possible. To do that, I have to make a true ascension to at least Martial King. I want to partner with you to achieve this goal.”

WuJing looked at me in shock. “Do you know what that involves?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a place to do it?”

“Not yet, but it will need to be in the Brilliant Sun Empire in the south.”

WuJing looked at me and considered for a long while. He looked at Mei, and she only nodded her head. Any other place, I, a Martial Disciple in the Wastes who hadn’t even begun cultivating, would have been laughed out of the room for proclaiming I would ascend to Martial King. These two were different though.

“Alright,” WuJing finally said, “what’s your plan?”

I laughed a bit sardonically, “I don’t have one yet. I don’t know how to get the empire to give me a city, let alone a kingdom, but I know it is possible, and I know it needs to be done.”

WuJing tapped his fingers on his armrest as he thought. “Does it have to be an imperial kingdom? There are ways for the Pavilion to help you ascend.”

“No,” I said, “I just need to form a close relationship with their ruling family. I was thinking becoming an honored court alchemist may accomplish that while also allowing me to claim a kingdom.”

“It’s possible,” said WuJing, “but there are other ways. A Pill King is unheard of in the south. The best alchemists down there are usually just experienced Pill Lords. If you can become a Pill King the imperial family will be falling over themselves to win your favor, so you don’t need to worry about that, but that’s assuming you’re already a Pill King.”

WuJing poured himself a glass of amber-colored liquid before beginning again. “When you reach Grandmaster Alchemist you will need to be in a position to ascend to Martial Lord, and as a Pill Lord, you need to be able to ascend to Martial King. That will be extremely difficult to accomplish in Brilliant Sun. I don’t know much about that specific empire, but every empire is notoriously tightfisted with its lands, so you would have to be both exceptional and viewed as extremely loyal to get a city from them, and I don’t see that happening in a short timeframe, no matter how good you are.”

“So, I can’t go ascend through the empire,” I said. “Any suggestions?”

“Of course,” WuJing smiled. “You’re already here, so why not work directly with us? As long as you are a member of the Pavilion, and your contributions have been great enough, you can purchase an ascension all the way to Emperor if you want.”

“The Blue Wind Pavilion sells empires for contribution points?” I asked. “That’s absurd.”

“No,” laughed WuJing, “not at all. First, we don’t use contribution points here. This isn’t a sect. It’s a business. Everything is handled in gold. Money isn’t the problem here though. To purchase a chance at ascension, you need the approval of the higher-ups, and they will look closely at what you contributed to decide if they want to sell you that chance. And second, you aren’t buying the empire, just the chance to ascend.

The Pavilion’s leader also controls a peripheral empire. After the purchase, you will be crowned emperor for a year. During that year, the karmic energy of the empire will flow to you, and you can use it to ascend, but you will have no actual authority.”

“Can… Can you actually do that? You can just rent an empire for a bit and it’s enough to ascend?” I sat there dumbfounded that such a thing would be possible.

“Yes,” said WuJing with a smile, “and you never even have to step foot inside its borders. Whatever forces control the world don’t care. It’s just a matter of where the energy is directed. Instead of going to the true ruler, you become the nominal ruler for a period of time, and it gets sent to you.”

By the ‘the forces that control the world,’ I knew who he was talking about. I could understand that from that being’s point of view, the details weren’t important. An empire improved, a cultivator advanced. It didn’t care who.

“Let’s do that, then,” I decided. “I’ll plan to advance to Martial King through the Pavilion. How do we get started?”

“Excellent!” WuJing smiled. “First, we need to get you set up as a full member of the Pavilion. This will involve disclosing your blessing and, if at all possible, providing proof that your claims are true. Since you are looking to become a Pill King, I will assume you currently have some alchemy ability. Once you are accepted, you can start making pills for the Pavilion, earning money and contribution.”

“How will I get to Brilliant Sun?” I asked.

“Getting there is easy, just earn enough money for a ride in our carriages. You don’t want to just go there, though. You need to get promoted there. Otherwise, it will be much more difficult to establish a firm foothold in an imperial capital.”

“So, how do I get promoted there?”

“For me, as a manager, earning contribution to get promoted out of the Wastes is difficult, but for you, as an alchemist, it’s simple. Just make good enough pills that they can’t be sold locally. Then, instead of constantly shipping them out of here, you’ll get promoted up.”

“So, just make excellent pills and I can get sent to Brilliant Sun?”

“Eh, maybe, but you’ll probably get sent to a smaller kingdom somewhere, possibly even just a city. We just need to make it so we are sent somewhere down south, then, when you become too good for that place, we can aim to be sent to Brilliant Sun.”

“We? You’re going with me?”

“Your contribution is alchemy,” laughed WuJing, “but my contribution is you. I’m going to take shade under your tall tree for as long as possible. As long as you become an incredible enough Grandmaster Alchemist, I should be able to use it to get promoted to branch manager of a kingdom and take you with me. That will allow me to advance to Martial Lord. Then, the farther you go, the farther I go. If you get me promoted to branch manager of Brilliant Sun, I will be able to advance to Martial King.”

I smiled and nodded. A harmonious exchange of opportunities was what I needed. Pies didn’t fall from the sky, and I wasn’t going to get a chance to ascend without giving something back in return. I hoped this relationship would bear fruit because the only other real idea I had for advancing to Martial King was spending a long time learning martial arts and carving out a kingdom for myself through blood. I much preferred the mercantile route.

“On a related topic,” I said, “will the Pavilion provide cultivation techniques?”

WuJing gave me a scrutinizing look. “You haven’t cultivated at all yet, right? Is it because you don’t have a proper technique?”

“No,” I said honestly, “I have a technique I plan to use. It has its drawbacks, but it’s sufficient. I just wanted to see if the Pavilion could provide me something better.”

WuJing swirled the liquid in his glass as he thought. “We can certainly look at that. What rank is your current technique?”

“Mid-Profound.”

He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “That’s difficult. Very difficult. If we were at the main branch, it wouldn’t be a problem, but there’s nothing better here. The best I can authorize is a Low-Profound technique, and the Pavilion Master can only get you a Mid-Profound one. To do better, we would need to request it be delivered here from the main branch. The Pavilion Master has the clout to do that, but it would put you deep in her debt, and I wouldn’t recommend it if you want to keep a firm control of your future.”

He could be playing me a bit here. His words stunk of internal politics, keeping me to himself instead of sharing with the Pavilion Master. His reasoning may be skewed, but I was certain there was also truth behind what he said. I didn’t want to put myself into someone’s debt this early in life, so I accepted his recommendation.

“I’ll use the technique I have, then,” I said. “But I will be able to purchase access to any of the techniques here eventually, including that Mid-Profound one, right?”

“Yes,” he responded, “though Profound techniques require requisite contributions.”

“Understood. Before I can do much alchemy, I need to cultivate for a while. Should I do that now, or do we need to deal with membership first?”

“Let’s handle the membership first,” decided WuJing, “If we get that taken care of, you can stay in the Pavilion to cultivate, which will be much easier.”

WuJing and Mei brought me up to the eighth floor of the pagoda, the top floor.

At the top of the stairs was an expertly carved dark wooden double door that had been inlaid with silver and gold. In the design, golden snow-peaked mountains stood proudly as silver streamers of wind blew around them. WuJing opened the door, and we walked inside.

This room was simple, yet elegant. There were no paintings or artwork, but the walls themselves served as decoration. Wood slats had been arranged in geometric patterns encircling the entire room. Large windows were deftly worked into the pattern along two walls. A lone man was working behind a desk that was set to the side of another door with the same design as the first.

“Secretary Jiang,” said WuJing, “This is Su Fang, he wishes to become a member of the Pavilion. I came to arrange everything.”

“A Martial Disciple 1?” said the man behind the desk. “Interesting that he caught your eye. Very well.”

The man pulled out a large book from a drawer and opened it to somewhere near the middle.

“Your name is Su Fang, correct? What is your age?”

“Sixteen,” I said.

The man nodded. It would be expected since I hadn’t cultivated.

“Affinities?” he asked.

This was trickier, and I hadn’t completely decided how to proceed, but I felt I needed to be able to make Perfect Rank 3 pills. That would only be possible by pushing to peak seven-star in everything. I wouldn’t be able to push everything to six-star, but I could do it for a couple of affinities if needed. Still, this wasn’t the time to make the big plans.

“Peak seven-star in all five basic elements,” I said confidently.

Everyone looked at me in shock. It seemed even WuJing hadn’t expected that answer. However, it could also be that he expected me to have something better in store. Should a future Martial King have five-star affinities?

“Multiple affinities are difficult to test,” said Secretary Jiang, “Manager Chen, are you willing to vouch for the truth of this?”

After a short hesitation, WuJing responded, “Yes, I will.”

“Acceptable. Blessing?” Jiang asked.

“It is a somewhat comprehensive blessing that has benefited my alchemy. I have gained significant knowledge up to the level of Grandmaster Alchemist, a spirit fire, and various improvements to qi control. I also suspect my affinities are a result of this blessing.”

“What are the herbs needed to concoct a Rank 3 Fire Qi Expulsion Pill?”

I quickly recited them from memory.

“What is needed for a Rank 2 Creeping Death Pill?”

Again, I answered quickly.

“I will accept that as tentative proof, however practical demonstrations over time will be necessary. Su Fang,” he said as he wrote, “you are now an official member of the Pavilion under the recommendation of Manager Chen WuJing.” After writing down a bit more in the book he closed it and looked up at WuJing. “Manager Chen, he is your recruit so you can get him settled.” Then he looked at me. “Welcome to the Blue Wind Pavilion.”

Chapter 60 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Mei led me back down to the third level of the pagoda.

“This is where you’ll be staying,” she said. “Third level is for all the scrubs. If you can contribute enough, you’ll get bumped up to the fourth.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“No worries. Take some time to relax. We have to get back to work, but if you need anything, SuYin or any of the other attendants can show you around. Just head down to the shop floor and wander around. You should be able to find someone easily enough.”

“Do I need any ID?” I asked. “Sect members all carry jade tokens, right? Does the Pavilion have anything I need to get access to the upper levels?”

“Nah,” she said with a shake of the head, “the guards should have already been informed about you, so there won’t be any trouble. WuJing can get you a Pavilion Badge to use when you go to other branches, but you won’t need it here, so might as well hold off on getting it. Right now, you have zero contributions, no cultivation, and no proven ability. That means you get the lowest-level badge. Work your way up a little first, otherwise, you’ll be replacing it before you even use it.”

“Thanks," I said with a small laugh.

“Now, take a break and stop bothering me. I have to get to work,” she said with a wave as she walked away.

My room in the Pavilion could only be described as opulent.

In the sect, after moving to the Eyes’ enclave, my apartment was nice. It was well-made and clean, but it wasn’t anything special. It was a single large room with no decorations and only a bed for sleeping and a mat for cultivating.

The Pavilion apartments, even for the lower-level members, were something else. They had a sitting room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and a separate cultivation room. The sitting room had a table and chairs, a couch, a couple of armchairs, and a stocked bookcase. The bedroom had a large, soft bed, flower vases, wall art, and a window overlooking the city below. Only the cultivation room retained an ascetic’s sensibilities. It was a small room with no windows and only a mat for cultivation.

Dismissing the luxuries, I sat down in the cultivation room to consider my future course.

I needed to improve my affinities, there was no question about that, but I also wanted several other upgrades, and it would be difficult to pay for everything.

As far as the early stages of cultivation, my biggest worry was the advancement to Grandmaster. I had read through the Rank 3 cultivation technique I was going to use, and building my dantian for it would be extremely difficult. I highly doubted it would be anywhere close to correct the first time, and I didn’t want to have to repeat everything up to that point to fix it.

“System, how much does a temporary reset point cost?”

Current price is 30 credits.

“What do you mean by ‘current?’ How is that price calculated?”

You would gain 10 credits if you died now. If you advance one stage, you will gain 20. Adding the two together, the cost of a temporary reset point is 30 credits. If you were a Martial Disciple 2, the cost would be 20 plus 30, for a cost of 50 credits.

Note: The cost of each return to a temporary reset point will double until the host returns to the fixed reset point. For a temporary reset point that lasts three deaths, it would cost 30 + 60 + 120, for a total of 210 credits.

So, if I wanted to set a temporary reset point as a Martial Master Peak, it would cost 120,000 credits, but if I set it as a Martial Master 10, it would only be 30,000. I could save more credits by moving it even earlier, but the additional savings would be marginal.

I suddenly thought of something and started talking to the air, hoping the powers that be were listening.

“A boost to my affinities changes my body, that’s why temporary affinity boosts aren’t taken with me. However, if I give myself a temporary boost, and then set a temporary reset point, the effects of that temporary boost should persist without cost until my next permanent reset. Any changes to my body from before the reset point should remain upon death, right?”

I waited several moments, hoping my words might have an effect.

“System, if I temporarily raise my affinities, will they remain raised after a death back to a temporary reset point?”

If they were raised before that point was created, then yes, they will remain. However, an additional cost of 10% of the price of all temporary boosts will be added to the base cost of a reset point.

Additional Note: Purchasing temporary bonuses before changing your permanent reset point will result in a substantial price increase.

I smiled. I didn’t know if my soliloquy had any effect, but I got the result I wanted. Now, I could start making purchases.

“System, modify my Rank 1 and 2 cultivation techniques as discussed earlier. Make the mental effects personability, focus, and dedication.”

Cost 101,000 credits. Purchase Confirmed. 448,200 credits remaining.

“Upgrade all my affinities to temporary peak seven-star.”

Cost 86,250 credits. Purchase Confirmed. 361,950 credits remaining.

That was a good start, but I would need more to reach Martial King. I hoped I would find something to boost my affinities naturally, but until then I could take one more step with the System.

“Raise my fire affinity to temporary low six-star.”

Cost 100,000 credits. Purchase Confirmed. 261,950 credits remaining.

With the most important ones down. Next, I wanted to deal with the problem of my fire seed. I couldn’t let anyone know it was a seed. It had to seem like a normal spirit fire, and I wasn’t confident I had the knowledge and ability to pull that off.

“System, purchase mastery of my current fire seed.”

Mastery of Seed of the Yellow-Rank Cold Mountain Fire costs 90,000. Purchase Confirmed. 171,950 credits remaining.

For my last purchase, I considered how I had as much time as I needed to slowly master all the skills I wanted, but that was only if I was willing to stretch that learning out over several lifetimes. In my last life, Wen Hao was able to become an excellent Grandmaster Alchemist in less than 40 years. In the end, I may have surpassed him in the fundamentals, but it took me nearly 80 years in that life along with centuries of building a strong foundation.

Extrapolating that out, I could guess it would take over a hundred years for my skill to meet the requirements of Pill Lord, and Pill King might take two hundred. Simply spending time at that level was an option, but I wanted to claim that spatial fire seed as soon as possible, which meant I needed to be a better version of myself.

“System, I want to spend 20,000 credits to permanently enhance each of the following: my alchemy comprehension, my herbalism comprehension, the rate of my soul growth, the rate my qi control improves, and my comprehension of cultivation techniques.”

Total cost 100,000 credits. Purchase Confirmed. 71,950 credits remaining.

After the enhancements, I didn’t feel any different. I wasn’t sure how much a 20,000 credit enhancement would help, but if I allocated a portion of my earnings each death to this kind of upgrade, it would slowly build up over time.

I was left with enough credits to create a single temporary reset point at Martial Master 10. That would give me one extra chance to ascend to Grandmaster properly, and if I succeeded, I could parlay the credits from that into additional attempts at perfecting my dantian.

Purchases complete, I stood up and left my apartment. I wasn’t ready to start cultivating quite yet. Instead, I wanted to find SuYin to learn a little more about my new life.

“SuYin,” I said with a smile as I spotted her down on the shop floor. It looked like she had just finished up with a customer, so I grabbed her attention before she moved to someone else.

Seeing me approach, she smiled and bowed. “Hello again, how may I help you?”

“Hi, I just became a member of the Pavilion. Mei said you could show me around.”

“Oh?” she said with a surprised look. “You’re a full member now?”

“I believe so. I talked with Secretary Jiang and he set everything up.”

“Congratulations,” she smiled. “You are joining as an alchemist, right?”

“Yes,” I confirmed, “but I’m not sure about the details of what I should do. I was hoping you could fill me in.”

“I’d be happy to. Let’s head upstairs.”

She took me back up to the fifth floor of the pagoda. At this point, I was beginning to wish the place had an elevator. If this was what my life was going to be like, constantly climbing stairs all day, I needed to hurry along my cultivation.

The stairs to the fifth floor opened out into a large room. Another female attendant waited behind a reception desk, and hallways branched out in three different directions.

“All of our workshops are on the fifth floor. We have several rooms for alchemists and formation masters, but we also have places for rarer professions, such as talisman crafters. There is even a workshop dedicated to weapon and artifact refining, though it has never been used.” As she spoke, she pointed in the direction of the rooms she was talking about.

“How does being an alchemist member of the Pavilion work?” I asked. “I’m not too clear about where to begin.”

“Ah, it’s simple,” she said as she walked me over to the receptionist’s desk. “This is Xu YuLin. She, or whoever is working here at the time, will help you with anything you need.”

“Hello, sir,” said YuLin with a bow.

“Sister Xu, this is…” began SuYin before remembering she didn’t know my name.

“Su Fang,” I interjected.

“This is Su Fang,” she began again. “He is a new alchemist member of the Pavilion, and I’m showing him around.”

“A full member? At his age?” asked YuLin in surprise. “Congratulations.”

Why did they all keep congratulating me? It seemed like joining as a member hadn’t been a problem for me. Was it so much more difficult for the average person?

“Let me introduce you to how our system works,” said YuLin. “First, while you can buy ingredients on the shop floor like anyone else, it isn’t necessary. You may come here and order any herbs you require, and they will be delivered to your workshop or apartment. If you wish to choose them yourself, you may visit the warehouse floor in the basement where an attendant can show you everything we have available.”

I nodded at that. It would be nice to be able to pick out my own herbs, but it usually wasn’t worth the time.

“Is there anything specific I should make?” I asked.

“As a member, we will buy any pills you concoct at a regular price of the ingredients plus 50% of the profit,” she said, before pulling out a thick book. “This is a ledger of pills in demand, and if you sell those your percentage will be increased to 55%. Selling pills deemed to be in urgent demand will provide 60% of the profits.”

She flipped to a different part of the book before continuing. “These are special request pills. They are either more difficult than normal or require rare ingredients. There may be penalty clauses attached if you accept a commission to make these, as we cannot waste rare ingredients, but selling them will give you a 70% share of the profits. If we have an urgent commission, someone from the Pavilion may contact you directly for your assistance. As a full member, you have an obligation to assist, but your compensation in such events is increased to 75% and any penalty is waived.”

I wasn’t too surprised that I would be obligated to make certain pills, but having a bonus to the payout was a benefit I didn’t expect.

“Finally,” YuLin said, walking to a place where several names were hung on the wall, “these are craftsmen who are available for special requests. The Pavilion will help coordinate these requests, but they are, in the end, an agreement between the craftsman and the buyer. You will receive 85% of the profits if you complete a special request, but they are usually subject to steep penalties.”

“If I began working now, what pills would be best to focus on?” I asked.

“The Su Clan just completed their annual blessing ceremony,” answered YuLin. “Other families also have blessing ceremonies around the same time, so there will be a large demand for Qi Gathering Pills in the near future, though they are always needed. Other than that, pills to restore energy will also be needed since they get used a lot during training. Later in the year, when the new cultivators start wandering around, they will need healing pills and such, but there isn’t too large a demand at the moment.”

“Sounds good,” I said, “do I need to pay for the herbs up front?”

“As a full member, you can purchase common herbs on credit which will be deducted from future sales. Rarer herbs must be paid for upfront.”

“Alright then,” I decided, “send a dozen sets of ingredients for Superior Qi Gathering Pills to my apartment. I’ll rest for a bit then come up and begin work.”

“A dozen?” she asked in shock. “That may not be a good idea…”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine,” I said smiling.

I turned to SuYin who had been waiting there patiently during my discussion with YuLin.

“Thanks for showing me around,” I smiled, “we can continue the tour later. I need to get to work.”

Chapter 61 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

As I was preparing to return to my apartment, a voice echoed through the room.

“SuYin, there you are.”

I turned to see two people entering from the stairwell. In the lead was a middle-aged-looking man with a young man around my age following behind. Both were wearing dark yellow hanfus. The younger man’s was plain and unadorned, but the older man’s was embroidered with bright green flames.

SuYin’s face fell the moment she heard the boy’s voice.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a harsh voice, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

SuYin scooted closer to me at his words. This caused the boy to give me an appraising look.

“Who are you?” he asked in a flat voice.

What should I do here? Normally, I would just brush off someone like this as I always did in the sect. I generally felt there was little to gain from such an encounter, so why play the game? This time, though, I was Young Master Su, and this kid was trying to knock me down on the pecking order. That was something Young Master Su would not abide.

“Su Fang,” I said with as cold a tone as I could muster.

“Well, Su Fang, stay away from my woman,” he said with a snort. Looking back at SuYin, he continued, “You know I don’t like you talking with the rabble. You shouldn’t entertain them.”

I looked over to SuYin to see how she wanted to handle this situation.

“Alchemist Gou, please be polite. I am introducing a new alchemist to the Pavilion,” she said. Her voice was quavering, but she remained firm.

“I told you, you don’t need to work anymore. You are my woman, so I will take care of you.”

“Alchemist Gou, I am not your woman. Please allow me to continue my work.”

“We both know what you are,” he smirked. Then he gave me a nasty look. “You’re a new alchemist? Why don’t you get the hell out of the Pavilion before you embarrass yourself.”

“I can’t do that,” I said with a wide smile. “I just ordered a batch of ingredients, and it would be terrible to leave before I’ve made any pills.”

He laughed uproariously at that. “Bought a few peonies, did you? Fine, I’ll give you ten silver to fuck off.”

“Hmm, I believe it was twelve peonies, twelve astragalus roots, and twelve schisandra berries. I don’t actually know what the price would be, but it’s certainly more than ten silver.”

He didn’t respond for a moment. He just looked at me. He was using his own qi vision to gauge my cultivation level. Finally, he burst into laughter once more. “You aren’t even a cultivator, and you think you can make Superior Qi Gathering Pills? You’re just making a fool out of yourself. Come on, SuYin, let’s leave this loser.”

“Alchemist Gou,” she began to look worried. “I have to guide Alchemist Su. If you need assistance, another attendant can help you.”

“He isn’t an alchemist!” Gou shouted. “I bet this time next week he will be coming back here having wasted all his money and begging for free herbs. Enough of him.”

SuYin appeared to become more frantic as the conversation continued, so I decided to step in.

“Fine,” I said, “I’ll take the bet, what is your wager?”

“What?” Gou laughed.

“You wanted to make a bet. I’ll bet. What’s the wager?”

He gave me a sinister look. “If you don’t bring back a single pill, get the hell out of the Pavilion and never come back.”

“Oh?” I asked surprised. “Alright, I can accept that. In one week, we will meet back here, and if I don’t have a single pill I will leave and never enter any Blue Wind Pavilion location again in my life. If I do bring one, then you leave and never enter another Pavilion in your life. Sounds like a good bet to me.”

“What?” Gou asked shocked. “How dare you say that!”

“Sorry,” I said, putting on a concerned expression, “isn’t that the bet you wanted?”

“Hmpf, I’m not going to be banished just because you go out on the street and buy some third-rate junk pill.”

“Ah, yes,” I said nodding my head, “I understand. So, what bet do you propose.”

Amazingly, Gou stopped to think about his answer. He must have considered that I could have at least some level of skill if I was willing to bet with him. “Fine,” he said, “you bought twelve sets, I will buy twelve too. Whoever makes the better pill wins, and you fuck off.”

“So, to be clear,” I asked with a calm voice, “we both buy twelve sets. In one week we return and hand over all the pills we have made from those ingredients. Whoever’s pills have the greatest value wins, and the loser is banished from all Blue Wind Pavilion locations for the rest of their life. Is this correct?”

“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth.

“SuYin,” I said, turning to her, “will the Pavilion serve as guarantor for this bet?”

“The Blue Wind Pavilion does not provide any such service concerning non-members,” she said, regaining a bit of poise.

“That’s a shame,” I shook my head. “Very well,” I looked at the middle-aged man who had been standing there stoically observing. “You are his master, right? Will you serve as guarantor for our little bet?”

“How dare you speak to Master Zhong like that!” Gou shouted.

“My apologies, Master Zhong,” I said with a solemn smile. “Gougou, Master Zhong is your master, right?”

“What did you call me?” he snarled.

“Huh? What?” I asked confused. “You’re Master Zhong’s disciple, right? He is a Grandmaster Alchemist?”

At this Master Zhong snorted, but it was Gou that replied. “Do you think Grandmasters are cabbages you pick up by the side of the road? Master Zhong is an honored Master Alchemist, and you should show proper respect.”

“Of course,” I bowed to Master Zhong. “As an honored Master Alchemist, Master Zhong can be trusted to be the guarantor of our bet. Agreed?”

Gou looked to Zhong, and Zhong just nodded. “Fine!” he said, “this time next week. I’m looking forward to whatever trash pills you bring back!”

“See you then,” I said with a smile. “SuYin, please show me around a bit more.”

I gave her a small shove to get her moving and guided her to the stairwell. Gou was staring daggers at me the entire time, but inside the Pavilion, he didn’t dare make a move.

While Gougou was a twerp, and, giving him the benefit of the doubt, could have been strongly influenced by his cultivation technique, putting him down would help me establish myself in the Pavilion. When I was searching for a way to do just that, Gougou came and delivered me coal in winter. I needed to thank him in the future.

Before I could push him down, I needed to prepare, so I left SuYin and returned to my apartment.

I wanted to deliver pills with greater than 100% efficacy, but the ingredients of Qi Gathering Pills all contained wood energy, which I couldn’t enhance at the moment. Instead, I would just have to deliver twelve Perfect pills with 100% efficacy. I left open the possibility of Gougou cheating with the help of his master, and I wasn’t sure what he would be able to produce, but based on their reverence for Grandmaster Alchemists, I doubted it would be anything special.

Before I got started, I needed to advance my cultivation. I could make some pills as a Martial Disciple 1, but achieving the quality and quantity needed would be difficult.

My first target was my lower right arm. I began to fill the muscles of my thumb, index finger, and middle finger with fire qi, and I filled my ring and pinky fingers with wood qi. Continuing up my hand and into my forearm, the muscles on the left received fire qi while those on the right received wood qi. This division wasn’t completely balanced, and I ended up with more fire qi than wood qi, but that would be balanced out by flipping the muscle groups when I worked on my left arm.

As I pulled in qi, my arm began to feel dirtier and dirtier, like I had submerged it in pond scum. This was because of the buildup of impurities from using a Mid-Yellow level qi filter. Once I reached my limit, I popped both fire and wood qi purifying pills into my mouth to begin cleansing my qi. As the impurities left, I pulled in new qi to fill the voids. The impurities in the new qi were then expelled and I continued the cycle of cultivating and purifying.

Even with this new technique, cultivating to Martial Disciple 2 was simple, but I still took the process slowly and observed every step of the process. I needed to gain a true understanding of how cultivation affected my body. In total, it took me four days to break through. For most people, that might have resulted in a rushed and shoddy advancement, but I made sure to reach the pinnacle of what was possible with this Mid-Profound technique.

I had four years until qi stagnation began. I could run up to Martial Master in less than one, and I would have very few side effects, but I wanted to take it slow instead. I would give myself three years to advance to Master. That would allow me sufficient time to understand the changes in my body at a deeper level. I needed to reach Martial King, but I had 120 years. I could afford to spend three here to prepare.

Having reached Martial Disciple 2, I left my cultivation room and returned to the sitting room.

With qi to support me, concocting a dozen Rank 1 pills was no longer a concern, so I put that to the back of my mind. Instead, having access to wood qi for the first time, I wanted to see what I could do.

I had a few martial arts that involved using wood qi, but they would be difficult to practice inside my apartment. They almost all involved using plants in the environment as tools to attack or defend. The ones that didn’t use environmental plants used seeds or other plant life carried by the cultivator. Such techniques seemed limiting, but techniques with more stringent requirements should produce superior results.

I went to my bedroom and picked up a few of the flowers there. Channeling wood qi, I began practicing twisting and shaping them. Whenever my qi ran low, I cultivated to restore it.

“So, where do you want it?” a burly, well-tanned man asked.

After practicing all I could with the flowers, I needed something more, so I went out shopping and purchased a long flowerbed for my room. I didn’t have a balcony, but I had ample windows, so I could only hope it would be enough.

“Over there,” I said, pointing to the sitting room wall.

“You sure?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, “This is a nice room, and even if you’re careful, it’ll get dirty in here.”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of it, don’t worry.” The floors were all hardwood, so a broom and dustpan could take care of a little dirt.

“Your call,” he said, waving to a couple of guys in the hallway.

They worked together to bring in a long flowerbed made of thick wood. Looking at it, I was impressed at their ability to maneuver it around tight corners. Then, after putting it in place, they made several trips to bring up bags of potting soil for it.

All of this was done through the warehouse entrance on the bottom level, so on each trip, they were climbing up and down four sets of stairs, but they never complained, at least not in front of me.

“Thanks for your work,” I said, giving each many a hearty handshake. Tipping wasn’t a custom here, but they did an excellent job, so I slipped them each a few extra silver.

The leader grinned at me happily. “Let us know if you got any more work for us. Always happy to help.”

“Will do!”

I led the men out of the Pavilion and waved goodbye. After that, I grabbed some seeds and got to planting.

The herbalism techniques I had studied in my last life were all very basic, but they included ways to encourage plant growth. Since I was only working with mortal plants, not spiritual herbs, I needed to be sparing in qi usage because they couldn’t handle much. I planted both seeds and a few young shoots and spent an entire day playing with them.

On the evening of my sixth day in the Pavilion, SuYin came to see me.

“How is it? Are you ready?” she asked with a face of nervous concern.

“Sorry, what?” I was confused.

“The bet? How did your pills turn out?”

“Ah, the pills,” I said, suddenly remembering Gougou. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that. I’ll have them ready tomorrow.”

“What!? You… you haven’t started?” She looked panicked.

“No worries, I got this.” I was trying to be reassuring, but I don’t think it helped.

Chapter 62 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

Why was I so blasé about my bet with Gougou? Even if I could make Perfect Rank 1 pills relatively easily, making a dozen in a single night as only a Martial Disciple 2 would be challenging, wouldn’t it? Normally, maybe, but I had a secret ace. Spirit Fire Seed Mastery.

After purchasing mastery over the Cold Mountain Fire, I gained insights and ideas I hadn’t even imagined before. One of the first things I did with it was infuse my body with the spirit flame to mimic the way most people used spirit fires. It would be completely dormant most of the time, and I would never consider using it when concocting pills privately, but if someone examined me, or I needed to perform some public alchemy, it was waiting there for others to see.

I also learned that, since it was a Yellow rank spirit fire, it would have limited effects on concocting a pill above the Grandmaster level. Ruler tier pills needed Profound rank spirit fires. However, if I could reach six-star earth and water affinity, and I pumped in enough fire qi, the Cold Mountain Fire would be good enough for any Rank 4, Lord-level, pill. The affinities were a small problem, but it was fixable. To become a Pill King, I needed to look into getting a more powerful fire seed.

Roadblocks kept appearing in my quest for a spatial fire seed, and a Profound seed for alchemy purposes was just one more, but the seed I wanted being held by a Formation Emperor let me be confident that it would all be worth it in the end.

In the evening, there was no one on staff on the workshop floor, but members were still allowed to use the workshops. I picked an open room at random and went inside.

The cauldrons provided by the Pavilion were all top-notch. They were a step above what I had in the sect, and I even noticed formation markings on them, but I didn’t know what that was for. I had never used formations in alchemy before, so I left them alone.

Taking the first set of ingredients, I chucked them all into the cauldron without a care. I didn’t need to start a fire or heat it up. I didn’t really even need the cauldron. I just needed something to help contain the medicinal energy as I worked.

I blasted out a wave of spirit fire, and in a second all the exposed toxins were gone on all three ingredients. Then, I used my wood affinity to peel open the medicinal energy, careful not to damage its structure, and expose the final bits of toxic energy. After a small wisp of fire qi, the herbs were completely cleansed.

Before combining them, I spent a little time examining each herb. My qi vision had improved since the last time I studied low-level herbs, and I wanted to see if I could find anything new. I noticed small areas where the medicinal energy’s structure was not quite right. I hadn’t tried it before, but I reached out with my wood affinity and attempted to massage those areas back into perfect form. It didn’t work quite right, but the energy seemed to be slightly better. This experiment gave me a new avenue to look into for improving my Rank 1 alchemy, which was very gratifying.

Worried that I would cause damage if I tried to do more, I merged the three energies and compressed them into a pill. It was a Perfect pill with 100.1% standard efficacy. Fixing those small imperfections might lead to only a small boost, but to me, any improvement was worth the effort.

“Hey Gougou,” I said as I met the group at the alchemy floor’s receptionist desk.

“What did you call me?” he growled, his forehead turning black.

“Huh? What?” I asked. “Ready for the judging?”

“Yes!” he snapped.

“Great. Who’s going to be our judge?”

“I will,” said Master Zhong with an imperious voice.

“Lovely,” I smiled, “Why don’t you go first Gougou?”

“Here!” he shouted, slamming pill bottles onto the counter. “Eight Superior Qi Gathering Pills.”

Master Zhong picked them up one by one and examined them. “Five Mid-Quality, Three High-Quality. All have an efficacy above 85%, with some breaking the 90% mark. Extremely fine work for a Disciple Alchemist,” he praised.

Gougou glared at me and snorted. “Give up now?”

“En, your pills are quite good, but I think we should get mine appraised first. It’s only fair, right?”

“Present your pills,” said Master Zhong before Gougou could speak again.

I placed twelve pill bottles on the counter, and Master Zhong’s face darkened. He opened the first and examined it closely before returning it to the bottle. On the second pill, he spent twice as much time examining it. After the third pill, he stopped.

“I declare Alchemist Gou the winner of this competition. As guarantor of the bet, I announce Martial Disciple Su banished from the Blue Wind Pavilion.” After this pronouncement, he knocked all my pill bottles onto the floor.

Gougou began laughing nastily. “Fool. If you don’t have the ability, don’t make a bet. Get Out!”

“Oh? I lost?” I asked. “That’s surprising. That’s your official judgment as a Guest Master Alchemist of the Blue Wind Pavilion?”

“Yes,” Master Zhong said in a firm voice. “This competition is over.”

Suddenly, a voice sounded from the stairwell. “A competition, is it? Sounds interesting. Tell me about it.”

WuJing walked out of the stairwell and smiled at everyone.

“Manager Chen,” said Master Zhong. “This disciple agreed to a bet and lost. As such, he has agreed to be banished from all Blue Wind Pavilions. I was simply announcing the final results.”

“I see,” said WuJing in a concerned voice as he slowly nodded his head. “This was an alchemy competition and he presented pills of lower quality? That would indeed be a loss.”

“His pills made it clear that he is no alchemist,” confirmed Master Zhong.

WuJing turned to me. “Well, what do you have to say? Are you leaving?”

“If that’s his official and unbiased judgment as a Guest Master Alchemist of the Blue Wind Pavilion, I have no choice.”

“Indeed,” agreed WuJing, looking back at Master Zhong.

Everyone stood there for several moments, no one willing to be the first to move.

Master Zhong’s face darkened further, and a frown crept onto his face, but he didn’t say any more.

“Well,” said WuJing eventually, “since we are all here, I may as well take a look at the pills these two concocted. What do you say?”

“It’s not necessary,” I interjected before anyone else could reply. “Master Zhong is clearly unbiased in his decisions, so I must have lost.”

“Nonsense,” said WuJing, “I wouldn’t dare question the Master, but I would like to see what you two are capable of.”

Without waiting for a response, WuJing stepped over and started looking through Gougou’s pills. After reviewing them all, he nodded. “With twelve sets of ingredients, you concocted one pill we can sell in the Pavilion. Not bad for your age. With hard work, you may have a future.”

“Thank you, Manager Chen,” Gougou said with a smirk and a bow.

“Hmm, Alchemist Su’s pills seemed to have fallen onto the floor.” WuJing bent down and picked up a pill bottle. He examined the pill, returned it, and placed the bottle carefully on the reception desk.

He slowly examined one pill after another. After the last one was placed back down, he spoke again. “I see. Quite interesting.”

Again, we all stood there for several moments without anyone willing to move. This time, it was Gougou who broke the silence.

“Do you need someone to show you the way? Get out!”

I smiled at him.

“Master Zhong?” asked WuJing, allowing the other man to begin. When he didn’t speak, WuJing continued. “What was the bet, exactly?”

Master Zhong cleared his throat. “Each person was to take twelve ingredients. They were to return the pills concocted with those ingredients and the person whose pills had the higher total value would win.”

“And?” asked WuJing.

“Disciple Su violated the rules and did not return pills made with the ingredients he was given.”

“Really? Why do you say that?”

“These couldn’t possibly have been made with normal herbs. He must have had a Master Alchemist concoct them using herbalist-grown ones. That is my official judgment as the officiator of this competition.”

“Hmm. And you want to banish a member of the Blue Wind Pavilion based on that judgment?” WuJing’s voice turned a little cold.

“No… no,” said Zhong, his eyes widening. “He agreed to the bet and cheated. I do not wish to banish him, that is what he agreed to.”

“Su Fang. Did you cheat?” WuJing glanced at me.

“No,” I smiled.

“Bullshit!” screamed Zhong, his composure finally breaking. “I couldn’t have made pills of that quality with even the best herbs. There is no way some yellow-haired brat could!”

WuJing nodded with a straight face. “Alchemist Su, how should we handle this?”

“In Master Zhong’s fair and unbiased opinion, there is no way I could have made these pills with the herbs provided,” I said, stroking my chin thoughtfully. “I could make another one in front of everyone.”

“What?” growled Zhong.

“I could, but then, where would I put my face?” I asked with an honest expression. “To ask a member of the Blue Wind Pavilion to prove his honesty? That’s not just slapping my face, but the face of the Pavilion. I think Manager Chen should make a decision for me here.”

WuJing considered, then looked at Zhong. “You stake your reputation on the fact that it is impossible for Alchemist Su to concoct these pills with normal ingredients?”

At this point, Zhong was in a tight spot, but he was already riding a tiger. “Yes,” he finally said.

“Great, that makes things simple,” smiled WuJing. “Su Fang, you will be given one set of ingredients. Concoct a Perfect pill with more than 100% standard efficacy or you will be expelled from the Pavilion. If you are successful, Alchemist Zhong will lose his position as guest alchemist.”

“Understood,” I said with a bow. Zhong’s face contorted in rage.

We waited as YuLin left and gathered ingredients. When she returned, everyone followed me to the room I had used the previous night.

“How dare you use Master Zhong’s workshop!” shouted Gougou.

I glanced at him, then looked at WuJing. “Are the workshops reserved for certain people? I wasn’t aware. There are no signs.”

“No,” said WuJing, shaking his head. “Workshops can be used by anyone.”

“Interesting.” I didn’t look back again.

After entering the room, I walked up to the cauldron, and everyone else circled around. Deciding not to use my spirit fire, I lit the burner below the cauldron and began heating it. I put on a show of being a perfectly normal Disciple Alchemist.

Once I was ready, I chucked everything in at once.

Gougou began laughing. “He doesn’t even know how to make a simple pill!”

I turned and gave him a look of pity.

Without wasting time, I melted the ingredients and burned off the toxins. Then, I carefully exacted the small bits remaining in each herb. Finally, I tried once more to heal the energies and enhance their efficacy.

Once my pill was finished, I examined it. Perfect pill, 100.3% standard efficacy. I was getting better.

I didn’t remove the pill from the cauldron. Instead, I let WuJing do the honors to ensure everything was above board.

“As guarantor of this competition,” said WuJing, “I announce Alchemist Su as the winner. Master Zhong will be stripped of his guest alchemist title and Alchemist Gou is hereby banished from all Blue Wind Pavilion locations.”

“WHAT!” shouted Gougou.

“You can’t do that!” shouted Zhong, “My uncle—”

“Please contact him for me,” said WuJing with a smile, “I’ll be happy to explain everything and let him decide on the appropriate course of action.”

Zhong and Gougou both tried to speak again, but WuJing looked at me.

“Shall we talk in my office?” he asked.

“Sure,” I grinned.

“His uncle might cause you problems, you know?” said WuJing once we were alone.

“Yeah, I know,” I said shaking my head, “but I still feel that was the right way to handle it. I needed to quickly establish my prestige here, and those two offered themselves up freely.”

“You aren’t wrong, but just be careful. Zhong is a Martial Master, and his uncle is a Grandmaster. They’ll probably send Gou after you first since his cultivation is a bit higher than yours, but if you beat him up, they’ll just keep coming. Without a Grandmaster’s protection, you won’t last forever.”

I sighed. “Nothing is ever easy. Hiring a Grandmaster bodyguard long-term isn’t an option for me at the moment. Can the Pavilion provide protection if I need to go out?”

“Yeah, but it still costs. Your pills are the best I’ve seen from a Disciple Alchemist, but that won’t be enough to afford a Grandmaster.”

I considered for a bit. “I should be able to make Rank 2 pills in small quantities. It will be difficult with my limited qi pool, but I might be able to manage it. By the mid-Disciple levels, it will certainly be possible. I plan to take my time advancing, but worst case, I’ll just hole up in the Pavilion for a year or two.”

WuJing tapped his fingers on his armrest. “There is another angle to consider here. We’ve just expelled one of the few on-call Master Alchemists we had at this branch. No one should blame you for it, but they might. If we can’t fulfill orders because Zhong is gone, there will be trouble.”

“I can cover anything for Rank 1,” I said with confidence. “Rank 2 will be trickier, but if something urgent comes up, I have ways to handle it if absolutely necessary, but I would rather not use them. Let others handle what they can, but if something is about to slip through, I’ll take care of it.”

WuJing gave me a serious look, then nodded his head sharply.

Chapter 63 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

After dealing with Gougou, I focused inward and spent the next three months in near seclusion. While I did walk around the Pavilion a bit to talk with Mei, SuYin, YuLin, and others, my focus was on cultivation.

My original plan had been to spend three or four months at each level, slowly comprehend the dual-element technique, and then advance to the next. However, every day I became more and more dissatisfied with this dual-element technique. For all that it was labeled Mid-Profound, it was a piece of garbage.

The qi purity generated when cultivating it was terrible. At the level I was used to working at, the slightest burr in my qi could cause significant damage to my ingredients. I was used to a nice, smooth, laminar flow of qi that I could use to delicately cleanse each herb. With this cultivation technique, I was taking purifying pills daily to maintain a bare semblance of pure qi. While I had concocted countless pills for the Pavilion, my bank account was rather barren because of all the purifying pills I had to take.

The second problem was also something I expected but still hated. I couldn’t store nearly as much qi of a single type when using this technique. My total storage capacity remained the same, but now it was divided in two, so I was having to return to my apartment and cultivate to restore my qi far more often than I liked. This wouldn’t have been too much of a problem, though, if it weren’t for the last problem.

The way the qi filter and whirlpool affected cultivating to restore spent qi was atrocious. When I needed both fire and wood qi, I could cultivate at what I deemed a normal rate, but if my wood qi was full and I only needed fire qi, my cultivation speed plummeted. It wasn’t just a matter of only pulling in half the total possible. No, the wood qi would clog up the filter, only allowing trickles of fire qi through.

Overall, this cultivation technique was shockingly bad. Yes, it allowed for two types of qi to be cultivated, but the final effect was far worse than the Peak-Yellow technique I had been using. Before I moved on, I had to do something about this rotten technique.

The first problem was straightforward. Upgrade the qi filter. I wasn’t sure how yet, but I had plenty of references to work from.

The second problem was trickier. I essentially needed to increase my total qi reserves, but how? Remembering the effects of some of the other Profound rank techniques I had read, I began studying them more closely. That is where I found my solution to all three problems at once.

I had three techniques that all claimed to improve ‘qi density.’ They were all slightly different, but they seemed to function on the same basic premise. Open more acupoints, pull in qi from more places, and use the additional forces to compress the qi. The total benefit was minor, so they were only considered Low-Profound techniques, but the theory behind them was far more powerful.

Combining these techniques, I identified dozens of additional acupoints around my body that I had never used before. There were potentially even more, but I could wait to study that later. I needed to take one step at a time.

“System, if I create a temporary reset point here but never use it, will that affect the price or doubling effect if I move it forward in the future?” I asked before beginning.

No, however, all credits spent to create a point here will be lost.

“Great. Make me a temporary point right here.”

Confirmed. Cost 18,675 credits. 53,325 credits remaining

That was potentially a waste of credits, but it made sure that I wouldn’t be wasting everything I spent on temporary upgrades if this all went completely sideways.

I began cultivating in my lower left arm. Instead of one large qi whirlpool, I made a dozen of them with half the normal diameter at each of the acupoints I had identified. Then, I didn’t create a single complex qi filter to handle both elements. Instead, I copied the single element Peak-Yellow filters and placed the appropriate one at each point. After that, it was a matter of directing the qi from each acupoint into the right muscle groups.

As I cultivated, the qi drawn from the various acupoints began to interfere with each other. I scaled down the whirlpools to a third of their normal size, and that problem disappeared. I wasn’t too happy with the size limitation. Twelve whirlpools with a third of the normal diameter only had slightly more surface area than one large one. It was significantly more workload for a marginal improvement in cultivation speed.

This, I realized, was likely a big reason these techniques were only Low-Profound. The huge increase in complexity for marginal improvements was a tradeoff few would be willing to make, but it had untold benefits for multi-element cultivation. My fire and wood affinities were both high enough that I could handle directly cultivating in this way, and once I advanced in rank, these changes would be locked in through automatic cultivation.

I examined my energy body with qi vision. The qi filters were working perfectly, and my body was only absorbing perfectly pure fire or wood qi. I stopped cultivating wood qi, and because of the reduced interference, the speed I was cultivating fire qi increased.

When I looked at the rest of my body, I was shocked by the changes. The regular flow of qi throughout my body had become turbulent. The small but clean streams that naturally circulated around my body were instead a swampy morass.

I had come to realize that these energy flows were what caused the mental changes in cultivators, and one of the big reasons people who rushed their cultivation had problems was that these flows became unstable. I had no idea what kind of mental effect this technique I had created would have, but it was clearly in conflict with the one I had chosen for myself earlier.

I stopped cultivating and expelled all the qi from my left arm. After a solid day, the energy flows in my body slowly returned to normal.

I began a laborious process of adjusting the cultivation technique. I had to individually tweak the size, angle, and speed of each separate whirlpool. I started with a very low cultivation speed to cause as little disruption as possible in my qi flow, but even still, after less than an hour of work, my body would be completely disordered, and I would have to stop for the day.

It took me an entire year to perfect the cultivation in my left arm. When I was satisfied, I locked it into place and broke through to Martial Disciple 3. After that, I purged all the impurities in my right arm, dispersed my qi, and crippled my cultivation. Using a mirror image of my left arm, I then implemented the same cultivation technique in my right, fully stepping into Disciple 3 with my new technique.

At that moment, an alarm sounded in my mind.

System Alert: A novel cultivation technique has been created. Please name your technique.

“The Focused Hearth Fire Mantra,” I said. I hadn’t been prepared for this, so I had to come up with a name on the spot. I did my best to combine the effects with wood and fire, but well…

The Focused Hearth Fire Mantra. Rating beyond Peak-Profound Rank 1 Wood-Fire Cultivation Technique. Would you like to submit this technique to the Dao?

What was happening? I had no idea, but I would play it out.

“Yes.”

Submission Successful. Contribution Confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 20,000 credits.

Note: Profound Rank 1 techniques will no longer qualify you for further discounts.

That was… surprising. It wasn’t much, but it was essentially ten thousand free credits, and it was the first time I had found a way to earn them besides dying. Creating higher ranked techniques should reward exponentially more credits, too.

As I was thinking about credit gains, my mind suddenly felt like it had been struck by lightning. Information poured into me. Various abstractions about how to further refine my technique culminated in a complete, detailed cultivation technique with all the positions and adjustments for each acupoint at every stage of Martial Disciple. My reward, it seemed, was far more than a few credits. While I could have deduced this all myself, what would have taken me years was provided by the Dao in an instant.

Comparing my implanted knowledge to my previous efforts, the acupoints in my arms looked all wrong. There were dozens of small details I hadn’t hit exactly right. I dispersed my cultivation and began once more.

When I finally ended my seclusion, I was still only Martial Disciple 3. I had been locked away for nearly a year and a half, but my gains had been worth it. From here, I could slowly increase my cultivation by one step every other month. I was confident in my new technique, but I wanted to slowly adapt to it.

I walked through the Pavilion in high spirits. My new technique and improved cultivation base promised a bright future ahead. From the second level, I looked down on the shop floor and just smiled as I watched the masses shopping. After a while, I headed toward the commissary where Pavilion employees could eat during the day. As I was walking, a somewhat haggard WuJing approached me.

“Fang!” he said in relief, before studying me, “Martial Disciple 3? You’ve only advanced to Disciple 3 in over a year!?”

“Hello, WuJing,” I said with a steady voice. “Yes, however, I completed what I needed. I’m ready to begin advancing further and faster now.”

WuJing shook his head, crestfallen. “Even if you can, it may be too late. We just received an urgent request from the Su Clan. The patriarch has placed an order for several pills, and it’s unlikely we will be able to meet his request without ordering them from another branch. This is normal and shouldn’t be a problem, but one of the deputy managers is claiming that if Zhong were still here, we could have fulfilled it immediately. He’s stirring up trouble.”

“Could Zhong have completed the order?” I asked, interested.

“By himself, no, but he could pull in connections to do it. He wouldn’t have if he was still here, but since he isn’t, some people are saying he could have.”

“I see. What pills are needed, and what is the time frame?”

WuJing handed me a sheet of paper and I looked at it. Nothing was higher than Rank 2, but the purity and efficacy requirements were intense. Also, there were several pills I hadn’t seen before that required rare ingredients, meaning they were potential money pits for an alchemist.

“He wants them by the end of the week,” said WuJing, shaking his head. “We have two Masters in the city, but they can’t do this quality, so we either have to order from outside the Wastes or try to source them from the Twin Mountains Sect. Neither option is good. Going outside means huge expenses, and going to the sect for this devalues the Pavilion. Again, either would be normal in this situation—”

“But people are causing trouble,” I said, cutting him off. “I got it. Send me the ingredients and I’ll get started right away. End of the week is a tight timeline, but I’ll do my best.”

WuJing eyes widened. “Are you serious? You’re only a Disciple…”

“Deadly,” I smiled wolfishly. “Just get me the ingredients and I’ll make sure you have your pills. Though, it would be best if you included a substantial number of herbs for Rank 1 Qi Recovery Pills. I’ll probably need them to meet this deadline.”

The list WuJing provided me contained a combination of Rank 1 and 2 pills. Beyond the quality of pills required, the quantity was also substantial.

I began by knocking out all the low-hanging fruit. The Rank 1 pills were almost all easily dealt with. For the herbs with wood, water, or metal energy, I quickly and efficiently burned out the toxins and formed the pills. All were Perfect with around 102% of standard efficacy. There weren’t many pills that required earth or fire herbs, but I was able to use fire or wood qi with the techniques I knew to boost those all the way to at least 121% of standard efficacy as Perfect pills.

The only Rank 1 pill that tripped me up required an extremely rare herb with energy I hadn’t seen before. Comparing it to my memories from the attack on the Twin Mountain Sect, I realized it must be lightning energy. I didn’t have any lightning affinity, so I couldn’t improve or perfect the pill, but I was still able to concoct it as a High-Purity pill with 99% of standard efficacy.

Staring at the completed pill, I tapped my fingers. “I’m going to have to move beyond the basic elements,” I told myself. It wasn’t vital yet, and it would cost, but it would need to be done.

With the Rank 1 pills completed, I moved on to the Rank 2 ones. These would be significantly more challenging with my low qi levels, but with my fire seed mastery, I knew it should be possible. Instead of focusing on herb type, I paid more attention to the prevailing energy in the toxins. Targeting the herbs with mostly water toxins first, I got to work.

With peak seven-star earth and water affinities, the Cold Mountain Fire was a joy to work with. I didn’t have to use any qi at all. I just opened my soul, and it poured out exactly when and where I wanted. My qi vision had advanced enough to see through Rank 2 herbs, and with my higher affinities, I gently opened up the medicinal energy to eradicate all the small traces of toxins.

Where I could, I used my fire or wood qi to enhance a pill, but I couldn’t inject enough qi to push them past 105% of standard efficacy. Instead, I was much more successful using the energy from the spirit fire to boost pills.

The Cold Mountain Fire was more than 90% earth energy with the rest being water energy. I used my affinities to separate the two, then I sent the earth energy to enhance metal herbs and the water energy to enhance wood herbs. Where I used earth, the pills were raised to around 115% efficacy, and where I used water, they were raised to around 104%. The water boost wasn’t amazing, but it was far better than nothing.

With this new experience, I wanted to go back and redo the Rank 1 pills, but unfortunately, that wasn’t an option.

Where the Cold Mountain Fire was less effective, such as metal toxins, I had to use copious amounts of qi, and I burned through several qi recovery pills to get everything done in time, but by the end of the week, the order was complete.

While the order had stated minimums, there was no maximum acceptable quality. The Su Clan implicitly agreed to buy the highest quality pills produced with the provided ingredients. Normally, they would be overjoyed to receive such high-quality pills, but I hoped WuJing would take advantage of the situation to milk them for as much as he could.

Chapter 64 – Life 60, Age 17, Martial Disciple 3

After handing over all the pills to a beaming WuJing, I went to find SuYin.

“Hey!” I said when I saw her on the shop floor. “Can you help me out? I want to study some techniques.”

“Just go up to the library,” she said, her face showing confusion at my request.

“The what?” While I had lived in the Pavilion for well over a year, almost all that time was spent focusing on my cultivation technique. I didn’t even think to resume my previously cut-short tour.

“Come on,” she sighed, leading me to the stairway. As she did, she began to explain. “The fifth floor is the workshop, the sixth is the library, and the seventh just has a few meeting rooms. That’s where we hold important events, such as large meetings with the heads of different branches. The seventh is rarely used here, but we still have to maintain it. Anyway, we just need to go to the sixth.”

Once we had tromped back up the stairs, SuYin brought me to a large library not too dissimilar to those in the sect, but instead of tables in the middle of the hall, the Pavilion had small reading rooms around the perimeter, and large wooden bookshelves filled the entire space. There were no windows on this floor, and lighting was provided only by softly glowing orbs.

“You can flip through anything you want on the floor, but to study a manual you need to register it with the librarian, and she will charge it to your account. If you want something that isn’t here, such as a higher-grade manual, talk to the librarian. If this branch has it, she will check your contribution to see if you are allowed to view it. If we don’t, she can requisition it from the main branch, but that requires substantially more contribution.”

I nodded. “Thanks. What about herbalist and wood qi techniques? Where would I find those?”

SuYin smiled wistfully at that question. “Let me show you.”

She brought me to a section of the library dedicated to plants. There, she gently ran her fingers across the spines of several books. “Here they are,” she said in a soft voice, “everything you could want to know about growing plants.”

I wasn’t great with people. I had spent centuries alone in a shed in the past avoiding them, but even I could pick up on some clues.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing.” She looked down and shook her head. “It’s just… My parents are farmers. Most people in these parts are, you know? I just imagine what this kind of knowledge could do for them.”

“You can’t buy it and send it to them?”

“I could,” she gave a wry laugh, “but no one in my family can cultivate. No one has any affinities, so it wouldn’t do any good even if I did. That’s how it is, you know? Most of us are just hanging on. Waiting for someone to get a blessing that can help.”

We just stood there for a moment.

SuYin finally shook her head. “Sorry… I… I need to go.” Without looking back, she walked away.

I headed toward the stairs too. Not to follow, but because I was no longer in the mood to study. I headed down to the second floor where there were some break rooms I could relax in. After I had been sitting and thinking for several minutes, a young woman walked in front of me.

“Come on,” said Mei, “follow me.”

Mei led me down the stairs to the warehouse floor and out the side entrance I had used my first life here.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “no Grandmaster is going to jump out at you this close to the Pavilion. We’re safe.”

I had assumed so, but I was still nervous about Master Zhong’s uncle finding trouble with me too early.

Mei took me to a small apartment building behind the Pavilion. It had a similar aesthetic, but the smaller size and reduced ornamentation made it feel significantly less ostentatious. We went up to the fourth floor, and she guided me into a room.

“Welcome to my apartment,” she said, gesturing to a small sofa. “Take a seat.”

Mei’s apartment was incredibly well decorated, and it put my paltry efforts to shame. There was no gilding or expensive ornamentation, but tastefully subdued wooden carvings were spread around the room. The sitting room had a large balcony, but it opened onto the side of the building facing the Pavilion, so the view was blocked, and little light could come in.

After I sat, Mei quietly made a pot of tea and placed it on a coffee table in the middle of the chairs. She poured two cups and began drinking without saying a word. The entire time, I was worried about what was happening and why she suddenly brought me here.

After finishing her cup, she set it down and began talking.

“You know about my blessing,” she said with a subdued but firm tone. “I don’t know how much you know about how it works, but I know you know what it is.”

I nodded. “Yes, I do.” She hadn’t explained it in this loop, but WuJing had told me the first time we met. She gained knowledge about the best way to act to gain the most benefit in any situation. To me, this made her both the most and least trustworthy person I knew. I had a firm belief that my blessing would always give her the most benefit, so I believed she would never risk betraying me, but I could never trust the intentions behind her actions.

“It doesn’t tell me the words to say, and it doesn’t let me read minds,” she said, looking at her empty cup with a downcast expression. “It just guides me on how to behave. I don’t know the reason why I should act the way I do. I just know that is what I am supposed to do. I’ve become so accustomed to it that it has become natural. Right now, my blessing is guiding me to act vulnerable and afraid. I don’t even know how I would naturally behave in this situation anymore.”

Even hearing her say it, I still felt a need to protect her, to help her. I could not let emotions control me around this woman.

“I didn’t bring you here to talk about me, though. We are here to talk about little Yin. Do you know about her blessing, too?” she asked.

“No, only yours and WuJing’s,” I said with a slight head shake.

“Her blessing gave her a good memory. It’s nice, it helps her in the Pavilion. She can perfectly remember anything you tell her, and she is especially good at remembering and recording diagrams and such, but that’s about it. Like me, she has no affinities and will never be able to cultivate. She is just a girl with a good memory.”

We sat in silence for a bit, but finally, I looked at Mei. “And? There is a reason to say this, right?”

“I’m sure there is,” she said with a wry smile, “but I’m just supposed to bring you here, act vulnerable, tell you what I want about Yin, and let you decide.”

“Alright,” I said, firming up my mind, “Anything else to say about her?”

“Just… I don’t know if the way you handled Gou and Master Zhong will be good for her. She is from a poor family, most of the attendants are. Working here, we have a chance, but Pavilion Attendant is a job for the young. We trade our youth for the hope of a better future. SuYin might not have liked Gou, but I don’t know if she will be able to find anything better, especially now.”

I sipped my tea without responding. I knew what I was being pushed to do. I knew what Mei’s blessing was asking for. But… did I want to do it? Even if I didn’t change every future for them, I could give them a single life…

“Mei,” I said with a mirthless chuckle, “you can give people advice on how to act through your blessing, right? Do you just tell people how you yourself are supposed to act, or is it how they should act?”

“It’s…” she began before stopping to think. “It’s a bit of both. I feel how I am supposed to tell them to act if that makes sense.”

“Yes,” I sighed. “So, what does your blessing say? Should I do it?”

“It’s your choice,” she said shaking her head. “I’m not supposed to tell you either way.”

“Alright,” I said, making my decision. “Choose. I know what SuYin wants. What do you want?”

I didn’t tell her the question. I wanted to test her blessing’s power. If she was telling the truth, she had to combine what it told her with her own powerful intuition to know exactly what was happening.

“Anything?” she asked, looking me in the eye.

“Sure, anything,” I smiled.

“Wind. If I could choose anything, it would be wind,” she said with a smile before shaking her head. “Too bad it’s the wrong answer.” She paused another moment, then looked at me. “Water. I guess it has to be water.”

Was that all to get me to look for wind qi cultivation techniques? I was going to do that anyway.

“System,” I subvocalized so Mei couldn’t hear me, “how much to give Mei a temporary low eight-star water affinity and SuYin the same thing for wood?”

Temporary Low, 8-star Water and Wood Affinities for Mei and SuYin. Cost 520 credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 260 credits.

I laughed quietly. Well, if this was going to burn my discount anyway, I might as well play big.

“How much is a wind affinity?”

Temporary Low, 8-star Wind Affinity. Cost 2,600 credits.

So, ten times the price of the basic elements?

“Alright, System, give them both mid seven-star affinities and give Mei a mid eight-star wind affinity.

Temporary Mid, 7-star Water and Wood Affinities for Mei and SuYin, and Temporary Mid 8-star Wind Affinity for Mei. Cost 15,620 credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 7,810 credits. Purchase Confirmed. 45,515 credits remaining.

Was it a smart move? I don’t know. Credits were valuable, but this only cost me 8 thousand and a somewhat limited discount. I could spare it. Spending these credits may have bought me something much more valuable. Normally, Mei and SuYin would have died long before my encounter with Formation Emperor Du XiongMing, but now, they should be able to easily step into Grandmaster and live much longer lives. If this bought their loyalty, the price might be worth it.

I looked at Mei. “Alright,” I said, “it’s done. Get me a pen and several sheets of paper.”

Mei did not act giddy or excited in the slightest. She moved with the gravity I was personally feeling about my decision. I still wasn’t sure I had done the right thing here, but it was a new choice, and it was something I wanted to try.

She gave me only a couple of sheets of paper, but as I started writing, she left her apartment to buy more. I spent two hours carefully writing down Peak-Yellow cultivation techniques for water and wood qi. Without cultivating wind qi, the extra affinity wouldn’t do much for Mei, but she should be able to slightly control the air around herself.

“Alright,” I said when I finished, “this one is for you, the other is for SuYin. They are the best I have. You might be able to get better from the Pavilion, I don’t know.”

“Thank you,” she said. Tears began to well in her eyes.

I just nodded, trust and distrust warring within me.

“If you have any questions, you can come find me. Tell SuYin the same. Don’t rush. Slow and steady is the only path forward. Don’t worry about qi stagnation or any problems like that. We can take care of cultivation speed with pills. Instead, be slow and deliberate. Your blessing should give you a lot of protection from the mental deviations cultivation can cause, but you still need to be careful.”

“I understand, thank you,” she said again, tears beginning to flow from her eyes.

My distrust of her emotions ran too deep. I couldn’t believe anything I saw. I just stood and left.

Chapter 65 – Life 60, Age 17, Martial Disciple 3

I didn’t see Mei or SuYin at all the next week. They gave me the time I needed to digest my decision. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like it had been rash, but I wasn’t willing to go back and undo it. I would let it play out and see what happened.

During this time, I began spending time studying the Martial Masters that visited the Pavilion. Whenever I had free time, I would stand on the second-floor balcony and watch the people below as they shopped. I wanted to understand cultivating as a Martial Master on a deeper level. So many of the Masters I had met were mentally unstable. This also affected Martial Disciples, like Gougou, but the problems seemed to increase by an order of magnitude among Masters. Why? More importantly, how could I fix it?

The logic I had been told before was that it had to do with cultivating too fast. During my time in the sect, I had been repeatedly advised to progress slowly as a Master to ensure I stayed balanced. I wasn’t completely convinced of this, though. Why did cultivating faster cause people to become unbalanced? There should be a way to increase cultivation speed without risking such problems. I just had to find it. If the energy flows within a Disciple’s body were what contributed to their change in temperament, what did adding meridians to the body do to affect these flows?

Day after day, I stood on the balcony and just watched as the world passed around me, but on the seventh day after our last meeting, Mei finally came to find me.

“Alright,” she said, “stop just standing there. Come with me.”

---------------------------------------------------

Mei led me up to a small meeting room on the seventh floor. It only contained a few mats spread out around the floor, but it had a large window with an impressive view overlooking the city below.

When I entered, I saw SuYin already sitting on one of the mats. She looked nervous. Her eyes were staring at the ground, and she was twiddling her thumbs. When we stepped into the room, she looked up at us but then quickly lowered her eyes again.

Mei gently touched my shoulder and guided me to sit near SuYin.

“Fang,” she said, “I’ve told Yin what I know, but it would be best if you gave us more details.”

I nodded slightly. “Have you tested your affinities?” I asked.

“No, it would be better if we don’t make a big deal about this. Some people, like WuJing, will notice the change, but most won’t think twice about it if we don’t say anything.”

I looked at Mei. “You should now have a mid seven-star water affinity and a mid eight-star wind affinity. SuYin,” I said turning to the other girl, “you should have a mid seven-star wood affinity.”

“What?” both girls gasped at the news, but Mei kept speaking. “That is… higher than I would have expected…”

I gave a small smile. “It’s what made the most sense under the circumstances.”

“Yin,” Mei said in a firm tone, “never speak of this conversation. Forget about ever being tested before. You always had this affinity, right?”

“Yes, Mei,” she said in a weak voice.

I didn’t interrupt her, she knew what she was doing. I waited for her nod to continue.

“I’ve given you both the best cultivation techniques I have for your affinities. The library might have better, but—”

“No,” said Mei, cutting me off, “we will use the ones you already gave us. That is for the best, but I didn’t want us to begin until you were ready to guide us.”

“Alright,” I said, accepting her judgment. “First, Mei, the technique I gave you will make you more pliant. You will feel the urge to follow other’s instructions and wishes. I’m sorry, but that’s the only decent water one I have. As long as you are careful in your cultivation, it shouldn’t become a problem though. Your blessing should override its effects, but if it doesn’t, we can look to minimize them after you reach Grandmaster.”

“Grandmaster,” she said with a bright smile. “Don’t worry, this is the technique I’m supposed to cultivate, at least for now.”

“SuYin,” I said, looking at the other girl, “yours will make you more adventurous. It might give you a wanderlust that urges you to go out and explore the world. I can see why this would be seen as valuable for wood qi practitioners since it will give you more exposure to a variety of plants, but you won’t have the same protections as Mei, so you will have to be extra careful to cultivate carefully. Otherwise, you might find yourself lost in the wilderness by this time next year.”

“Yes… I… Thank you,” she stammered out.

“If you are both happy with your techniques, let’s begin cultivating. It doesn’t matter where you want to start, but I would suggest an arm. It’s easier to visualize what’s going on there.”

Both girls had already familiarized themselves with the techniques I had given them earlier, so they were able to immediately get started.

Mei was quick at forming a qi filter and whirlpool. It seemed she had been practicing, but as I watched, the filter began to destabilize, and impurities flooded her body.

“Stop!” I said, using my affinities to help cut off her cultivation. “You need practice with the filter. It wasn’t quite right, and that will cause you serious problems. Until your qi filter is absolutely perfect, don’t try to draw in any qi.”

“Yes… I see,” she said, “it’s difficult though. Working from a picture on a scroll… It’s not exactly clear where all the lines go or how to space them. It will take me time.”

I thought about this problem. She needed practice with qi control, but with her affinity, cultivating a Yellow ranked technique shouldn’t pose any problem. She just needed a clearer picture of what to do.

I held out my hand and began channeling qi. I used fire qi to create a large version of the filter she was supposed to make. With the insights I had gained from my enlightenment after creating my own technique, the filter I showed her was even better than the one recorded in the technique manual. I then created a second copy at the exact scale she should use. I had them both begin emitting a faint glow so they could be seen in normal vision.

“Here,” I said, “this is what it should look like. Your qi vision hasn’t developed yet, so it may be hard to see details clearly, but hopefully, you can use this as a guide. Try to copy the smaller one exactly.”

I looked over at SuYin. She seemed to be struggling. Unlike Mei, she didn’t quickly jump to create a filter. Instead, she was placing and removing qi over and over. If any bit of qi was even slightly out of place, she dispersed it and tried again.

“One moment, SuYin,” I said, “use this instead.”

Like with Mei, I used the insights I had gained to slightly enhance and alter the qi filter she was creating. SuYin only took one look at my creation before getting back to her work.

It’s her memory, I realized. She has perfect visual-spatial memory. Unlike Mei, SuYin knew exactly how the filter was supposed to be put together after a single look. She needed practice to do it completely correctly, but she was able to easily identify any shortcomings in her work.

“Don’t rush this. Take your time. Once you are confident in your filter, come find me, and I will help you begin cultivating. If you have any questions, just let me know.”

---------------------------------------------------

Two weeks after our first session, SuYin was the first to seek me out for further help. The amount of time and energy they spent perfecting their qi filters before cultivating made me feel ashamed of how I behaved when I first started cultivating. I could only console myself with the fact that their situations were completely different from mine. They weren’t learning to do everything alone in a rotten shack.

“Su… Fang,” she said when she saw me. She was still hunched and nervous, a world away from the bright young woman I met when I came here. “I’m ready to learn the next step.”

I tried to smile gently at her, but I don’t think it worked. “Alright, come with me,” I said, guiding her to my apartment.

Inside, I poured her a cup of tea as I began to speak. “With a solid filter, all you need to do is create the whirlpool and cycle your energy. I’ll help you with the location and precise direction of everything, but with your memory and eyesight, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

She nodded without speaking.

“Go ahead and begin.”

She began to pull in the qi and form it into correct shapes.

“Stop!” I said quickly. “The positioning isn’t right. Move it here.” I used a flicker of fire qi to indicate the correct positioning. It was only a fraction of a millimeter off, so it wouldn’t make too much difference, but why settle for substandard if you didn’t have to?

She began working again.

“Stop! Adjust the angle of the whirlpool,” I said, again demonstrating with my qi.

She did as I instructed and began again. I worked her through several more small adjustments, but finally, everything was as close to perfect as my understanding would allow. Once everything was locked into place, I handed her a pill bottle.

“This is a Basic Qi Gathering Pill,” I said, “it will give you a burst of additional qi, allowing you to smoothly break through in an instant. It might be a little hard to handle but just focus on maintaining your cultivation. I will handle any problems.”

She silently took the bottle and swallowed the pill. Qi suddenly began pouring toward her arm several times faster than before. SuYin began sweating a bit, but she maintained everything perfectly. I was ready to step in and disperse the flow of qi, but it was unnecessary. After only a few minutes, the qi in her arm reached the saturation point.

“Alright, you only get one chance at this. You need to form your qi into a sharp needle and stab directly here,” I said, creating a visible example with my qi. “Try to mimic the placement, shape, size, and angle of my needle exactly. If it’s a little off it’s okay, just do your best.”

SuYin’s performance was perfect. She stabbed with her qi, opening her acupoint, and broke through to Martial Disciple 2.

“Good job,” I said with a wide smile.

“Thank you,” she replied in a quiet voice.

I waited patiently for her to adjust to the changes in her body, expecting her to silently leave when she was ready, but she kept sitting there. After several minutes, I wasn’t sure what to do and became concerned.

“SuYin…” I tried to begin.

“Su… Fang,” she finally muttered, “I’m willing to be your woman.”

That was not what I expected her to say.

“SuYin,” I struggled to reply, “no, we cannot have that kind of relationship. I have… concerns that won’t allow it. I’m sorry.”

She began to cry. “But, you’ve given me—”

“No,” I said in a stern voice, “What I’ve given was given freely without obligation. Especially not one of… this… kind.”

“I have to repay you,” she said, weeping, “and all I have to give is my body.”

I wanted to slap the foolish girl for saying such a thing, but I had come to learn that this type of exchange wasn’t uncommon in this society.

“Maybe in the past,” I allowed, “maybe, but not anymore. You are a cultivator now, and you have a world of possibilities in front of you.”

I tried to see the situation from her perspective. The biggest problem was that she had no context to understand our relationship now. She was alone in my apartment, and I had given her a gift beyond value. For her, from her life experiences, this might only happen in a romantic relationship. I needed to give her a new lens to see this situation through, though a bit of self-interest also played into my final decision.

“SuYin,” I began, “we won’t ever have that kind of relationship, but if you are willing, I will take you as my personal disciple. While my knowledge is limited, I will share it freely with you, and I can guarantee your advancement to Martial Grandmaster. Beyond cultivation, everything else depends on your own efforts. Will you accept me as your master?”

“Master?” she asked. My question had shocked her out of her despondence. “But, I don’t know anything—”

“All that matters is if you wish me to teach and guide you. I will provide as much help and protection as I can, though it will be limited. With current affinity, you could easily join the Verdant Fields Sect and find a superior teacher. That may be the better option, but if you wish, you can become my disciple.”

“Yes!” she said. Hope seemed to well up inside her as she gave me a short bow. “I am willing.”

Before I could stop her, SuYin kneeled down on the floor and kowtowed to me. “Master, I will follow your guidance. Please teach me.”

I helped her back up to her feet. “As your Master, my first bit of guidance is to rest. Take some time and live as a cultivator. Go to the library and read some books about herbalism or wood qi techniques.” I handed her a large bag of coins. “Use these to buy techniques. If you need pills, just ask me directly.”

“I can’t—”

“It is my duty to provide for your studies. Take it to learn. This amount of money has no meaning to me anymore.”

She gave me a deep bow but accepted the gold. Then, I guided her out of my room.

I said goodbye to her as she walked away. Luckily, the hallway was pretty empty, so there weren’t many to see a tearful SuYin leaving my apartment. There were a couple of men at the far end, but they were looking the other way.

Chapter 66 – Life 60, Age 19, Martial Disciple Peak

The following year was quite peaceful.

Every other month, I advanced my cultivation, and I spent the intervening time studying any small changes to my body. The enhanced technique provided by the Dao was far more powerful than I could have hoped, and as long as I cultivated correctly, there was zero impact on the qi flows in my body at each step of cultivation. Using that as my guide, I was able to correct the thousand tiny errors I made in the process and smoothly advance to Martial Disciple Peak.

At the same time, I helped Mei and SuYin cultivate their techniques. The ones they were using were far from the quality of my own, but I was still able to help them improve beyond the limits of what I had originally written down. Because of her age, Mei cultivated at a slightly faster pace to reach Martial Disciple Peak at the age of 20. SuYin was younger, only 19, so she allowed herself to go slower and had only reached Martial Disciple 7.

While Mei should advance to Martial Master this year, I wanted her to wait until I had completed my study of the Martial Master dual-element technique. If I could improve it, it would allow me to provide significantly better guidance for Mei during her breakthrough. She had nine months before qi stagnation would set in, so I was a little rushed, but as I told her, qi stagnation isn’t too terrible when you have unlimited access to Perfect pills.

On other fronts, I continued my pursuit of Rank 1 and 2 alchemy mastery. After I completed the order for the Su Clan, open discontent had been silenced. I wasn’t sure if it was gone, but my ability to more than fill the role left open by Zhong left others with little room to attack me. According to WuJing, the Pavilion had begun sending most of my pills outside the Wastes since the people here were too poor to afford them. This was the first step to our goal, but I needed to take on the role of a peak Grandmaster Alchemist before we could step outside this small corner of the world.

I continued my study of herbalism using the flowerbed in my apartment, but my results were mixed. I didn’t have a teacher, the techniques I was using were substandard, and the location of my plants was less than ideal. Still, I was slowly gaining an understanding of the process. I monitored the medicinal energy in plants from the moment a seed was created to the time they were ready for harvest. The small changes in its structure, and the accumulation of toxic energy, was a complex interplay between the plant and its environment. While I could learn some of this from books, the more I watched, the more I felt I needed someone to guide me.

After arranging everything through Mei, I was finally ready to break through to Martial Master once more.

After sitting down in my cultivation room, I made my final preparation.

“System, move my temporary reset point to this moment.”

Confirmed. Cost 19,706 credits. 25,806 credits remaining

This wasn’t where I wanted to place it. I wanted it to be nearer to when I was Martial Master Peak. However, I planned to create a new Rank 2 cultivation technique, and I was hoping to trigger a new discount. If I waited until after I did so to create the temporary reset point, I would just be burning that discount for no good reason.

That done, I began working on my cultivation technique.

Improving the Mid-Profound technique to a basic Peak-Profound technique seemed like an incredibly simple thing to do. The only difference was improving the quality of the meridians to match a Peak-Yellow technique. After studying the manual for a short time, I had quickly realized that the original author had used weaker meridians simply because this technique would be incredibly difficult with Peak level ones.

The cultivator needed to create two meridians simultaneously, always keeping the flow of fire and wood qi throughout the body balanced. Creating a single peak meridian had challenged me greatly the first time I did it, and that was after I already had years of practice with weaker ones, so I could imagine that a Peak version of this technique would be nearly impossible for the average cultivator.

After constructing several practice meridians, I quickly concluded that it would be no problem for me. My enhanced affinities and experience were enough to easily cultivate this technique at a Peak level, but that wasn’t good enough. That wouldn’t make a ‘novel’ cultivation technique, only a slightly improved one. I needed to go further.

There were two key issues I wanted to address. First, the dantian. The Rank 3 technique I used previously had me cut holes in my meridians for qi to flow to and from my dantian. After living with that cultivation for years, the only word I had to describe it was janky. It felt like someone created a meridian system and only later realized they needed to attach a dantian, so they kludged together a way to make it fit. That wasn’t acceptable. I wanted a cultivation system designed to work together properly.

The other problem that I was fixated on was the layout of the meridians. Why were so many Martial Masters going crazy? What was wrong with them? I finally had an answer. The flows of energy through the body were what affected the mind. If meridians were placed exactly on top of the existing flows, it would speed them up, making the effect more pressing, but it should be manageable for nearly anyone. If they were misaligned, or completely misplaced, they interrupted the flow of energy through the body leading to mental deviations.

The Twin Mountains Sect encouraged disciples to cultivate Rank 1 and 2 techniques with completely different energy flows. If disciples were extremely patient, and allowed the qi flows to completely settle after each breakthrough, it wouldn’t be ideal, but they may be able to cultivate without too many problems. However, the more they cultivated without returning to baseline the worse the mental deviations would get. Worse, even with a perfect ascension, this mix of cultivation wouldn’t lead to a strong cultivator.

I needed to perfectly place my meridians to match my natural qi flows precisely. Where qi naturally diverted towards the body’s dantian, I would leave openings in my meridians, allowing qi to move freely there and back even before I made a proper storage vessel at Rank 3. Leaving holes in my meridians may be questionable, but it seemed to be the best option unless I was willing to throw away all standard practices and form my dantian first.

Still, I didn’t believe this was enough to be truly novel. I needed to push further.

Referring to the Rank 2 versions of the techniques I used for insights previously, I found two different options for enhancing a Martial Master’s cultivation. One had eight additional meridians placed throughout the chest and head. This seemed interesting, but the placement of these additional meridians didn’t match any of my current qi flows, so I was hesitant to use it. The other two created countless capillary meridians throughout the body to follow ever smaller tendrils of qi. This idea would be significantly more work, but I believed it was an excellent fit for my Rank 1 technique which utilized additional acupoints.

Plan in place, the only question I had remaining was how big to make the meridians. They should contain the natural flow, but they should also be capable of holding larger quantities transferred from around the body. I was worried, though, that if they were too big it might reduce the pressure.

With no better idea, I began experimenting. I created an arm meridian that was the same size as the natural qi flow, but after testing it a bit, I realized that it was constricting the rate at which qi wanted to move. I carefully dispersed that meridian, venting the qi back into the environment, and started again. I slowly increased the size until I reached a diameter I was happy with.

Using that sample meridian as my reference, I began working on my first true chest meridians. The fire and wood qi in my body followed different paths, so I carefully made separate channels for them. Every centimeter, I created several small capillaries to follow tiny tributaries that branched throughout my chest. I was not willing to pause for a moment in this process. I wanted each meridian to be completed in a single sitting to avoid any small defects from arising.

I ended up swallowing Meridian Builder Pills like they were candy. Each time, I had to take two, one for each element, and after several hours I also had to begin taking Fasting and Restorative pills to avoid eating or sleeping.

The process of making a single pair of meridians went on for days, but when I finally finished, what I saw was a thing of beauty. The placements weren’t completely perfect, but they were close. My only disappointment was I didn’t get an announcement for a novel technique, but that wasn’t too surprising, I wasn’t done yet.

After a quick rest and a real meal, I got back to work. With the first pair in place, the qi flows for my new meridians had slightly shifted, so I worked mostly from memory to try to place them where they should be, not where they currently were. Again, I was less than 100% successful, but it was close enough. Once I was finished, I let my qi flow through them, enhancing my body and internal organs. Once again, I had ascended to Martial Master.

System Alert: A novel cultivation technique has been created. The Focused Hearth Fire Mantra. Rating beyond Peak-Profound Rank 2 Wood-Fire Cultivation Technique. Would you like to submit this technique to the Dao?

“Yes!”

Submission Successful. Contribution Confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 2,000,000 credits.

Note: Profound Rank 2 techniques will no longer qualify you for further discounts.

Information flooded my head and I collapsed to the ground. Countless calculations for qi flow, meridian size, proper placement, and ways to alter the weave to best accommodate branching meridians poured into me.

After I finally regained my senses, I looked at my brand-new meridians and wanted to cry. They took me over half a month to create…

Taking a deep breath, I slowly and carefully began to unweave and disperse them. I couldn’t allow myself to use such terrible meridians.

A month later, I left my cultivation room, once more a Martial Master 1.

I finished in time, but I still needed to hurry to ensure Mei was able to advance before it was too late. I opened my door to begin searching for her, but she was standing right outside.

“Hey Fang, ready?” she grinned.

I shook my head. “It feels like you’re showing off…”

“Just excited. I only have around half a year left, need to get to it!”

“Alright,” I said, “come on in.”

We both headed to my cultivation room. It was a bit cramped with the two of us, but the isolation helped with focus.

I examined her energy body as I had done several times before. Everything was clean, and she showed no signs of impurities from either poor cultivation or bad pills. The flows within her were vastly different from my own, so her meridians would need to be placed very differently, but the new knowledge I gained made understanding the necessary changes easy.

“Have you been practicing?” I asked.

Mei held out her hand and began forming a practice meridian. I examined it and frowned. Comparing it to the manual I had given her, she did an excellent job, but…

“We need to fix that, it’s not right,” I said, trying to understand my thoughts. “The weave isn’t right.” I held up my hand and created a large example. “Can you do this?”

Mei examined my altered meridian for a long time before trying it. Even after several attempts, it wasn’t quite right. There were small, nearly imperceptible burrs in the weave. It would have worked, but it wasn’t perfect.

“It will take time,” she finally said, shaking her head.

“Let me…” I reached out with my water affinity and tried to manipulate her qi. She had a high enough affinity that it was difficult for me to wrest control of it, even with it far outside her body. “Can you, I don’t know, let me move your qi? I’m not sure if it’s something you can consciously do.”

Either she knew what to do, or her blessing kicked in, but suddenly I was able to manipulate her practice meridian like it was my own.

“Alright,” I said, a little excited, “I think this will work. Start forming your first meridian but give me partial control. You focus on gathering qi and placing it into a rough weave. I will perfect it and make sure its size placement is correct.”

Mei nodded and got to work.

Compared to constructing my meridians, the process was a breeze. In less than a day, Mei had a brand-new Peak-Yellow meridian. After two, she stepped into the realm of Martial Master.

“Thank you, Fang,” she said. This time, she didn’t cry. She didn’t show much of any emotion.

“You’re welcome, Mei.”

Chapter 67 – Life 60, Age 20, Martial Master 3

My new cultivation technique and knowledge guided me on where to place my meridians. I believed that if I followed its guidance precisely, I would be able to rush through the Martial Master levels without needing to worry about mental deviations. However, I didn’t. I took my time. I was still exploring the limits of this new technique.

After several months of examining the interactions between the cultivation technique and my qi flows, I decided to advance. I carefully constructed the wood and fire meridian pair to pull energy from my chest and guide it down my right arm. The placement of this pair in the cultivation technique matched the location of my energy flows precisely, and after several days of hard work, I stepped into Martial Master 2.

I allowed a month for my qi flows to settle, but they didn’t. It might not have been apparent to anyone else, but I was able to see constant perturbations everywhere in my body. Also, the qi flows in my right arm had significantly shifted, especially the ones that flowed from my right fingers back to my torso.

I waited another two months, but it didn’t help. My qi remained in this state of constant agitation.

With no other idea, I constructed the second pair of arm meridians to pull energy away from my right arm and into my chest. This was trickier because none of the qi flows were where they were supposed to be, and nothing matched what my cultivation technique told me to do. I trusted the technique, though, and built the pair where it instructed.

The moment the meridians were complete, the qi in my body snapped into place, and a subtle tension I had been feeling the last months completely vanished. This was a new pitfall, I realized. The advice to let your body stabilize between every meridian was wrong. Both meridians in a given part of the body should be built at the same time. Likely, the practice of splitting meridians developed from people who were unable to maintain the necessary focus and energy for prolonged periods.

Deciding to give myself plenty of time to let my qi settle, I resolved to only advance every other year, but at each advancement, I would advance two levels by completing an entire limb. That would place me at Grandmaster by 28, which was far earlier than most could hope for. If everything worked as well as I hoped, then next time, I would consider rushing up to Peak Master before the age of 20 to see if it was possible.

While my time in the Pavilion had been good so far, I didn’t like that I had become trapped here since near the beginning of this life. If I ever left, I was at risk of being attacked by Zhong, one of his flunkies, or his Grandmaster uncle. At Master 3, I could finally resolve this little problem.

What I needed was a Grandmaster protector who was skilled in combat. While Grandmasters were uncommon, they could still be hired for protection details if the price was high enough. I just needed to be able to afford their price.

“YuLin,” I said, arriving on the workshop floor. “I need ingredients for Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills. Can you send me a couple of sets? I’ll be in room 3.”

“Rank 3?” she gasped. “How? You can’t have advanced to Grandmaster…”

“I just want to give it a try,” I smiled, “maybe it’ll be a waste, but I want to see what happens.”

“Alright,” she said with a touch of worry in her voice.

I left the busy reception area and went to the alchemy workshop to begin centering myself. Rank 3 pills took a lot of energy, so I needed to be as conservative as possible.

Once the ingredients were delivered, I studied them. The quality was incredibly good compared to what I had been working with in the sect. I wasn’t sure how much that would eat into my profits since cheaper herbs would be better for making money, but these were perfect for my first attempts.

Working mainly with my qi was a complete non-starter. I needed to rely on my spirit fire for all the heavy lifting, but even with mastery over it, using an intense flame next to and within the medicinal energy would destroy an herb, so I needed to attack it in very precise ways.

I used my affinities to pull away as many toxins as possible so they could be eradicated by blasting them with high-intensity flames without worry, leaving a gossamer-thin membrane around the medicinal energy. Then, I used the most effective tool at my disposal to carefully remove that membrane. Fire or wood qi for metal or earth toxins, isolated earth or water energy from my spirit fire for water or fire toxins.

I had no access to any form of metal energy, so wood toxins were the most problematic, but a combination of fire and earth was able to take care of it. I just needed to be more careful.

Also, I was beginning to realize how lucky I was that the toxins were mainly from the five basic elements. If other types of energies were more dominant, I might have been at a complete loss. This was all the more reason to branch out into new energies, but I could only take one step at a time.

It was strenuous work, but I was able to cleanse everything to the standard I had reached in my previous life. That wasn’t good enough.

My qi vision wasn’t at a level where I could easily see through the Rank 3 energies, but it was enough to sense where traces of toxins existed within them. Carefully, oh so carefully, I began opening up the herbs to attack those hidden dangers. As I did, the structure of the medicinal energy began to tear. It was significantly more brittle than lower ranks had been. After eliminating a speck of toxin, I tried to massage the energy back into shape, but I was only partly successful.

After I completely eradicated any sign of toxic energy, the herbs were in pretty rough shape, but they were still viable. I then used all the skills at my disposal to increase the efficacy as far as I could.

When the pill finally dropped to the bottom of the cauldron, I was completely spent. I had zero qi left in my body, and it might be more than a day before I was ready to concoct a second one, but when I examined the pill, I smiled. It was a Perfect Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pill with around 74% efficacy.

The final efficacy was horrible, but being a Perfect pill far outweighed that loss.

Two days after having requisitioned ingredients, I walked into WuJing’s office.

“Fang,” he said with fidgety fingers and a worried expression on his face. “Did you buy Rank 3 herbs?”

“Yes,” I answered with a calm voice.

“Yeah… we have a small problem,” he grimaced.

“Oh? What’s going on?” I was a little surprised. Buying ingredients had never been a problem before.

“Procuring Rank 3 herbs is trickier than lower ranks. We can get a small supply from the Verdant Fields Sect, but most of them are shipped in from outside the Wastes. As with everything, buying them should not be a problem, but it opened up a way for people to attack you for using resources better reserved for others. Deputy Manager Liu has reported this to Secretary Jiang, along with other ‘indiscretions,’ and is asking for you to be punished.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I placed a pill bottle on WuJing’s desk and spread my arms wide. “Take a look.”

WuJing and I arrived on the eighth floor where a wonderful show was taking place. Deputy Manager Liu and two others were speaking to Secretary Jiang in loud voices.

“He needs to be driven out,” said Liu, slamming the desk. “Su Fang has been nothing but a disruption to normal order. Both Fan BingQing and Ye YiLiu have testified to the problems he’s caused. He is pulling attendants into his room for escapades in the middle of the day! This has to be stopped!”

Secretary Jiang responded quietly, and I couldn’t hear him, but Liu’s face revealed his displeasure at whatever was said.

“Ah, you’re talking about us,” said WuJing, as we approached. “Excellent. What seems to be the problem?”

“The problem,” began Liu, “is the menace you’ve recruited. He’s driving away talented alchemists, fooling around with the staff, and now he’s wasting precious ingredients. It’s time for Manager Cai to put an end to it!”

“I see, that sounds like an important problem,” nodded WuJing. As he spoke, he handed a pill bottle to Secretary Jiang. “And you want Manager Cai to… what? Determine if my recommendation for his membership was in error? Expel him from the Pavilion?”

“Not just him,” growled Liu, “you brought him in. Without you, he wouldn’t have a place here. You need to take responsibility.”

“Without me, he wouldn’t have even been considered for membership. That’s what you’re saying, right? So, he’s entirely my responsibility?”

“Yes.” Liu’s tone was sharp and clipped.

“Secretary Jiang,” said WuJing, “I think you need to report all this to Manager Cai now, right?”

During the exchange between the two, Jiang had been studying the pill WuJing had passed him.

“Yes… yes I do,” said a flustered Jiang.

He stood and quickly made his way to the back office, but once he was gone, Liu snorted. “You think a petty bribe will help you? Have you forgotten everything about how the Pavilion works?”

I ignored him and spoke to WuJing. “Why is this guy so confident? He seems convinced we are done for?”

WuJing shook his head. “A lot of it has to do with the system here. The Pavilion cares about order and structure, and he is correct that your actions have been disruptive. You’ve interfered with the regular work of both SuYin and Mei, and you have caused what could be considered a great deal of turbulence in our alchemy operations.”

“Is it really that bad? Why hasn’t anyone told me it was a problem?” I asked, somewhat alarmed by his characterization.

“Because I’ve been blocking it for you. You’ve interfered with two shop attendants, but as the floor manager, I have the authority to let it slide. You caused the loss of a Master Alchemist, but I was able to smooth it over with your work for the Su Clan,” he said, trying to explain, “but you haven’t done anything else. You haven’t completed any other urgent commissions or special requests, so your contribution can be considered minimal.”

“I haven’t been informed of any commissions or requests…” I said, dragging out the words.

“No, you haven’t,” he replied. “No one has requested your services, and none of the urgent commissions have been directed toward you, so you haven’t completed any.”

This was their plan? Block me from completing ‘high contribution’ requests so they could say I was worthless? What surprised me the most was that, from what Liu had said earlier, this didn’t seem to be directed at me. He was using me as an excuse to attack WuJing, and partnership with Master Zhong would have been an alliance of convenience.

At the same time, Manager Liu seemed somewhat unaware of what I had done. If he knew about the quality of pills I sent the Su Clan, would he be so aggressive? By blocking his access to key information, this situation might have been designed as a trap for Liu.

As WuJing and I spoke casually between ourselves, Manager Liu, Fan BingQing, and Ye YiLiu stared daggers at us, gloating internally at our fate.

Secretary Jiang opened the back door and gestured toward me and WuJing. “Come in,” he said. “Manager Cai needs to talk with you.”

The other three began to walk forward as well, but Jiang stopped them. “Only them,” he said. “You can return to work. Manager Cai will handle things from here.”

Liu put on a big smile, cupped his hands, and gave a short bow. “Please thank Manager Cai for dealing with this problem.” After that, he chuckled and walked away.

WuJing and I entered the back office. It was massive. Several tables were lined up together and maps were stretched out across them, and dozens of bookshelves containing an array of reference materials and records filled all corners of the space. Behind a large desk on the far side of the room sat a steel-haired woman examining a pill.

After WuJing and I were seated, she looked at me. “Do you have any more?”

I passed her another bottle which she quickly opened.

“How many can you make?” she asked.

“Right now, one a day. That will improve with my cultivation, but it will take time.”

“Remarkable. Jiang said you had a blessing for alchemy knowledge, but this…” she said shaking her head at the pills, “this is far more than basic knowledge. Perfect Rank 3 pills as a low-level Martial Master.”

After a moment of contemplation, she began again. “The higher-ups know about you,” she said. “They have to. Because of the restrictions in the Wastes, we fall under the authority of the branch manager for the Rising Sun Empire. There can be no question that he knows about you, but it might even reach the level of the Pavilion head.”

“What? How?” I ask with a hint of worry.

“Karma,” she replied simply. “Your ability, if it’s a sign of your future potential... It’s too much. I’m only guessing, but they should have gotten a huge surge of energy when you joined the Pavilion. If you can do this… It will have a noticeable impact on their cultivation. They won’t know why, but they will know something changed.”

“So… what now? You report me? Let them decide what to do with me?” I was more curious than worried about what she would say. Those big shots couldn’t do anything to me directly if I remained in the Wastes, and it seemed like I was only providing benefits, so why would it be a problem?

“No,” she said with conviction. “The Pavilion has hard rules for this situation. It’s your choice. We are not willing to drive away talents needlessly, so it’s your choice. If I report this, I am confident you will be subtly pressured to move to Rising Sun. The headquarters may want you too, but Rising Sun is our direct superior, and their manager won’t want to lose you. The other choice is to ship out these pills without explanation. I will still record your contribution appropriately, and you will receive the requisite benefits, but no one will know exactly what’s going on unless they start digging, which shouldn’t happen. What do you want to do?”

I looked at WuJing for guidance, and he spoke up. “Don’t report it. He needs to go south, nearer to Brilliant Sun.”

“WuJing, I know you want to use him yourself, but—,” began Manager Cai before I cut her off.

“He’s right. I need to reach Martial King in the Brilliant Sun Empire. If I’m coerced into joining Rising Sun, it would prevent me from doing something I need to do.”

Manager Cai gave me a resigned look but nodded. “Very well. I might be able to help you. I assume you want to take Manager Chen with you?”

“Yes,” I affirmed.

“Give me time, and enough pills, and I can get both of you assigned to the Eight Flower Kingdom. It’s on the border with Brilliant Sun, and I have some connections that could help you.”

“Thank you, Manager Cai.”

She looked at me for a long time before speaking again. “I am old. My chances at advancement have long passed. I was posted here because they needed a firm hand to guide this branch but not someone worried about their personal advancement.”

I nodded and gave her a small smile. “I understand, Manager Cai. Thank you for your support.”

Debts and obligations. I tried to avoid them, but a person who walks along a river cannot avoid getting their shoes wet.

Chapter 68 – Life 60, Age 20, Martial Master 3

“Fang!”

Mei burst into my workshop and interrupted me in the middle of making a pill. I lost my concentration, and the pill collapsed, wasting a set of Rank 3 ingredients.

“You need to get downstairs, now!”

I didn’t wait for her to explain. If she was going to, she would have already done it. When I arrived at the landing for the second floor, I heard loud shouts and accusations. I rushed out and saw two guards in Pavilion uniforms hauling SuYin away.

“Stop!” I shouted.

They didn’t even spare me a glance. Looking at them in qi vision, I saw that they were high-level Masters, but their foundations were shoddy. I ran forward, grabbed one of the men by his shoulder, and threw him away.

“Stop,” I growled.

“Back off,” the remaining man barked. “Don’t interfere in Pavilion business.”

“And what business involved hauling an attendant bodily through the halls?”

“What’s going on here?” asked a mocking voice.

I turned to see Deputy Manager Liu approaching us. He had a wicked smile on his face.

“That’s what I want to know,” I snarled.

“Guardsman?” asked Liu with a lilt.

The guard looked at Liu. “This attendant was seen attacking a guest on the steps while wearing a Pavilion uniform. We are bringing her to you for punishment, sir.”

“My, my, that is serious,” chuckled Liu.

“SuYin, what happened?” I asked.

“It was Gou,” she cried. “I was just outside, and he ran up and tried to grab me. I had to fight him off.”

“You attacked the disciple of one of the city's most renowned alchemists?” gasped Liu. “That is a serious crime.”

“Yes, sir,” confirmed the guard I had thrown away. He walked up and glared at me. “Alchemist Gou approached this beast, and she suddenly attacked him.”

“Guards of the Pavilion saw an attendant getting attacked, and instead of defending her, you work to frame her?” I said through gritted teeth.

“She wasn’t attacked,” he smirked. “The honored alchemist simply invited her elsewhere for a conversation.”

“SuYin, let’s go find WuJing, this is his mess to deal with,” I said, moving to pull her away.

“No, it isn’t,” said Liu. “I’ve heard enough. As Deputy Manager I hereby expel this woman from the Blue Wind Pavilion and ban her from ever entering again.”

“Oh,” I asked with an evil smile. “You do, do you?”

“Yes,” Liu stated with confidence. “It is my duty as Pavilion Manager to help the meritorious prosper and eliminate the evil.”

“Good, very good,” I nodded then turned to SuYin. “You don’t work here anymore, so you don’t need to listen to him. Come, let’s go find WuJing.”

“Find me for what?” WuJing asked, walking up to our group.

“To beg for her job,” mocked Liu, “but my decision is final.”

“Fang?” WuJing asked.

“I need to get her a room in the Pavilion, that should be manageable, right?”

Liu barked in laughter. “Not on your life!”

“He’s right,” agreed WuJing, “getting her a room is against the rules. Instead, we need to move you up to a suite on the fourth floor. It’ll have a side room where she can stay. Come with me and we’ll get it sorted,” he said as he moved to guide us away.

“Stop right there,” snarled Liu.

“Do you have any instructions, Deputy Manager?” asked WuJing.

“Yes! She is banished, guards, take her away!”

As the guards began to move, WuJing spoke up again. “I didn’t know a Deputy Manager had the authority to banish a Pavilion member’s personal disciple. That is interesting news. I’ll have to report to Secretary Jiang that I had not been informed of the change.”

“What?” asked Liu, his eyes widening.

“Yes, I must do that. I must also ask him why Pavilion guards did not defend a member’s personal disciple and instead protected her attacker. I would really like him to explain to me when that change was implemented.”

“She isn’t—”

“She is,” snapped WuJing. “And it was officially recorded long ago.”

“Let’s go,” I said to SuYin in a calm voice.

With WuJing’s threats, Liu no longer dared to stop us.

“It’s Manager Cai,” WuJing said when the three of us were alone in his office. “She’s wanted to get rid of him for years and is using us both as foils. She isn’t antagonizing him directly, he’s never liked me, and he’s targeting you to befriend Zhong. She’s just ensuring he doesn’t see certain information so that he’ll make a few terrible decisions, like sending a high-level Disciple against a newly ascended Martial Master.” He smiled at SuYin. “Congratulations, by the way.”

She blushed at his words.

“What do we do?” I asked, getting serious.

“Do with what? This is Cai’s game, and you won’t stop her from playing it. You can play your own. Just decide what you want, and I can help you plan it out, but as far as Liu? Just keep doing what you’re doing. He can’t touch you, and now he can’t touch SuYin either. Mei and I are still vulnerable, but we can handle him.”

I nodded. “What about Zhong?”

WuJing laughed. “You can already take care of him by yourself, can’t you? Go ahead and make your move whenever you want. He believes he has connections, but they will disappear the instant he tries to use them.”

I looked at WuJing. I needed a serious reply. “You said you would help me plan my game. I just want my troubles in the city to vanish. What’s my play? Do I kill him?”

WuJing stroked his chin in thought. “Maybe. It’s the most direct, but it’s the most troublesome. No matter how careful you are, someone will know it was you, and his relatives will seek you out for revenge. These things quickly spiral out of control until you have to cut the weeds and eliminate the roots. Entire clans might get put to the torch. Instead, it would be better to let someone else carry the black pot and take the blame.”

“Any ideas?”

“Of course,” smiled WuJing, “how much do you know about poisons?”

The answer, as it happened, was a suspiciously large amount. Back when I was experimenting in Rudy’s workshop, a sizable number of his herbs had a variety of poisonous effects. My first life in the workshop, they had said someone was poisoning the clan disciples, and that had to have come from somewhere.

I didn’t care too much about it back then, herbs were herbs and pills were pills. I just practiced with whatever was at hand, but it gave me a bit of in-depth knowledge about making poisons. The only time I had used this knowledge was when I concocted my fool-proof instant reset pill. Now, I had a new place to flex my muscles.

WuJing had a few ideas, but what we eventually settled on was something totally evil. My goal was to concoct a variety of pills that mimicked what Zhong could create but with an added, undetectable poison that would simulate a Low-Purity pill.

After examining and experimenting with a variety of poisonous herbs in the Pavilion, I couldn’t find any way to achieve this goal. While I could create some of the effects of pill toxins through poisons, I doubted anyone would mistake one for the other.

After putting everything down and walking away for a day, I finally realized the mistake I was making. I didn’t need some exotic poison to mimic pill toxins, I had plenty of pill toxins, I just needed to make it so that a cursory examination of the pills didn’t reveal it.

I created a regular Low-Purity pill and looked at it. The toxins were evenly distributed throughout the pill, so it was easy to tell its quality. Being very careful, I burned off the toxins on just the surface layer of the completed pill. This was much harder than normal purification since the energy had already been condensed and hardened, but with a Rank 2 pill, I was able to manage it, if barely. Still, the result was a pock-marked mess of a thing that no one would confuse for a proper pill.

Trying again, I first concocted a large group of Low-Quality pills, then, using a method somewhat similar to what is done with explosive pills, I used an extra set of herbs and divided its energy, sending a small portion to each pill to create a thin sheath around all of them composed of High-Purity medicinal energy.

The result was a pill that was slightly larger than a regular one, but unless someone looked closely, all they would see was a regular High-Purity pill. Still, it wasn’t enough.

Going back to the poisons, I created something with an effect somewhat different from the original plan. On the pill sheaths, I added a compound that would slightly affect a person’s mind, making it more difficult for them to realize they had consumed a pill filled with toxins. With luck, it would make the attempted framing all the more convincing in the end by showing that someone had clumsily tried to cover up what they did.

I placed the pills on WuJing's desk.

“What do you think?” I smirked.

After picking one up and examining it, he grinned. “Perfect. It’s easy enough to tell apart when you know to look for it, but if not, I doubt anyone will notice a thing. I’ll get my people to take care of the next step.”

“Alright,” I said, “just let me know when it’s over.”

I started to walk out, but WuJing stopped me. “Be careful of Liu. This will hit him too, and he might take drastic measures if he realizes something is wrong.”

Nothing out of the ordinary happened over the next few weeks. At least, nothing that impacted my life happened. For Zhong and his customers, it was a different story.

“Fang,” said WuJing, pulling me aside to talk, “we need your help. Secretary Jiang has assigned you a bodyguard, and we want you to go out shopping. Maybe shop for some herbs around town. Go to some of the poorer parts and try to pick up a good deal. That kind of thing.”

He wanted me to bait out an attacker. “Can I trust the guard?”

“Absolutely not,” said WuJing with emphasis. “There will be others watching from the shadows, though. As long as you don’t seek death, you’ll be safe.”

With only one life, this would have been a silly risk for me to take, but why not play it out and see what happens next?

I was walking down the street of the slums near where I teleported into the city at the beginning of my life. Guard Ma was shadowing me, but he wasn’t being too obvious. When I saw an older man selling what looked to be relatively high-quality herbs down an alleyway, I decided to check it out. The setup seemed a bit clumsy, but I applauded the effort.

When I approached, the old man scampered off, he was surprisingly spry, and a cloaked figure walked out of the shadows.

“Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused me?” snarled an angry Manager Liu. “I don’t know what you did, but it had to be you. I’ve been disciplined for embezzling money and purchasing counterfeit pills. Zhong isn’t that good. It had to be you.”

It seemed WuJing’s plan to cast the blame onto others hadn’t fully worked. I could only hope an angry Martial Master killed off Zhong before he could reach the same conclusion Liu had.

“You’re going to attack me?” I asked with a smile. “You set this all up, but you know I have protection, right?”

Liu laughed. “Guard Ma, block the alley. Don’t let anyone see what’s about to happen.”

“Yes, sir,” said Ma.

As Ma walked away, I called after him. “You need to protect me from Liu. What are you doing?”

He completely ignored me.

“So naive. At least you won’t have to worry much longer,” said Liu with an evil grin.

“Well?” I asked the air. “Are you about done? He might really attack me soon.”

Liu laughed, then he rushed at me. I flipped on qi vision to keep an eye on everything. Liu wasn’t using any combat techniques, just using basic qi-empowered attacks, but he was a Grandmaster, and I was only a low-level Master. If it came to real combat, I didn’t expect it to last long.

I used my flashing movement technique to avoid his first blow, but Liu quickly followed up. He wasn’t trying to kill, only cripple. This gave me openings I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Employing my sole Rank 3 movement technique, I rushed toward the alleyway’s entrance. My goal was to get as close as I could to Ma, then flash away, but when I was nearly there, Ma’s qi spread out in front of me, and a wall of earth sprang up in my path.

“It’s not that easy,” cackled Liu. “There’s no escape. I’m going to enjoy making you suffer.”

He moved to attack again. A heavy fist slammed down. Liu crashed to the ground.

Secretary Jiang and two other guardsmen stood above the crumpled Liu.

“Attacking a Pavilion member, conspiracy, embezzlement, purchase of counterfeit goods. No matter what your backer says now, you’re done for,” said Jiang before turning to the guards. “Take him away.”

“You wanted me to get injured,” I said when I was left alone with Jiang in the alley.

“It would have helped,” he agreed. “Attacking is one thing, injuring is another. Crippling or killing you would have let us execute him immediately, but we wouldn’t have allowed that.”

“I see. Please don’t involve me in your plans in the future.”

I began to walk away, but Jiang stopped me with a question. “Are you sure?”

He handed me a large bag before passing me to make his way out of the alley. When he was almost gone, he spoke again. “We’ll need those back. They’re just a loan.”

Chapter 69 – Life 60, Age 28, Martial Master Peak

After resolving the issue with Manager Liu, my time in Dragon Gate City became much more relaxed. Zhong had disappeared, so neither SuYin nor I had any more problems with him or Gao.

With threats to my life eliminated, I had the ability to freely explore the city and surrounding areas, but after a few small excursions, I no longer had the desire. There were no forgotten ruins or mystical forests to explore, just endless fields of low-level herbs. While there were a few options for entertainment and relaxation, I allowed my cultivation technique’s mental effect to keep me focused on my advancement.

This life, I remained dedicated to the timeline I had laid out. Every other year, I advanced two steps and brought Mei and SuYin up with me. With Mei, it was simple. I could easily help her form her meridians to the same level as mine, so we advanced in sync, and shortly after I reached Peak Master, she did as well.

With SuYin, it was more difficult. She wasn’t able to give me control of her qi like Mei could, especially when it was within her body, so I had to guide her to be able to advance herself. Her final meridians were always slightly off, so she needed time for her qi to settle, but with the refined technique I had provided, that still only took a few months. She started behind us, and I slightly rushed her to cultivate faster to catch up with the schedule I had set. It may have been unfair to the girl, but I needed her to reach Grandmaster before the year I turned 29, so we had to speed things up. While the quicker pace may have slightly hurt her foundation, it was still leagues ahead of other Masters I had seen.

After we had all reached Peak Master, the only thing left was finding a suitable cultivation technique for all of us. The only Rank 3 technique I had brought back with me was the Mid-Profound dual-element technique for myself. I had nothing for Mei or SuYin. Right after I started teaching them, I began searching the Pavilion library, but they didn’t have Rank 3 techniques that felt like suitable complements for the ones I had already given them. Instead of worrying only about mental effects, I was beginning to understand that different cultivation techniques created different ‘flavors’ of qi. The fire qi I was cultivating now felt ever so slightly different than in previous lives.

My understanding of this effect was limited, but I knew I needed to find techniques that were a good match to their particular variations of wood and water qi.

I put in requests for manuals that might work, as well as a few other Rank 3 techniques to fill out my library, but it seemed like I wouldn’t have much luck. They needed to requisition the books from the main branch, and I hadn’t yet established enough clout to make that happen. Secretary Jiang and Manager Cai had no such limitations, though.

After dealing with Manager Liu, Jiang had given me my rewards. I was upset with them, but the reward… it calmed me down quite a bit. It at least showed that when they used me, they were willing and able to provide proper compensation.

The bag he gave me contained only five techniques, but they were the epitome of delivering coal in winter. First were the Rank 3 versions of the techniques I had given the girls. Not simply techniques that would fit, but the ones designed to work best with the techniques they already had. These felt like they were nearly reward enough to me since they were exactly what I needed, but the other three techniques were beyond anything I could have dreamed of receiving.

The three manuals formed a set of Warrior Tier cultivation techniques, letting someone advance from Disciple 1 to Peak Grandmaster. They were single-element techniques for cultivating earth qi. If I wanted to become a formation master in the future, I would need to cultivate earth qi, so I had been looking for quality techniques in preparation. What made these particular techniques special, though, was that they were a set of Peak Earth-Rank techniques, a complete set of Warrior Tier Peak Earth-Rank cultivation techniques. Even if it was for a qi type I didn’t currently use, the research value of seeing what would make a technique ‘Peak Earth-Rank’ was immense.

Reading through the Rank 1 technique, I found that it was not too dissimilar to the Profound techniques I had used previously. The primary difference was that where the Profound technique used dozens of acupoints, the Earth one used hundreds, 361 to be exact. I wasn’t sure, but what seemed to make the technique Earth-Rank was a method for dealing with the interference I had experienced when trying to cultivate through multiple acupoints. I couldn’t use this until I started over again, but it gave me hope for further developing my techniques.

If Cai had the pull to get me a set of Peak Earth-Rank techniques delivered to the Wastes, she wouldn’t be stuck here herself, and there was no way that anything I did was worthy of such a lavish reward. No, this was a gift from her backer.

Manager Cai said she wouldn’t report me to the Pavilion, and based on our conversation, I tended to believe that was true, but no one who reached a high level in such a cutthroat world would be a complete idiot. When she sent Perfect Rank 3 pills and asked for cultivation techniques in return, especially right after, if Cai was right, there had been a suspicious surge in karma, it would have been obvious what was going on. Maybe no one would come find me directly, but I was on someone’s radar.

Why send me a complete set of cultivation techniques for an element I couldn’t use? There was no way WuJing was the only person in the Pavilion who realized I took two girls who couldn’t cultivate and was about to turn them into Grandmasters within 10 years. When I requested these techniques, they must have thought I intended to do it again. I wouldn’t be surprised if I stumbled upon a quality set of metal qi techniques placed right in my path in the near future.

Drawing attention like this was potentially something I would need to be wary of in future iterations, but right now, it was what I needed. It had been my plan from the moment I put on these fancy robes and walked into the Pavilion. Be someone those in power would want to invest in.

Now, though, was not the time for worrying about company politics. It was time to advance.

I lacked the knowledge and experience to improve my Rank 3 cultivation technique as much as I had the others, having only advanced to Grandmaster once, but I still needed to make a few changes to it.

The Peak-Yellow technique I used previously created a dantian that was questionable at best. When pushed to the limit, it was leaky and easily damaged. This was due in no small part to my mistakes in its construction, but I felt the construction method itself could be vastly improved.

This Mid-Profound technique created what seemed to be three dantians in one, each of similar construction to my Yellow-rank technique. The design was for a top dantian connected to wood meridians, a bottom dantian connected to fire meridians, and a middle one that was only connected to the other two. As I advanced, I would need to compress the qi in the top and bottom dantians simultaneously, always keeping my wood and fire qi in balance. This setup seemed nightmarish to create, and it didn’t match with the natural qi flows in my body at all, but I didn’t have a better idea for how it should be done. I would follow this blueprint, experience it, live with it, and try to do better next time. Also, I needed to find more dual-element Rank 3 techniques for research.

Even following this manual as a guide, I needed to improve it to Peak-Profound for it to be suitable to use with my current techniques. I wasn’t sure if my plan was enough to qualify, but it should at least make significant improvements to the structural integrity of the dantians.

Instead of creating a sphere from four pieces and sewing them together, I patterned each of my new vessels off the construction of a beachball. I made two disks for the top and bottom and six slices to form the sides. Two of the slices had holes that were connected to the meridians on the left side of my torso, and two had connections to the meridians on my right. In the middle were two solid slices holding it all together.

I connected the middle dantian to the other two through holes in the top and bottom discs.

This construction had vastly more parts, and even with my higher affinities, it was a struggle. Each dantian had eight parts that all had to be created and maintained before I could begin assembly. The saving grace was that while it was more difficult to manage everything, sewing the pieces together was significantly simpler. The beachball-esque construction method helped everything fit much better. After each dantian was completed, it no longer required my focus, and I was able to rest and then move on to the next without worry.

After several months of hard work, I regained the level of Martial Grandmaster 1 with a vastly superior set of dantians.

After a little practice, I was able to cycle energy in or out of the top and bottom dantians when working with wood or fire qi, but I wasn’t sure what the middle dantian was for. Qi didn’t want to flow into it. I tried to use it as a passthrough, letting my wood qi flow into my fire qi to strengthen it, but that didn’t work, and any of the limited qi that did enter did not want to leave. Eventually, I gave up on working with the middle dantian since I began to suspect it was more related to my advancement to Lord.

After my cultivation stabilized, I found that I only had ten months left before my deadline. At that point, SuYin had to be a Martial Grandmaster, and it would be best if she had been there for several months, possibly even having advanced a step or two in that time.

I didn’t want to start with her first, though. It was easier to help Mei since she could give greater access to her qi. I would refine my teaching techniques on Mei, and only then would I proceed to guide SuYin.

They had both been studying their Rank 3 technique for years, so when I told Mei it was time, she was more than ready. She used the same beachball construction I had, and she did her best to advance without my direct intervention. This was practice for helping SuYin, so I would only take control of Mei’s qi if it was necessary. The process was slower than it could have been, but even though I didn’t control her qi, I was able to act as a stabilizing force for each piece as it was constructed, so Mei only needed to worry about the next step. The final product was far, far superior to my first dantian and was close to the quality I had achieved this time around. Success in hand, I moved on to help SuYin.

While SuYin’s blessing lacked the guiding force of Mei’s, her perfect memory allowed her to place each thread of qi with exacting standards. She didn’t need my guidance at all, she knew exactly what to do. The only help she needed from me was the same stabilization I had provided Mei so that she could focus all her attention on the next step.

With only six months until the deadline, we had all advanced to Martial Grandmaster. While I wasn’t worried about myself or Mei at this point, I provided SuYin with multiple Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills over the following months. With one month to go, at age 29, she was a Martial Grandmaster 2. Her progress was far beyond anyone I had ever seen at her age in the Twin Mountains Sect.

A note from G Tolley

People have been asking, and it's finally here. I've made a Discord server.

If you're interested, come and join the discussion.

Also, I want to give a shoutout to C Mantis. If you're reading my story, you've probably already seen his, but if not, you should check it out. I started reading it a couple years ago, and I can't deny that the way he portrayed sects influenced my own perception of them.

The Path of Ascension

The story follows Matt, a young man planning to delve the rifts responsible for the monsters that destroyed his city and killed his parents. His dreams are crushed when his Tier 1 Talent is rated as detrimental, and no guild or group will take him.

Working at a nearby inn, he meets a mysterious and powerful couple. They give him a chance to join The Path of Ascension, an empire wide race to ascend the Tiers and become living legends.

With their recommendation and a stolen skill, Matt begins his journey to the peak of power.

***

This is a mix between LitRPG and Xianxia. It's like a car that looks like a LitRPG with dungeons and skills, but the interior and engine are all Xianxia.

So no blue boxes and clicking +’s to get stronger.

Chapter 70 – Life 60, Age 29, Martial Grandmaster 1

The Dragon Gate. When a carp is strong enough and swims against the current with all its might, it has a chance to climb a waterfall and jump over the Dragon Gate. If it achieves this legendary feat, it will transform into a true dragon.

In the Wastes, everyone, cultivator and mortal alike, was nothing more than a lowly carp. Cultivators would fight with all their might to swim against the current, ascend the waterfall, and jump into the wider world, but almost all were destined for failure.

The four great powers of the Wastes, the Twin Mountains Sect, the Verdant Fields Sect, the Su Clan, and the Blue Wind Pavilion had paths that could allow their most promising members to smoothly walk out of this small corner of the world, but entry into these forces was extremely difficult, and ascending out of them was even harder.

Take the Twin Mountains Sect, for instance. Each year thousands attempt to enter, but only a mere handful become outer sect disciples. Of those, only a fraction reach the inner sect, and only a fraction of that fraction ascend to the outside world.

Even with everything working against them, cultivators still join these sects en masse, hoping to be the one chosen to advance. The odds were against you, but if you didn’t play, you had no chance at all.

However, there was another way to join one of the outside powers.

The forces outside the Wastes may have been mighty, and they did disdain the people who lived here, but they were not willing to allow good seedlings to rot if they could be taken away and nurtured. Most cultivators with a promising future would enter the sects, but for various reasons, a few would be left behind. The powerful forces outside still wanted to rope in anyone with potential, even if they hadn’t joined a feeder sect. Thus, the Dragon Gate Festival was created.

Once every ten years, the three great forces surrounding the Wastes, the Rising Sun Empire, the Verdant Forests Sect, and the Flowing Mountain Sect, would send representatives to Dragon Gate City. Cultivators could display any talents they possessed, and if they were powerful enough, they would be directly recruited by one of these factions. This was an opportunity to jump the Dragon Gate and soar.

I originally learned about this event through Bao’s investigations, and I had considered trying to use this as a path of advancement myself, but I finally decided to pursue a path through the Pavilion first. After living here for years, though, I found access to technique manuals much more limited than it had been in the Twin Mountains Sect.

This could have just been because of the location of this branch of the Pavilion, but I got the sense that sects were more inclined to hoard random assortments of unused techniques. The Twin Mountains Sect had literal mountains of space to store anything they wanted, but the Pavilion only had this single building, so it was more selective and only kept what was deemed to have value. If I wanted a variety of techniques, I needed to go through a sect. If I wanted to learn herbalism, I should go through the Verdant Forests Sect.

I had already committed to the Blue Wind Pavilion this life, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t get the knowledge I wanted out of the sect.

“This is your choice,” I told SuYin, “but I have taught you all I can. If you want to continue to grow, you need to chart a new path.”

I would go with WuJing to the Eight Flower Kingdom, and I wanted Mei to go with us to help guide us through the deep waters there, but SuYin could scout out other paths.

“Master,” her voice trembled with nerves, “I don’t think I can do it… They only want true prodigies. I’m nothing.”

“SuYin,” I said, I looked her in the eyes and a tone of command entered my voice. “Do not say that. You are a Grandmaster now, and you are the equal of anyone in the Wastes. There will be people of greater power in the sect, but you can hold your own.”

I could see she wanted to believe me, but she didn’t. She wasn’t much different than I had been in the Twin Mountains Sect. She had lived by my side for so long, and she hadn’t experienced anything to demonstrate the growth of her power, so she didn’t notice how different she had become from when we first met. She needed to see for herself how far she had advanced.

“I know you feel the urge to leave and explore. You’ve done your best in cultivating, but your technique wants you to explore and find new places. You aren’t doing that here. Go, venture out into the wilderness, learn, and when you have reached your limit, come and find us. Share your experiences with Mei and me.”

“You’ve given me so much,” her eyes began to well with tears, “I haven’t given you anything in return. I can’t just leave.”

“If you truly feel you owe me, the best form of repayment would be to improve yourself. Go to the sect and learn all you can, then you can come and share it with me. I taught you, so you can teach me.”

Did I feel bad for pushing this on her? Yes, a little, but I soothed myself with the knowledge that this would have been the right choice for her even if I gained nothing. I was taking advantage of the situation, but I wasn’t doing so heartlessly, I hoped.

I placed a hand on her shoulder. “One hundred years,” I said, “In one hundred years, let’s meet in the capital of the Brilliant Sun Empire and share what we’ve learned. At that time, I expect us both to be Martial Kings with a wealth of knowledge and a long future ahead of us.”

SuYin looked down at the ground. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll do my best.”

Mei, SuYin, and I walked through the city as a group.

The entire place was in a festive mood. Red lanterns were hung from every building and large colorful papier-mâché dragons decorated nearly every street.

On the side of the roads, vendors were selling candied hawthorn, dragon beard candy, and fried sticky rice. However, more than anything else, they were selling zongzi, sticky rice stuffed with a variety of fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves.

I was focused on the mission, get SuYin accepted as a disciple of the Verdant Forests Sect, but Mei led SuYin to run around to the various stalls. They had become enraptured by the noise and activities surrounding us, buying an assortment of treats and small handicrafts. While they kept trying to get me to eat the sweets, I declined, but after constant pressure, I conceded to eat a single zongzi. It was stuffed with a red date and had a nice flavor, but I couldn’t think too much about it.

Near the center of the city, in a large square located halfway between the Su Clan’s palace complex and the Blue Wind Pavilion, a large fighting stage had been erected. It was surrounded by bleacher-style seating, but there were far more people interested in watching than there were seats. People were perched on rooftops around the entire area to get a view of the fights.

When we approached, two disciples had just begun their bout. They both had solid foundations, for rogue cultivators in the Wastes at least, and put on a decent showing. They had learned Yellow Rank fighting techniques, which weren’t powerful, but they had a decent understanding of how to employ them in various situations.

“What’s the prize for winning?” I asked Mei. She had been more interested in learning about the various competitions than I had been, so I left her to it.

“It’s pretty great,” she said with enthusiasm. “The winners of the Disciple and Master competitions will receive enough resources to push them to the next realm. They might not use them, since a Disciple capable of winning will be able to reach Master anyway, but they can sell them easily enough. Aside from that, they will get a suitable cultivation technique for their next realm and access to a Profound Rank fighting technique, though they won’t get to keep the manual.”

Access to a Profound Rank fighting technique would be nice, but I already had a couple for each of the basic elements, for Rank 1 and 2 at least. If I could use this competition to get Rank 3 Profound techniques, I might want to join, but I doubted I could defeat any of the real competitors.

“Anything for the runner-ups?”

“Yeah, but it’s not as good, of course. Less resources, worse techniques. The top ten all get something at least.”

I nodded at her explanation. “What about Grandmasters?”

“The winner is guaranteed a spot in the Rising Sun Empire’s Guard Corps. It’s not a great prize, but it is an official position. The Grandmasters aren’t fighting for prizes, though. They’re competing to impress the faction observers. No matter where they place, as long as they’re impressive enough, they may get recruited. It’s unlikely, though. Usually, only a handful of people will be chosen during the entire festival.”

As I watched the Disciples fight, I thought about my future plans. I had the idea to use this festival to join a major power when I was only nineteen, but how far could I push my cultivation that early and have it still be stable?

“Do they ever recruit Disciples and Masters, or is it only Grandmasters?”

Mei pondered for a bit before replying. “They do, but it’s more difficult. What kind of genius haven’t these sects seen? A genius Disciple is potential, but there are a thousand ways that potential can be destroyed before it’s ever realized. They prefer to focus on established cultivators, but there are exceptions.”

I watched patiently as another two bouts between Disciples took place before looking at Mei.

“When is the event SuYin needs to take part in?” I asked. We didn’t plan for her to compete in combat since there was no way she could defeat seasoned Grandmasters. Her route to the sect was through displaying her advanced cultivation at an incredibly young age.

Mei smiled. “The Disciple tournament will take another three days, then there is a day for Master level non-fighters to display their achievements, then three days for the Master tournament. After that will be when the Grandmaster level non-fighters will display their talents. That’s what we’re waiting for.”

I looked at her confused. “If SuYin can’t do anything for another week, why are we here?”

“Because,” she said, patting my shoulder, “this is a festival, and you need to relax. You’ve been working nonstop for as long as I’ve known you, and you can’t keep it up. Everyone needs a break, and this is yours.”

I froze. Her words hit me more powerfully than I expected. It wasn’t just the last ten years I had been pushing myself, it was centuries. Ever since I had come to this world, I hadn’t been in a position to relax. I had rested, sure, but I never allowed myself to truly step away from the grind. Even with enhancements from cultivation and the effects a reset had on my memory, maybe I did need to take some time off.

Mei smiled, hooked her arm through mine, and pulled me away from the arena as I turned off the mental circuits that had kept me focused.

“What is this?” I asked, staring at the large orange mass in front of me. “It looks like a fish exploded on the plate.”

Mei shook her head at me. “It’s squirrel fish. Eat. It’s good.”

Tentatively, I reached out with my chopsticks and grabbed a bit of meat that was sticking out of the fish’s body, carefully peeling it off. After placing it in my mouth, I was shocked at how good it was. The sweet and sour sauce was a perfect complement to the fried fish.

“Good?” Mei asked with a smile.

“Yes, why haven’t I had this before?”

“It’s rare around here since it’s hard to get the right kind of fish. They import a bunch for the festival, but don’t expect to see any more for the next decade unless you are willing to pay an outrageous price.”

“That’s a shame,” I sighed, “maybe it’ll be more common in Eight Flower.”

We chatted about inconsequential things for a while before I looked at SuYin. She had been somewhat quiet throughout the meal, and I knew why.

“SuYin,” I said, bracing myself, “I know I’ve been pushing you to join Verdant Forests, and I do think it’s what’s best for you, but if you want to join us in Eight Flower, you’re welcome to. I’m sorry for forcing things too much.”

“Thank you,” she said with a small smile, tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t want to leave you… but… I know it’s the right thing to do.” She pressed her lips together firmly, resolve spreading across her face, and looked up to me. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you in a hundred years. We’re going to live for centuries after all.”

Mei and I both stood to give her a short hug.

“One hundred years,” I said, “it’s a promise.”

A note from G Tolley

If you are interesting in discussing the story, I welcome you to join my new Discord server.

Silver Fox and the Western Hero

I want to continue sharing a few shoutouts to stories I've read that you may enjoy.

Silver Fox and the Western Hero begins with a pretty standard isekai'ed into xianxia world setup with a System.

The story takes this premise and develops it in an interesting way, with themes about reincarnation and fighting against a ruthless heavens.

I started reading this story years ago, and it certainly influenced choices I made for my own story.

Chapter 71 – Life 60, Age 29, Martial Grandmaster 1

We spent a week enjoying the festival, eating and drinking around town while watching the martial arts tournaments and other entertainments, but eventually, our short vacation came to an end.

Mei, SuYin, and I arrived at the arena early on the day of the exhibition for non-fighter Grandmasters. We wanted to see what the competition would be like and get a feel for how likely it was for SuYin to be selected by the Verdant Forests Sect.

Each of the three major factions had a single observer present. All of them had reached Peak Grandmaster and, if judged by mortal standards, appeared to be in their late twenties. For Grandmasters, this generally indicated they were somewhere in their fifties. Being recruiters for this event showed they possessed some level of authority in their faction, so they would be on the shortlist for positions to ascend to Martial Lord. This festival would be one of their last duties before that happened.

The recruiter for the Verdant Forests Sect was a tall, beautiful woman wearing a light green hanfu. Her poise and posture displayed the elegance of a noble. Her face had a light coating of makeup on it, and her hair was done up in a tight bun decorated with a large wreath of colorful flowers.

The Rising Sun Empire had sent a younger man, possibly in his late thirties, who looked like a peacock. The base color of his hanfu may have been red, but it was covered with so many colorful embroideries of various mythical beasts that it was hard to tell. His face bore a constant smirk, and he never strayed far from the woman from the Verdant Forests.

The man from the Flowing Mountain Sect gave off the feeling of a master craftsman. His hands were rough and calloused, and his eyes glinted with a deep intelligence. He stood back as the other two talked and carefully observed his surroundings.

After a lengthy introduction to the day’s events, the Grandmaster demonstrations finally began.

I expected some jostling to be the first to go on stage, but everyone was quietly deferential to an older man who stepped forward. He was a Peak Grandmaster and had to be at least 250 years old. Unless he advanced, his life would soon come to an end, but would any of the powers present be willing to grant an attempt to do so to someone whose qi had long calcified? Even if he could step into the Lord realm, it would be nearly impossible for him to take even a single step further.

The old man walked to the center of the arena, faced the judges, and gave a martial arts salute with a slight bow.

“My name is Murong NaYun. I am 273 years old this year. In my youth, I traveled the world in search of a path for advancement, but I never succeeded. If you grant me this opportunity, I will serve loyally for my remaining days, no matter how long that is.”

At the end of his short speech, he gave a deep bow to the judges and straightened into a firm stance with both hands balled into fists.

“My blessing has benefited me greatly,” he said as sparks of lightning began to emerge from his arms. “I am not sure exactly how high my lightning affinity is, but I know it is at least six-star.” He began to juggle a bolt of lightning, showing his adept control of the erratic element.

“However,” he continued, “that is only the merest fraction of my blessing. Each time I have ascended a realm, I have been granted a legacy in the art of talisman crafting. I can currently be considered a Peak Rank 3 Talisman Artist.”

Saying this, he took a small piece of paper from a bag at his waist and threw it into the air to his right. It burst into a bolt of lightning that arced over the stands. Following that, he threw another talisman to his left, and small crags of earth exploded from the ground in a line straight away from him.

“My own qi is limited to lightning, but with the help of others, I have been able to infuse any of the five basic or four secondary elements into my talismans. When certain elements are needed, but I do not have access to them, I have found ways to simulate them through combinations of the other elements, such as combining fire and lightning to create light.”

He threw out another talisman, and it acted like a flashbang. It created an incredibly bright light which was accompanied by the loud buzz of an electrical arc.

He gave a final bow and awaited judgment.

“You are indeed skilled, Grandmaster Murong, but my sect cannot provide a proper place for someone with your talents,” spoke the woman from the Verdant Forests.

The man from Rising Sun gave a contemptuous smile. “You may join my empire. We will allow you to craft for us, and if you do a suitable job, we may allow you an opportunity to ascend in due time."

The old man cupped his hands and bowed.

“The Flowing Mountain Sect will offer you a position,” said the final man. “As long as you teach our disciples well, we will grant you a temporary position as an elder that will allow for your advancement. Whether you can keep this position will be up to you.”

The old man began to bow deeply, but the recruiter from Rising Sun suddenly spoke up. “I have already claimed this recruit,” he said with a hint of malice toward the Flowing Mountain recruiter, “are you trying to steal a subject from the Rising Sun Empire? Know your place.”

“We are equals here,” the man responded with a flat tone, “the Flowing Mountains don’t bow to Rising Sun.”

“Good, very good,” the peacock said before turning to the Talisman Artist. “Make your choice, craftsman.”

Bowing to both men, the old man spoke carefully. “I respect the Rising Sun Empire, but my fate is with the Flowing Mountain. Thank you for your consideration.”

The young recruiter huffed but dismissed the other two men from his consideration.

Following this, a series of unimpressive cultivators made their way to the stage, but none of the recruiters showed any interest. The candidates were simply waved away.

The next person to catch my eye was a mature woman who was wearing sickly green robes. After entering the arena, she placed a variety of plants around the stage.

“Honored recruiters from afar, my name is Na YunJie. I have prepared a wonderful demonstration of my blessing for all of you.”

She held both hands out to her sides. Nothing visible was happening, so I turned on my qi vision. Thick streams of wood energy were gathering around the plants and spreading out, slowly approaching the spectators. I wasn’t sure what the effect of this energy was, but it didn’t look like anything good.

The recruiters just watched as this happened. None of them made any move to intervene. As the energy approached our small group, I used my wood affinity to forcibly divert it, protecting us from whatever effect it would have.

When the energy touched the low-level cultivators in the stands, they instantly began coughing and collapsing. After over a dozen people fell, the woman from the Verdant Forests Sect raised her hand and gestured. Two large men appeared as if from nowhere and rushed the woman. Before she could react, she was swiftly taken away from the stage.

“We’ll keep her for now,” the female recruiter said, “unless one of you wants to deal with her.”

The other two just snorted.

The demonstrations began again, and another couple of unimpressive cultivators showed what they could do, but after that, the stage remained empty. The announcer called for the next person to step forward, but no one did.

“The Rising Sun Empire welcomes you,” said the younger man, “please join me and we can discuss your benefits, but I assure you they will be to your liking.”

Neither of the others spoke, they just shook their heads.

Worried about what was going on, I flipped on my qi vision again and was astounded. In the middle of the stage stood an unidentifiable mass of qi. It was formed of two energies that I didn’t recognize, but they swirled around each other in a mesmerizing fashion. Looking again in normal vision, there was nothing on the stage.

“Illusions,” I muttered. I realized there was danger here, but I didn’t know how to safeguard myself from it. This person could walk up to me and stab me in the heart without me having the slightest chance to respond. The only way I could prevent it would be to constantly look at the world through qi vision, but that wasn’t something I was capable of, and because of the way it changed how I viewed things, it wasn’t something I particularly wanted to do.

I needed to think about ways to defend myself from illusionists like this. I began to take out my journal to make a note of this, but I realized the stage was now truly empty and no one else was walking forward. It was time for SuYin’s audition.

I looked at SuYin. “Are you ready? Remember, just go up there and tell them what you can do. At worst you will just come to Eight Flower with us,” I smiled.

SuYin nodded but didn’t speak. She silently stepped forward onto the stage.

Giving a nervous martial salute and a short bow, she began to speak. “My name is Ye SuYin.” She flared her cultivation, showing her status as a Martial Grandmaster 2. “I am 28 years old. My blessing is a nearly perfect memory. My master has requested that I join the Verdant Forests Sect to learn herbalism. Please allow me to fulfill this command.”

She gave a deep bow to the Verdant Forests recruiter. After a group discussion, we had decided not to have SuYin give any kind of performance of her abilities since anything she could do would pale in comparison to the more seasoned Grandmasters. She hadn’t had time to learn any special techniques, and her blessing didn’t have any flashy effects. Instead, we would rely on her having reached Grandmaster at such a young age to secure her a spot in the sect.

The female recruiter looked at SuYin for a long while but didn’t speak. She simply rolled her fingers on her chair arm while thinking.

“The Rising Sun Empire welcomes you,” said the young man with a lascivious smile. “If you serve me well you will have no need to worry about studying in some sect. Plenty of people in the empire can teach you to farm.”

A panicked expression appeared on SuYin’s face. “Sorry, sir, but my master has requested I join the Verdant Forests Sect.”

“Don’t worry about your master, girl,” he smirked, “I am the young lord of the Yangci clan. It is your honor to be chosen by me.”

SuYin took a step back in fear, but the female recruiter finally spoke up. “I will accept you as a nominal disciple,” she said calmly. “You have not demonstrated any skills, so I must assume you do not have any. This is unacceptable for a Grandmaster of our sect, but I will allow you the opportunity to learn.”

“What?” asked the young man in a flat tone.

“I accept her as a disciple,” she said to the man before looking back at SuYin. “Join my retinue. They will discuss the details with you.”

“She has already been accepted as a member of my empire,” said the man. “Are you opposing the Great Rising Sun Empire as well?”

The woman snorted. “If your personal desires could represent the will of Rising Sun, then you would find that many people oppose the Rising Sun.”

The young man gripped the arms of his chair so hard they snapped. “Very good. The sects will soon learn the price of your arrogance today.” Without waiting for a reply, he stormed out of the stands.

After the others had left, SuYin and the Verdant Forests recruiter approached Mei and me.

“You are SuYin’s master?” she asked with a disdainful gaze.

“No, not any longer,” I said, “I was able to help her reach her current level, but I am unable to help her any further. I hope your sect helps her develop to her fullest.”

“You know your place, at least,” she said with a cold voice. “SuYin, a teacher for a day is a father for a lifetime. Do not forget your debts, but understand your new position. As a member of the Verdant Forests Sect, you must not treat an outsider as your master.”

“Yes, senior sister,” she said with a nervous bow.

The recruiter looked back at me. “You should have stepped forward too. With your wood affinity, and the ability to control that woman’s poison attack, you could have a future in our sect.”

“I am already with the Blue Wind Pavilion, and I am not looking to join a different force at this time.”

“A shame,” she said with a shake of her head. “Do not bother Disciple SuYin in the future. You are now people from two different worlds.”

Without another word, she turned and led SuYin away.

SuYin tried to turn her head and look back at us, but the recruiter kept her walking forward.

A note from G Tolley

If you are interesting in discussing the story, I welcome you to join my new Discord server.

For the third day of the week of stories that have inspired me, I want to share Painting the Mists. It is an excellent traditional xianxia story (with an isekai'ed protag) that heavily influenced my early journey through the genre. There are several book in the story, but I highly recommend at least going through the first 9 which form a complete story of cultivation in the mortal realms.

Painting the Mists

Note: Painting the Mists has migrated to Kindle Unlimited. As such, only a few chapters are available as a sample. If you are interested in continuing the series for free (subscription required), you can find it here: http://mybook.to/ClearSkyLink2

Martial cultivators, flying swords, and magic talismans.

Life for Cha Ming is a daily grind. A rat race where people don’t make any real decisions. When he asks the universe for something more, fate itself answers his prayer. A talisman brush older than time itself sends him to another world, where magic, fortune, and danger await.

Now, the world is at his fingertips. He has a new life, a new body, and can wield the five elements. It’s too bad his new home is a place where might makes right, and immortal cultivators and demons fight at the drop of a hat.

But where the divine brush goes, danger follows. As its wielder, Cha Ming can’t stay out of trouble. There are many who seek the Clear Sky Brush, and they’ll stop at nothing to find it…

Chapter 72 – Life 60, Age 29, Martial Grandmaster 1

The day after SuYin departed, I went to WuJing’s office. He needed to get the position as Eight Flower branch manager, and I needed to lock down a position as city lord.

“What do I need to do?” I asked after I sat down across from him at his desk. “Besides just making countless pills, is there anything else I can do to secure a spot as a lord?”

“Not really,” he said with a shake of his head. “Concoct and cultivate. That’s about it. Manager Cai has ideas for securing our transfers, and we’ll just have to wait on her for now. Just do your best to reach Peak Grandmaster as soon as possible. Younger means more promising means higher priority.”

I tapped my fingers as I considered my options. “What can you tell me about the pitfalls of rushing your cultivation as a Grandmaster?” I asked. In the sect, I was warned about rushing as a Disciple and Master, but no one ever mentioned anything about it being a bad idea to rush as a Grandmaster. Was it safer?

“I’m… not sure,” said a bewildered WuJing. “I’ve never known anyone it was a problem for before. Usually, cultivation slows down significantly after reaching Grandmaster and you will naturally take years between advancements, but with Perfect Rank 3 pills…”

“Do you think it would be safe to rush my cultivation as fast as I can?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” he said concerned, “you could try it, but it may make your foundation unstable. Each advancement usually causes some amount of damage to your dantian. At the very least, make sure you completely repair it before taking the next step, alright?”

“Don’t worry about that,” I said, “I’ll be careful.”

Simply reaching Peak Grandmaster would give me enough credits to freely use my discount. I wanted to go further, but I needed to experiment with rushing as a Grandmaster to find the pitfalls. That was the only way I would be able to ascend in future lives quickly and smoothly. I didn’t want to need to spend decades after each reset to reach Peak Grandmaster if I didn’t have to. Still, I would try to be careful. No reason to simply waste this life.

“About pills,” I began to ask slowly. “Since I’ve reached Grandmaster, I can start making greater quantities. I want to buy all the ingredients I can. Especially for Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills.”

WuJing stroked his chin a bit. “I’ll do my best, but it’ll be limited. It’s hard to get Rank 3 herbs around here. It’ll be much better after we get to Eight Flower. Rank 3 herbs are somewhat precious everywhere, though, and other alchemists need to have enough of a supply too.”

“I can pay a higher markup if needed,” I said, considering, “sold as Perfect pills, the profit margin is huge, so paying more for the ingredients isn’t a problem.”

“That’s… not a good idea,” said a hesitant WuJing.

“Why not?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t that how you usually handle things?”

“Well… look at it this way. How much do you care about the profits from a Rank 1 pill? If I said you could double your profits from a Rank 1 healing pill, how excited would you be?”

“Not at all.”

WuJing gave me a look that said ‘exactly.’ “How much do you think a Martial Emperor cares about the profit of a Rank 3 pills?”

“Not at all?”

WuJing nodded. “Now, the Blue Wind Pavilion is a Sovereign-level force. How much do you think our Martial Sovereign cares about all the Rank 3 pills you could possibly produce?”

I began to respond, but he cut me off. “He doesn’t. The Pavilion is set up to encourage alchemists and help them improve their skills in a profitable way. He doesn’t want a single exceptional Rank 3 alchemist who can handle all the pills that are needed. He wants as many Rank 6 alchemists as possible.

“If you start outbidding everyone on common herbs and driving prices up, you will hurt the Pavilion in the long run. Maybe not the Pavilion as a whole, but I am guessing you could put all our other alchemists in the Wastes out of business if you wanted to, and that’s not good for anyone.”

“We can import more from other places, though, right?” I asked, “I can’t possibly be making enough to affect the continent’s supply of Rank 3 herbs.”

“No, we can’t,” WuJing snorted. “Importing anything into the Wastes is tedious because of the significantly increased travel time when using mortal horses. Aside from that, the people in charge of our supply lines don’t want skilled alchemists to hang around here too long, so the lack of herbs acts as a prod to get you to leave.”

“I get it,” I said, lowering my head. “I just don’t want to stall out here for too long.”

“I’ll get you all the low-quality herbs I can, even ones that might normally get thrown out. Those should be more plentiful, and you’re the only one who can produce anything of value from them that I know, but it may still be more limited than you hope. For now, look at keeping one out of every three for yourself and Mei. That should give you enough to steadily advance while still building the necessary contribution.”

“Alright,” I said a little dejected. Herbs would only become harder to source the further I grew. I couldn’t wait to be in a position where I wouldn’t have to worry about that, but it would still take time.

“Look, I’ll tell Cai to get you sent down south as soon as she can. Even if I can’t go with you, I’ll make sure you’re out of here and can continue advancing by the time you reach Peak Grandmaster.”

“Thank you, WuJing.”

“No need to thank me,” he smiled, “I’m still your sponsor, and I still get credit even if I’m not with you. If that happens, just make sure to take Mei along to keep you out of trouble.”

Rushing as a Disciple affected the energy flows in the body. If acupoints weren’t set up correctly, there could be serious deviations in both qi and mental state, and even if they were nearly perfect, rushing through the Disciple realm could still make someone dangerously imbalanced if they weren’t used to the new impulses caused by cultivation techniques.

Rushing through the Master realm was even more dangerous. Typically, cultivators used the flow of qi in their bodies to sense where to place meridians, and if they didn’t allow their bodies to adjust properly, they could end up placing them in the wrong position, causing permanent damage to their cultivation base.

What about Grandmaster, though? How could rushing have a negative effect on a Grandmaster, and how could it be alleviated? I didn’t know, and it seemed like WuJing didn’t either, but I wanted to see if I could find out. If there were no dangers, that would be great, but if there were, it would be good to find out now so I could begin looking for solutions.

I set my mind to fully focus on cultivating. I would perform my alchemy duties as necessary, but my focus would always remain on my progression.

I had two dantians to fill, which may seem like twice the work, but they were both somewhat smaller than normal. The speed of gathering qi was only slightly slower than it would have been with a regular dantian, so filling them ended up being much faster than it would have been for a normal cultivator.

After they were full, I forced even more qi inside. The walls and seams of both dantians strained, but they held on without giving. Once I started to sense weaknesses, I slammed my will down on both simultaneously and began compressing. My fire affinity was slightly higher, so my bottom dantian began compressing faster. I eased up there so that they would both complete at the same time.

When my qi compressed to one-tenth its original size, it stabilized into its new density. I was a Martial Grandmaster 2.

I examined the walls of my dantians, but they didn’t seem to have suffered any damage. I began to wonder if the ‘compression’ phase was necessary. If my dantian were strong enough, could I just keep gathering more qi until it naturally compressed? If I tried that now, my dantian would surely burst from the pressure, but if I were able to make one strong enough, could its walls act as the sole compression force? Something to think about in the future.

Once I was assured of the integrity of my dantian, I began rushing to cultivate. I directly swallowed a Qi Gathering Pill, and as soon as its effect wore off, I took another. In a matter of days, my dantian was full to bursting again, and I performed the second compression.

Then I did it a third time, and a fourth, and a fifth. I didn’t stop until I had reached Grandmaster 6. At each step, I only checked to ensure the integrity of my dantian, but it remained whole.

In less than a year, I had raced from Martial Grandmaster 1 to 6. It was time to see what problems I had created for myself and if they were fixable in this life.

My dantians were holding together. Unlike last time when I had to constantly patch and repair them with each advancement, I hadn’t needed to do any repairs, but it seemed like the constant stresses on them were doing damage. This might simply be a result of rushing, but I felt that finding a better dantian structure would be the best solution to the problem.

The flow of energy in my body had intensified, so I could guess the cultivation technique was having a much stronger mental effect on me, but I wasn’t worried about that. I knew what I was getting into there.

Those two problems were noteworthy, but they weren’t dealbreakers. I could find solutions to the first and live with the second. However, after closely examining my body, I finally found the true pitfall of rushing during the Grandmaster realm.

Each time my qi was compressed in my core, it would then have to cycle throughout my body, slowly replacing and cleaning out the older and less refined qi. This process took time. I wasn’t sure how long, since I had never noticed it before, but rushing my cultivation had caused havoc within my meridians.

Pockets of qi at a variety of refinement levels had become lodged in various corners of my meridians. This may not have been a problem for most cultivators since their meridians were simple tubes, but during my Martial Master cultivation, I had created a series of countless branching pathways of ever smaller sizes. Now, many of these small capillary meridians were completely blocked up with unrefined qi. I wasn’t sure how badly it would hurt my effectiveness, but I needed to find a solution.

Reviewing all the pills I knew, I couldn’t think of any that were designed for a situation like this, but two had somewhat relevant properties. The Qi Expulsion Pill was a type of healing pill used to remove foreign qi from wounds. The Qi Purifying Pill was used to cleanse qi of impurities caused by a chaotic mix of qi types.

What I needed was something that would expel the old qi from my meridians. Something that would completely purge all my qi would also work, since then I could start fresh. Neither of these pills could do something like that, but they gave me a starting point for experimentation.

From there, I slowed down and advanced only once a year for the next four years, finally reaching Martial Grandmaster Peak again. I didn’t need the help of affinity-boosting pills, my affinities were high enough, and my dantians were strong enough, so I was able to reach it naturally.

Over time, I had been able to reopen a few of the clogged meridians, but I was far below my optimal condition. I didn’t regret my decision to rush, though, since even without a pill to save me, I now knew what to look for when deciding if I was stable enough to advance in future lives.

During this time, I ensured Mei didn’t rush before her meridians were ready since I didn’t yet have a solution to the qi problem, but she kept a pace of one advancement every year, so she had reached Grandmaster 6.

Since I didn’t need to spend much time on cultivation, I concentrated on developing a Qi Purging Pill that would let me safely ascend as quickly as possible in the Grandmaster realm, but it was slow going. Several times I nearly risked the complete destruction of my cultivation base during testing, but I had been careful enough to have contingencies in place to stabilize my realm before any real damage was done.

Self-experimentation was something that no sane cultivator would consider, but I found it to be the best and most morally acceptable way to learn what I needed to know. While my current cultivation base was somewhat flawed, I had gained important knowledge in the process.

I considered a quick suicide to lock in my gains and shore up my foundation, but I decided against it. My reset point was too far in the past, and I didn’t want to repeat everything unnecessarily. Better to play things out and scout out the future.

This world had proven that death was inevitable, so I had no reason to seek it out.

Chapter 73 – Life 60, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

WuJing slid a stack of papers across his desk.

“This is the contract to transfer the city of Peaceful Ridge into your name. After you sign, you will be the officially recognized city lord of Peaceful Ridge with all the rights and responsibilities that come with it.”

I took a pen and signed, and then WuJing flipped to the next page.

“This cedes your control of the city to Steward Fang. He will have complete authority over all matters dealing with Peaceful Ridge during your tenure as city lord.”

I signed, and WuJing flipped the page.

“This is your resignation notice. Signing this, you hereby relinquish your position as city lord effective one year from this date.”

I signed. He continued presenting me with minor documents that would help make this whole operation karmically legal.

“So,” I said when I finally put down the pen, “I am now a city lord. Does just signing these papers really shift the karmic energy to me?”

“No,” said WuJing with a shake of his head, “signing these papers is simply staking a claim on the city. On the other side, Steward Fang will announce your appointment to the entire city, and the residents will acknowledge your position. The combination of your actions and theirs completes the connection.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Alright, as long as it works, but will one year be enough time?”

“It should be more than enough for your advancement,” said WuJing, “but it will be hard to make too much progress in that time. The cities the Pavilion rents out are well run, but they aren’t going to lease you anything too special.”

“What do I do after, then?” I asked with a furrowed brow.

“Well, you can continue to cultivate without the added karmic energy. You will be worse off than someone who had their entire cultivation boosted by it, but not significantly so. More important is what you choose to do when you are ready to advance. You can advance through Lord without the boost, and you’ll still be able to step into the King realm, but you’ll be significantly weakened.”

I tried to piece together the plan. “Then, I need to regain a position as city lord at every step? Is that possible?”

“As long as you’re a Rank 4 Alchemist it won’t be a problem. Once you can make Rank 4 pills, you might even be able to purchase a long-term lease from Eight Flower. I’m not familiar with the situation there, but if Eight Flower isn’t willing, then some other kingdom or empire in the region probably will be. As long as you are willing to work to improve the city, such a deal would benefit both you and the kingdom, and with the Pavilion’s assurances, they shouldn’t have too many reservations about it.”

“Sounds too simple,” I snorted.

“Being a Pavilion member opens doors that are closed to others,” WuJing smiled. “Though, the cultivation technique will be tricky. Rank 4 cultivation techniques don’t just affect you. They also affect those you are karmically connected to. You have to use an authorized technique with Pavilion cities, and other kingdoms may or may not allow it if you want to lease one of theirs.”

“And when do I get said technique?” I asked with a smile.

“Only once we’re out of here. You can’t break through to Martial Lord in the Wastes, so we don’t have any copies of Rank 4 techniques here.”

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Mei, WuJing, and I departed Dragon Gate City a week after I was appointed city lord.

It would take over a month to travel to the Eight Flower Kingdom, and a lot of that time was spent in the Wastes. It took us eight days to reach the border of the Rising Sun Empire where we made our first stop.

At the border, there was a small town that served as a waystation for those entering and leaving the Wastes. Each of the major powers had a place for travelers to switch carriages.

In the Wastes, our carriage was pulled by a team of normal, mortal horses. While it was far better than walking, the speed was limited. The roads leading out of the region were in a state of disrepair, so we were lucky if we could cover thirty kilometers in a day. Feeding them Rank 1 pills, we were able to increase that distance, but it was still slow going.

At the waystation, we switched to a carriage pulled by Rank 3 wind horses. Wind horses were a type of demon beast bred from normal, mortal horses that had been enhanced with the ability to draw in wind qi like a demon beast. As demon beasts, wind horses had far greater endurance and speed than their mortal counterparts, and the distance we previously covered in a week could be done in a day.

Rank 3 wind horses were in limited supply, and normal travelers would need to rely on slower means of transportation, but WuJing had been appointed as a new Pavilion branch manager, so he had the clout to requisition them.

Our first destination was the capital of the Rising Sun Empire. While we were technically in Rising Sun the moment we left the Wastes, we were actually in one of the many subsidiary kingdoms that surrounded the imperial holdings. With our new carriage and better roads, we made swift time and reached the capital only two days later.

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Entering the Rising Sun City went far smoother than I expected. While there was a line of people waiting to get past the guards at the gate, our carriage, with Blue Wind Pavilion markings, was simply waved on through.

The Rising Sun Empire was far more prosperous than the Wastes, and the density of qi was much higher. In Dragon Gate City, most people were mortals who had never cultivated, and those who had were almost all low-level Disciples. Martial Masters were a rare sight, and Grandmasters were almost never seen in public.

In Rising Sun City, though, everyone was a cultivator, and most were close to being Peak Disciples. Grandmasters were still rare, but I still saw a handful walking the streets. I did not, however, see anyone at the Lord level or higher. Cultivators of the Ruler tier were removed from the daily life of commoners.

The carriage pulled up outside an expensive-looking inn. It was lavishly decorated with red and gold paint, and two guardian lion statues flanked its entrance.

“I’ve got you a room at this inn,” said WuJing, “it’s one of the nicest in the city, so you should be well taken care of. I need to spend a day at the Pavilion branch, but it would be best if you didn’t come in. The branch manager here won’t be happy when he finds out his region lost its biggest source of Rank 3 pills, so we want to try and get out of here without him realizing who you are.”

“Is it going to be a problem?” I asked.

“No, he can’t do anything, but he might delay us. It’s just best not to make it an issue. I’ll grab your new cultivation technique and come back. Just give me a couple of hours.”

Accepting his arrangements, I left the carriage and entered the inn. Its insides were opulent, but I didn’t care much. I allowed a waitress to guide me to my room where I sat to wait for WuJing’s return.

While I practiced cultivating, I focused on the small bits of karmic energy that had entered my dantian. I wanted to avoid touching them until I had a proper technique, but I watched as the energy slowly accumulated. The amount of energy I gained in a day was minuscule, but it was something.

After three hours, WuJing appeared and brought me to a restaurant to eat while we talked.

“Here it is,” he said passing me a small book. “This is the standard technique for Pavilion craftsmen.”

I flipped through it casually, but it seemed a little strange. “There’s a standard technique for fire-wood dual-element cultivators?”

“No,” he said shaking his head, “we don’t have anything specialized to any particular element. This is a generic technique anyone can use. It focuses more on the karmic part of the cultivation, encouraging hard work and industriousness for both you and those you are connected with. You will need to adjust the qi aspect of it to work best for your cultivation.”

“Anything I need to be careful about?”

WuJing laughed. “You’re asking me, but who am I supposed to ask? I’m in the same boat as you. Try your best, and if there are any problems, we can look at getting guidance from another Lord. Best to do that after we reach Eight Flower, though. For now, just do your best.”

“Will do,” I smiled.

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After speaking with WuJing, I returned to my inn room to begin studying the Rank 4 cultivation technique.

The first step in becoming a Martial Lord was to create a core of karmic energy inside one’s dantian. From what I could tell, this core served the same general purpose as the dantian, except it was made from solid karmic energy instead of braided qi strands. Once the core was complete, the cultivator would then send qi inside, forcing it to compress even further than was possible in the dantian.

Ascending to False Lord was a process of using another weaving technique to create a false core within the body. This false core suffered the same problems as the larger dantian. A woven structure was simply not able to contain the pressure needed to condense qi to sufficient levels. Using such a process, one could advance slightly, but they could not reach the level of a true Lord.

Since qi was not capable of creating a solid core, cultivators had resorted to using karmic energy. Karmic energy could be compressed into an extreme density making it easy to form a hardened core that could withstand extreme pressures.

Once the core was in place, qi would be injected into it, and the qi would compress until the cultivator broke through to the next stage. Karmic energy could be woven into the qi to create a far superior result, but gathering so much of the precious energy was extremely difficult. Instead, the cultivation technique advised using basic qi while cultivating normally and only braiding in karmic energy when one was ready to advance to the next stage.

The way I understood it, advancing as a lord wasn’t much different than advancing as a Grandmaster. Simply keep injecting qi until it properly condenses and crystalizes into its new form. From my reading, the element of the qi seemed to make no difference to the process. It might affect the final result, but it seemed meaningless to the cultivation process.

I was not ready to try advancing to Martial Lord. I would need to collect far more karmic energy before it would be possible to even begin forming my core, but I wanted to begin learning how to manipulate and form karmic energy.

My top dantian contained my wood qi, and my bottom dantian contained my fire qi. My middle dantian had remained mostly empty except for a few stray wisps of qi that had slipped in. However, after being appointed to city lord of Peaceful Ridge, strands of karmic energy had begun gathering inside it.

I reached for that energy and began trying to mold it into shapes needed for my dantian, but it was difficult. Unlike fire and wood, I had no affinity with karma to help me. The cultivation technique I had been given took this into account, though.

Most cultivators would have the same problems I did when controlling karmic energy, so the structures needed for the core were bulky and lacked finesse. I just needed to be able to force it into a basic structure, and my soul strength seemed to be high enough to make that possible.

I spent hours painstakingly forcing the karmic energy into one shape after another to get a good feel for how it would react. I wanted sufficient practice before my dantian contained too much for me to handle. I wasn’t sure if I should form my core gradually as I gathered energy or if I should wait until after I had enough for the complete core before beginning. I would need to ask WuJing about that.

Focused on studying my new cultivation technique, I was completely unprepared when pain suddenly shot through my entire body.

From my sitting position, I was knocked to the ground by a hard kick to my chest. Then, two long steel rods impaled me on either side of my body right under my collarbone, pinning me to the floor.

I looked around but saw no sign of my attacker. Remembering the illusionist from the Dragon Gate Festival, I flipped on my qi vision, but I still saw nothing.

“I was sent to give you a message,” echoed an ominous voice. “Be more honest in your next life and don’t offend those you can’t afford to offend.”

A sword appeared above me and stabbed into my chest.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Grandmaster Peak. 1,000,000 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 1,025,806

Chapter 74 – Life 61, Age 19, Martial Disciple Peak

I woke up in my room in the Blue Wind Pavilion.

My frantic state of mind competed against the lack of adrenaline in my system, leaving my body in a confused state. My mind wanted to get up and run, but my body was relaxed. Taking several deep breaths, I calmed down and assessed my situation.

Who had killed me?

Not the assassin. The person holding the knife made no difference to me. Who was the one giving him orders? I tried to think through who I had offended and who had the means to order my death.

More importantly, what could I do to prevent it from happening again?

The assassin’s words about my ‘next life’ immediately made me think that somehow the Earthly Dao arranged things behind the scenes, but I discounted it. If it had a problem with what I was doing, it could damn well tell me to my face as it had done in the past. If it was the Dao, it would do whatever it wanted anyway, and trying to avoid its punishments was futile, so it wasn’t worth considering.

The assassin had some type of illusion or stealth technique. It reminded me of the man from the Dragon Gate Festival, but with that man, I could see him in qi vision. I couldn’t rule out him improving in his technique, but it could have also been another person with a similar skill set.

I hadn’t been attacked inside the Wastes which made sense. I was already a Peak Grandmaster, and even if an assassin could easily overpower me, if his cultivation was the same level as mine it would be possible for me to escape. The killer was almost certainly a Lord, so he was someone who couldn’t enter the Wastes.

Someone had tracked me, knew when I entered Rising Sun, and used that opportunity to kill me.

My first suspect was the young master from Rising Sun. He was the one who recruited the illusionist at the festival. He didn’t have much of a reason to kill me, but people like him didn’t need it. I was with SuYin when he was ‘opposed,’ and if he couldn’t target SuYin or the Verdant Forests Sect, his ire might have shifted to me. It was even possible that SuYin had done more to antagonize him after we parted and made things worse.

He also had easy access to means to arrange my death. If he had a high place in Rising Sun, he could easily give minions at the border a list of people to watch out for, and when I was spotted, it automatically triggered my death warrant. He could have done it years in the past and not even known or cared about my death when it happened.

I still wanted to send SuYin to learn herbalism for me, but we could take a different path. If we don’t go to the festival, we won’t encounter the young master.

Another person with easy means but a suspect motive would be the branch manager for Rising Sun’s Blue Wind Pavilion. As an imperial-level branch manager, he would be a Martial King, and it wouldn’t be strange for him to have several Lord level underlings he could send to assassinate me.

He would have known I was in the capital city since WuJing went to retrieve the cultivation manual for me, but would he want to kill me? I was leaving his territory, and WuJing’s behavior made me feel like I was slipping away in the night, trying to hide my departure, but it felt like it would be too petty for a King to care so much about a Rank 3 alchemist. I didn’t know anything about the man’s personality, though, so I couldn’t completely rule it out.

Here, I could be less ostentatious. I didn’t need to appear on the higher-ups’ radar until later in life. I needed to find a place where I could study and learn Rank 4 alchemy, and it would be hard to stay out of the limelight after I reached that point, but staying lowkey until I reached a place I wanted to stay long-term would mean less people intent on stopping my movements.

The final possible masterminds behind my assassination were Gao, Master Zhong, and Deputy Manager Liu. Unfortunately, at this point, I had already started a feud with Gao and Zhong, and they had been kicked out of the Pavilion. They only seemed to be connected to Grandmaster-level figures, though, so I didn’t worry too much about them, but if I started fresh, I would need to find a way around starting a feud for no good reason.

Manager Liu wasn’t too powerful, but it seemed like he had the backing of someone higher up in the Pavilion, and that was the person I needed to avoid offending. Since I had driven away Zhong, I was already on bad terms with Liu, but we hadn’t broken off all pretenses of cordiality yet. It wasn’t until I made Rank 3 pills that we truly became irreconcilable last time. That was when I was brought into the fold of Manager Cai’s faction and became a powerful tool against his.

I would avoid making Rank 3 pills until I was a Grandmaster this life, and I would be more conspicuous when I did so, announcing what I was doing and that it was to study how to make Rank 3 pills. This could avoid the situation where I ended up slapping his face. Depending on circumstances, it may even be better to not make such pills until after leaving the Wastes.

So, my plan was set. Send SuYin to learn herbalism through other means and don’t sell any Perfect Rank 3 pills until after reaching Grandmaster. Doing these two things should avoid that assassin being sent against me, but it wasn’t a guarantee. Gao and Zhong were still a hidden danger, and I couldn’t be sure the assassin wasn’t directly connected to them, so my final decision was to level as fast as I could. That way, even if I died early, this life wasn’t a complete write-off.

I also needed to look into what protections I could buy through the Pavilion. If my enemies could keep sending high-level opponents against me, I would be dead no matter what, but if I could buy enough protection to advance a single step further in my cultivation, it would be well worth the investment.

With a plan in mind, I set aside my concerns about assassinations for the time being.

I had a million credits to spend, and I needed to use them all at once to maximize my benefits from the discount I had received. What was the best way to approach this?

“System, how much to make all my current affinities permanent?”

Cost 1,892,500 credits. Discounted cost 946,250 credits.

“That should be the basic cost of the affinities. Don’t I get a discount since I already have them as temporary affinities?”

No discount is available.

Nothing I could do to change the situation, so I moved on.

I felt like I had been bitten too many times by not having a large enough storage space. I wanted to fix that with the spatial spirit flame, but that may be too many lives in the future. If I had a large enough space, I could have stored Rank 3 techniques in the sect, or I could have stored the Rank 4 technique I had just received. It didn’t need to be massive, but I wanted to at least be able to fit a few extra high-level manuals in it.

Technique manuals could be written on bamboo slips, on paper scrolls, or in books, so I would need a space capable of storing any of these possibilities.

“System, how much to add a section to my storage space that’s 50cm by 15cm by 10cm?”

Cost 225,000 credits. Discounted cost 112,500 credits.

That wasn’t a good idea for now, but it was something I needed to get next time for sure.

My biggest problem was that the discount was like a millstone around my neck. I needed to spend it on my affinities, so purchasing permanent affinities had to be my next purchase, but my affinities were already set, so there was no reason to make that purchase until my next life.

Since there was nothing I could purchase to assist me in this life, I decided to put my purchasing decisions on hold. It would be better to have a clearer picture of what I needed and wanted in my next life before committing to purchases unnecessarily.

Remembering where I was and why I was here, I cleared my mind and started cultivating. I had entered seclusion to break through to Martial Master. I had gained a lot of confidence in my Rank 2 cultivation technique, so I was ready to rush it as hard as I could. I had no reservations about mental deviations. If they happened, they happened, and then I would have a good excuse to start my life anew.

Last time, I spent a total of three months researching my cultivation technique and breaking through to Martial Master 1. This time, after those same three months, I left my cultivation chamber as a Martial Master 3. I wanted to go further, but I had run out of Meridian Builder Pills in my storage space, and I had to keep to my deadline with Mei.

Opening the door of my apartment, I saw her standing right outside. When she saw me, she briefly gave me a confused look, but quickly regained her composure and calmly walked inside to my cultivation chamber. She wasn’t the excited girl from my last life.

Working in tandem, I quickly raised her cultivation to Martial Master 1. We both knew what to do, and everything went smoothly.

Unlike last time, I did not suddenly go out and buy Rank 3 ingredients. Instead, I focused on making enough pills to support SuYin, Mei, and myself for a quick rise through the Martial Master realm. Their Rank 2 techniques were Yellow ranked, so it was easy for me to quickly help them construct their meridians. I continued to use the Peak-Profound technique I created in my last life, so my meridians took significantly more time.

Altogether, the three of us reached Martial Master Peak before two years had passed. We hadn’t allowed any time for our qi or cultivation to settle. We knew where the meridians were supposed to go and placed them accurately, regardless of the turbulence it caused.

During these years, I was careful not to do anything to cause public criticism of my actions. WuJing gave me suggestions on what I should or shouldn’t do, but frankly, I didn’t put too much faith in him anymore. I followed WuJing’s, and by extension Manager Cai’s, guidance last time. While I didn’t believe they meant for me to die, my death proved that their guidance was lacking. Instead, more than anyone else, I trusted Mei to guide me through the deep water of politics in the Pavilion.

I was leery of putting so much faith in a single person, especially since I wasn’t even trusting Mei, I was trusting her blessing that didn’t necessarily have my best interests in mind. However, ever since my rebirth, I had felt disconnected from this life. I was sent back to a time and place where too many things had already been decided and I only had limited options for how to proceed. It was like I was playing a video game, I made a save point, and then years later I started it up again and tried to pick up from where I left off.

My mind rejected the idea of picking up from the reset point I had made. It was a failed timeline, and the only reason not to simply start fresh was to save on the cost of my temporary boosts. Because of these feelings, I put my future into the hands of Mei’s blessing and let it decide how to handle things. In essence, this was a test to see how much it would work on my behalf.

Mei, SuYin, and I gathered in my apartment to make a crucial decision.

“SuYin,” I said, “you need to decide what you want to do. I can’t teach you herbalism, so if you want to learn you need to go to one of the sects. The Verdant Forests is the best option, but it will be harder. You’ll need to travel outside the Wastes alone, and even if I help you advance to Grandmaster, it isn’t certain you’ll be accepted. The Verdant Fields is in the Wastes, and we can have a bodyguard escort you. You are guaranteed entry, but it’s hard to say if you’ll be promoted to the Verdant Forests in the future.”

SuYin looked at the floor, fidgeting with her hands. “What do you think I should do?”

“I don’t know.” I looked at her, but she didn’t meet my eyes. “Both options have potential. The main difference is that if you go to Verdant Fields, you shouldn’t advance to Grandmaster until after you are a disciple for a time. It will be better to acclimate as a Master. You are too young to be a Grandmaster there.”

SuYin didn’t respond. I was putting her under pressure to decide, but I didn’t care. Mei and I had other goals to accomplish, and we couldn’t coddle her. She probably wanted to stay with us, but that couldn’t happen.

“Mei,” I said, looking to the other girl.

Mei stood up and took SuYin’s hand. They walked into my bedroom and talked privately for a long time before emerging.

“She’ll go to Verdant Fields,” said Mei.

Decision made, we arranged travel plans and guards to safely take SuYin to the sect during the regular annual recruitment. Then, Mei and I prepared for our own journey.

“Are you sure we should leave on our own without waiting for WuJing’s promotion?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she stated confidently.

A note from G Tolley

If you are interested, you can join my Discord server for more discussions. It's a small community there, but hopefully it will grow.

Chapter 75 – Life 61, Age 21, Martial Master Peak

I passed the job of planning our route to Mei. I told her of my desire to reach the Brilliant Sun Empire and the plan to use Eight Flower as a break-in point, but she was free to lead us elsewhere based on the guidance from her blessing.

We requisitioned a carriage through the Pavilion for the first leg of our journey. I wasn’t sure about giving potential spies information about my travel plans, but riding in a Pavilion-marked carriage had definite safety advantages. Where bandit groups might be willing to attack carriages belonging to local Lords or Kings, few would risk offending a Sovereign-level force like the Blue Wind Pavilion.

Mei negotiating our destination was like a strange form of dowsing.

“We want to charter a carriage for tomorrow,” she said to a Pavilion attendant.

“Okay, a carriage for tomorrow. What is your destination?” the attendant responded with a pleasant tone.

“No,” said Mei quickly, “we need the carriage in two days.”

“Two days?” asked the attendant.

“Three,” said Mei.

“Thr—”

“Four.”

This continued until they finally settled on a date for the following week.

“Okay, a carriage in eight days,” said the bewildered attendant. “Where do you want to go?”

“The Rising Sun Empire,” said Mei with confidence.

“Rising Sun in eight days?”

“No,” responded Mei instantly, “to the territory of the Flowing Mountain Sect.”

“Flowing Mountain?”

“Yes, Flowing Mountain in eight days,” Mei nodded.

I watched as they continued this back and forth. Finally, Mei decided we would be traveling to Dark Earth City in the territory of the Flowing Mountain Sect. It was a relatively small settlement on the eastern edge of their lands, but it still had a Blue Wind Pavilion branch location we could stop at.

With travel plans in place, the next step was to prepare for our continued cultivation along the trip.

We had decided not to advance to Grandmaster until after leaving, and without being a Grandmaster, I didn’t want to sell any Rank 3 pills. However, I still wanted to begin stockpiling them for my own use. Purchasing ingredients myself risked throwing up red flags within the various Pavilion factions, so again, I had Mei handle these transactions. I don’t know exactly how she did it, but she managed to procure enough herbs so we would have three pills each, and I didn’t notice any overly attentive Pavilion managers breathing down my neck about it.

Aside from these Rank 3 pills, I also concocted everything we would need for our final breakthrough into the Grandmaster realm. I also made some supplemental pills for us to use on the road. Neither of us was a fighter, so I prepared explosive pills, fasting pills, and other odds and ends that would help us out of a bad spot. I didn’t want to use them, but better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them.

WuJing was surprisingly supportive of our decision to leave early. He provided me with a silver membership badge I could use to prove my position within the Pavilion and assured me that he would take care of any problems that arose due to our swift departure. As he told me before, as the guarantor of my membership, he would still get credit for my actions whether he was with me or not, so splitting up didn’t bother him over much.

Once our preparations were finished and the day of our departure arrived, we said our final goodbyes to people in the Pavilion, and Mei and I boarded our carriage.

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“Mei,” I said once our carriage had departed, “I’m thinking we should advance to Grandmaster during this ride. It would be good if we reached it before entering the Flowing Mountain’s territory. What do you think?”

“It would make acquiring Rank 3 ingredients easier,” she said with an uncertain tone. She paused for a moment, then spoke with confidence. “No, not now. We need to wait.”

I nodded my head in acknowledgment. While I couldn’t advance, I needed to make good use of this time, so I began studying the Earth Rank techniques Secretary Jiang had provided me with in my last life. They contained a variety of profound mysteries that I wouldn’t be able to grasp until after I had cultivated them myself, but I was looking for ways to improve my Rank 3 cultivation technique.

Currently, the Grandmaster-level technique I used formed three separate dantians. One for wood qi, one for fire qi, and one for karmic energy. This seemed unnecessarily complicated to me, and it felt like it hampered the flow of qi in my body more than helping it, but I wasn’t sure how to improve the situation. I needed more inspiration from other techniques to try to find a solution.

The Rank 3 Earth Rank cultivation technique was incomprehensible to me without a strong foundation in its preceding stages, so I started my studies from Rank 1.

When we arrived in Dark Earth City, I had made very little progress, but I was beginning to understand the barrier between the Profound and Earth Ranks. It was clear to me that Profound Rank techniques were lacking something, but I was unable to determine exactly what.

“We’re here,” said Mei, breaking me from my research.

I wasn’t sure what she had been focused on during the weeks of our travel, but she seemed eager to spend time outside of the carriage.

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The Blue Wind Pavilion in Dark Earth City was only a shadow of the one in Dragon Gate. The main office of the Flowing Mountain branch was nearer to the sect’s center of power, and this location was just a small-time operation.

The building was not a massive pagoda. Instead, it was a simple two-story shop that resembled others along the street. The only things that set it apart were the distinctive blue and red colorings of the Pavilion and the exquisite gold ornamentations.

Inside, only two young women were present, but since no customers were around, they were both available.

“Hello,” I began, but Mei stepped in front of me to address the attendant.

“We would like to purchase a selection of Rank 3 herbs,” Mei said smoothly before pausing abruptly. “They are for our master, and we cannot keep him waiting too long.”

“Of course,” the attendant replied, “which do you require?”

I let Mei handle the transaction. After it was complete, she turned away without even looking at me and walked out the door. I followed behind without speaking, giving her a position as my superior.

As she walked down the street, she subtly swerved left and right as she spotted different people, this pointed her in the direction of various shops, inns, and side streets where others were present. After a long, meandering walk we ended up in a modest inn where she reserved separate rooms for us.

“How long are we staying here?” I asked.

“You tell me,” she said with a smile.

“One day?” I asked.

“No.”

“Two?”

“No.”

“More than a week?”

“Yes.”

After a long series of back-and-forths, we decided on a time of two and a half months.

“Should I advance during our wait?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, before confirming again, “yes you should.”

Taking her guidance as gospel, I settled in and got to work.

I had not yet deciphered any new special ways to improve my Rank 3 technique, so I simply followed the same path I did in my last life. I made three beachball-shaped dantians and connected them together.

After following Mei out of the Wastes, my feelings of detachment from this life had grown into a sense of transience. In this life, I was only a passer-by. Because of this feeling, I had a hard time concentrating when forming my dantians. The mental effects of my cultivation technique kept me focused enough on advancing, but advancing from Master to Grandmaster was a process that required countless hours of meticulous work, and I didn’t have the drive necessary.

Since I lacked the necessary focus on concentration, several small errors crept into my dantians. This wouldn’t be enough to stop me from advancing, and most cultivators had worse dantians, so I decided to leave them be and use them to learn what effect they would have.

After my successful advancement, I began helping Mei. Her dantian was simple, and the quality she ended up with was far superior to what I had made for myself. Last life, I had been careful about not helping her too much and having her do most of the work. This was to prepare for helping SuYin. However, this time I had no such concerns. We both concentrated and did our utmost to provide her with the highest quality dantian we could create.

Looking at the flow of qi within Mei, it made me feel that the multiple dantian setup I was trying to work with was going in the wrong direction. One mass containing all the energy of the body, that was what a dantian was supposed to be. How would that be possible when cultivating with two distinct elements, though? They would interact and cause countless problems.

“We are leaving tomorrow,” said Mei, breaking me out of my thoughts. “I’ve arranged everything. We’ll leave Flowing Mountain territory through the southwest, heading into the Plum Blossom Kingdom, but we’ll just cut through it before heading southeast into the Empire of Tranquil Springs. The total trip should be about two weeks. Our next stop will be the Capital of Spring.”

“Alright, sounds good to me,” I said, not caring about the details.

---------------------------------------------------

As it turned out, I maybe should have asked for a few more details about how we would be traveling.

This two-week trip was not done in a fancy, well-maintained carriage from the Blue Wind Pavilion. Instead, Mei seemed to have gone with the lowest-bidder approach. The wheels and axles of the carriage she requisitioned were in good repair, so I didn’t think we would need to worry about them breaking on our journey, but that was about the only good thing I could say about the pile of sticks she led me to.

The carriage had been painted at one time, but only the gods would know when that was. Only flecks of green and black dotted the bare wood, giving it a rotting appearance. Holes had been punched through several boards, and while some had been replaced, the majority hadn’t. Worse, the seats inside were made from moth-ridden cloth and provided no cushioning.

I gave Mei a look of mixed confusion, disgust, and worry, but she just smiled at me.

“Our carriage awaits,” she said in a chipper tone.

Without waiting for a response, she jumped on board. When she did, the floorboards creaked ominously. Shaking my head, I could only follow after.

---------------------------------------------------

We traveled this way for over three years, never staying in any place for more than a few months.

Sometimes, we would enter a Blue Wind Pavilion branch and I would offer my services as an itinerant alchemist member, but other times we would stay in rundown out-of-the-way places. We didn’t know where we would be heading next, and neither of us knew what our final destination would be, but we continued heading in a roughly southeasterly direction, toward the Brilliant Sun Empire.

The long journey gave us both significant time for cultivation. Overall, the qi in the outside world was far denser and more abundant than it had been in the Wastes, but it fluctuated up and down as we journeyed. This didn’t affect either of us much, though, since we both relied entirely on Qi Gathering Pills for our advancements.

After each advancement, we only waited until the moment our newly condensed qi had thoroughly flushed out our meridians before advancing again. At the end of our long journey, we had both reached Martial Grandmaster Peak. I considered attempting an advancement to False Lord to lock in my credits and learn more about that stage, but I listened to Mei and desisted.

The end of our journey was the capital of the Eight Flower Kingdom, Hundred Flower City. The city we had been planning to travel to in only two months in my last life had taken us years to reach this time.

“Are you sure this is the place?” I asked Mei.

“Yes.” Her face showed a determined look. “There is something here that will help us advance. I can feel it.”

Chapter 76 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Hundred Flower City, capital of Eight Flower Kingdom, was one of the most meticulous, and purpose-built cities I had ever visited.

The center of the city was a lone mountain that towered above the surrounding countryside. An octagonal inner wall encircled the mountain, protecting and separating the monarchs and their direct subordinates. The palace complex was built on the peak of the mountain, and various administrative, military, and residential areas covered the slopes.

Outside the inner wall, the city was separated into eight districts, each with distinct roles and responsibilities. All manual labor was to be conducted in the northern Water District, including smithing, alchemy, tailoring, or any other trade of cultivators or mortals. The western Marsh District was where any creative endeavors, such as painting or poetry, were to occur. The residential areas were in the eastern Thunder District, except for newlywed housing which was in the southwest Earth District.

An octagonal outer wall surrounded the city, and dividing walls stretched from the vertices of the inner wall to their matching vertex on the outer wall, separating the districts. A wide river entered the city from the north, passed through the northern district, wrapped around the mountain, and flowed out through an opening in the western wall.

For any normal, mortal city, the layout of Hundred Flower City would have been atrocious. For most people, traveling from where they lived to where they worked involved an hours-long trip around a mountain. Hundred Flower City was not a normal city, though. It was designed for cultivators, by cultivators, and its design reflected the needs and abilities of its inhabitants.

Our carriage entered the city through the northwestern gate.

Inside, the city was a mix of modern and traditional architecture. Some buildings were of the large traditional courtyard style with colonnades and peaked roofs, while others were high-rises with glass curtain walls.

Our carriage took us to one of the larger courtyard-style buildings. It maintained some of the colorations of a Blue Wind Pavilion location, having the standard blue roof tiles and red walls, but it also had the silver and gray ornamentations that decorated every other building in the district.

The city looked well-designed, and the eclectic mix of styles blended together to create an attractive cityscape, but streamers of black and dark blue hung from every building and black fabric had been draped between light posts. It gave me the impression that the city was in the middle of a wake after someone’s death, though, local traditions would have called for white decorations in such an instance. Instead of the somber impression the decorations gave me, the people on the street were happy and excited. People were bustling everywhere, and small carts had been set up to sell snacks and souvenirs.

I turned to Mei. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking just as confused as I was.

We weren’t familiar with the city, so she approached our driver.

“Is this the Pavilion?” Mei asked. “Isn’t it a bit small?”

The driver laughed. “This is the Blue Wind Travel Bureau. If you want the Blue Wind Merchant Exchange, you’ll have to go to the Wind District.”

“How do we get there?”

“You can walk,” he said, pointing to a path. “That will take you round the city, but we’re in the Heaven District. Wind is in the southeast, so you’re going to have to go halfway round the city to get there. It’s fine if you don’t mind walking, but you might want to grab a chariot.”

I noticed several small chariots pulled by wind horses making their way around the streets. The chariots were only large enough for three people, and it was standing room only, but they had an umbrella overhead to block out the sun.

Following the driver’s advice, we signaled a free charioteer and climbed aboard his wagon. He took us east, circling around the city clockwise.

Once we crossed into the northern district, the style of buildings changed. Gone were most of the tall multistoried structures. Instead, they were replaced with smithies and workshops. Instead of the silver and gray ornamentations, this district was decorated in black. Where small black streamers and bands of dark cloth adorned buildings in the Heaven District, giving me a mournful feeling, buntings of rich blues and blacks of various subtle hues made this district feel like it was in the throes of a vibrant celebration.

“What’s going on here?” I asked the driver.

He smiled and gave a broad wave with his right hand. “The Water Flower had bloomed. These celebrations will last another couple weeks before a new Flower will blossom.”

I looked to Mei to see if she understood what that meant, but she shook her head.

The driver took us through the Mountain District, decorated in light blue, the Thunder District, decorated in shades of green, and finally to the Wind District, where buildings were adorned in purple. Each of these districts had the same sad, black decorations the Heaven District had. Only the Water District stood out as a place of true celebration.

“Blue Wind Merchant Exchange,” said the driver pulling up to an exact replica of the building from Dragon Gate City. We paid the driver, and he waved us away. “Good luck to you.”

Mei nodded at me, so I took the lead.

Inside, this Pavilion was far busier than any I had seen before. Countless customers were being guided around by dozens of beautiful young women in the blue and silver qipao of the Blue Wind Pavilion. One thing that stood out, though, was that the Pavilion had also been decorated in the more festive blues and blacks of the Water District.

Even though it was busy, as soon as we entered, an attendant immediately approached us.

“How may I help you today, sir?”

I held up the silver badge WuJing had given me and showed it to her. “Alchemist member Su Fang and personal disciple Pei LiMei. We want to register for a long-term stay.”

The girl’s eyes widened, and she gave a deep bow. “Of course, sir, this way please.”

She brought us to the eighth floor where a small team of secretaries was busy with bookkeeping.

“Secretary Fei, a member wishes to register.”

Fei looked at us. His brow furrowed upon seeing our youth, but he didn’t comment on it. I handed him my badge and explained.

“Secretary Fei, my name is Su Fang. I am a Martial Grandmaster and a Rank 3 alchemist. I plan to reside in the city for some time, so I need accommodations and to be registered to receive any special orders.”

Fei rubbed my badge a bit to make sure it was authentic.

“This badge is for a Rank 2 alchemist,” he said simply.

“Yes, sir. I advanced my alchemy during my travels and have not had a chance to update the information.”

“Hmm, we’ll need to verify your skills before you can be assigned any special orders, but I’ll go ahead and begin the registration process for you. I’ll send the information to the Workshops today, and you should have access by tomorrow. You’ll be assigned a silver-level residence for now. Once your claim of Grandmaster Alchemy has been verified, we can move you into a gold-level one.”

He began writing on several different pieces of paper one after another. When he was done, he handed me a sheet he had just completed.

“Take this to the Residence Hall,” he said, “they’ll arrange for your placement. Good day.”

After speaking, Secretary Fei didn’t look back up and restarted the work we had interrupted. The attendant who brought us up began guiding us back down to the ground level.

“Is that it?” I asked. “Why are you leading us out?”

She gave me a confused look. “Aren’t you going to your residence?”

“Yes, but shouldn’t that be on the third or fourth floor?”

She shook her head. “No. The city is very strict about who can have an apartment in the Wind District. Only top-level managers who need to be on-site at all times are allowed to stay here. Everyone else needs to live in the Thunder District.”

I just blinked at her.

She led us out of the Pavilion and pointed down a road. “Just follow that road north and you’ll enter the Thunder District. The Blue Wind Residence is unmistakable. It’s the only building with blue roof tiles.”

“Thank you,” I said, giving her a short bow.

“It was my pleasure to help, Grandmaster Alchemist.”

Every building in the Thunder District was a multistory, high-density high-rise. This district had to house the entire city, and space was limited, so basic engineering principles were combined with the power of cultivators to create an impressive skyline of elegant and unique buildings. The Blue Wind Residence retained some of the artistic flourishes that were standard for the Pavilion but combined them with more modern-looking accents like glass walls.

Using the documents provided by Secretary Fei, we were able to quickly register for an apartment, but Mei was too antsy to go upstairs and view it immediately. She wanted to get out on the streets.

We took our time walking the streets of Hundred Flower City, but Mei’s path took us ever farther north. She didn’t settle down until we reached the Water District and she saw a young woman dressed in black robes.

“Excuse me,” Mei said politely to the woman, “we’re new here. Can you tell us about the celebration that’s going on?”

The young woman’s face beamed with an excited smile. “Of course! The Water Flower has bloomed!” The joy in her voice was evident for all to hear. “In two weeks, the new Flower will blossom. I know I don’t have a chance, but I dream of becoming one of her Seeds.”

“What is the Water Flower?” asked Mei, trying to calm the girl down.

“You don’t know!? The Water Flower is the Lord of the north. She guides the people of the kingdom to have safe and fulfilling careers, supporting those who wish to become skilled in any profession they choose.”

I gave Mei a look and then approached the girl. “Sorry, but we’re new to the city. Could we buy you a meal? It would be nice if someone could sit down and explain things to us.”

The girl seemed a little afraid of my offer, but Mei soothed her. “We just want to learn about the Water Flower. Please, we would be grateful for anything you can share.”

“Alright, alright, I can do that,” she said, mustering her courage. “Let me take you to a place.”

She took us to a large, open restaurant near the center of the district. The prices here were likely much higher than in other places, but it was no doubt the safest place for a lone girl to have a conversation with two strangers.

“The Eight Flower Kingdom is protected by the Bagua Formation. The formation is empowered by the kingdom’s Rulers. The King in the center and the Lords on the borders,” the girl explained when we were seated in a semi-private room. “Each year, one of the Rulers steps down and a new one takes their place.”

My gaze instantly darted to Mei when I heard this. Mei said she was confident she could ascend to the Lord realm here. This had to be the opportunity she was looking for.

“A new Flower is chosen each year, so she will be city lord for eight or nine years?” I asked.

“No, no,” the girl corrected. “A Flower Blossoming, when a new Flower is chosen is only held on years of yin energy. This year, a new Water Flower will blossom, and she will take charge of North Lake City. On odd-numbered years, years of yang energy, a Groom Selection takes place, and a Flower becomes the consort of the new Lord. Last year, was the Groom Selection for the Swamp Flower. As Flower Groom, he took over her duties as city lord of West Marsh City. A Flower reigns for eleven years and then serves as consort to her Groom for nine. After this Blossoming, it’ll be twenty years until a new Water Flower is chosen."

I looked at Mei and saw a gleam in her eye. She wanted to become the new Water Flower.

“How?” asked Mei, “How do you get chosen to be the new Flower?”

“It’s difficult,” the girl demurred. “The requirements are very strict. You must be twenty-five, thirty-seven, or forty-nine, otherwise, your zodiac won’t be a proper match. Also, you must be a Peak Grandmaster and cultivate water qi.”

Mei smiled at those requirements. They, of course, fit her perfectly. “Anything else?”

“During the Blossoming, any woman who meets the requirements can compete for the position, and they are judged on several different factors.”

“I’m new to the city. Would I still be allowed to compete?”

“Yes,” the girl looked down with a sad face, “but the current Water Flower has several Seeds. These are young women she raised as her successors, and they will also be competing for the position of Flower. Outsiders are encouraged to join, the kingdom welcomes anyone willing to give the Oath, and strong outside cultivators are considered valuable additions to the city, but it is nearly impossible to surpass the Seeds.”

We talked a little more, getting a few details about the selection process, and then said our goodbyes.

“You want to be the Water Flower?” I asked Mei.

“Yes,” she said with determination. “Don’t worry, though. You should get your chance to become a Lord in eleven years.”

Chapter 77 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Mei left on her own to begin preparing for the Flower Blossoming, so I decided to spend the time familiarizing myself with the local alchemy workshop since I was already in the Water District.

The Blue Wind Workshops looked almost identical to a standard Blue Wind Pavilion location. It was an eight-storied pagoda with blue roofs and red walls, in keeping with the brand’s theme. The only difference was that due to its place in the city, the eaves had been painted a dark black instead of their usual blue.

The first floor of the building was not what I expected of a workshop building. It resembled a standard shop floor with counters filled with various merchandise on display. As soon as I entered, an attendant approached me.

“How may I help you today, sir?”

I held up my silver Pavilion badge. “I’m here to register.”

“Of course, sir. This way please.”

She began leading me to the right, around the edge of the shop floor.

“What are you registering as?” she asked.

“Grandmaster Alchemist.”

“With a silver badge? So, you want to register an improvement as well?” she asked in a quieter voice.

“Yes,” I nodded.

She remained quiet until we approached a corner away from other visitors. “Do you only want to register your credentials, or would you like to purchase our promotional package?”

“Promotional package?”

She smiled as she explained. “As you are new to the city, and a new Grandmaster Alchemist, we are willing to help promote your skills to encourage more people to seek your services. As you know, special orders are far more profitable and are vital for earning high levels of contribution within the Pavilion. We wish to assist our members in being selected for such tasks as much as possible.”

I thought about it as we continued walking around the edge of the store. “What does this involve?”

“It is better if you don’t know for now as it will improve the effectiveness of our promotion. I must warn you that this may put you at odds with a few locals of limited power and ability, but I can assure you that this is all to improve our results and give you a satisfactory experience.”

I didn’t like the idea of offending anyone in an unfamiliar location, and this sounded like this was guaranteed to do just that, but if it was a standard service of the Pavilion, I might as well give it a try. This was a good life for trying such things.

“Alright,” I said. “I’ll take the promotional package.”

“Excellent. This way, sir.”

She led me to a counter in the middle of the floor that was visible from nearly everywhere in the Pavilion.

“A new Master Alchemist wishes to register,” my guide said to the woman at the counter.

“Name?” asked the attendant at the desk with a brusque demeanor.

“Su Fang, but I am here to register as a Grandmaster Alchemist,” I corrected.

The attendant’s eyes narrowed.

“Badge,” she commanded.

I showed her my silver Pavilion badge, and she snorted. She tore the badge from my hand and gave it a close inspection to check if it was real. “Fine. I will register you as a Master Alchemist.”

I glanced at the attendant who had been guiding me. She looked scared. “I am here to both register for work in the city and have my qualifications upgraded to Grandmaster,” I said to the woman at the counter.

“A yellow-haired brat who doesn’t know how high the sky is,” she spat.

The commotion caused by the attendant drew the attention of many customers. Several well-dressed older men walked over when they witnessed the scene.

“Sister Rui, what’s got you so upset today?” asked one of the men.

“Aiya, this brat is a frog in a well from some backwater that isn’t even authorized to rate Master Alchemists. Look, he's only got a silver badge with no stars! He’s trying to claim he’s a Grandmaster Alchemist when I can still smell his mother’s milk on him.”

“Sister Rui, no need to get so worked up over a brat. Just send him away,” said one of the other men before turning toward the entrance. “Guards! Come, take this trash away. When did the Pavilion allow such filth inside?”

I again looked at the attendant who had guided me here, but she maintained a nervous posture. I sighed heavily and turned to the counter. “Sister Rui, I am—”

“How dare you say her name,” shouted a man who hadn’t spoken yet. “You’re courting death!”

I glanced at him and then back to Rui. “Miss. I am a member of the Pavilion and wish to register as a Grandmaster Alchemist. Please handle the procedures.”

“Boy,” shouted one of the men, “you’re no Grandmaster. I bet you’re not even an alchemist.”

“If you’re an alchemist, I’ll run ten laps around the Pavilion naked!” added another.

“Miss,” I said to Sister Rui, “please go ahead and register me.”

“You will need to be tested,” she sneered. She took out several ingredients from behind the desk and threw them at me. “Make two pills with those and you will be registered, Grandmaster.”

I looked at my guide. “Where are the workshops?”

“This… this way, sir.”

As we walked away, I heard one of the men laughing. “A whelp who won’t cry until he’s seen the coffin! I can’t wait to see what excuse he comes up with for destroying those herbs.”

After we disappeared into the stairwell, my guide turned to me. “Great job! You were excellent out there.”

“Is this really a good idea?” I asked, shaking my head.

“Don’t worry about it. Those guys are just creeps who hang around bothering us. They’re sent here by their clans to scout for new talents in the city. If you slap their faces, they’ll lean on their connections to try to send someone after you, but that’s what we want. Once their connections hear you’re a Grandmaster Alchemist, they won’t bother you over that lot out there. Instead, they will be looking for you for pills.”

“Is it so easy to manipulate them?” I asked, concerned.

“It works great, but we can only do it about once a year or people won’t fall for it,” the girl explained. “A lot of those guys have already left to gather a crowd to watch your inevitable failure, so you should have a good audience when you hand in the pills. Now, it’s just on you. How good of an idea this is all depends on how good of an alchemist you are.”

I looked at the ingredients Rui had thrown at me. I didn’t recognize most of them, which was a surprise. “What pills am I supposed to make?”

“That’s on you to figure out. This is the standard test for a gold badge. We give you two sets of herbs mixed together, and you have to know or figure out what they make.” She paused for a second before continuing. “I’m not sure about those herbs myself, though. They were chosen by a senior alchemist who showed up last week, so your test might be more difficult than usual.”

I was given a workshop on the fourth floor which was reserved for Grandmasters.

Once inside, I began examining the herbs. I didn’t know any pill recipes that called for any combination of them, so I would have to develop two new pills from scratch. The only saving grace was that I knew they could be divided into exactly two sets of ingredients.

I only recognized three of the herbs. While I didn’t know a recipe that combined them, I did know they were water, wood, and earth herbs with healing properties. Examining the rest, I found fire and metal herbs that also had medicinal energy that seemed to have healing properties, so I grouped these five and set them to the side.

The medicinal energy in the remaining herbs was completely new to me, but there were four of one type and three of the other, so I separated them into two more piles.

In the end, I was left with a single stalk of what looked to be nothing more than a large green onion. Its medicinal energy was strange, and it didn’t seem to fit with any of the existing three piles, so I placed it off to the side.

With no better plan in mind, I began making a pill using the herbs in the ‘healing’ pile. There were five herbs, forming a cycle of the five basic elements. I wasn’t sure what kind of pill I was making, so I wasn’t completely confident about where to start. However, since it was a healing pill, wood was likely supposed to be the final element, so I started with the fire herb.

I used a standard enhancement technique to improve its quality with my wood qi, then slowly combined each herb in sequence. I decided not to push these pills to Perfect quality, but other than that, I made the highest quality I was capable of. There were no surprises in the concoction process, and a small pill dropped to the bottom of my cauldron when everything was complete.

I had no idea what I had made, so I couldn’t judge its efficacy, but it was a High-Purity pill, whatever it was, so I put it in a jade bottle and began work on the other set of ingredients.

These were strange. I had never seen the type of medicinal energy in them before, but I had seen qi that was similar. The illusionist at the Dragon Gate Festival used two types of qi which I had learned were dark and light qi. The energy in these herbs was similar enough that I had to assume they contained dark and light medicinal energy.

In my travels with Mei, I had learned a little more about working with the secondary elements. They didn’t form a chain. Instead, there were two pairs, dark with light and wind with lightning. Dark qi could either negate or bolster light qi based on how it was used. I needed to combine these ingredients in such a way as to bolster the energy instead of negating it.

Where to start, though?

There was one extra dark herb, which seemed to be a clue. There was likely an optimal sequence, but I didn’t know how to determine such a thing, so I chose what looked like the best place to start and began concocting.

I cleaned the medicinal energy for one dark and one light herb and began looking at how to mix them. I didn’t have appropriate affinities, which complicated matters further, but even if I did, I wasn’t sure how to mix them in a constructive way instead of a destructive way.

The first pill had a basic five-element sequence. I didn’t know the pill, but I knew the sequence and the goal. The ingredients provided me with clues for how to work with them. For the second pill, the number of ingredients told me I needed to end with a dark-based pill. Did the ingredients also tell me how to mix them?

I looked at the strange green onion and had an idea.

I cleansed its energy and siphoned a small portion away, injecting it into the dark medicinal energy. When I did, the dark energy seemed compelled to mix with the light energy.

I then prepared a new dark herb, injected a portion of the onion’s energy into the previously mixed set, and pushed it to mix with the new dark energy. I continued this process, injecting onion power into the mixed energy and switching between light and dark herbs until I ran out of ingredients. At that moment, I pushed with my willpower and compressed the energies.

A pill formed and dropped to the bottom of the cauldron. I didn’t know what I made, or if it was even a proper pill, but I made something at least.

With two pills in hand, I walked out of the workshop where my guide was waiting for me.

“How did you do?” she asked.

“I have no idea.”

“If you don’t know it’s bad, then it should be pretty good,” said the girl. “By the way, when we get down there, make sure to demand a formal appraisal by a certified alchemist.”

The shop floor was packed when I walked out of the stairwell.

“That’s him!” someone shouted. “That’s the fool who doesn’t know the difference between heaven and earth!”

The people at the center of the gathering laughed at this remark, but I noticed that very few found it funny. Instead, most of the people here were giving me an appraising look.

They knew what was going on, I realized, and they were here to see the quality of the Pavilion’s new alchemist. This suddenly made me wonder… If the Pavilion only put on this kind of show once a year, why did this guide offer it to me? Was it that so few people would be willing to go through this? That didn’t seem right. I looked at my charming young guide out of the corner of my eye. At that moment, she seemed all too similar to Mei.

“Open up, open up,” shouted a man in the center, “Let the fool through. I want to hear his excuses!”

People in the crowd instantly made way for me. This pleased the man who had shouted immensely, but looking at those who moved, I couldn’t help but feel the quick movement was in deference to me, not the shouter.

“Alright, hand it over,” mocked Rui from behind her counter. “Or what, were you not even able to make a single pill?”

“I want a formal appraisal from a qualified alchemist,” I said with dignity.

She sneered at me. “Oh, think you can sneak out of here before we can check your results? No such luck. Alchemist Li,” she said, turning to the side and giving a deep bow of respect. “Would you please assist us in our appraisal?”

When she spoke these words, the façade of mockery vanished as if it never existed. The pompous young men around me didn’t seem to notice, but I saw a look of fear and agitation flash across her face. She was playing her part in the bit, but this alchemist wasn’t someone she wanted to offend by doing so.

An ancient man with gray hair and a long beard dressed in simple light blue robes stepped out of the crowd. “Young man, please allow me to examine your pills.”

Alchemist Li was impeccably polite without the slightest hint of mockery in his tone. He understood the situation and was willing to let it play out, but he was not willing to take part in it. This didn’t make any difference for the marks in the crowd. They acted as if Li had been mocking me all the same.

“Alchemist Li,” I said with a deep bow before handing him my pills, “please offer me your guidance.”

He opened the first bottle and examined it carefully with a slight frown. I heard a snort of amusement from him when he placed it back in the bottle. “A wood-aligned High-Purity Phoenix Restoration Pill. A rare sight. The ability to create such a thing shows your skills are promising, but your lack of knowledge hurt you. The pill technically has 117% efficacy, which is quite amazing, but being wood-aligned, it will still be far less effective than a normal Phoenix Restoration Pill. You should have made it fire-aligned.”

I nodded at his judgment. I didn’t know if the Twin Mountains Sect had intentionally limited my exposure to Rank 3 herbs, but since I also hadn’t seen these while working under the Pavilion, my lack of knowledge was likely simply due to the poverty of the Wastes.

Alchemist Li proceeded to open the second bottle. He took a long time examining it. His face was a mixture of shock and bafflement. This only made the nearby observers burst into laughter.

“You have no idea what this is, do you?” he asked me.

“No, sir. I have never seen these herbs before and was unsure how to use them.”

“This is a Shadowed Soul Pill. It makes one completely undetectable for up to an hour, based on its efficacy. This pill, I’m sorry to say, is wrong. It is indeed a High-Purity Shadowed Soul Pill, but the ingredients were combined in the wrong order, so I can only rate it at 57% efficacy, but the mere fact you were still able to create it without knowing the recipe and not following the proper sequence is worthy of praise.”

The onlookers were confused about his comments. Did I succeed or fail? They weren’t sure. They wanted to mock me, but they had no idea if it was appropriate.

Li stroked his long beard for several moments in thought. “Rui JunPing,” he said turning to the girl at the counter. “Register him as a three-star gold member.”

Rui’s eyes widened in true shock that went beyond the act she had been performing. “Yes, sir. Right away.”

Li looked at me with a grandfatherly smile. “You need to study more. You have great potential, but you need a firmer foundation to stand upon. A three-star gold badge is the highest honor we bestow on Grandmaster Alchemists, and it should open many doors for you to experience the richness of the Grandmaster level before you are ready to advance further.”

I gave Alchemist Li a deep bow. “Thank you, elder, for your advice. I will do my best to follow it.”

I didn’t pay any more attention to the rubes surrounding me. They had done their part to stir up publicity, and I wouldn’t hold anything they said against them.

“What do I do now?” I asked Rui.

“Grandmaster, sir,” she stammered. The three-star rating seemed to truly shock her. “I will register you immediately and a new badge will be provided. When you are ready, please visit the Alchemy Office and provide them with samples of your work. They will contact you with any special requests we receive.”

“Thank you,” I said politely. I turned away and walked out of the Pavilion, ready to meet back up with Mei. I expected someone to try and stop me for a private conversation, but everyone darted out of my path.

Chapter 78 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The next day, I met Mei for a private lunch to discuss her plans to become the Water Flower.

“It’s more difficult than I thought,” she said, looking concerned. “There are five stages in the selection process. First, they will check that I am astrologically suitable for the position, which I can’t change, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Then, they will check my cultivation base and personal charm, but I don’t expect any problems with these,” she winked.

“What’s the problem then?”

“The last two factors are my professional skills and my ability to nurture talents. Most water cultivators will have learned some level of beast taming, but I don’t know anything about that.”

I thought about it, tapping the table. “Are they looking for something that specific? Just be honest with them. Being a beast tamer might be great, but how will that help your city? Your experience is as a Pavilion attendant, managing and helping others. Just try to leverage that.”

“It’s not great,” she said, biting her lip. “It might be the best I can do, but it will hurt my chances.”

I didn’t necessarily agree, but she could be right about how the judges would view it.

“Worse is that I have no idea how to nurture talents. What could I possibly do to help train beast tamers or formation masters?”

I cocked my head to the side in thought. “How do others learn this kind of thing?”

“The Seeds learn from their Flower,” explained Mei, “but everyone else has to study. There are schools in the Mountain District that are set up to teach aspiring Flowers everything they need to know, but it takes too long. I have less than two weeks until the selection. That isn’t enough time. Others have been studying for years.”

When she finished speaking, my eyes widened in shock and certain thoughts I had about the exaggerated length of time it took us to reach the city clicked into place. We could have been here in only a few months, but it took us years. Why? Had such a long trip truly been necessary to avoid dangers or were we just procrastinating?

I gave Mei a brief look of disgust and my lip began to curl in a snarl. I immediately understood what was happening. I could accept that it wasn’t Mei's choice, that she didn’t personally orchestrate this, but her blessing was pushing my limits.

“I need to go,” I said abruptly. “We’ll talk later.”

I didn’t look at her again as I stood and left the restaurant.

Mei didn’t have enough time to learn. She only had two weeks. Why? Why did she only have two weeks? Why didn’t she begin studying for this test earlier?

“System, how many credits do I have and how much would it cost to grant Mei enough knowledge about nurturing professional talents for her to pass the Flower selection?”

You have 1,025,806 credits.

Sufficient knowledge will cost 24,806 credits.

My anger flared.

Mei’s blessing was ordering me to buy her knowledge about how to nurture talents. It had encouraged her to prepare exactly the right amount to match the number of credits I had available.

The only thing that kept my anger in check was that the situation was too blatant. It wasn’t a hidden plot. It was an open demand.

Did I want to follow its orders?

Instinctively, my answer was a hard no. I didn’t like having my strings pulled by her blessing, but more than that, it didn’t match my plans. There was no reason to jump to lock in my affinities now when they couldn’t be upgraded until my next life, but I would need to use my discount before I could buy any knowledge for Mei.

I tried to calm down and think through the situation logically.

Why would Mei’s blessing ever think that pushing me like this was a good idea?

Mei’s blessing only cared about helping her. It didn’t want to help me. It would only help me in so far as helping me helped Mei. My working assumption was that it kept my interests in mind since I was in a uniquely powerful position to help Mei, but I had to be careful not to become complacent.

This kind of demand… If I refused it, it would drive a wedge between us. I would become even more reticent to trust her. I couldn’t see how this would benefit Mei.

If I accepted and things turned sour, that would be even worse. It would prove I couldn’t trust her blessing at all. Again, I couldn’t see the benefit to Mei here.

The answer seemed to be that her blessing was telling me that it was important for me to spend my credits now instead of holding off. It thought it would benefit me the most to buy something right now, and if I did, it might prove pivotal for my success in this life.

Could her blessing even make such complex calculations? Was there such an all-powerful puppeteer controlling her through her blessing? I didn’t know. Instead of thinking about questions I couldn’t answer, I focused on the one I needed to answer.

Was I willing to take a leap of faith here?

I sighed with resignation. What would it hurt? Even if I died immediately after this purchase, I would still gain enough credits from my death to smoothly reach this point again. I could take the risk and see where it would take me.

So, what did I want to buy? With my discount, I effectively had two million credits to play with.

If my train of logic was correct, Mei’s blessing was signaling that there was something important I needed to buy, and I should already have enough information to determine what that was. Purchasing permanent affinities was completely out. There was no way that would provide any significant benefit in this life. Purchasing temporary affinities was possible, though. Jumping up to temporary five-star fire affinity, maybe?

Also, I had just met with a skilled alchemist who showed me many places where I lacked knowledge. Was that a clue?

“System, how much to raise my fire affinity to temporary low five-star.”

Temporary Low, 5-star Fire Affinity. Cost 11.5 million credits.

That couldn’t be it then. I could raise it to peak six-star, but that didn’t feel like enough of a game-changer to warrant this situation.

I could buy knowledge, but buying knowledge directly was always exorbitantly priced. Buying even a modicum of Lord-level alchemy knowledge would break the bank with very little to show for it.

My only idea was to enhance my comprehensions. I wasn’t sure how great of an effect the previous boosts had on me, but after paying 20k on cultivation comprehension, I made huge leaps forward in my low-level cultivation techniques. This had to be the play, but how to divide up my credits? I considered one possibility.

“System, how much to raise my fire affinity to temporary peak six-star?”

Temporary Peak, 6-star Fire Affinity. Cost 1.5 million credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 750,000 credits.

“System, I want to raise my fire affinity to temporary peak six-star and increase my alchemy comprehension with 500,000 credits?”

Temporary Peak, 6-star Fire Affinity. Cost 1.5 million credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 750,000 credits.

Increased alchemy comprehension. Cost 500,000 credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 250,000 credits.

“No, I want those to be a single purchase.”

There was no response. Okay…

“How much to raise my alchemy comprehension with a million credits and increase the speed of my soul growth with a million credits?”

Increased alchemy comprehension. Cost 1 million—

“Stop. How much to raise my alchemy and cultivation comprehension by a million credits each?”

Increased alchemy and cultivation comprehension. Cost 2 million—

“Stop.”

So, the discount on the ‘next purchase’ had strict limitations. Should I spend all 2 million on alchemy comprehension? It seemed wasteful. Dividing the credits into four areas might allow for synergies far more effective than focusing solely on one area.

What did I need? Alchemy and cultivation seemed obvious. Herbalism wasn’t working out for me without teachers and a large place to grow plants, and even if that were available here, I still didn’t see many ways to immediately benefit from it, so I set it aside for the time being.

I had wanted to begin understanding the basics of formations, and I might have an opportunity here. The entire kingdom was built around a complex formation, so there had to be powerful formation specialists in the area. I didn’t have earth qi, which was supposedly required to be a formation specialist, but I had come to learn that fire qi wasn’t strictly required if one were a skilled enough alchemist, so the same might be true about formations.

I considered Mei’s situation and the requirements she needed to meet to become a Flower. She needed to learn to manage talents. If I were to become a true city lord, that would be an invaluable skill for me as well. Improving the prosperity of one’s city was essential for swift cultivation as a Lord. If I could only be a city lord for nine years, I would need to make significant contributions to my city to reach Peak Lord in that timeframe, so I needed to know how to nurture talented people.

Even without being a Lord, such a skill could see immense returns on investment by sending out disciples like SuYin to gather new knowledge for me.

“System, I want to spend 500,000 credits boosting my comprehension in each of the following areas: alchemy, cultivation, formations, and nurturing talents.”

Increased alchemy, cultivation, formations, and nurturing comprehension. Cost 2,000,000 credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 1,000,000 credits.

I still wasn’t sure if it was the best option, but I would roll the dice. “Purchase.”

Purchase Confirmed. 25,806 credits remaining.

Mentally, I set aside the money needed for Mei’s knowledge and thought. I still had a thousand credits left. What, oh sagacious blessing of Mei, was I supposed to spend them on? I realized there was one huge possibility, but there was no way it would only cost a thousand credits.

“System, how much to make it so that Mei’s blessing doesn’t work on me?”

Removing host as a valid target of Mei’s blessing. The cost of this is not possible to calculate… External assistance provided. Recalibrating… Calculating… The cost is 900 credits.

Note: This change will only remove host as a valid direct target of Mei’s blessing. Her blessing will still consider host’s reactions when determining her best course of action when dealing with others.

Note: A change has been made to make this effect permanent.

There it was. I was absolutely certain that the ‘external assistance’ was provided by her gods-be-damned blessing. It was willingly ceasing its actions regarding me. If it could do this… Mei’s blessing had me constantly reevaluating its power. Her blessing had to be nearly as powerful as my own, possibly more.

Either extremely strong blessings were more common than I had believed, or we had been intentionally placed next to each other. I wasn’t sure which was more likely, but my gut said it was the latter.

Did I want to buy it? I didn’t feel coerced here. It felt more like her blessing was simply giving me the option.

Buying it would allow me to know that her reactions were her own when we were alone. They still might not be genuine, everyone wore masks, but they would at least be hers, not her blessing’s. Even if that made her more likely to betray me since her blessing would have less control over her, I would still prefer that situation over the current one.

The risk was that it would give me a false sense of security. Sure, the blessing wouldn’t guide her when we were alone in a private dining room, but the moment a waiter walked in she would get exactly the information she needed to manipulate me.

Was this even a choice I should make? It was her blessing. I wanted to do this as a defensive measure, but it would still be altering a friend’s blessing without her consent.

Her blessing was leaving me with 100 extra credits. I already knew what those 100 credits were for.

Once again, Mei and I sat across from each other in a private dining room.

She was cool and composed. She showed no signs of being nervous about the Flower Blossoming or the conversation we were about to have. At that moment, I felt pity for her. Her world was able to be shaken, and the rock that steadied her would disappear.

“Mei,” I began with a delicate tone. “I want to discuss something with you, but it might be difficult. I want to do something that will have a significant impact on you, but it will only be temporary. I want your consent first, though.”

Mei smiled and nodded. “Of course, Fang.” Her voice was steady and confident.

Not telling her what I intended was a questionable decision on my part, but I felt it was the right one to make if I wanted our conversation as real as possible.

“System,” I subvocalized, “I want to make it so that I’m not a valid target of Mei’s blessing for the duration of this conversation.”

External assistance provided. Cost 100 credits. Purchase Confirmed. 25,706 credits remaining.

Mei's eyes instantly shot open in panic.

“What, what did you do!?” she yelled. She jumped up and her chair crashed to the floor. She backed away from the table, putting as much distance between us as possible.

The screaming and loud noises alerted the waitress who was standing outside. She threw open the door of the room in alarm.

When Mei looked at the woman who just entered, she visibly calmed down. The panic was still there, but a soothing influence was pushing down on her.

“Miss, what’s wrong?” asked the waitress.

“Nothing… Nothing… sorry for worrying you. I apologize,” Mei stammered.

“Miss…”

“It’s alright,” said Mei, regaining her composure. “Everything is fine.”

The waitress had a worried look on her face, but she slowly exited and closed the door of the room.

After she left, Mei looked back at me, and the panic came back in full force, but she didn’t yell out.

I sat there calmly, allowing her as much time as she needed to adjust.

“What did you do?” she said in a pleading tone.

“It’s only for this conversation. Your blessing will give you no information about how to respond to me.”

“How?”

“It’s something my blessing can do. I haven’t been able to use it before, but there was a… change. The details aren’t important. But don’t worry. Right now, it will only last for this one conversation.”

Mei was still breathing heavily, but her panic was slowly starting to ebb.

“What do you mean by right now?”

“That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.” I looked her in the eyes. “I can make this change permanent. Your blessing will still work normally with everyone else, but it won’t work on me ever again. This is your blessing, though. I don’t want to choose for you. I want you to decide.”

Her breathing started to speed up again, and her hands began to shake. She had been living under the constant pressure of her blessing for years, and she had forgotten how to live without it.

“I… I need to think…” she stammered. “Tomorrow, can I tell you tomorrow?”

I shook my head sadly. “I’m sorry. It’s… I don’t trust your blessing. When you leave this room, you will be back under its guidance. I want to hear what you think, not what it tells you to think.”

“Why?” she asked shakily.

I breathed out. “My blessing is far more powerful than I’ve told anyone. I can disable your blessing, so… Anyway, I can’t share the details, I’m sorry. It’s too dangerous for both you and me. In my situation, I can’t trust your blessing, and if you’re always under its guidance around me, that might cause problems. I don’t know if this is a real solution, but it was what was provided, so I want to give you the choice.”

Mei collapsed to the floor with her head hanging down. I didn’t push her to make a decision. We had as much time as we needed.

Tears began falling down her cheeks.

“Do it,” she finally said. “If it’s the only way… maybe it’s for the best.” She looked up at me and her face was a mask of grim resolve. “Just… do it.”

She looked heartbroken at my admission that I had never truly trusted her. I felt a pang of sorrow when I saw this, but it also firmed my resolve. I didn’t want to hurt her, but at the same time, knowing these emotions were genuine allowed me to drop the stone I had been holding in my heart.

“System,” I said aloud while looking at Mei, “permanently remove me as a valid target for Mei’s blessing.”

External assistance provided. Cost 900 credits. Purchase Confirmed. 24,806 credits remaining.

I spoke openly, not lowering my voice to hide it from her. She had given me her trust. I wasn’t willing to tell her everything, but this was a measure of trust I could extend.

“System, give Mei the knowledge she needs about nurturing talents for the Flower Blossoming.”

Cost 24,806 credits. Purchase Confirmed. 0 credits remaining.

After that meal, I didn’t see Mei much over the next couple of weeks. She was busy preparing for the competition, but she was also avoiding me. I didn’t push. We both needed time to understand what would happen next.

I didn’t attend the Flower Blossoming. The result had been decided the moment Mei and I finished our last meal together. There was no need to witness it. I wanted to go to support her, but she didn’t need my support, and I couldn’t help but feel my presence would do more harm than good.

Mei was selected as the Water Flower. She would spend time adapting to her new role, and I didn’t know if I would ever see her again in this life. I could compete to be her Groom in a decade, but I wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted.

We would go our separate ways and see where life took us.

Chapter 79 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After saying my goodbyes with Mei, I found myself in an interesting position. I was alone in an unfamiliar city with no one I could lean on for support. The Blue Wind Pavilion was there, of course, and I could lean on the institution, but I didn’t know anyone in the local branch. I was alone, left to my own devices.

This, I realized, was the position I should be in when I use a temporary reset point. This was a new beginning. My mistake before was using a reset point in the middle of a journey.

I had created my temporary reset point to serve as a safety net, but after I didn’t need it, it felt like an extremely awkward position to pick up from. Many of the major decisions that would affect my life had already been made, and I began to somewhat drift through my life, following Mei aimlessly.

I needed to keep this feeling in mind for the future. It would be best if there was some way to set a kind of permanent temporary reset point at a place like this and use a temporary temporary reset point that I could delete if it wasn’t needed when I just wanted a safety net.

I noted this down in my journal, but since I didn’t have any credits at the moment, it would be something to look into later. At the moment, I had a city to explore.

Where should I go? What should I do?

There was work to be done in the Pavilion. I had begun establishing myself, but I didn’t have a true foundation there yet. An attendant had said something about handing over samples. I needed to take care of that, but it wasn’t a priority for me.

Instead, I wanted to explore the Mountain District.

The Mountain District was located in the northeast section of the city, and the buildings were all decorated with shades of light blue. Where the Water District focused on catering to craftsmen, the Mountain District focused on education.

As I walked through the district, I saw countless schools and training centers. These were not places where children learned. Their schools were in the Marsh District. The education here was focused on adults.

There were the kinds of institutions Mei talked about, where one could go for specific training to compete for the positions of Flower, Groom, or Seed. There were also several small, specialized libraries with an array of different fields of knowledge available, including mortal disciplines such as horticulture, animal husbandry, and smithing. Most of the buildings, though, were focused on teaching professional skills to cultivators.

Buildings were marked with the qi type generally associated with that profession. There were buildings marked with flames where one could learn alchemy and buildings marked with wavy lines where they taught beast tamers. A sun and moon motif marked the buildings for illusionists, and a lightning bolt marked where talisman masters were trained.

I searched the entire district, but there were two notable absences. There were no training halls dedicated to wind qi cultivators. I didn’t know what trade would be connected to a wind affinity, and I’d never heard anyone talk about one, but there had to be one, and the lack of a building for it was telling.

More important, though, was that there was not a single place that trained refiners. Artifact refining was supposed to be the skill connected to metal qi. It was one of the five basic elements. Why did no one teach it? Even if it wasn’t popular, there should still be someone, right?

I remembered back to a comment SuYin made when I first joined the Blue Wind Pavilion. She was proud that the Pavilion possessed a workshop for artifact refining, but she said it had never been used. Before, I could have attributed it to the Wastes simply not having a sect focused on refining, but maybe there was something deeper at play.

After making a note of this in my journal, I continued exploring.

As I saw it, I just upgraded four aspects of myself, and I wanted training in each of them. First, I wanted to find as many Rank 3 cultivation techniques as I could to both fill out my library and begin learning how to create another novel technique. For alchemy, orders from the Pavilion would hopefully provide enough new information for the time being, so I didn’t worry too much about it. I needed to find basic classes for formations and nurturing talent, though. The second should be handled by the Water Groom classes, and it shouldn’t be a problem for me to sign up for those, but without earth qi, signing up for formations classes might raise some eyebrows.

I set my jaw and headed to a building marked with a large rock where they taught formation specialists. I might be laughed out of the building, but I would do my best to learn, and I wouldn’t let the mockery of self-important people stop me from moving forward on my path.

As it turned out, the receptionists at the two training institutes I chose cared nothing about my qi or affinities. They simply thanked me for my interest in their classes, wrote down my name, and took a deposit for the courses. If I couldn’t learn the skills they taught, it would be on me, and they would keep the deposit either way, so they wouldn’t let any potential customers escape.

It would be another month before my classes began, so I put them aside and began tackling alchemy.

When I returned to the Blue Wind Workshops in the Water District, the same attendant as last time greeted me. I wasn’t sure what blessing she had, but it seemed like the kind I would be better off avoiding.

“Hello, Grandmaster Su, how may I help you today?”

“I need to register with the alchemy desk. Something about providing samples?”

“Of course, sir. You can visit the Alchemy Office on the fourth floor. The manager there will take care of you,” she said, gesturing to the stairs.

“Thank you,” I said with a nod, grateful that she didn’t insist on walking me up.

I had been on the fourth floor of the Workshops before, but I didn’t take much time to look around. The landing of the stairwell emptied into an open lobby area where a receptionist was waiting behind a counter.

“Where is the Alchemy Office,” I asked, approaching the receptionist.

“Welcome, Grandmaster Su, the Alchemy Offices are right here,” she said, walking out from behind the counter and approaching one of the rooms lining the lobby.

Looking closer, I saw that each room was marked with the trade skills it managed. The receptionist directly opened the Alchemy Office’s door and gestured for me to enter. After I passed the office’s threshold, she quietly closed the door behind me. When she did, I caught a look of pity in her eye.

Inside, three attendants sat behind a long counter shuffling through stacks of paperwork. Behind them, a middle-aged woman sat at a large desk managing her own reams of paper.

I wasn’t sure which attendant to approach, so I hoped one of them would call me over. I stood there for over a minute and began fidgeting to try to attract their attention, but they simply continued reviewing their paperwork.

I cleared my throat. None of them looked up.

Giving up, I decided to just walk forward to the girl seated in the middle. When I did, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other two girls turn their heads slightly toward the one in the middle with a look of schadenfreude.

“Hello,” I said, trying to grab her attention. “I need to register?”

“Yes, sir,” she said slightly panicky, “please, wait one moment. I just need to finish this.”

Her speed visibly increased. She raced to finish the paperwork so she could help me, but I wasn’t sure how long it would take. I stepped back from the counter. After several moments, she was still working, and neither of the other two attendants volunteered their assistance.

“Excuse me,” I said in a loud voice, drawing the direct attention of everyone in the room. “I need to register. Can someone please help me?”

For a long moment, there was absolute silence in the room. Then, the middle-aged woman at the back of the room shot to her feet, and her eyes locked onto me. “You! This is your fault!” She gestured at the stacks of paper around the room. “Who the hell causes a huge commotion then fucks off for a week? Get me your samples, now!”

“What?” I asked stunned.

“Samples. Now.” She slammed her index finger on the desk, pointing right where she expected my samples to appear.

“Yes, of course,” I said reflexively. “But… what do you need? That’s why I came. I wasn’t sure what you needed me to provide you with.”

The woman took a deep breath to regain control. “Give us whatever you think will best display your skills. If a customer requests you by name, we can use the samples to show the work you are capable of. If a customer isn’t sure who they want to hire, we can use the samples to help them decide.”

“So… anything will be okay?”

“Yes,” she growled.

I stood there, hesitant to ask another question.

“What?” she spat.

“Where do I get ingredients?”

“You…” she began before taking another deep breath. “LiPin, give him the list.”

The attendant I approached earlier scrambled to find a paper. When she did, she shoved it at me.

“That is the list of basic herbs you can requisition here,” the woman continued when I had the paper in hand. The paper listed several pills, and below each pill was a list of ingredients. “If you need something else, that is your responsibility. Go to the Wind District and buy it, or go downstairs and hire someone to grow it for you. Hell, go to an auction house if you have to, I don’t care. We only deal in the herbs on the list.”

I hesitated for another moment, then asked another question. “Where can I get new recipes?”

“This kid…” The woman raised both hands to massage her temples. “How are you a Grandmaster if you don’t know how to find recipes? Wind District, buy them. Mountain District, go to a library. Fire District, compete for them. Find a teacher, find a master, find a bloody hole where one was buried. If you’re smart enough, go and throw some herbs together and create your own damn recipes. The only thing you shouldn’t do is come to me for them!”

“I'm sorry,” I said, giving her a deep bow.

She shook her head in defeat. “It’s fine. Next time, though, if you cause a commotion, be here for the aftermath. Having dozens of wealthy clients asking for the new three-star Grandmaster and not being able to tell them anything is a bit much.”

“Sorry,” I said again. I looked at the attendant who had passed me the ingredient list. “Can I please get five sets of herbs for Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills?”

“Yes, sir,” she said softly so as to not agitate the older woman. “They will be delivered to room eight. You may wait for them there.”

“Thank you,” I said with a short bow.

I exited quickly to avoid the women’s gazes.

I settled into alchemy room eight, and after my ingredients were delivered, I looked at them, thinking about how I would proceed.

I couldn’t be average here. It seemed like Alchemist Li had already scuttled any plans to remain under the radar at the Pavilion, and I would need to rise to his challenge.

Additionally, I didn’t want to be average. Standing out too much had caused me problems in the Wastes, and I needed to be able to manage them better, but I didn’t want to be someone who did the minimum amount of work to get by. I wanted the things I made to be exceptional.

So that is what I would do. If it caused problems, it would cause problems. No matter whether an army came, or the waters rose, I would block it. Or I would die. Either way, I would continue to advance.

I began concocting. My goal was to make a complete sequence of Qi Gathering Pills for the basic elements.

I started with the pills for wood and fire qi. I could use my own qi to enhance them through techniques, and I had done so many times, so I quickly made two Perfect pills with 120% efficacy. While making them, I saw areas of the medicinal energy I might be able to enhance through manipulating it with my affinities, but I hadn’t even mastered that skill with Rank 1 herbs, so I held off.

Then, I began work on the earth and water pills. When I started, I was going to use the rough technique I had before which capped out at around 115% efficacy for earth and 105% for water, but I suddenly realized my mistake. There was no reason the same technique I was using with qi couldn’t work with energy from the spirit fire. I just needed to adjust it slightly.

It was a risk to do this on my sample pills, but if everything blew up in my face, I would just need to hang my head, drop my pride, and ask for replacements.

Working with the earth energy, I used the pattern from the qi technique but subtly changed a few lines to make it better integrate with the medicinal energy. When I did, aside from boosting power, the earth energy almost seemed to begin repairing the herb. As soon as I noticed it, I wanted to look into the phenomenon more.

The final result was another Perfect pill with 120% efficacy, but my mind began latching onto ideas for how I could begin pushing that further. This wasn’t the time, though, so I just noted it down in my journal.

Following the earth pill, I made the water pill. This was more difficult since my spirit fire only contained a marginal amount of water energy. If I had access to metal qi, I believed I could have stimulated the water energy from the spirit fire further, but I didn’t. The final result was a pill with 110% efficacy.

That left only the metal qi pill which I had no means to enhance. I quickly threw everything together and produced a simple pill with 100% efficacy.

The list the attendant had provided me had no herbs for the secondary elements on it, and I didn’t have any such herbs either, so I was unable to provide samples for pills of those elements. Aside from just ingredients, I also needed recipes for those pills, so delivering any such samples would have to wait for another day. I picked up my five pill bottles and headed to the Alchemy Office.

I placed the bottles on the counter and addressed the attendant. “I’m sorry for the trouble. Here are my samples. Do I need to do anything else while I’m here?”

“Yes,” she said placing the pill bottles off to the side. “We need a list of pills you are willing to take orders for at a standard rate without negotiation, and we need to know what kinds of orders should be automatically rejected.”

I thought through the list she handed me earlier. “For now, just say anything on the list you provided me can be handled without negotiation unless the buyer is placing a large order.”

“What is a large order?” she asked, writing down my words.

“Let’s say more than ten, though that may need to change in the future based on circumstances.”

She nodded as she wrote. “Pills to reject?”

“If they provide ingredients and a recipe, none. However, my quality for pills involving secondary elements will be lower. I will procure samples for such pills in the coming days.”

“Very well,” she said while writing. “How can we get ahold of you if an order comes in?”

“I’m staying in the Blue Wind Residence. You should be able to contact me through the staff there.”

She wrote, but then paused, waiting for me to continue. I didn’t. “And?” she asked.

“And what?” I asked confused.

She shook her head. At this point, she must have remembered that I was from some backwater. She reached down to grab something and then placed a small stone disk on the counter. “This is a formation plate. If we need to contact you directly, it will begin vibrating. If it does, please come here as soon as you are able.”

I took the disk and stored it. The idea was familiar enough, so I wasn’t shocked, but I hadn’t seen something like that in this world before.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“No, you are free to go. If you wish to produce any of our standard pills on the list, we will handle purchasing your ingredients and selling your pills. If you make something not on the list, you may bring it here to be appraised, but the Pavilion makes no guarantees about purchasing it directly.”

“Understood.”

“Good day, sir,” she said, returning to her paperwork.

Chapter 80 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The Alchemy Office manager’s words about throwing some ingredients together to invent new recipes struck me as an incredibly good idea. I hadn’t done any real experimenting in several lifetimes, and I somewhat missed it.

The Blue Wind Pavilion should have channels to provide me with anything I needed, but they dealt in premium quality goods, and premium goods came with premium prices. I needed junk herbs I could play with to see what I could make. If I wanted to score a deal on some low-quality herbs, the place I needed to go was the Wind District.

There were shops of all kinds in the Wind District, but my focus was on the low-rent areas. There were several small shops that didn’t have any employees. The owners of these stores would sleep in an apartment above the shop so that they just needed to walk downstairs each day instead of commuting across districts.

Many of these shops didn’t open at set hours. They would simply be open whenever the owner was home and awake. If that was in the middle of the night, the shop would be open in the middle of the night, but if the owner wanted to go for a stroll, the store could be closed at any time during the day. Because of this, planning a trip to any of these stores was very hit-and-miss.

I searched the streets for hours before stumbling upon a run-down shop that was covered in grime. Signs advertised herbs for sale, though, so I went inside.

The shop’s interior was a mess of broken floorboards and dust. Old herbs were wilting in wooden bins throughout the store, and an elderly man sat behind a countertop covered in stains. When I entered, he didn’t greet me. He just kept reading whatever he was reading and let me go about my business by myself.

Looking through the bins, I was disappointed with the selection, but not surprised. He only had common varieties that were available anywhere.

"Old man,” I said, approaching the counter, “got anything else for sale?”

He snorted at the question without looking at me. “Everything’s in the bins.”

I shook my head. There was nothing here I needed, but I still considered buying the lot. I could use them for studying how to mend medicinal energy, and the cost of so many worthless herbs should be minimal. The only thing that stopped me was that I didn’t want to haul around a cart full of herbs, and I doubted this guy had anyone to deliver them for me. If my storage space were bigger, I could just stuff them all in there.

I paused. Hadn’t the System mentioned something about common storage bags? Was that something I could just buy? I hadn’t noticed anything like that before, but I also didn’t pay much attention to the people and never went on random shopping trips, so I could have easily overlooked them. Storage bags couldn’t be too common though, right? I made a note in my journal to ask about it the next time I was in the Pavilion.

“Old man, any chance you know a place that sells cheap herbs for the secondary energy types?”

He breathed out heavily to make it clear how little he wanted to answer, “Go talk to Old Lady Mu.”

I wanted to ask, ‘Who the hell is Old Lady Mu?’ but my man had already started ignoring me again. I shook my head and left the shop. There had to be other people who knew who he was talking about.

I began walking to restart my search for low-cost precious herbs, but suddenly something in my belt pouch started vibrating. I opened it to find the small stone disk I received in the Pavilion going crazy. There must be something that needed my attention.

Giving up my exploration for the moment, I turned and headed back to the Water District.

I arrived back in the Alchemy Office to see what needed my attention. When the middle-aged woman who managed the place saw me, her eyes burst into fire. Literal fire. Fire qi wrapped around her head giving her a somewhat demonic appearance.

“You!” she shouted. “Get downstairs. LiPin, act as his mediator. Take him to conference room one. You have fifteen minutes to get ready.”

“What’s going on?” I asked with wide eyes, beginning to get worried.

“Move!” she shouted.

LiPin, one of the young female attendants, responded “We’ve… had a lot of requests for meetings with you. Once people saw your sample pills, they demanded an audience. It’s been a hectic day,” she said in a quiet voice.

I knew my pills were high quality, but I wasn’t the only Grandmaster Alchemist in the city, and if Alchemist Li, the man who graded my registration exam, was allowed to hand out three-star gold badges, he had to be capable of making pills of at least that level, right? So, why were people so eager to seek me out to make pills for them? Was it because I was the only one who could make Perfect pills?

The middle-aged manager saw my confusion and snorted. “You don’t get it, do you? You need to know this before you enter any negotiations, so I’ll try to keep it short. Why do you think people are so eager to talk with you after seeing your pills?”

I gave the only answer I could think of. “Because I can make Perfect pills.”

She shook her head. “No, there are a dozen alchemists in the kingdom that can do that, and you don’t see anyone beating down the doors in a rush to talk to them. It’s a rare skill, sure, but there are enough people with high enough affinities or special blessings that it isn’t unique.”

This stunned me. I had always considered my alchemy skills above what anyone could match, but the saying was true, there is always someone better.

The manager continued. “If I want to hire one of those alchemists to make me Perfect Rank 3 pills, what do you think it would cost? Let me tell you, it’s not a matter of gold. Those alchemists have hundreds of years of experience, and they are all long past the point where mere gold holds any value to them.”

This was something I had found to be true in my last life. One of my Perfect Rank 3 Qi Gathering pills would sell for a minimum of 10,000 gold, and I was easily able to make at least half a dozen in a day. Without a fire seed, other alchemists couldn’t make them at the rate I could, but even if they were only making a single pill a week, with a decade of work behind them, they would have no need for money.

“If they don’t want gold, what does it cost, then?” I asked.

The manager looked at me with intent. “It depends on the alchemist. The Blue Wind Pavilion offers alchemists the opportunity to ascend to Lord if they work for us. Other powers can offer opportunities to improve affinities. These are among the most valuable offers you can receive, but they are most valued for those young enough to still advance. Some powers will simply offer a way to live the rest of your life in luxury. It all depends on what the alchemist wants and needs.”

“So, why were so many people eager to seek me out for pills?” I asked, returning to the original question. “Are they going to offer me the chance to raise my affinities for pills?” I was somewhat excited at the prospect.

The manager burst into laughter. “No, just no. These are bottom feeders, not the real power players. They know you are a bumpkin from the middle of nowhere who only recently advanced from Master to Grandmaster. To them, you are a poor kid who is looking to gain experience in hopes of advancing to Pill Lord.”

“So—” I started, but she cut me off.

“Where clans would usually need to hand over priceless items for a Grandmaster Alchemist’s assistance, you are someone they can hire at a bargain price as long as they act fast enough.”

I stood there considering the manager’s words. While I wasn’t as hard up for cash as some of the potential buyers might have assumed, I had several needs that the average alchemist didn’t that these minor powers could help with. I also hoped to compete with my more seasoned peers for the real prizes, like boosted affinities.

Not waiting for me to puzzle everything out, the manager gestured at the attendant, LiPin. “Get him downstairs,” she said, in a voice much calmer than it had been when I first entered.

It didn’t take long after LiPin and I sat down for my first client to walk in the door. I stood and cupped my fists in a martial salute. “Welcome.”

“Grandmaster Su,” he said, cupping his fists and bowing, “I am Steward Mao DingLiu of the Mao family. As you are new to the kingdom, you may not know, but the Mao family is one of the top families of West Marsh City.”

“Of course, Steward Mao,” I said with a nod, “I have long heard of the Mao family. How can I assist you today?”

“Grandmaster Su, are you aware of the duties and responsibilities West Marsh City bears?”

“It controls the Marsh District, correct? Its focus is on creative endeavors and schools for children?”

“Yes, we are responsible for nurturing the next generation of the kingdom. Alchemist Su, I have seen the quality of pills you can produce. If we could secure a source of Perfect pills, it would do wonders for improving our efforts.”

“You want pills for children? Are your charges older than sixteen? Or do cultivation resources have effects on younger children as well?”

Steward Mao gave a light chuckle. “You misunderstand. While your Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pills could be a nice incentive for our older children, we are more interested in pills to help them develop properly. Pills to maintain good nutrition, weight, energy, and, quite frankly, appearance, would all be extremely beneficial. You can think of these as Rank 0 pills. Only Perfect pills could be used this way since even High-Purity pills would risk damaging their futures by filling their bodies with needless toxins.”

“But,” I began slowly while thinking, “if these pills are ‘Rank 0,’ that should mean they are relatively easy to create. Aren’t there several alchemists in the city who can provide them?”

“Can? Yes. Will? No, not without costs greater than we can bear. Many of the pills will be used to nurture the less fortunate, and we can only depend on the goodwill of skilled alchemists to bear the cost.”

I fixed Steward Mao with a gimlet eye, but he didn’t show any signs of discomfort. He was blatantly trying to buy pills on the cheap, and he showed no shame in it. He must have done this song and dance many times to become so steadfast when asking for charity.

I tapped the table in thought then turned to the attendant who was serving as mediator for this discussion. “How much would a Perfect Rank 0 pill usually cost?”

“There is no set price,” she said. “Rank 0 is not a true class of pill, and several different types of concoctions fall into this category. Qi Gathering Powder can be considered a Perfect Rank 0 concoction, and its price is only two silver because almost anyone can make it. Nutrition Pills suitable for mortals, though, sell for closer to one gold on the open market, but there is no supply. The ingredients only cost a couple of copper, but a skilled Master Alchemist is needed to make them, driving costs beyond what nearly anyone is willing to pay, so they are typically only sold as a special commission at a high price. Rank 0 pills are either ones that everyone can make or ones that no one is usually willing to make. Simply put, they are pills the Blue Wind Pavilion does not sell.”

“If people aren’t producing enough, why not just raise the price?” I asked her.

Steward Mao winced at the suggestion, but Li Pin didn’t seem to notice as she explained. “Any higher and they won’t sell. Even stored in jade bottles, pills only have a limited shelf life, so the market price needs to be low enough that if we stock them, we can sell them before they lose effectiveness. The ‘Rank 0’ pills the steward refers to are ones that no alchemist will sell for such a market rate, so they are only sold through direct commissions at significantly higher prices.”

“Fine,” I said, turning back to Steward Mao, “I assume you are here for pills no one else is making. I’ll set a price at one gold for any Rank 0 pill you wish me to make, and I am willing to make any other higher-level pills you need at market rates, but you need to supply the ingredients.”

The steward winced at these prices. “That’s still a little too expensive for us.”

I wanted to laugh. The guy was really trying to get a bargain here. “That’s my selling price,” I said steepling my fingers. “Now let’s talk about how you can pay. I am in need of any technique or cultivation manuals for any skill or qi type. Any books related to professions, such as herbalism or formation mastery, would also be appreciated. I’m not willing to make a hundred thousand pills for a single Rank 3 manual, but if you provide me with mortal books, I will pay for them at market rate with Rank 0 pills. Give me Rank 1 manuals, and I will pay for them with Rank 1 pills. Your district is responsible for nurturing the youth, correct? You should have significant stores of knowledge that you can pay me with.”

“Yes—” he started.

“You don’t even need to sell them to me,” I interrupted. “I will accept loans of any manuals Rank 1 to 3 and pay for them with pills at market rates. That’s something the Pavilion can handle, right?” I asked, turning to the attendant.

“Yes, however, the Pavilion would normally take a percentage of any deal it facilitates. Since that is not possible with this arrangement, one of the parties must pay a transaction fee for our involvement.”

“I’ll handle the fee,” I said before Steward Mao could respond. “Just subtract it from my account.”

“I cannot authorize this,” the steward responded, “but I do not see any reason it could not work. I will discuss this with our elders and be in contact.”

“I understand, thank you for seeing me today, Steward Mao.”

The steward bowed and left, and I turned to the attendant. “Please make this same offer known to anyone who inquires. If my account begins to run a deficit, let me know and I will make a batch of pills for the Pavilion to cover any costs.”

“Yes, Grandmaster,” she said, making a note of my arrangements.

I had several more meetings to go, and hopefully at least one of them would be more profitable than this one.

A note from G Tolley

The Science of Cultivation [Xianxia]

While most cultivators were scratching their heads as they pondered how to advance to the next realm, Li Lang was busy systematically studying the mechanics of cultivation.

Scientist Langley Seiker has always dreamed about immortality. Reincarnating into a world of cultivation, it is no longer a dream except for the fact that he has no talent. However, through a chance encounter, he gains access to his familiar laboratory that will allow him to study the wonders of cultivation.

Not even the heavens will know what fate has in store for Li Lang as he systematically unravels not only how to cultivate, but also various crafts such as refining pills and inscribing talismans. Preparation is key to surviving in the merciless world of cultivation, especially for those with no talent.

Expectations:

- Detailed study of each stage of cultivation and crafting

- Not technology vs cultivation, science will be used to study cultivation

- No harem

- Slow burn progression. MC won’t be skipping through cultivation ranks at record speed

- Weak to Strong

Release Schedule:

5x weekly (M-F)

Releases around 6:30 PM EST / 3:30 PM PST

Click here to join the Discord Server

Chapter 81 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

“That’s the last one,” said LiPin, the attendant who guided me through the meetings with representatives from around the kingdom.

“Half a dozen in one day,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”

“It’s too early to tell. The ones that came today are just here to feel you out. They don’t have the resources to hire the more established alchemists, so they were the most willing to take a chance on you. Your results will determine what happens from here.”

“Tell me,” I said, glancing at the girl out of the corner of my eye. “Are there any dangers here? Will any of this cause problems?”

The girl hesitated but answered. “Not with these groups… but working with more powerful factions could cause friction. If you help one group, their enemies will put pressure on you. Manager Bai will do her best to handle this for you. At least, she will let you know when a contract could cause problems.”

“Manager Bai?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“My boss, the woman that yelled at you in the Alchemy Office? She… She has a temper, but she’s good at her job. You can trust her.”

That last comment made me chuckle. Could I trust anyone, really? Still, I would trust her to do her job. At most, she would show me where potential pitfalls existed in the city by throwing me into them.

The attendant began to gather her things to leave when I stopped her with a question. “Does the Pavilion sell any storage bags? Like, a bag that can hold more than it looks like it should.”

She gave me a strange look. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it?”

A smile spread across my face. “How expensive are they? Can anyone buy them?”

“It’s a pretty basic item. Nearly everyone at the Martial Master level has one, but the price will depend on the size and quality you want. Do you not have one?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Not yet…” I said, feeling a little embarrassed. “Do you know anything about how they are made?”

My current long-term goal was to expand my storage space. Getting the fire seed was an option, but maybe there was another path.

She nodded. “They’re pretty simple things for Master Formation Specialists to create. Anyone with a spatial spirit fire can make one. Just pump qi into the spirit fire to create a pocket space and then stabilize it with a formation.”

I immediately sat up straighter. “Spatial spirit fire? Where do they get it from?”

Again, she looked at me strangely, as if she was explaining simple things to a child. “Usually at an auction. Spatial spirit fires are extremely popular for formation specialists, so they are sold frequently. A Formation Lord creates a jade box for storing a spirit flame, someone with a suitable fire seed injects the flame into it, and it’s ready to be sold off to anyone willing to pay the price.”

My eyes lit with excitement. This wouldn’t help me expand my storage space. Since the space was located within my soul, I needed a fire seed because regular spirit fires only resided in the body, not the soul, but it still opened possibilities.

“Do you know where the spirit fires come from? Where the fire seed is?”

“No,” she shook her head. “They are shipped down from the central region. The auction houses might know, but they have rules against sharing that information.”

“Do they sell Profound Rank fires? Do you know the cost?” I asked, thinking of another possibility.

“They do, but Profound Rank spirit fires aren’t something you can buy with gold. No Lord-level item is, really. You can only use spirit stones to buy them, and they won’t be cheap.”

“Spirit stones?”

She sighed at my constant questions. “Spirit stones are the currency used by Ruler-tier cultivators. Gold is meaningless to such figures, but spirit stones are not. Aside from their use as currency, they are an invaluable cultivation resource that can help support a Lord’s cultivation.”

“Spirit stones can be used to help Lords cultivate?” I asked excitedly. “How?”

“I… don’t know. I’m not a cultivator…” She glanced toward the room’s exit.

“But—" I began, but I saw that the conversation was wearing on the girl, so I let her go. “Thank you for the information,” I said, bowing.

“Of course, Grandmaster Su.”

---------------------------------------------------

Storage bag, spirit fire, spirit stones.

I had three new short-term goals, the first of which I could check off without much effort.

I headed to the fourth-floor Alchemy Office and ordered several batches of ingredients for common pill types. Before I could begin purchasing, I needed sufficient capital.

It wouldn’t take much effort to concoct a few Rank 3 pills, but it was already getting late, and I wouldn’t be able to get much done before the attendants retired for the day. Members could conduct business after hours, but there was no reason to cause trouble. As a Grandmaster, I could put off resting for a few days if I needed to, so I decided to work through the night.

Around noon the next day, I left the workshop with ten pills in hand. I could only hope it would be enough for a good storage bag.

“Hello,” I said to LiPin when I entered the Alchemy Office, “I need to sell these. They are all pills from the list.”

She took the bottles and put them behind the counter. “Alright. We’ll have an appraiser look at them and credit the value to your account within a few hours.”

“Do I need to plan for any meetings today?” If there were going to be any, I didn’t want to have to trudge all the way back from the Wind District.

“Not today. The people you met with yesterday haven’t contacted us yet, and others are waiting to see what happens with them first.”

“Alright then,” I said with a wave, “then I’m headed to go buy some things. Let me know if anything comes up.”

---------------------------------------------------

I slowly made my way to the Blue Wind Merchant Exchange in the Wind District. Since I needed to wait for funds to be credited to my account, I wasn’t in any rush, so I took the long way around the city.

On the way, I passed through the Marsh District where there were not only schools for children but also art and music studios. Remembering the lack of a wind-based trade skill, this made me wonder if wind could be attached to music. I spent some time exploring the Marsh District but didn’t see any signs representing wind.

Giving up my search, I continued on my journey.

When I arrived at the Merchant Exchange, it was bustling with far more people than I had gotten used to in the Workshops, but there were still attendants ready to go for anyone who walked in.

“Hello, sir,” the young woman who approached me said. “How may I help you today?”

“I’m looking for a spatial bag.”

“Of course. Do you have any specific requirements?”

“No. I was hoping you could introduce me to them.”

“Understood. Right this way sir.”

She led me off to the left side of the shop floor where several leather and cloth bags of varying sizes sat on counters. She picked up a larger one, around the size of a loaf of bread, and introduced it to me.

“This is our basic model. The storage capacity is roughly ten cubic meters, and, barring damage to the formation inside, we guarantee its performance for five years.”

For some reason, I had expected the bag to lie flat on the table as if it were always empty. Instead, this empty bag was bulging as if it were full to the brim.

“How does it work?”

“The bag you see is a normal canvas bag. A Master Formation Specialist has expanded the space inside and placed a small, inscribed stone within to stabilize it. The stone floats near the center of the bag. It is protected from minor damage, but the protections are limited, and rough handling could cause damage. If destroyed, the expanded space within will collapse and all items placed within the bag will be ejected.”

“When I move, will the items inside shift? If it’s ten cubic meters, how will I be able to retrieve anything?”

“Yes, with this model, you must be careful how things are stored inside to avoid damage during transit, and you will need to handle the bag delicately to move items within reach so they can be removed.”

This bag seemed nearly unusable. It must have been placed here to prepare buyers for an upsell.

“I would like a smaller bag I can comfortably carry on my waist even when full, where the contents won’t shift around, and that lets me retrieve items through the use of spiritual force,” I said, thinking through some of the features of my storage space.

The attendant smiled, “Of course, sir. Right this way.”

She took me to a different counter with more richly ornamented bags. She held up a belt pouch that looked to contain little more than a large marble.

“This is one of our more premium Grandmaster-level options. As you can see, the external size has been greatly reduced. With other options,” she said, gesturing to larger, fuller-looking bags, “upgrading to a Grandmaster-level bag will provide significantly more internal storage. This one, though, retains ten cubic meters, but decreases the external size.”

“And it has the options I asked about?”

“Yes, sir. The formation stone is designed so that items inside can only be moved through the use of spiritual force. Place your items inside and arrange the space as you desire. The items will stay right where you put them.”

This bag was even small enough to fit within my storage space. Was this a possible workaround?

“What happens if you put a storage bag inside another storage bag?”

The attendant smiled, picked up another bag, and placed it in the opening of the one she was holding. The second bag floated in the space, not willing to enter.

“As you can see, the two condensed spaces repel each other. When space is created for storage bags, it creates a natural spatial barrier. Normal items can pass through, but one condensed space cannot enter another. If you try to force them together, there is a possibility of overtaxing the formation stone within, leading to an implosion.”

Did the same hold true for my storage space? I wasn’t sure, but was I willing to take such a risk when the space was located in the center of my soul? No, no I was not. Better to check with the System before trying anything like that.

"How much?” I finally asked.

The attendant winced slightly but tried her best to hide it. People who could afford such high-tiered goods would usually not ask about prices. “100,000 gold. Please understand, this is a premium product that took a Grandmaster Formation Specialist a significant amount of time to create.”

I nodded but was unsure how much money I had. I hoped the value of the pills I turned in earlier had already been credited to me, but I wasn’t sure, and I also wasn’t sure how much they were worth.

“Can you help me check how much is in my account, please,” I said, handing over my badge.

The attendant’s face dropped. My words told her I definitely wouldn’t have enough money, but when she saw I was handing her a three-star gold-level badge, she regained her smile.

“Of course, but as a gold member of the pavilion, you are entitled to a loan sufficient for your purchase.”

“Great, then I’ll take the bag,” I said with a smile, “but I would still like to know my current balance.”

The girl took the storage bag and my badge to another counter and processed the purchase. When she arrived, she was in a much more excited state.

“Here you are, sir,” she said, handing the items over to me. “Your remaining balance is 510,620 gold. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

I was stunned. Did that mean I started with over 600,000 gold? Where did it come from? I didn’t think the pills I handed over earlier in the day would be worth more than 10 to 20 thousand, but I wasn’t sure. They could have also credited me for the sample pills I gave them, and I did occasionally sell pills while traveling with Mei. I just didn’t realize how much my account had accrued over that time.

I thought about it and decided that since I was here and had the money, I might as well spend some.

“Show me the alchemy ingredients you have available. I’m particularly interested in any herbs connected to the secondary elements. Also, I would like to purchase any recipes available that utilize those herbs.”

“Right this way, sir,” she said, nearly jumping with joy.

---------------------------------------------------

When I walked out of the Blue Wind Merchant Exchange, my account had shrunk by over 400,000 gold, but my storage bag was brimming with unusual herbs, and I had a dozen new recipes to study. Instead of returning to the Water District immediately, though, I went to find that old man’s shop I had visited earlier.

It took me a long time to finally remember where it was, so when I finally arrived, the sun had already set, but the door of the shop was still open. When I walked in, I saw the same old man in the same posture reading the same thing as last time.

“Hey old man,” I said, trying to get his attention. He didn’t respond.

I walked up to the counter and tapped on it.

“What do you want?” he asked, though his voice lacked any interest in my answer.

“I want to buy all your herbs. How much?”

“Prices are on the bins,” he said simply, refusing to engage with me.

Did he expect me to do all the math myself? Or did he want me to bring up each individual bin?

“Old man, I want all your herbs. How much for everything in the shop.”

“Prices are on the bins.”

I shook my head. I walked over, picked up two large bins the size of fruit crates, and placed them on the counter. I walked back, picked up two more, and dropped them right next to the first two. This finally got the old man’s full attention.

“What are you doing?” he asked annoyed.

“I want to buy these. How much?”

“Just take what you want, don’t bring the entire thing over here, you stupid boy.”

“I told you, I want all the herbs in the shop. How much?”

“That…” he began but stopped when he processed my words. His eyes widened. “I… don’t know.”

“Please help me calculate it,” I smiled.

With him finally assisting me, I purchased his entire stock of hundreds of Rank 1 and 2 herbs for less than fifty gold. Buying low-quality herbs was by far the best way to save money.

“Last time I was here, you told me to see Old Lady Mu. Where is she?”

“Right… Right this way, young master,” the old guy said ingratiatingly.

Old Lady Mu’s shop was nearly identical to the old man’s, but the quality of herbs on display was slightly higher. Importantly, she had many that were connected to secondary elements. This raised the price, so I had to spend over a thousand gold, but I cleaned out her entire supply.

When I finally left the Wind District, my storage bag was nearly bursting with possibilities.

Chapter 82 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

I spent the next several weeks locked away in my alchemy lab.

A few new clients came to discuss terms with me, but most seemed to be waiting for the results of my first discussions. Those representatives had yet to contact me again after our meetings, but that wasn’t too unusual. Even modest forces moved at slow timescales, and the elder councils that needed to approve any major decisions could spend weeks in discussion over the simplest matters.

Likely, they weren’t fans of handing me copies of all their techniques, but at the same time, they knew lending me as many manuals as possible would get them countless free pills. This clash of priorities was probably the biggest cause of the delays.

This didn’t bother me, though. I had plenty to keep me busy. After acquiring the herbs I wanted, I had many new avenues to study and explore.

I wanted to focus on learning how to improve shoddy herbs, but lacking sample pills of secondary elements would hamper my business prospects, so I resolved to take care of that first.

I had bought three of every Rank 3 herb the Blue Wind Merchant Exchange possessed, so I was well stocked to begin my explorations. I started by working through each of the recipes I had bought.

Interestingly, this did not include the Shadowed Soul Pill I had needed to make during the registration exam, but that made sense. The exam would be significantly less effective if someone could just buy the recipes beforehand. Instead, it tested an alchemist's ability to analyze herbs.

The recipes included various types of pills, like a wind and thunder flashbang style pill and a temporary appearance-altering pill that combined light, dark, water, and wood herbs.

One strange recipe created something I could barely call a pill. It combined light and fire herbs to create a light source. When squeezed, the ‘pill’ would begin emitting enough light to illuminate a decently sized room. I wasn’t sure how bright the light would be, or how long it would last, but this seemed like an almost criminal waste of Rank 3 herbs. While it was possible someone would use such a thing, I had to believe that it was a case of an alchemist stumbling upon a useless recipe and just selling it to anyone willing to pay for it. To me, this felt like the type of pill that would be labeled Rank 0.

Whether the pills were useful or not, having the recipes and practicing with them gave me valuable insights into how the medicinal energy in these new herbs worked and how their effects could change when mixed with different ingredients. I made one pill based on each recipe, then I began studying the results.

I wasn’t very happy with how most of them turned out. The medicinal energies didn’t mix properly. Part of this was a result of not having the affinities to properly manipulate them during the process, but another problem was that the secondary affinity pairs were resistant to being combined. This was where the catalyst I used in the exam came into play. It assisted in creating proper mixes, and without it, I was struggling.

Such a catalyst might have been necessary, but my gut told me there should be a way to make these pills without it. I just needed understanding and practice.

The weeks passed quickly, and I made significant progress, but when it was time for me to leave my workshop, I still wasn’t happy. There was more I could do, but it would take time.

I took examples of the best pills I had managed to produce with the secondary elements and handed them over as samples to the Alchemy Office. I didn’t bother giving them anything else I had made since it wasn’t up to my quality standards, and I didn’t want to sell subpar products.

I would spend more time in research later, but now it was time to learn formations.

The ‘classroom’ I was taken to was a large open courtyard with a ground of packed dirt. Twenty small plinths were arranged in a four-by-five grid, and a slightly larger one was placed on a podium at the front. On top of each plinth was a large slab of granite that had been neatly cut into a block with smooth sides and perfect edges.

I was the eleventh person to arrive, so I had a chance to check out my fellow classmates as I waited.

Without exception, they were all earth qi cultivators, which made sense. They were also all Martial Disciples, and while their cultivation bases varied in quality, they were all relatively good, though far from being perfect. They all had to be using Peak Yellow cultivation techniques, but small deficiencies in their qi filters kept them from reaching the perfect qi purity they should have had.

As the start of the class approached, more students filtered in, and they were almost all roughly similar to the students who had been here when I entered. The only ones that stood out were two young men who entered together. Instead of cultivating earth qi, they were metal qi cultivators.

When the metal cultivators reached their plinths, they lifted the granite slabs and set them off to the side. Then, they each took a large metal sheet out of their storage bags and placed them where the stone had originally sat. Instead of stone, they worked with metal.

After all the students had entered and prepared, a middle-aged man wearing a rich brown hanfu walked in and took up a position on the podium.

“Welcome, everyone,” he began. “My name is Hu JianGuo. I am an outer elder of the Earth City Hu family and a Master Formation Specialist. Today, I will teach you the very basics of formations.”

Saying this, he propped up the granite block on his plinth and placed it so that the largest face was visible to us. He held his hand over the top right of the block and channeled his qi. I tried to watch exactly what was happening, but I didn’t have the best vantage point. All I could see was small bits dropping away from where he placed his hand.

When his hand was removed, two palm-sized inscriptions were visible. The inscription on the left was somewhat complicated, but the one on the right was a deceivingly simple-looking spiral. A thin channel ran from the formation on the left, through the spiral, and off the top of the block into empty air. Both inscriptions existed in three dimensions. The left one had channels that ran into and out of the stone block, and the spiral on the right appeared to deepen near the center.

“These are the two most foundational formation inscriptions for you to learn. This one,” the instructor tapped the complex inscription on the left, “is a version of a qi filter you could find in a Low-Yellow cultivation manual, while this one,” he tapped the spiral, “is an inscription to create a qi vortex similar to how a Martial Disciple cultivates. This is the most basic way of pulling in qi to empower a formation.”

The instructor channeled his qi into the spiral. It circled around the inscription then passed through the block and dispersed into the environment. As his qi circled, though, environmental qi began to gather around the stone block. It was pulled in through the inscribed filter, and somewhat pure earth qi began filling the inscribed channel. It passed through the center of the spiral and out the other side, finally dispersing back into the environment when the channel ended.

When the instructor stopped sending his qi into the spiral, the flow of qi into the filter and through the channel ceased.

“This is the simplest formation you can make. It requires active qi input and doesn’t do anything with the energy it gathers. This will be your starting point for today.”

The instructor nodded at a younger man who had entered from the side holding a stack of papers. At the nod, the younger man began handing them out to the various students.

“This has the two inscriptions I used. You all should have access to better qi filters from your cultivation techniques but start with this one. Filters need to be adapted to work properly with formations, and it’s best to start with the simplest designs until you have more practice. You may come up and look at the formation I created more closely, and as you work, my assistant and I will walk around to assist you.”

With that, he stepped down from the podium and gestured for us to begin.

Instead of beginning immediately, I watched as other students raced to begin working. Several of them appeared to be quite skilled already, which made me wonder why they were in the class. Was it to catch the attention of the teacher?

At any rate, their motives didn’t matter to me. They provided me with exceptional examples of what could go wrong if a formation was made too hastily and had errors. The simplest of these failures was the walls of the formation stone collapsing, rendering the entire thing inoperable, but one young man had a build-up of qi that resulted in a minor explosion.

I considered my situation. How should I create a formation? Earth qi was being used because stone provided a hard base layer on which to inscribe, and earth qi was good for carving it. I didn’t have earth qi, but I did have access to wood qi. Earth qi manipulated earth easily, but earth was weak to wood, so wood qi should be even better for carving.

I fixed the filter inscription we had been provided in my mind and began to work. I wasn’t familiar with this particular filter, so I didn’t hit all the angles correctly, but my qi control was enough to create a close facsimile of what it was supposed to be. After the filter was complete, I moved on and swiftly completed the spiral and channel. My wood qi made short work of the granite, and I was quickly finished.

I was about to inject qi into the spiral to test my creation, but I had a sudden thought. The qi type in the spiral shouldn’t matter. It will condense all the types of qi in the environment, and the filter handles separating out the earth element. If I used wood qi in the spiral, though, it might begin degrading the granite. It would be better to use fire qi which might help strengthen the stone as it passes through.

I began channeling, and the spiral seemed to function correctly. Qi gathered around the block and began passing through the filter. Only a moment later, though, the entire thing collapsed. The stone couldn’t bear the strain of the qi passing through it. I frowned. Even if I made a mistake, it shouldn’t have collapsed so easily.

I looked around to see if the examples provided by the other students could shed any light on what went wrong, but there wasn’t much to see. The most interesting were the two metal qi cultivators. They solved the problem of having the wrong element by changing the medium they used, but carving inscriptions into metal appeared far more difficult. Would it be a good idea to use metal as a base and carve with fire qi? That would allow me to start with a stronger material and may help avoid a collapse.

As I stood pondering, the teacher’s assistant approached me and looked at my failed formation.

“What did you do?” he asked in a scornful voice. He picked up some of the crumbled remains of my formation and looked at them dismissively. “Wood qi? You tried to use wood qi to create a formation? What are you, an idiot?”

The man’s voice cut through the courtyard. Several of the other students stopped working to look at the commotion. The instructor also noticed what was happening, and when he did, his eyes widened in terror.

The assistant didn’t notice and continued berating. “If you don’t have the proper qi to create formations, why did you even come here? You’re just wasting everyone’s time. Go learn herbalism like a good little flower boy.”

The instructor rushed over and pushed his assistant away. He looked at me with a pained expression. “I’m sorry,” he began, but before he could say more, the assistant continued for him.

“No need to be sorry for this fool. We can just throw him out. Want me to go get the guards?”

The instructor’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “Quiet!” he said to the younger man in a rush. “Alchemist Su, I’m sorry.”

“Alchemist?” laughed the younger man, “Uncle, he’s no alchemist. He’s a flower boy.”

The instructor turned around and slapped the young man hard, knocking him to the floor.

“Uncle! What are you doing?”

“Shut up! Get out of here. Stop bothering Mister Su!”

“Uncle! But he’s—”

“Now! Leave!”

The instructor looked back at me with a pleading expression. The young man slowly stood with a contrite expression, but when his uncle turned back to me, the younger man shot me a venomous glare before walking away.

“Alchemist Su, I truly apologize. My nephew isn’t sensible. Please, let me help you with your formation.”

I chuckled internally. At this point, I was no longer willing to accept the explanations of these old foxes.

Most likely, he knew exactly what kind of person his nephew was and even encouraged him to act this way. He set this whole thing up to try to get closer to me. By showing me he was ‘on my side,’ he could try to quickly ingratiate himself.

The other option was that he had no idea how his nephew would act. This, in my opinion, was much worse because it would mean there was an uncontrollable element at play that could pose a risk to me.

Either way, it didn’t change what I needed to do. I was here to learn formations, and if he was willing to teach, I was willing to learn.

“Thank you, Teacher Hu,” I said with a nod. “I am not sure why my attempt collapsed like it did.”

The instructor picked up some of the remains and rolled them between his fingers.

“You used wood qi to carve it?” he asked after some thought. “You must have quite the talent to be so skilled in two elements.”

He examined it for several more seconds before rendering his verdict.

“I don’t know how well your formation was constructed, but it wouldn’t matter. It was destined to collapse the moment you began.”

I looked at him with interest.

“Wood qi is great for cutting apart the stone, but there’s a reason no wood cultivators are here. When you do that, it denatures the walls of the channels you carve. Look closely at this stone,” he said, holding up a small pebble. “On the right, you can see what natural granite should look like, but on the left, you can see where your wood qi began breaking down its structure. Even if your qi control were to be beyond anything I’ve ever seen before, I know of no way you could carve with wood qi and not damage the surrounding stone.”

I looked at what he was holding and thought about the problem. It made sense, and I should have realized it earlier. Suddenly, I had an idea.

“What if I carve the inscription with wood qi and then go back over it with fire qi? The fire should help stabilize the stone, right?”

The instructor shook his head. “I’ve seen experiments at doing that before, but it doesn’t work very well. Think of it like this. Using wood qi is like taking a sword and bending the blade 90 degrees, doing incredible damage to the metal. Going back over it with fire qi is like bending the blade back to its original position. It looks like a blade again and can be used for a period, but the bending back and forth introduced fatal flaws into its structure.”

I considered what he said. There should be a way to solve the issue, but this wasn’t the place.

“What about using a different material?” I gestured to the metal cultivators. “If I inscribed on wood, that should work, right?”

Again, the instructor shook his head. “Wood is an organic material. It’s not suitable for holding formations. Good rock has a very uniform crystal pattern, and well-treated metal is nearly as good. Wood, though, has a far more complex structure which can cause problems with formations.”

He tapped the plinth a couple of times before continuing. “Not to say it couldn’t be done, mind you. My family has been conducting experiments on using wood in formations for years, but it has to be used in specialized settings for unique purposes, not in standard formations.”

“Thank you, Teacher Hu. I will consider what you’ve said."

If I wanted to create formations, I still had the option of using my spiritual fire to do so, but I didn’t want to show my skill with it in this setting. I would need to do those experiments in private.

“Of course, Alchemist Su.”

The class continued, and I spent my time focused on learning from the examples of others instead of practicing myself. I wanted to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of everyone’s approach so that I could better adapt it to my own pursuits, and I relied on my purchased enhanced comprehension to assist me with that.

After the allotted hour ended, the instructor dismissed us for the week and said his goodbyes. As I was beginning to leave, though, he called me over.

“Alchemist Su, if you are interested in learning more about formations, the Hu family would be happy to share its knowledge with you.”

“Thank you, Teacher Hu, I’m very interested. Should we discuss the arrangements now?”

“Unfortunately, that is not within my purview,” he said with a sad expression. “The elders have heard of the unique offer you have made through the Pavilion, but they have some concerns about it. They would like to send a representative to discuss them with you.”

“Of course,” I said with a nod. “I welcome any discussion with the Hu Clan.”

“Excellent,” the instructor said beaming, “I will inform them immediately. Good day, Alchemist Su.”

“Good day.”

Chapter 83 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

While I was studying in an alchemy workshop the next day, LiPin came to see me. Steward Mao had returned, and he was ready to make a deal.

“Alchemist Su, good to see you again,” he bowed to me as I entered the conference room.

“Steward Mao,” I nodded, “I hear you have a deal ready for me.”

“Yes,” he winced slightly. “The Mao Clan elders have decided to accept your proposal for Rank 0 pills. We are ready to hand over any mortal information you request in return for the equivalent value in pills.”

“Only Rank 0?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes.” A worried expression crossed his face. “For now, that is all the elders have authorized.”

I wasn’t sure what the elders were playing at. They knew the relative value of the information they were offering, and by specifying that only mortal information would be traded, it could be seen as slapping my face.

They might be testing me to see what my reaction was. They might just want to know if I will hold to my word. What I believed, though, was that they were doing their best to take advantage of me. I made a note to check if the information they paid me with was available in the public libraries.

I wondered if they realized that while they were testing me, I was also testing them. It seemed to be a common belief that only old foxes could play such games, and younger people were just there to be taken advantage of. I may frequently allow myself to be taken advantage of, but I always remembered who was earnest and who wasn’t.

Looking at Steward Mao, I believed he understood everything, and he appeared genuinely contrite. He played the game from the front lines enough to suspect my motives, but the elders behind him were maybe too arrogant. Of course, I could be completely wrong in my suppositions.

“Wonderful,” I smiled. I turned to LiPin. “Can I entrust the Pavilion to handle these matters? Just let me know what pills they need and in what quantities. If possible, you can have the books delivered to my apartment, if not, I can pick them up from the office. Take any necessary fees from my account.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, writing down my instructions.

“Alchemist Su,” said Steward Mao, “what information would you like? We have a wide range of books available for you to choose from.”

“I will trust the judgment of the Mao Clan,” I said, opening my arms wide. “Any information you provide is appreciated, and you will know better than me what information you possess that will make this an equal exchange.”

“Of course, it would be my privilege to do so,” Steward Mao said, giving me a bow and a martial salute. As he lowered his head, I saw a pained expression flash across his face.

---------------------------------------------------

The main reason I didn’t care about getting a poor deal from the Mao Clan was that I planned to make a large number of the ‘Rank 0’ pills anyway. The ingredients to make them were far cheaper than regular pills, and I wouldn’t be stepping on anyone’s toes by purchasing them in bulk. If the Mao clan wanted to compensate me for something I was going to do anyway, I would accept it.

I decided to first work on understanding the Nutrition Pill. I had been told that with only a few coppers worth of ingredients, an alchemist could make a pill that would solve any lingering problems in someone’s body caused by malnourishment.

I didn’t have a great understanding of malnourishment, but I knew it was far more complicated than just being hungry. If someone was malnourished as a child, their bones will tell the story long after they grow old and die. A pill that could repair this kind of structural damage, even if it only worked on mortals, felt far more magical to me than simple cultivation pills.

The Nutrition Pill only had a single ingredient. It was a large herb that looked similar to an ear of wheat. Looking at it in qi vision, I found that its structure was very different than I was used to.

Using the ear of wheat analogy, the seeds were toxins, and the husk was the medicinal energy. The toxic energies were segmented into these small pods, and every one of them was completely surrounded by medicinal energy. To cleanse the herb, an alchemist needed to pierce the medicinal energy husk in multiple places to reach all the toxins.

Taking the first herb, I didn’t use my affinities to move the medicinal energy out of the way. I used the thinnest needle of qi I could form and pierced into a toxic pod.

I had gotten used to working with Rank 3 herbs where the medicinal energy was incredibly fragile, and the toxic energy was nearly impossible to destroy. This herb was the exact opposite. It took far more pressure to pierce the medicinal energy than I expected, and when I did, it caused very little damage. Then, the moment my qi met the toxic energy, it instantly destroyed it.

It took me only seconds to quickly produce several qi needles and completely cleanse the herb. After that, I compressed the energy and formed the pill.

I experimented with a few more pills until I understood the problem. The alchemist needed to damage the herb in many places to reach all the toxins, and if too much damage was caused, the herb would collapse. This was why a Master Alchemist was needed. Most Disciples wouldn’t have enough control. Very old Disciples Alchemists may have developed their soul sufficiently to succeed, but it wouldn’t be easy, and they would still lose a lot of efficacy if they weren’t careful.

Wondering about my limits, I placed ten of the herbs on the workbench and began manipulating them simultaneously. I found I had sufficient focus to correctly direct needles at seven herbs simultaneously. After less than a minute, the first seven transformed into pills, and the other three quickly followed.

I tapped on the workbench in thought.

I could probably make enough Nutrition pills for the entire kingdom in only a few days if I tried, but that seemed suboptimal. If I were a Lord, I could probably spend one day a year stocking a warehouse with sufficient pills for my entire domain, but what if I ascended to King or Emperor? As Emperor, I would need to constantly make these low-value pills to supply my entire domain. I could hire other alchemists to do it, but I would run into the same problem there that existed here. No one would want to make them for me without excessive costs. There had to be a better way.

In the old world, how would people handle this situation? I had a job that needed doing, but no one wanted to do it. There were a few options. Immigrant or slave labor could both be discarded. The first because skilled immigrant alchemists wouldn’t be any easier to find than local ones. The second because it was morally reprehensible.

There was another way that came to mind, though. When there was a job that people didn’t or couldn’t do, you could always try to automate it.

Could I find a way to automate pill production? Creating mechanical alchemy robots seemed like a nonstarter, but what about formations? Was it possible to create a formation that could make a pill?

The Nutrition Pill was incredibly simple to make. Melt the herb, target the toxin, touch the toxin with qi, compress, and you’re done. It felt like it should be feasible, but I wasn’t sure. If it was so simple, people would have already solved the problem, but even if it was difficult, that didn’t mean there wasn’t a solution.

I made a note to begin focusing on formations that could help me automate concocting pills.

I worked through the other pills Steward Mao had requested. The Energizing Pill, which would give mortals boundless energy for several hours was simple enough to make, and the Strengthening Pill, which provided mortals with about a quarter of the strength of a Peak Disciple in every muscle group, also didn’t pose any problems. If I could automate Nutrition Pills, I could easily automate these two.

The Beauty Pills he wanted were much more difficult, though. From what I knew, Beauty Pills were available at every Rank, and you had to take the Rank of pill that matched your cultivation level. So, Rank 0 Beauty Pills would only work on mortals. Their effect was to return you to your ‘flawless state.’ This meant healing any damage or scarring, fixing any dental problems, and removing any unsightly blemishes. For older people who took the pill, it also restored a youthful appearance of someone in their mid-twenties.

The combined effects of Beauty Pills were incredibly complex, and to make them properly, an alchemist needed an equally complex list of ingredients. Beyond the number, though, Beauty Pills were unique among the pills I had so far concocted in that one did not use the entirety of each herb. Instead, the herbs had to be balanced against each other for the best effect, and that balance would be different for different people. Elderly people would need stronger youth-enhancing effects, while a burn victim might need better healing properties.

Truthfully, I saw no benefit to making such a pill. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the societal pressure to be attractive, nor did I look down on people who needed such a pill in any way. No, my problem was that it seemed crazy to put all these effects into a single pill when making five different ones would significantly simplify the process.

Still, I set my doubts aside and made several of them to understand the process. Automating such a complex array of ingredients would be difficult, but if it could be done, it would be incredibly beneficial. Only a Peak Grandmaster Alchemist would be able to make this pill, and no mortal I’d ever heard of could purchase one’s services.

After I finished making a batch of each type of pill, I returned to the Nutrition Pill. This was the simplest and cheapest to make, so it was where I wanted to start my experiments.

I quickly used my affinities to open holes in the medicinal energy and eradicate any traces of toxic energy. That done, I began studying the remains.

It was in far worse condition than most Rank 1 herbs I’d seen before. The extremely low cost meant that farmers had very little incentive to care for it properly, so the energy’s structure was damaged nearly everywhere.

I tried to massage the energy into a uniform pattern, but it didn’t seem to do much. The medicinal energy of this herb was far more robust than I was used to, and it resisted changing its shape. That being the case, I became significantly more forceful and began trying to drag various pieces back into their proper position. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time it failed.

I didn’t give up, though. This first experiment proved to me that this was the perfect herb to practice on. Its robust nature made it far easier to try different methods and understand where they were lacking without the herb instantly collapsing.

---------------------------------------------------

I didn’t leave my workshop for even a moment until two weeks had passed. This caused me to miss my formation classes, but that didn’t worry me. Instructor Hu seemed interested in teaching me privately anyway.

The progress I made on mending herbs was small, but it was very real. I had tried dozens of different ways to maneuver energy back into proper alignment, and several of them showed promise. I was beginning to realize that there wouldn’t be a single method here. Instead, I would need to develop a complex toolkit with specialized methods to deal with different structural abnormalities.

While I was focused on learning, that didn’t stop me from making a mountain of pills. To prepare for this stint in seclusion, I had placed a couple dozen large jade boxes into my storage bag. They were large enough to hold a hundred pills each, and I thought that would be sufficient to last me a long time. I didn’t expect making most of the Rank 0 pills to be so quick, though.

Even with my concentration on improving the herbs, I still made over two thousand pills. If I were focused only on making pills as fast as I could, I would have been able to make tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of Rank 0 pills in the same time, but that wasn’t what I cared about. Making a hundred thousand pills for the Mao Clan would bring me very little benefit, so I focused on improving myself.

When I entered the Alchemy Office, LiPin was about to speak when I started placing box after box on the counter. Her eyes widened at the sight.

“Please have these sent to Steward Mao,” I said with a smile.

“Right… Of course…”

I turned away, but before I could leave, she spoke up. “No one new has contacted us, but several of the other groups you met with previously have stated their intention to purchase Rank 0 pills.”

“Only Rank 0?”

“Yes,” she said with a concerned face.

“I understand,” I nodded. It seemed like someone might be orchestrating tricks behind the scenes, but I would let it play out. I thought about how to respond. “Tell them to go through the Mao Clan. I’ll provide all Rank 0 pills to them, then they can distribute them.”

At this, Manager Bai who had been busy with her paperwork spoke up. “That isn’t a good idea.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“I’m not certain who the troublemaker is, but he is definitely a Grandmaster Alchemist, and they are possibly a member of the Mao Clan. If they are, this strategy will play right into their hands. If they aren’t, this could cause things to escalate unnecessarily.”

I thought about what she was saying. Allowing things to escalate would give me potentially useful information for the future, but learning to play kingdom politics correctly would also be good.

“Any idea why they are doing it?”

Manager Bai chuckled. “They are fighting for the position of King. Contribution to the kingdom is a major factor in that decision, and they don’t want you to accrue any merit.”

“Wait… what? Why does being the King have anything to do with this?”

“The King selection happens in three years. All contenders must cultivate fire qi, and they need to have made substantial contributions to the kingdom. Blocking you from making these deals is blocking you from the position of King.”

Grabbing such a position would be great for my cultivation, but I wasn’t ready for it. Not yet. I needed to expand my abilities and gain a firm understanding of the kingdom before I played at that level.

“I have no interest in being King right now. How do you suggest I handle it?”

“Back out of the deals.” She stated flatly. “At this point, you will gain nothing from them. None of the clans will provide any useful information. Those behind the scenes will mock you for breaking your word, and things will return to normal.”

“Won’t this hurt future opportunities?”

“Only temporarily. In a few years, after the new King takes over, they will come back. There should also be clans that approve of handling things this way.”

“Is the Mao Clan involved, or is someone just using my agreement with them as leverage?”

“I don’t know,” Bai shook her head. “Both options are possible.”

“Alright, then. Sell these to the Mao Clan at the agreed price, but regretfully inform them that this will be the only batch. Tell any parties interested in purchasing my pills that I have decided to enter seclusion to improve my abilities."

"Even if they ask for Rank 3 pills?” asked Bai.

“Yes,” I nodded. “I actually will be studying, and these orders are a nuisance. If those clans are making offers in bad faith, I won’t play with them any longer. You can explain my reasoning to them as you see fit, but go ahead and turn everything down. Unless they directly offer something substantial in return, of course.”

Bai gestured to LiPin who made a note of the conversation.

I left to return to my workshop. Making Rank 0 pills was a good way to improve my mending abilities, but there were other skills I wanted to practice as well. No reason I couldn’t mix mending practice with learning more about secondary element herbs.

Chapter 84 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

While most of the clans and groups that had initially shown interest in working with me had backed off, the Hu family was eager for a partnership. I met with Instructor Hu in one of the Pavilion conference rooms to discuss the details.

“The clan elders are willing to work with you and teach you all our knowledge of formations. I can promise that we will not hold anything back,” said Instructor Hu once we were seated.

“That’s very generous of you,” I said, surprised. “Even for quality Rank 3 pills, this seems beyond what I would normally expect.”

“Yes.” The instructor steepled his hands while trying to explain. “There are conditions which you may be unwilling to accept, but as long as you do, we will freely share all of our clan’s secrets with you.”

My eyes narrowed in suspicion at that. They wouldn’t be clan secrets if they were willing to share them so openly.

“What are the conditions?”

“First, you are not allowed to pass on any knowledge you gain from us.”

I nodded in agreement. “That sounds fair.”

“Second, you are not allowed to profit from creating formations for others within the kingdom.”

I thought about this restriction. “I’m allowed to create them for my own use and the use of my subordinates without restriction, though, correct?”

“Of course.”

I waved the restriction away. “I can accept this.”

“Finally, you must make a pledge to this effect on the kingdom’s Oath Stone.” When saying this, Instructor Hu seemed to get slightly nervous. It seemed he expected me to be unwilling to accept such conditions.

“What exactly does that mean?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. “As you know, I’m new to the kingdom. I’ve never heard of an Oath Stone.”

“It’s considered the most valuable artifact of our kingdom. A pledge on the Oath Stone connects you with the kingdom’s Bagua Formation and through it to the Heavenly Dao. If you break your oath, the Heavenly Dao will pass the information to the formation, and the formation will annihilate you. If you are too far away, the formation may not be able to reach you, but once you return within its range, you will be destroyed.”

I tapped the table in thought then turned toward my regular Pavilion mediator. “LiPin, is swearing on this Oath Stone safe? Are there any hidden dangers the Pavilion can tell me about?”

She hesitated before speaking in a somewhat strained voice. “The Oath Stone is well known, and we have no information about hidden risks associated with it. Beyond what Master Hu has stated, when you are close to breaking an oath, you will feel it, so you will not be able to break one accidentally. However, it is possible to force someone to break an oath. If you swear never to say something, you could be tortured to the point where you are forced to speak. At that point, your oath would be broken, and you would be killed.”

“So,” I said, returning my focus to instructor Hu. “You are willing to teach me your secrets, but you need to ensure I can’t pass them along to others.”

“That’s correct,” he responded. I couldn’t get any kind of read of whether this was intended as a trap or as an open offer, but no matter how it was intended, it was a double-edged sword. Still, I could try to navigate the oath to my benefit.

“I can agree to this, but I need a few changes and clarifications to the oath I take.”

The instructor seemed relieved.

“You said I can’t teach the knowledge you give me to others. Let’s make that pledge stronger. I will swear to never teach anyone anything about formations, but my pledge will only last until the day I die. I am not sure if reincarnation is real or not, but if this oath is connected to the Heavenly Dao, I don’t want any chains binding me in my next life.”

“That… should be acceptable to the elders. I will need to check,” said a cautious Instructor Hu.

“Also, if I’m working closely with the Hu Clan in the future, you will likely learn some of my secrets as well. I would like an oath from my teacher that my secrets will not be shared outside of the clan. In return, I will pledge to only use formations for experimental purposes while I’m in the kingdom. I will also request formation specialists from the Hu Clan first when I have formation-related needs in the future, whether public or private.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” he responded in a tone of worry. “A Master may be willing to make such an oath, but if you want a Grandmaster teacher…”

I opened my hands in a welcoming gesture. “I’m only making an offer. You can return to discuss it with your clan, and we can work through any problematic details.”

Our conversation continued for a few moments longer, but everything of importance had already been said.

I was slightly surprised when the deal with the Hu Clan went through successfully. I would have a Grandmaster privately teach me formations, and I would pay the Hu Clan with a significant number of Rank 3 pills.

The next few years flowed by as I studied alchemy and formations. A few other clans stepped forward to offer me deals, but they were swiftly rejected by Manager Bai. I had told her to accept nothing worse than what the Hu Clan had offered, and that was a bar too high for most clans to cross.

During this time, I didn’t concern myself with participating in the kingdom's internal politics. People were jockeying for positions, especially the upcoming kingship, but I wasn’t in any race to claim it for myself. I simply made notes of what occurred in the event that it would be useful the next time around.

My alchemy progress was incredibly swift during this period. With my enhanced comprehension, my understanding of Rank 1 herbs and how to mend them advanced significantly. However, most Rank 1 herbs were in excellent condition already, so the amount of improvement I could get from mending them was limited and seemed to max out at around 105% of standard efficacy.

5% was very minimal for the amount of effort it took to mend such herbs. In the time it took me to completely mend everything and create a single pill with 105% efficacy, I could make four or five regular pills. For low-level herbs, there was simply no incentive to push for that extra 5%. However, the economics of the situation changed at higher ranks.

Some Rank 3 herbs were extremely rare, such as the Fire Dragon’s Tongue Fruit which was necessary for temporarily boosting fire affinity. An alchemist didn’t have the luxury of only selecting ideal herbs in such a situation and had to work with what was available. Once I mastered this skill at higher ranks, it would mean changing what might have been a pill at 70% efficacy into one with 140% efficacy after all the other bonuses were applied.

After three years of practice, I had been able to nearly perfect my mending skills on Rank 2 herbs, but Rank 3s were giving me problems. It made some sense. Looking at the number of credits I spent, my comprehension boost was at a mid-Rank 3 level, so it would be significantly more beneficial below that. That didn’t mean learning this skill at a higher level was out of reach. It just meant it would take more time.

Alongside these improvements, I became more skilled in working with herbs of the secondary elements. They each had quirks that normal herbs didn’t, and I began to understand how they combined together properly. Where energy from basic herbs could just be thrown together and mixed, the secondary energies were somewhat like puzzle pieces that needed to be fitted together in specific ways. This was what caused my problems back during the registration exam. I didn’t understand how the herbs slotted together.

My lack of affinities still held me back from perfection, but my competency with them had improved to a level I was satisfied with.

During this same period, I invested many days and weeks into learning formations.

My new formation instructor was named Hu BoSan. He was an ancient-looking man who had been at the peak of the Grandmaster realm for centuries. I came to understand that the reason he was chosen was because he was the only one willing to swear the oath I required. As an old man near his end, it would have a limited effect on him.

When we first met, he was surly and disgruntled, but when he learned I had a peak seven-star earth affinity and an earth-based spiritual fire, his mood significantly improved. When he realized the mastery I had over my spiritual fire, he became genuinely excited.

As Instructor Hu told me in my first lesson, the Hu clan had been researching different materials and qi types for use in formations, but they hadn’t been very successful. After seeing my two qi types, my dual-element spirit fire, and my high affinities in all of the basic elements, Hu BoSan’s impression of me changed from a tedious project to an interesting test subject.

He forced me to learn everything he could teach me about Rank 1 formations as quickly as I could. After that, he began using me to experiment with new ways to combine elements to produce new and unique effects.

BoSan confided in me that while the Hu Clan did have a few disciples who chose dual-element cultivation, their talents were always limited. They couldn’t use high-level cultivation techniques, and their qi was too impure to make stable high-level formations.

Typically, when multiple elements were needed in a formation, multiple cultivators worked together to provide the correct types of qi. This resulted in conflicts between different people’s qi, and progress on improving the situation had been slow.

My spirit fire could not be used to power a formation, the designs of the Hu Clan could only accommodate qi, but I could use it when making inscriptions. Boring a hole through stone with my spirit fire and then reinforcing it with my fire qi allowed me to make inscriptions that were far stronger than usual, thus they could handle stronger qi flows, creating more powerful formations.

Three years passed, and I was only taught Rank 1 formations, but by the end, I had a good grasp of them. Among those that Hu BoSan taught me, there weren’t many that were immediately useful to me. There were formations related to farming, livestock, and pest control, but these only provided meaningful benefits to mortals, and I wasn’t in a situation that called for them.

The most important formation I learned for my own use, even if I couldn’t use it in this life, was the Rank 1 Qi Gathering Formation. This was a formation specialist’s response to Qi Gathering Pills. The pills worked far faster and could quickly help a Disciple advance, but while the Qi Gathering Formation was slower than pills, it allowed one to cultivate at a controlled consistent speed. With the formation, Disciples were at a far lower risk of absorbing impure qi, and using the formation didn’t introduce any toxins into the body.

For normal cultivators with limited access to regular pills, the formation would be far, far more valuable than the pill. For me, it wouldn’t change my behavior too much at the Disciple level, but it would be useful for my subjects after I reached the Ruler tier, and if I learned higher ranks of the skill, it could be a definite improvement to my cultivation speed as a Grandmaster.

The final topic I studied during these years was how to properly nurture talents as a future Water Groom. I took several classes for this in the Mountain District, and I disagreed with many of the lessons, but there were several that stood out in my mind.

The first was focused on how to manage a domain. According to the teacher, the key was maintaining a proper hierarchy. A Lord should manage his Grandmasters, Grandmasters should manage their Masters, Masters manage Disciples, and Disciples handle the mortals. Only by maintaining the proper hierarchy could a domain advance as a united whole.

She gave us an example of a Lord who directly managed both the Masters and Disciples below him. His domain became much more powerful under his leadership, but after he stepped down, the Grandmaster who replaced him didn’t have the experience necessary to govern as a Lord.

I could understand the reasoning behind this idea, but the strict hierarchy she described seemed like too much. I felt that while a Lord shouldn’t micromanage, they would still need to be involved in all parts of their domain. While they can and should delegate, that doesn’t mean completely stepping away from overseeing the events on the ground.

Of course, I was viewing this from the perspective of the old world. Things were different here, and this might be a necessary difference. I wasn’t sure.

The second part that stood out was when she talked about helping others with their cultivation. It was made clear that what I did with Mei and SuYin was considered extremely improper, especially regarding Mei. I directly controlled her qi during her Master and Grandmaster advancements. According to the instructor, this would lead to a cultivator not understanding their own cultivation base.

While excessive assistance wouldn’t do too much damage, it would lead to the one helped being unable to properly function as a Lord. They wouldn’t have certain experiences considered necessary for nurturing followers.

This made me wonder how Mei was handling things. If it was as bad as the instructor implied, she might be struggling to improve her domain, but her blessing should be providing some assistance at least.

The final part that stood out was when the instructor talked about the proper role of a Flower.

“Once a Groom becomes city lord, his Flower steps back from leadership and becomes his strongest pillar of support. She will be your consort and wife, giving you all of her affection and love, but she will also be your Grand Chancellor, ensuring the smooth functioning of your domain by using her knowledge and experience to assist you.”

I thought about Mei in this kind of role. Her blessing would certainly be of use in the political sphere. She would be able to easily manipulate her rivals. I snorted internally. I wasn’t sure if relying on her for such a thing was smart, but she was made for those situations. I wasn’t.

“She will have eleven years of experience, and you should rely on it to help you, but keep in mind that she is your wife, not your servant. She is there to support you, but you are the one who is in charge of running the city. After a Groom ascends to lordship, the Flower’s primary duty is to nurture her Seeds while you are in charge of governance.”

The teacher handed us each a paper that contained a historical account so we could better understand the role of a Flower.

In the story, the new Water Groom ascended to his position and began leading the city. He wanted his reign to be marked by significant changes and improvements to the city, so he worked with his ministers to craft a series of proposals for new street layouts, improved roads, and a sewage system.

His proposals would have affected nearly every significant interest in the city, and if he had implanted them directly, the major clans would have rioted.

This is where his Flower helped. She did not mediate with the clans directly. Instead, in her role as Chancellor, she advised the Groom on how clans would react and gave suggestions that would improve his ideas and make them welcomed by everyone involved.

The Groom created the plan. The Groom implemented the plan. But the Flower was in the background, lending her experience and guidance.

Three years after coming to Hundred Flower City, the King Selection took place. While I did take notes about it, I didn’t involve myself in the festivities. I had no interest in pursuing a position as Eight Flower King in this life.

The day after the new king was crowned, LiPin met me in my workshop.

“Several clans wish to meet with you to discuss a deal,” she said frantically. “We’ve had over two dozen organizations contact us today. Manager Bai is dealing with it, but you need to be prepared. She isn’t in a good mood.”

A note from G Tolley

I made some changes to the details about Lord ascension in chapter 73 to reflect my growing understanding of how the process will work. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Chapter 85 – Life 61, Age 27, Martial Grandmaster Peak

A dozen new potential clients coming to my door the day after the new King was appointed made me feel like these were not clients I would be particularly happy about having.

Instead of meeting with them on an individual basis, I entrusted Manager Bai with handling most of these requests with a direct rejection. While they might be interested in having me make pills for them, if they were poised to make an offer as generous as the Hu Clan, they wouldn’t have ignored me for several years.

She wasn’t exactly happy to be delegated these responsibilities, but she still accepted the task. With the pettier parties taken care of, she gave me a rundown of some of the bigger clients available. We set up a meeting to discuss these offers in detail before entering negotiations, but when it came time to decide how to proceed with these negotiations, it was not Manager Bai who came to talk to me. It was Alchemist Li who I hadn’t seen since my registration exam when I first entered the city.

“Su Fang, how have you been? Has Eight Flower been treating you well?” he asked in a grandfatherly manner.

“Alchemist Li.” I bowed to the older man. “Thank you. I have been very well.”

“Come and sit, let’s talk about your future,” he said, guiding me to sit in one of the conference rooms. “I have been paying close attention to your progress. It seems you have made great strides in filling those gaps in your knowledge.”

“Thank you, Alchemist Li.” I cupped my hands in salute to him. “I have done my best to learn what I can here. There are many new herbs to explore.”

The older man took out a small pill bottle, poured out the pill inside, and held it up to the light.

“You have indeed been progressing very well,” he said in admiration. “I must admit, your ability to mend medicinal energy has even surpassed my own, and I’ve been studying for centuries.”

That comment made me wince internally, but I tried to hide my reaction.

“So, what are your plans?” he asked. “You’ve reached the peak of Grandmaster Alchemist, and you are only a few decades old. How do you plan to move forward?”

This was something I had thought about for a long time, and while I had made my decision, it still made me anxious.

“I’m going to compete for the position of Water Groom.”

Alchemist Li stroked his beard in thought. “Your friend is the Water Flower, right? It’s not a terrible choice. You will have a solid position as a Lord, and with your skills, you may reach Peak Lord by the end of your term. As long as you are willing to do the necessary work, that is.”

I wasn’t sure how to reply to that, so I kept my silence.

“There are other paths open to you if you wish to take them,” he said meaningfully.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Manager Bai has informed me of the new King’s offer. I would become his direct subordinate, and in return, he would use a special technique to share a portion of the karmic energy he receives. allowing me to ascend to Lord.”

Alchemist Li nodded. “The new Eight Flower King is a powerful alchemist in his own right. He isn’t quite as skilled as you are, but his blessing more than makes up for his deficiencies. Right now, he is only a Grandmaster like you, but with the karmic energy of his new position, he will quickly rise through the Lord realm and ascend further. I doubt his alchemy skills will keep pace, I expect him to stall in the mid-Pill Lord stages, but if you prove yourself a valued ally, you may be able to ride his coattails during the next King selection in twenty years.”

“It’s not the right fit for me,” I stated firmly. “I’ve looked into the man. His connections are all downward, to people below him. Following him will only be placing chains on myself that won’t allow me to rise beyond early Lord.”

“What do you want, then?” asked Li. A small smile was hidden under his beard.

I felt a weight in his question. This was a time to be clear. “I want to become a Pill King and a Formation King, and I want to become a true city lord with actual authority so that I can test certain ideas I have for city development.”

Li nodded at what I said, but a resigned expression crossed his face. “I would offer you a position as my disciple, but I could only teach you a bit of alchemy, and the city lord position I could arrange through the Pavilion would only be a nominal one.”

I wasn’t sure how skilled Alchemist Li was, I had only ever heard him referred to as Alchemist, no one ever mentioned his realm, but I had the feeling he was far beyond me. Thinking this, I began to speak to voice my wavering conviction and offer to accept such a position, but he waved me off.

“The timing isn’t right,” he said ruefully. “I don’t have much time left, so there may not be another chance, but I can feel that now just isn’t the right time.” He tapped his temple with two fingers.

It was his blessing. His blessing gave him some type of knowledge about timing events properly. It was an interesting blessing for an alchemist to have, and I could see some great potential benefits depending on the specifics of how it worked.

“For now, I’ll do what’s proper for an old man like me when meeting a young up-and-comer like yourself and give you three gifts.” He grinned widely. “First, do you know what separates Ruler Tier alchemy from Warrior Tier alchemy?”

I was thrown off by his change in topic but quickly regained my balance. “Not exactly. The most I have been able to learn is that Ruler Tier alchemy requires a Profound Rank spirit fire.”

Li shook his head. “No, not right. You can get by with worse in the Lord realm, though you won’t be happy about it.”

He took out a small cauldron and a strange herb from his storage bag.

“This is a Rank 4 herb,” he said, holding it up. “It can be refined into a somewhat basic pill by itself. Please, go ahead and try it.”

A bit worried, I approached the cauldron and got to work. I approached the task as I would with any Rank 3 pill, but when I closely examined the medicinal energy, I was stunned. It existed only as small flecks suspended within a sea of toxins.

I started to burn away the toxins carefully. It took significantly more energy than I was used to, but it was manageable by relying on my fire seed. At this point, based on the way he talked, I wasn’t worried about Alchemist Li being greedy for a Yellow Rank seed, so I used it freely in front of him.

My control and power were sufficient to refine this herb, which surprised me. This would mean I could begin making at least some Rank 4 pills. However, the moment one of the flecks of medicinal energy was freed from the toxins, it fluttered into the air and dispersed. Thinking this was a bad coincidence, I freed another bit of energy, but it also fluttered away and vanished into the air.

After my third attempt, I put the herb down in defeat and looked at Li.

The alchemist grinned at me. “Alright,” he said, “now, punch me.”

“What?”

“Punch me as hard as you can. Don’t worry, you can’t hurt me. Put all your strength behind your fist and punch me anywhere you want.”

I was confused, but I was willing to follow his command. I balled a first and punched directly at his chest.

Halfway to its target, my fist froze in the air. I could neither move it forward nor backward.

“This is the difference between a Warrior and a Ruler,” the old man said. “After forming a core of karma, the Ruler is connected to the world on a fundamental level, and this provides them with some amount of control over it. I am not using qi to hold you in place. I am using only my will and my connection to the world. To be a Pill Lord, you will need to be able to impose your will onto herbs while concocting to prevent them from dispersing. Otherwise, you will never be able to make anything beyond Rank 3.”

I looked at the ruined herb that was still sitting in the cauldron. If he could use his ‘will’ to lock my body in place, then he could also use it to lock down the medicinal energy and keep it from dispersing, but wasn’t there another way?

“Won’t high enough affinities be just as good?” I asked. “If it’s just a matter of keeping the medicinal energy from dispersing, affinities should also work.”

Li rubbed his hands in excitement. “Yes, they should, but that’s its own problem. From my tests, I estimate you need a Peak five-star affinity for Lord-level pills, Peak four-star for King-level, and Peak three-star for Emperor-level, and not just for fire affinity either. You will need this level of affinity for each element of medicinal energy you want to be able to use. Far easier to just raise your cultivation, wouldn’t you say?”

In the short term, I couldn’t help but agree he was right, but long term? Affinities were something I could have from the beginning, long before I could raise my cultivation level to match.

“My second gift is this,” he said, pulling out a thick, worn book. “It has many of my thoughts and recipes regarding Rank 4 alchemy. It should be of great help to you in the near future.”

My eyes widened in shock. “This is too precious. I can’t take it.”

“Then throw it away. I no longer have need of it, and I am giving it to you,” he said, placing the book on the table and dismissing it from his thoughts.

Both reluctant and greedy, I picked it up and carefully placed it into my storage bag. My only regret was not being able to carry such an important text with me into future lives. Since it was Rank 4 knowledge, my mental library couldn’t store it, and the book was far too large for the limited storage space in my soul.

“Finally,” he said, taking out a jade box and placing it on the table, “to do proper alchemy you need a proper spirit fire. It will take some adjustment to get used to a simple spirit fire instead of that seed of yours, but you’ll find this one to be much more suitable. It’s the fire-based Three Thousand Flames Spirit Fire. With this, you won’t be able to pull off some of the tricks you can with your earth and water flame, but you also only need to worry about finding a way to improve your fire affinity.”

I stared at the box. “What level is this spirit fire?” I had to ask.

Alchemist Li just gave me a simple smile, stood up, and began to leave the room. Before he did, he turned back and tossed a small coin at me.

“If the time is ever right, come to the Pavilion’s main branch in the central region. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around, but when you do, just show them that coin and ask to see Pill Emperor Li.”

Stunned by his words, I barely noticed when he disappeared from my sight.

After Emperor Li left, my first thought was to suicide and immediately go to search him out and become his disciple. That feeling only lasted for a second before I regained my composure. Such actions would be meaningless.

Emperor Li was relying on some kind of blessing in his dealings with me, and if it didn’t want him to accept me as a disciple now, simply restarting probably wouldn’t change that.

His gifts significantly boosted my chances of completing my plans for this life. I would wait a few years, take over North Lake City, and see about transforming it into a haven of peace and prosperity so that it would produce karmic energy as fast as possible for me.

Chapter 86 – Life 61, Age 27, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After returning to my workshop, the first thing I wanted to do was switch out my spirit fire. I wished I could keep the new one for future runs, but the box it was stored in was too large to take with me, so that wouldn’t be possible.

Early on, I had trapped a portion of Cold Mountain Fire in my body as a smokescreen for when I concocted pills in front of people so that they wouldn’t know about my fire seed. Since it wasn’t possible for a body to contain two spirit fires at the same time, I quickly dispersed the lesser fire, releasing its energy into the environment.

I opened the jade box Emperor Li had given me, and the room was instantly filled with scorching energy. I used my fire affinity to keep the excess heat away from my body, but it was a struggle. My affinity was too low to completely control it.

I nearly rushed to place my hand in the box and begin absorbing the fire, but a moment of rationality came over me, and I asked the system a question to help gather information Emperor Li had refused to give me.

“System, how much to learn to perfectly control the Three Thousand Flames spirit fire?”

Mastery of Earth-Rank Three Thousand Flames Spirit Fire. Cost 10 trillion credits.

Earth-Rank. He had given me an Earth-Rank spirit fire for free. That immediately suggested one of two possibilities in my mind. Either Pill Emperor Li was absurdly wealthy, which, if he was a 600-year-old monster, he most likely was, or he was so willing to give it away because he possessed the Three Thousand Flames fire seed. My guess was that both were true.

I didn’t know when the ‘time would be right,’ but I vowed to myself that I would find Emperor Li as soon as possible.

I was slightly worried about this all being a trap. I didn’t know if old monsters could steal someone’s body in this world, but, well, I had done it, so it definitely wasn’t impossible. If Emperor Li was truly running out of time, he might be planning to do such a thing to me, so I would need to take preventative measures, but he seemed genuine enough.

Not for the first time, I wished for an ability to read people’s true thoughts. Purchasing such an ability from the System, one where it would give me insights into a Pill Emperor, would be far beyond my means, but I needed to look into it the next time I had spare credits.

Returning to the present, I had to consider if I should absorb this new fire or not. Nearly every fiber of my being screamed at me to absorb it as quickly as possible, but there was a catch. The insane cost of mastery showed how difficult it would be to control. I could barely keep the heat away from myself while opening the box. Delicate alchemy operations would be nearly impossible.

After several long moments, I finally closed the beautiful jade box and returned it to my storage bag. Absorbing an Earth-Rank spirit fire offered me no benefits, there were only downsides. I needed to purchase a proper Profound-Rank fire I could more easily control, and that couldn’t happen until after I became a Pill Lord and started earning spirit stones. For now, the Cold Mountain Fire did everything I needed it to do.

I opened my soul and returned a portion of Cold Mountain Fire to my body.

Since I couldn’t progress to Pill Lord without a city to control, I also put my study of Emperor Li’s notes on hold. I felt like I had reached the end of what I could achieve in alchemy without advancing, so I instead focused on improving my skill in formations.

Years began passing one after another.

I mastered what the Hu Clan could teach me about Rank 2 formations and started my studies in Rank 3. This was much slower, and my comprehension boost was nearing the limit of its peak effectiveness, but I was still making good progress.

Eleven years after Mei left to become the Water Flower, it was finally time for the Water Flower’s Groom Selection.

The Groom Selection wasn’t too different from a Flower Blossoming, when a new Flower was chosen. There were five parts to the competition: appraisal by a master of astrology, a test of cultivation, a test of personal skills, a test of one’s ability to nurture new talents, and the Flower’s personal opinion.

Each area rewarded up to ten points, for a maximum possible score of fifty. Mei wasn’t allowed to freely choose who would be her Groom, but the structure of the competition was such that she could openly choose anyone who was within ten points of the top scorer after the results of the first four parts were tallied by giving her choice ten points and everyone else zero.

I had taken several classes in the Mountain District over the years to prepare, and I had worked through Manager Bai to massage the politics of the situation. Based on my impressions, there shouldn’t be anyone who could compete with me in most areas. I was confident about my personal skills, and I had to believe Mei would choose me over the others, but the astrology master’s opinion was unpredictable.

The competition was held in the middle of the Water District. A large outdoor amphitheater was specially prepared for the competition, and thousands of potential Grooms gathered in a waiting area nearby. Most didn’t have the slightest chance of being selected, but they still came in the vain hope of a miracle occurring.

To enter the selection, we first had to pass through a series of archways. Examining them, I realized that someone of at least the Formation Lord level would have had to have made them. The first arch tested whether a person cultivated wood qi, the second tested if they were a Grandmaster, and the third checked if they were under sixty years old. A failure at any point meant disqualification.

I didn’t expect this check to stop anyone since these were the most basic qualifications and were widely known, but to my surprise, at least half of the aspiring Grooms were rejected at this point.

After that, we were separated into different rooms to be checked by an astrology master. The one who tested me was an older-looking man in a fantastical black robe embroidered with silver and gold stars. I wasn’t clear about the specifics, whether he had a blessing or some kind of trained skill, but he placed his hand on my forehead and started muttering to himself.

“A dog wants to marry a rooster? What a joke,” he snorted as he muttered to himself. “At least it’s a metal dog for an earth rooster. It’s not going to be a happy marriage, but he will profit from it. Will it be good for the kingdom?”

He turned and looked at the scribe. “Give him three points and pass him on. Let him compete.”

The scribe noted it down and then asked me for my name, age, and exact cultivation level.

As he was writing, I saw several more people entering, and the old man waved them away without even touching them, showing they failed at a fundamental level. Having only scored three out of a possible ten was a bad place to start, but I knew it would only get better from there.

After that, I faced a woman with an extremely domineering spiritual presence. My soul had grown extremely strong over the years, but in front of this woman, I almost felt like a child. She had to have cultivated her soul to the extreme and probably had a blessing boosting it.

She looked at every inch of me and examined my cultivation level. When she was done, she turned to the scribe. “Pass him. Eight points.”

The people who passed these two tests were gathered in a hall behind the amphitheater. After the archways and both tests, the pool of competitors was narrowed to only forty.

Inside the amphitheater, hundreds of people waited for our performances. In the front rows and along the left and right sides of the seating area, important members of clans from across the city were in attendance. The center area was completely taken up by rows of private boxes.

Nearest the bottom, each of the current Flower and Groom pairs was given a box to view the competition up close. Above them, in larger, more lavish boxes, former Flowers and Grooms watched the proceedings in small groups. Finally, seated above everyone else, the King and Queen sat on golden thrones and oversaw everything.

We were brought onto the stage one by one to demonstrate our personal talents. Everyone was a wood qi cultivator, and we were competing for the position of Water Groom, so nearly everyone displayed talents in herbalism. They took out various plants they had grown, discussed why they were special, and talked about the fields under their control.

Breaking the mold, a handful of people demonstrated martial or healing skills, but considering the role the Water Flower and Groom played in the city, those didn’t seem to impress the judges as much.

When I went on stage, I demonstrated that while I was a wood cultivator, I also cultivated fire qi. I brought out a large assortment of pills I had made previously and performed a quick bit of on-stage alchemy. I considered creating a formation, but that would have been difficult without using my fire seed, and that wasn’t something I wanted to flash around this crowd.

The judges seemed impressed enough, so I waited for the next competition.

The ‘talent nurturing’ portion was not a practical test as I originally expected. There was no easy way to test such capabilities in a short time span, so instead, we were given both written and verbal exams. The written portion was handled backstage while competitors appeared on stage one by one for the verbal portion.

This was challenging. Even though I had studied for it, the fact was that I didn’t always agree with what my teachers had told me, so I had a hard time remembering the ‘correct’ answer when it differed from ‘my’ answer, but I still aced this test easily enough. I had a hard time remembering, so I just cheated.

All the relevant material had long been stored in my mental library, and I had a good understanding of where to find any particular piece of information on this topic, so when I got a question, I just flipped to that book and copied the answer. It was slightly more difficult to do this during the verbal test since I needed to be quick and not give any physical tells, but I managed.

Finally, it was all down to the final test. It was the one I both felt the most confident about and most feared. Mei would give each competitor points based on her personal preference.

At this point, the highest-scoring competitor had a total of 38 out of 40 points, and since Mei could only award a total of 10 points, anyone with a score lower than 28 was automatically eliminated.

I barely passed this elimination round with a score of 29. A total of 11 from the first two rounds, 10 from the personal talent portion, and 8 from the nurturing test pushed me across the line, barely, but most others weren’t so lucky. For the final selection, only five of us remained.

The five of us walked out onto the stage as the audience looked on. In the center box, Mei stood up. She closely examined my competitors, but she didn’t spare me a single glance. After looking at each contestant, I saw a brief flash of disappointment cross her face.

Finally, she announced her decision. She could have graded each of us on a 10-point scale, but doing so was meaningless. We were the group of people deemed to be viable companions, and she had the choice of who she would marry from among us.

Each of my competitors received 0 points, and I got the full 10. Watching Mei’s reaction, it didn’t feel like a victory, though. The entire time I was on stage, she didn’t look at me even once. I didn’t know what she was feeling. If she was sad, angry, or even happy, I couldn’t tell, but we would have time to figure it out together.

A note from G Tolley

Sorry for the posting delay. Accidently scheduled it for 7PM instead of 7AM.

Chapter 87 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After the competition, I was not taken to meet with Mei. Instead, I was whisked away to a small room near the top of the amphitheater for a private audience with the Eight Flower King. When I walked in, I saw a powerfully built man with raven black hair and a short, tidy beard wearing an elaborate robe of reds and golds.

“Your majesty,” I said, giving the man a deep bow that took my torso past horizontal. In an empire, it would have been proper to kowtow, and even in most kingdoms, it was appropriate to kneel, but in Eight Flower, a deep bow was all that was required.

I was forced to hold my bow for many long seconds as the man looked at me. “Rise,” he finally commanded.

I did so, but then found myself standing awkwardly in silence. It wasn’t my turn to speak, and the king was content to quietly examine me.

“Su Fang,” he said, once his examination was complete, “I’m disappointed you didn’t accept my offer. You would have made a fine subordinate, and your aid could have helped me a great deal these past few years. Still, it isn’t a total loss. You are now my vassal Lord.” He paused to emphasize this statement. “Unfortunately, I only have one year left as Eight Flower King. I expect you to assist me during this time.”

“Of course, your majesty. I will fulfill my duties as city lord to the best of my ability.”

The king fixed me with an intent gaze. “My cultivation has been far more limited these past eight years than I had hoped. If you can turn that around, you will be well rewarded. My blessing allows me to concoct high-quality pills, but the number I can produce is… limited. If the number of pills you made for the Mao Clan when you first arrived is any indication, yours seems to be far better in this aspect. I know you have limited the clans you cooperate with due to our past differences, but I hope you can set aside past grudges to work for the betterment of the kingdom.”

“Your majesty, I didn’t refuse the work because of a grudge but because I had far more important research to conduct. If everything works as I have planned, you should be very satisfied with the results.”

The king smiled thinly at that. “Very good. If you can improve my situation, our situation, sufficiently, I will consider assisting you during the next King Selection if you wish.”

I cupped my fists in a martial salute. “To a happy cooperation.”

I wouldn’t believe any promises from him for a second, but I was willing to smile and agree. There was no reason to slap his face when we were both playing at being polite gentlemen, after all.

Besides, to help achieve my ultimate goal of acquiring the spatial fire seed, I wanted to create something capable of boosting karmic energy production for an entire empire, and if it worked for an empire, it would be more than sufficient for a small kingdom. The only problem would be completing it soon enough to assist the king. Thankfully, his cultivation wasn’t among my priorities.

The king clapped his hands to summon a servant. “Take him to the Oath Stone and administer his oath of office.”

The king stared at me as I was led away.

“Place your hand on the stone,” said the servant after I entered the Oath Chamber.

I had only been here once before, and that was when I swore my oath to the Hu Clan. It was a small stone room located within the mountain at the center of Hundred Flower City. The only thing inside was a large stone covered in formations.

After I placed my hand on the Oath Stone, the steward guided me through my swearing-in. “Repeat after me,” he said. “I swear to do nothing to intentionally harm the kingdom or any of its seated Rulers, and I swear to peacefully transfer my powers at the end of my appointed term. May this oath be binding for my term in office and one hundred years thereafter.”

I completed the oath and was sworn in. It was a simple thing, but it had kept the kingdom at peace for centuries. Importantly, as I had found in the past, after taking an oath, there was a built-in warning system where one would feel a sense of crisis if they were close to breaking it, so it wasn’t something that could be done unknowingly.

Following my swearing-in, the servant bundled me into a carriage and sent me out of Hundred Flower City. It was the first time I had left the city in years.

The land between the capital and North Lake City was extremely fertile, and rivers flowing down from the surrounding mountains provided the area with ample water supplies, so the entire area was covered in fields that supplied food for the cities across the kingdom. Closer to North Lake, the simple food crops turned into medicinal herbs, and herbalists tended fields protected by complex formations.

Passing through these farmlands, I couldn’t help but think about how such abundant resources at my doorstep could be utilized. I briefly entertained the idea of turning all the farms producing basic foodstuffs into herb fields centered around the ingredients for Fasting Pills. Instead of eating pounds of food every day, people would be able to take a single pill to handle all their nutritional needs. I didn’t know how the logistics would work out, but it seemed feasible.

Being fed only pills and no food also sounded like a dystopian nightmare, so the idea might be a nonstarter. I still noted it down in my journal as something to look into. If feeding citizens only fasting pills could increase karmic energy production, the Rulers of Brilliant Sun might be interested, even if I personally found it abhorrent.

It was late in the day when I arrived at North Lake City. The city was located on an island in the middle of an expansive lake set between two small mountain chains. The lake and mountains were the kingdom’s shield against any enemy who wished to attack, and the city’s cultivators were its spear.

The city’s island itself was covered in innumerable buildings, and there was a constant flow of wagon traffic to and from the surrounding fields. All of it needed to cross a several-kilometer-long bridge that connected the mainland to the city’s island.

The need for so many wagons was a slight surprise to me. Storage bags weren’t overly expensive, and using them would have made transporting goods much more efficient. After thinking about it, I realized that while the wealth of a Martial Master, the rough amount needed to buy a low-level storage bag, was nothing to me, it was something farmers growing simple mortal crops would never be able to afford, and if such farmers did use storage bags, it would put them at risk from greedy Disciple-level cultivators.

I wasn’t sure how I could improve this situation, but I still noted it down as something to look into. Increasing the flow of goods and services was key to improving the prosperity of a domain.

The bridge amazed me as we passed over it. It seemed to be made from a single piece of carved stone. There were no seams or gaps anywhere, and the ride along it was perfectly flat and smooth.

Halfway across, I began to wonder how it handled expansion and contraction from temperature changes. You couldn’t have a structure of this scale without having to contend against such forces, but there were no signs of expansion joints. The bridge was somehow maintained at a constant temperature, the expansion forces were managed in some way, or such forces didn’t even exist in this world. I wasn’t sure which was more likely, but no matter what the case was, the bridge was a marvel of construction.

As we passed the city gate, I noticed that every wagon was stopped and had to pay a toll to enter. My carriage was allowed to pass freely, but I wasn’t sure if that was just because I was the new city lord or if the toll simply had to do with the transport of goods. Tariffs on goods may be understandable for a normal city, but it seemed unnecessary here. The meager profits generated from taxing mortal goods would provide negligible funds. I noted this down as something else to look into.

Riding through the city streets, I spied on the population of my new city. Their cultivation levels were a step down from what I had seen in Hundred Flower City and more closely resembled the people of Dragon Gate. Mortals were common here, and they could be seen doing all manner of laborious tasks.

My carriage drove to the City Lord’s Complex which took up a large area on the eastern side of the island. It was a set of five large buildings surrounded by a high wall. I was taken into the central building which was an elegant four-storied mansion. The main entrance opened directly into the grand hall where the city officials were already waiting for me.

A subdued wooden throne sat on a podium, and Mei stood on its left side in the position of Chancellor. Five young women in dark blue robes lined the left side of the hall, and five elderly men and women lined the right.

I noticed that Mei didn’t look directly at me as I walked in. Her gaze was fixed on a serving woman who stood to the side of the hall’s entrance.

Without waiting for anyone to speak, I walked to the throne and sat down.

“Greetings, City Lord,” everyone said in unison.

“Let’s begin,” I replied, not willing to give a long speech. “Flower Mei, please introduce me to everyone.”

“Of course, City Lord,” she said. Her bearing and tone were strictly professional. She looked and gestured to the women in front of her. “These are my Seeds. I have been training them to be both potential new Flowers and knowledgeable subordinates. They do not have any official position in the city’s hierarchy, but if given your token, they will have the knowledge and authority to handle any managerial duties you wish to assign them.”

Looking at the girls, they all appeared nervous. I hadn’t looked into how Seeds were normally treated by Grooms, or if the two typically interacted at all, but if they were competently trained, they could be of use to me.

“These,” Mei continued gesturing to the older people on the right, “are the city’s ministers. They have held their positions for many decades and have a wealth of knowledge about how the city functions and why.”

The first man stepped forward. “Lord, I am Tang LiHui. Minister of Public Works.”

The next man stepped forward. “Lord, I am Mo SiLing, Minister of Justice.”

Then it was a woman’s turn. “Lord, I am Jin DaYin, Minister of Rites.”

Then another woman. “Lord, I am Lu TingFei, Minister of Revenue.”

Finally, the last man walked forward. “Lord, I am Bei NiLong, Minister of Personnel.”

“Greetings, ministers, Seeds,” I said, nodding in acknowledgment to both groups. “First, are there any critical issues that need to be addressed immediately?”

Mei responded while gazing across the room, “No, everything is functioning smoothly for the moment. We have ensured the city is in a state suitable to implement whatever tasks you deem necessary.”

When Mei finished her report, Jin DaYin, Minister of Rites, spoke up. “Lord, Flower Mei has done an admirable job of ensuring the smooth functioning of the city, but there is an issue we must address. As a new city lord has just been appointed, there are observances which must be conducted tomorrow. We may need to discuss some details to ensure they are carried out to your satisfaction.”

I looked at Mei, and she shook her head. “Minister Jin, I trust you to handle these matters. Unless there is something critical that I must personally make a decision on, you may arrange matters as you see fit.”

“Yes, Lord,” said Jin with a bow. I couldn’t read her impassive face. I wasn’t sure if this decision was what she wanted, what she didn’t want, or simply what she expected.

“Are there any other issues that may need my attention?” I asked. I wanted each minister to step forward of their own volition so that I didn’t need to rely solely on Mei’s report.

“No, Lord,” they each said, one after another.

“Very well. Then there are a few issues I wish to put forward. Minister Tang, I wish to construct a large, open building on the island. The planned size is roughly 80 meters wide and 100 meters long. The ceiling should be at least 15 meters high. After an initial test, more of such spaces may become necessary, so I would like a plan for that in place.”

“Lord, this may be difficult,” the Minister of Public Works responded. “Space on the island is limited, and there is currently no room for such a large structure. We would need to tear down several existing buildings to accommodate it.”

“I don’t care if it's difficult, it needs to happen. Find some earth cultivators and dredge the lake to build out the island if needed.” I did my best impression of an imposing Lord since that’s what I thought they needed at this point.

This building had to be constructed no matter the costs. It would be the basis of my most important idea for how to improve a domain’s karmic energy, an automated pill factory. If I could succeed in creating such a thing, I was confident I could use the designs to establish a close relationship with the ruling family of the Brilliant Sun Empire.

“Yes, Lord,” he said resigned. “What is the purpose of this structure? We need to know where to place it.”

“Consider it a type of alchemy workshop. Placing it closer to distribution areas of herbs and pills would be best.”

“Yes, Lord,” Minister Tang bowed. “I will see to this immediately.”

“Lord,” said Minister Lu, stepping forward, “such construction may strain our current resources. The city’s revenue is in good condition, but we do not currently have the necessary funds for a project on the scale of island expansion.”

“Yes, Minister Lu, I understand, but I need this to happen. I have prepared sufficient funds for most eventualities, and I will be financing this operation personally.”

“Lord,” the Minister of Revenue gave me a worried look, “a city lord should only personally fund a single project during their term, any more than that would be frowned upon as the city should be capable of providing for itself. You may wish to wait until you have a better understanding of your new domain before making this decision.”

“I understand. Thank you, Minister Lu, but I consider this project of utmost importance, and it needs to be completed as soon as possible.” I turned back to my Minister of Public Works. “Minister Tang, as Minister Lu has reminded me, I am only allowed to fund a single building, make it as large and tall as possible. At least five floors, but consider going up to ten. Bring in earth and metal cultivators to make the structure as sound as possible. I will leave the details of its location in your hands, but I am not short of gold. Do not hesitate to hire Grandmaster earth qi cultivators to build out the island for this if you think it is for the best.”

His face turned grave, but he nodded in acknowledgment. “Yes, Lord.”

“Flower Mei,” I said, turning to the woman. “Please assign a Seed to be my intermediary with the Hu Clan representatives in the city. They are based out of West Marsh City, but they should have a significant presence here too. I will need a team to oversee several complex formations ranging from Rank 1 to 3 after the building is constructed.”

“Yes, Lord,” she answered.

“If there are no other matters to attend to, everyone is dismissed.”

Addendum: Map of the Eight Flower Kingdom

I scribbled down a map of the Eight Flower Kingdom on a piece of paper for my own benefit in constructing the story, but I thought it would be good to share something with the readers too. Not exactly happy with the quality of the final result, but it will at least get the idea of the kingdom's layout across.

Note: The Eight Flower is designed around the Bagua, and with the Bagua, south is at the top. This map hold to that convention.

Chapter 88 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After I dismissed everyone, I was ready to get to work finalizing the details for the building and formations I needed, but I was stopped by the Minister of Rites.

“Lord, regarding tomorrow’s ceremony, there is an issue we must discuss.”

“Yes? What is it?” I asked. I tried to present a calm façade even though I didn’t care about rituals. I wanted to focus on my plan for a pill factory, but I needed to appear diplomatic.

“While you will be at the center of the ceremony, there are also five positions for your subordinates, similar to the Flower’s Seeds. Do you have a list of individuals you wish to fill those positions?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t have anyone selected. You can have the Minister of Personnel, Minister…”

“Minister Bei,” she provided.

“Yes, Minister Bei. You can have him appoint people to those positions at his discretion.”

“Do you have any requirements for the people he selects?”

“No, let him choose as he thinks best.”

The conversation was wearing on me, and I wished she would leave as soon as possible. Over the past years, my nascent plan to automate Rank 0 pill production had become the cornerstone of my plan for acquiring the spatial fire seed, and I was getting close to the finish line. In the meeting with the ministers, my plan for several independent alchemy factories was scrapped, and I needed to rework it to use only a single building. Worrying about rites and rituals was the last thing on my mind.

I could feel my cultivation technique driving me, pushing me to focus on perfecting my plans, but I didn’t even try to reign it in. Over the past years, the effects had started increasing in intensity beyond what I experienced in my past life. I theorized that the small errors in my dantian were potentially exaggerating the effects. The technique’s effects might have also been somehow resonating with my own desires.

Either way, it didn’t matter. This was what I had wanted when I chose focus and dedication as the main aspects of my technique. The only saving grace was that it also commanded me to try to maintain the appearance of civility through the personability modification.

“Of course, Lord,” she said. “Do you have any requirements for how—”

“Minister Jin,” I said, trying to put an end to this. “I trust you to handle the details as you see fit. I have no requirements for the ceremony. You have more knowledge than I do about how it should be carried out, so I leave it in your capable hands.”

“Of course, Lord. But—”

“I apologize, minister, but there are urgent matters I must attend to.”

Leaving the minister to attend to her duties, I had a servant guide me to my new office, which was large and empty. The space hadn’t been used in a decade, and the previous Groom had cleared out almost everything when he left, but it had a desk, table, and chairs. That was all I needed.

I reached into my storage bag and brought out several blueprints I had made over the past years. How would it be best to change these to work with a multi-story building? I could treat each floor as a completely independent area, but that felt like it lacked finesse. If everything was in one building, there should be a synergy that comes from it. The problem was I didn’t know what that would even look like.

Sitting down, I started sketching out ideas for potential changes to my blueprints.

The night quickly passed, and I didn’t realize how long I had been working until a servant interrupted me to introduce Minister Jin.

“Minister,” I said with a nod. “Is this about preparations for the ritual?”

“Yes, Lord. The ceremony will begin in one hour. We should leave immediately.”

“Of course, one moment,” I said. I looked down at the blueprints on my table and made a few final notes. Realizing what those changes would mean, I flipped to another page and scribbled an idea. With that, I needed to change…

“My Lord,” said Minister Jin.

“Right, right.” I placed my notebook into my storage space and followed the woman out. She took me to an ornate coach that carried us through the city.

Even though a new city lord was about to be sworn in, the city didn’t rest. Wagons were constantly moving goods to keep the city running. I watched as we passed one wagon that was pulled to the side of the road while workers unloaded its goods.

An epiphany hit me. “I’m doing this wrong,” I muttered. If everything is in one building, the bottom floor can be a warehouse for storing and shipping goods. Automated lifts could carry supplies to where they are needed. If I do that, I’ll need more floor space, though. I pulled out my notebook and started writing.

I didn’t notice that the carriage had stopped until the minister spoke up. “Lord, we have arrived.”

I placed my notebook away and donned the mask of a Lord. This was an official occasion, and I had to take it seriously. Even if I didn’t want to be here, I knew it was necessary, and I would play my part.

The ceremony for inducting a new city lord was held in the Water Temple, which was the oldest structure in the city and among the oldest in the entire country. The Water Temple was constructed at the exact midpoint of the kingdom’s original northern border, and because of its importance, North Lake City grew up around it.

As I stepped out of the carriage, I studied the temple. It was made of old, weathered rock, and while it did show signs of aging, it was still in excellent condition. When viewed in qi vision, I saw thick bands of qi spreading out from the building. I couldn’t be sure, but I guessed that they were headed in the direction of the other temples, connecting the formation together.

Regarding formations, there was what seemed to be a thick layer of qi fog covering the entire temple that prevented me from seeing the details of how the structure was supposed to function, but it wouldn’t have made any difference if I could see. The Bagua Formation was created by someone of at least the Formation King level, and I was barely starting to grasp the basics of a Formation Grandmaster, so whatever formations had been inscribed here were far beyond what I could understand.

The outer structure of the Water Temple was a perfect stone octagon with steps on every side leading up ten meters to an unroofed platform surrounded by a thick wall.

When I ascended to the platform, I saw Mei, her Seeds, the other ministers, and important members of various clans and organizations from around the city. In the middle of the octagonal platform, there was a smaller square platform. In the middle of the square was a pentagonal platform, and in the middle of that was a final circular platform.

The innermost circle was large enough for only one person, and the pentagon and square each provided sufficient space for a single person on every side.

Mei approached me, gently linked arms with me, and guided me to the platform, but she did not step onto it. I separated from her and I walked alone to the middle of the circle where I knelt down. Five men I didn’t know stepped forward and took positions around the pentagon, and four of Mei’s Seeds took positions around the square.

Mei and Minister Jin stood in front of me at the base of the platform, and the other onlookers gathered around them.

“As the seasons turn, Flowers grow,” began Jin. “The hour has come for the Flower to take a Groom. Lord Su Fang has been chosen to fulfill this duty, and so the burden of lordship over North Lake City passes onto him. May all bear witness this day.”

When he finished, the minister and Mei placed their hands on the base of the square platform. It began to glow with a faint light, and the Seeds on that platform each placed a hand on the pentagonal platform. As it began glowing, the five men each placed a hand on the circular platform I was kneeling upon.

A bright light covered my entire platform, and a beam shot into the air. Unseeable from my position, that beam was greeted by eight others from the other temples around the kingdom. Encased in a brilliant beam of light, I couldn’t see anything, but I felt my body beginning to change.

Energy flooded into my system. It felt nurturing, like it wanted me to expand beyond what I was, but it wasn’t kind. There was life and growth but also death and decay. It was a cycle that forged and reforged the world through countless evolutions. The cells of my body began dying away, but each time they did, they were replaced anew.

When the beam of light faded, I felt worn out. I had not been prepared for such an experience. I could have looked into this ritual and found out what it was, but I hadn’t. I was too focused on my own project and had considered this a meaningless exercise in pageantry. Because of that, I couldn’t even be sure what had just happened to my body, but I had a good idea.

The Minister of Rites stepped forward and crossed to the innermost circular platform where I was recovering. She removed a large affinity testing orb from a storage bag and placed it in front of me. Knowing what was expected, I stood shakily and placed my palm on the orb.

I wasn’t sure what would happen. Usually, these things had problems with multiple affinities, and they wouldn’t work well unless one was far higher than the others.

I channeled my qi inside it.

As I expected, at first, I was greeted by nothing but a chaos of twisting lines. The more I channeled into the orb, the more that chaos disappeared until only a few lines were left. As those gradually faded, a small, stylized tree came into view. The more I pushed, the clearer and more colorful it became. When I was finally spent, the tree was a vibrant amber hue.

“Peak six-star wood affinity,” announced Minister Jin. “May North Lake City prosper in the coming years!”

The people around the stage clapped politely, but they weren’t too excited, it wasn’t their affinity that just got a major boost after all. They were respectful of the new Ruler, though.

Speaking of which, the moment Jin finished this pronouncement, karmic energy began slowly entering my middle dantian. I had finally been officially recognized by the city. Gaining a new appreciation for such rituals, I determined to be far more patient with Minister Jin when she insisted on discussing them with me. I wasn’t sure what those five men gained from their participation, but I didn’t believe for a second that it was nothing. If I went through this again, I needed to be better prepared.

After the ceremony, I immediately wanted to return to my blueprints, but when Minister Jin said there was more to take care of, I didn’t argue. She took me to one of the four buildings within the City Lord’s Complex I hadn’t yet visited.

“This is the Water Library,” she explained as we entered. “It is the repository of techniques maintained for the city lord’s use. While it does hold a variety of cultivation techniques, the main purpose of this library is to store key crafting techniques for the various professions. Flower Mei previously established rules for gaining access to these techniques, but as the new lord, changing such regulations is within your purview.”

I gazed at my new treasure trove. “Follow Mei’s guidance on this for now,” I said without needing to think about it. “What is the quality of the techniques here?”

“They vary from Low-Yellow to Peak-Profound, but don’t expect too much,” Minister Jin warned. “These techniques have been accumulated by various Lords over the centuries, but if there was anything rare or outstanding, it wouldn’t have been placed in the library. The main function of these manuals is to guide craftsmen without clans or other backing.”

I bobbed my head, but I didn’t care too much about quality. Quantity had a quality of its own. With enough techniques that tackled the same problem from different angles, I could begin working on refining and improving them.

“Did you just bring me here to show me the place?” I asked. I was glad she did, but it seemed a little strange if that was her only purpose.

“No, Lord. Please follow me.”

She led me to the top floor of the building where a heavy door was closed and guarded by a deadly formation. She placed her hand in the center of it, and the door opened smoothly. Inside was a much smaller library. To the side, there was a small stone block that Minister Jin gestured toward.

“Place your hand here.”

I did, and the stone lit up.

“You can now access this room on your own. It contains the library’s Rank 4 techniques. There are only a few, and each one is precious.” She walked to a plinth in the middle of the room that held a large tome. “This is the cultivation technique designed for the North Lake City Lord. Do not remove it from this room. You must come here to study it.”

“What grade is it?” I asked with greedy eyes. “Yellow? Profound?”

The minister shook her head. “Ruler techniques do not have such grades. Every technique is beyond valuable, so grading them in the way of lower techniques is not possible. At best, I could say it is a Yellow technique, because it is one of the worst I have ever heard of, but by the same measure, I could call it a Heaven technique because it is also one of the best.”

“Thank you, Minister Jin. If there is nothing else, I will begin my studies.”

“That is all, Lord. Good day.”

After the woman departed, I walked up and placed my hand on the technique to try and see if I could get some information from the System. The answer wouldn’t change anything, I would have to cultivate it no matter what, so I hoped I could get my answers for free.

“System, how much would it cost to raise this technique to Peak-Yellow?”

Cost 1.1 billion credits.

“How much for High-Yellow?”

Cost 400 million credits.

“How much for Mid-Yellow?”

Cost 0 credits.

So, it was a Mid-Yellow technique. It made sense. If people here only had access to this level of technique, it was almost certainly one of the worst possible. Was this just a problem of this Kingdom? Were Ruler techniques only so rare here? If that was the case, they should still know the rough grade of their techniques, shouldn’t they?

Setting my questions aside, I read the introduction of the manual but stopped after only a few pages. It was clear I needed to let my karmic energy build before I could proceed. Since I couldn’t take it with me, and I couldn’t copy it to my technique library, I set aside further cultivation until I was better prepared.

Chapter 89 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Note: Edit to Chapter 84 that is somewhat important. The lesson Su Fang gets about being a Groom has been updated so that the final piece of advice is now about the proper role of a Flower. This is to give you context to understand what is normal for a Flower to do and what isn't. The relevant section is in the spoiler below.

The final part that stood out was when the instructor talked about the proper role of a Flower.

“Once a Groom becomes city lord, his Flower steps back from leadership and becomes his strongest pillar of support. She will be your consort and wife, giving you all of her affection and love, but she will also be your Grand Chancellor, ensuring the smooth functioning of your domain by using her knowledge and experience to assist you.”

I thought about Mei in this kind of role. Her blessing would certainly be of use in the political sphere. She would be able to easily manipulate her rivals. I snorted internally. I wasn’t sure if relying on her for such a thing was smart, but she was made for those situations. I wasn’t.

“She will have eleven years of experience, and you should rely on it to help you, but keep in mind that she is your wife, not your servant. She is there to support you, but you are the one who is in charge of running the city. After a Groom ascends to lordship, the Flower’s primary duty is to nurture her Seeds while you are in charge of governance.”

The teacher handed us each a paper that contained a historical account so we could better understand the role of a Flower.

In the story, the new Water Groom ascended to his position and began leading the city. He wanted his reign to be marked by significant changes and improvements to the city, so he worked with his ministers to craft a series of proposals for new street layouts, improved roads, and a sewage system.

His proposals would have affected nearly every significant interest in the city, and if he had implanted them directly, the major clans would have rioted.

This is where his Flower helped. She did not mediate with the clans directly. Instead, in her role as Chancellor, she advised the Groom on how clans would react and gave suggestions that would improve his ideas and make them welcomed by everyone involved.

The Groom created the plan. The Groom implemented the plan. But the Flower was in the background, lending her experience and guidance.

After everything was settled with Minister Jin, I once more became engrossed in designing an alchemy factory. The idea of making the entire first floor a kind of warehouse had benefits, but it also necessitated changes and extra formations to help move goods from one area to another.

I had just been appointed as the new city lord, so maybe I should have been more concerned about my new duties on that front, but that was a job I entrusted to my ministers. They knew the city far better than I ever would, so I did the responsible thing and stayed out of their way. If any issues came up, I was sure Mei could handle them, as she had been running the city for years.

One week after our original meeting, Minister Tang sent me a message requesting a meeting. He wanted to discuss the plans for the factory.

The ride to the location the minister specified took far longer than I expected, and I was getting impatient by the end. The city streets were crowded with people going about their daily lives, and while they quickly got out of the way for my carriage, it still limited our speed.

I was taken to the far southwest corner of the island. The closer we got to our destination, the more the foot traffic thinned out until the streets were nearly empty. The buildings in this part of town were not elegantly designed. Instead, they were simple large stone boxes. As I watched, wagons were constantly entering and exiting them, delivering or retrieving goods.

In this area, the edge of the island was a steep cliff with a drop of two or three meters. Minister Tang was waiting for me at a low stone parapet that overlooked the lake below.

“Lord Su, you have arrived, excellent,” he said in greeting.

“Minister Tang,” I acknowledged, “what did you want to discuss?”

The minister gestured with a hand at the lake before him. “I need you to decide if this is a good place for the structure you wish to build, Lord. Considering the requirements you gave me, it appeared to be the best option, but it is good for you to see the area in person in case there were any details we missed.”

My mind instantly clicked into gear and began considering the location based on my current designs.

“You have decided to go with island expansion instead of tearing down old buildings?” I asked, wanting the reason for the decision.

“Yes, Lord. While it is more expensive, as long as funds are no object, it is by far the superior option. It allows for a far more suitable location since it would be difficult to find a sizable enough location otherwise. Forcing the demolition of several buildings for your personal project would be frowned upon by the locals, but building out the island would be praised.”

The reasoning seemed sound, and I would accept the minister’s judgment.

“I need to expand the area of the structure slightly from what we discussed in the past, so we need to ensure that the expansion is large enough."

“This…” the minister twitched uncomfortably. “Lord, this was something I wanted to discuss. You are personally funding this project, so I cannot waste your money, but there is a lot of potential in developing this area.”

Minister Tang pointed out the blocky buildings I had passed on my way here. “These are warehouses which supply raw ingredients to various parts of the city. Not only the herbs you need, but also leathers, metals, and woods among other items. Building more workshops directly adjacent to them would be highly beneficial.”

I cocked my head to the side. “What are you saying?”

“Lord, I wish to expand the scope of the expansion beyond what is strictly necessary for your project. Your building could be constructed by adding a 200 by 200-meter peninsula onto the island. However, I would like to do more. I am considering a one-kilometer extension along three kilometers of coast. It will cost more, but if we already need to hire the earth and metal cultivators to extend the island…”

I thought about his proposal. I didn’t care much either way to be honest. I had the money, so why not spend it? There was only one problem. “What about the rule for personally financing projects?”

Minister Tang winced slightly. “I’ve talked to the other ministers about this, especially Ministers Jin and Lu. They have accepted that an extension of the island that looked more natural would be better, as a blocky peninsula suitable for only your project would hurt the feng shui of the area, but they warned me that there were limits to such a rationale.”

I nodded. “If the ministers approve of your proposal, I have no objections. As long as the project doesn’t require anyone above the Grandmaster level, I will be able to fund it.”

“Thank you, Lord. This will greatly benefit the city,” Minister Tang said with a bow.

I dismissed his bow and refocused on the project. “Do you have plans for who will do the work?”

“No, Lord. My men have been working on drafting the contract, but we have not published it yet.”

“I would like to offer the right of first refusal to the Hu clan. I have some connection with them, and we work well together.”

“Lord…” Tang hesitated. “This is somewhat improper. Any large projects such as this are to be posted openly, and all clans should have equal access to compete for them. Giving preferential treatment to a single clan would open you to public criticism.”

I waved away the concerns. “I am just expressing my thoughts. You are the Minister of Public Works and the responsibility of completing the project is yours. Follow the normal process.”

“Thank you, Lord.”

“However,” I stopped him before we left the topic, “the Hu clan must be the ones to do the formation work. The building will need many specialized formations, and I do not wish to share them with other clans. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Lord.” The minister instantly replied. “The normal bidding process is only for general labor. As long as the work requires trade secrets, special contracts are possible.”

“Excellent, Minister Tang. Thank you for your hard work. I look forward to seeing what you can accomplish.”

After the meeting with Minister Tang, I sent a messenger to Mei to arrange a meeting between myself, a Hu clan representative, and her chosen Seed. This was quickly arranged, and we met later the same day.

“Lord,” the Seed bowed as I entered the conference room, “I am Mu XiaoPei. Flower Mei has assigned me to assist you in these meetings.”

“Miss Mu,” I acknowledged, “have you already been in contact with the Hu clan?”

“Yes, Lord. Flower Mei gave me this task one week ago, and I made initial contact immediately. Their representative expressed his deep admiration for you and his wish for happy cooperation, but as I could not provide him with details of the project, our talks were limited.”

“Understood,” I said, then set our conversation to the side.

I began taking out several portfolios and arranging them on the desk. Then, I took out a large map of the proposed island expansion along with the basic blueprints of the building I was having constructed. Not long after everything was arranged, the Hu clan representative was led into the room.

“Lord Su, I am Hu NiAn. I have long heard of your great name and look forward to working with you,” he said, giving a deep bow of respect.

NiAn was a large, middle-aged Grandmaster who looked like someone who spent all their days doing hard labor outdoors. His arms were bulging with muscles, but he carried himself like a tradesman, not a warrior.

I smiled when I saw the man. The Hu clan was good at learning, I would give them credit for that at least. When most clans requested meetings with me, they would send slick, well-groomed diplomats whose job was to flatter and cajole me until I was pleased and self-satisfied. Even if I expressed disdain for such things, their tactics wouldn’t change. The Hu clan only attempted this once before realizing my preference for dealing directly with knowledgeable craftsmen.

“Welcome, friend from the Hu clan,” I said, giving a martial salute. “Please, have a seat, we have a lot to discuss.”

As we all sat around the table once more, a servant came in to pour tea, and Hu NiAn began examining the blueprints on display.

“Is this what you need us to work on?” he asked with a creased brow.

“No,” I smiled. “My Minister of Public Works has informed me of the normal bidding process, so we will follow his guidelines. I plan to expand the island as you see here,” I gestured to the first drawing, “and construct this large building on the cleared land. While the minister has insisted on the normal process, I do hope the Hu clan will consider participating in the bid.”

The Grandmaster looked the plans over carefully but shook his head in the end. “It’s going to be a lot of bulk work. You’re better off grabbing some down-on-their-luck adventurers to do the expansion for you. We might consider placing a bid on the building, though. It will be tricky to make that monstrosity stable.”

I laughed. “I’m not an architect, and some modifications would of course be acceptable.”

Hu NiAn nodded a bit and stroked his chin. Then, he pushed the drawings away. “Did you just call me here to give me advance notice on the jobs or is there a reason I came all the way here?”

“There is,” I said meaningfully, gesturing to the building’s blueprint. “This will be a factory for making Rank 0 pills automatically, without an alchemist. Simply place a load of herbs in one spot, and pills appear in another. Are you interested in helping make this a reality?”

I finally gained the man’s interest. “Explain.”

“Miss Mu,” I said, looking at the Seed. “Please help me move the table to the side of the room.”

All three of us worked to clear the middle of the conference room, and I began taking out a variety of formation plates. After creating a large semi-organized mess on the ground, I lifted a small palm-sized plate to show it to Miss Mu and Hu NiAn. The Grandmaster was familiar enough with formations to know what it was, but I still explained for Miss Mu’s benefit, as she would need to work closely with this project in the future.

“This is a very basic Rank 1 trap formation.” I pointed to two inscriptions on the left side of the plate. “These are qi filters. One for water qi, one for earth qi. These,” I said, moving to the right, “are the vortex inscriptions to pull qi in. The channels that connect them will fill with water and earth qi.” The lines converged on a significantly more complex inscription. “And this uses the water and earth qi to constrict whatever is placed above the plate, locking it in place.”

“Hmm, it’s too weak,” criticized NiAn. “It wouldn’t be able to hold anyone in place for even a moment.”

I held the plate in my palm and pointed it toward the ground. After I activated it, I took out the herb used to make Rank 0 Nutrition Pills and placed it inside the trap’s range. Then, I began moving the plate around the room and twisting it in various directions to show the herb remained attached.

Grandmaster Hu nodded at this display but didn’t comment.

I moved in front of another formation plate. “This plate uses fire energy to melt the physical shell of the herb. It only has the filter and gathering inscriptions for fire qi, but there are several more needed to regulate the temperature and direction of the heat it produces. The herb needs to be heated to exactly the right temperature and from all directions equally.”

I moved the herb over to hover over this plate, activated the formation, and we watched as the physical body of the herb slowly disappeared. In qi sight, though, I could see that the energy was still locked into the exact same position it had been.

Neither of the others were alchemists, and I didn’t think their qi vision was as advanced as mine, but they still had some ability to see what was happening.

“At this point, I need to be more careful. The energy is locked into place, but it is more fragile and can easily be destroyed.”

I moved the herb to the next set of formation plates. There was one lying flat on the ground and four more surrounding it. Together, they formed an open box.

“The plate on the ground senses and detects any energy that isn’t wood-aligned. It’s connected to the four surrounding plates. When the prepared herb is placed inside, the five plates work together to purify the energy.”

I inserted the medicinal energy into the group of arrays, and the plate holding it in place acted like the lid of a box. Inside, all the formations activated, and we watched in qi vision as the bottom formation sent signals to the side formations. Then, the side formations sent out needle-thin bolts of qi to strike the impurities in the medicinal energy. After a minute, it was completely cleansed.

“This does a lot of damage to the herb,” I admitted. “The targeting method I’m using isn’t great, and it can sometimes cause the wrong side of the formation box to attack certain impurities, burning holes through everything in its path instead of only the minimal amount necessary, but it does perfectly cleanse the herb.”

Grandmaster Hu’s eyes widened at the sight of the purified energy. He instantly knew what this would mean.

“Finally, this last formation uses wood qi to condense the medicinal energy into a pill,” I said, placing the purified herb over the last plate I had prepared.

The final formation activated, and the medicinal energy quickly compressed into a pill.

I deactivated the trap formation, releasing the pill, and letting it drop into my palm.

“Perfect Rank 0 Nutrition Pill,” I announced. “52% efficacy. It’s so bad that if an alchemist made it, they would be laughed at.”

The Grandmaster and Seed both fixed their gazes on the pill, but it was Hu NiAn who spoke first. “An alchemist didn’t make it though, and you can make countless pills with no effort.”

“That is the plan,” I confirmed.

I walked over to the table and opened up a portfolio I had prepared.

“This shows the entire assembly line. I want everything automated. Herbs will be delivered to the ground floor, and lifts will drop them off at the beginning of the assembly line. The trap formation will grab one, and a track system will carry it from one formation to another, finally dropping the finished pill in a jade box at the end. When a hundred pills are in the box, it will be sealed and sent back down via another lift.”

I pointed out the various features on the assembly line blueprint.

“The lift and track systems should be doable by Formation Disciples. I want them as simple as possible since they are the most likely to break and need repair. A Formation Master should be able to handle the trap, melting, and condensing formations, but it would be good to have a Grandmaster with far more skill than myself to create the purifying formations.”

As Grandmaster Hu studied the blueprints, gears turned in his head. “There is a problem of power,” he finally said. “One assembly line will be functional, but if you want to fill your building with these, you’ll drain all the qi in the area.”

I nodded. “I’ve considered that. As we are expanding the island, I want to embed a qi gathering formation under the site where the building will be located. The stronger the better. A Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formation should be able to handle it.”

Hu NiAn shook his head. “No, it’s a bit weak. You need Rank 4. Rank 5 would be best, but Rank 4 would be sufficient. Anything less and you risk running low occasionally. That normally wouldn’t be a problem, but running low for even a second would mean the formations shut down and they need to be manually restarted. If you fill multiple floors with several assembly lines each, you are talking about hundreds of formations. Needing to constantly restart everything would be too much work.”

I frowned. “I concede to your judgment. Affording a Rank 4 formation is difficult, though.”

Grandmaster Hu immediately spoke up. “We’ll build it. Don’t worry. You can repay our Formation Lord after you advance to Pill Lord, but the Hu clan has to build this.”

I looked at the Grandmaster as he stared at the plans. His eyes shone with avarice, but I wasn’t sure if it was for money, fame, or simply advancing his knowledge of formations. His thoughts didn’t concern me, though. All that mattered were the results.

“Happy cooperation,” I smiled.

Chapter 90 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The Hu clan eagerly took over the task of researching and improving my automated alchemy factory design. Our agreement was simple. They would provide the formation expertise, and I would support them with my alchemy knowledge. At the end of the project, a comprehensive manual would be produced to explain everything we created, and we would each get a copy to use as we pleased.

While I had only showcased the formations for Nutrition Pills in our first meeting, I had also prepared diagrams for three other Rank 0 pills in high demand among the lower classes. The key traits they had in common were that they all only needed a single herb and each of those herbs contained robust medicinal energy, so less precision would be required. I mentioned the need to look at ways to combine energies from multiple herbs, but everyone agreed that we should develop working assembly lines for these four pills first.

The hardest part of the process was the purification assembly. I had a hard time creating such a thing, and the Hu clan had a hard time understanding why I did things the way I did. With Nutrition Pills, it wasn’t too bad because the toxins seemed to want to vaporize when touched with the slightest bit of qi, but actual technique was needed with most other herbs, and that needed to be replicated in the formations.

I had long discussions with a Lord and several Grandmasters from the Hu clan, and they seemed to understand what would be needed for our target pills, but it would take them time to refine my designs. I offered to stay and help them with the research, but they made it clear that I would be in the way. I didn’t have the background in formations necessary to assist them.

I wanted to argue about that, but after a bit of self-reflection, I realized it was true. I should let the professionals handle things and not get in their way. There was a risk they would try to cheat me, but our agreement, sworn on the Oath Stone, was sound enough that I didn’t have to worry. The most they could do was develop the technology in novel directions and not share the additional information with me, but that didn’t cross my bottom line.

The Hu clan’s involvement meant I no longer had to personally focus all my attention on this project, and while Minister Tang was hard at work building my factory, he would still need weeks or months to complete it. All of this meant that I could finally set aside my obsession with automation, at least for a time.

I wanted to advance to Martial Lord so I could begin learning Rank 4 alchemy, but at my current rate of karmic energy production, I estimated it would take several more months. I considered trying to force the issue by randomly choosing people from my city and giving them countless cultivation pills but eventually decided it wasn’t a good idea. It might be worth trying it someday to see how rapidly I could generate karmic energy, but if I was going to do it, it would be better to do it near the end of my term, not at the very beginning.

With my active projects put on hold for the moment, I had a bit of freedom to pursue other studies.

Learning more about general governance would be helpful, and it would have many applications for future lives here or elsewhere. I already had ideas for economic reforms, and based on my experiences in the Su clan and elsewhere, I could only guess that any justice system in this world would need a large overhaul to come anywhere close to being what I would consider ‘just.’ In Eight Flower, though, that wasn’t seen as a Lord’s responsibility. My ministers would have a fit if I started meddling in day-to-day operations, and they might elevate it above my head.

Even without being in a position to implement such changes, I could take classes and study the roles and responsibilities of each minister to better understand governing principles, but without being able to take action, doing so felt less important.

I also considered spending some time focusing on training my fighting skills… but no. I didn’t see the point. The Blue Wind Pavilion and Eight Flower Kingdom were tall trees shading me from most storms, and I had prepared defensive formations and poisons to defend against sneak attacks that ignored those powers. No amount of three-legged kung fu would save me if those protections fell. I would have to learn it eventually, but I could avoid it for the moment.

The most important thing was to gain knowledge that would make obtaining the spatial fire seed easier. Anything that didn’t directly aid that mission would need to be put on hold.

After reviewing the options open to me, I decided I needed to visit the Water Library. The thought of reading hundreds of books just to store them away in my mental library wasn’t exactly thrilling, but it was something that needed to be done.

The water library was divided into seven parts, one for cultivation and martial techniques and six for the different professional skills.

There wasn’t much to say about the cultivation and martial technique section. It was extremely lackluster, and there were only a few manuals inside that I didn’t already have a copy of.

Moving to the professional sections, I decided to start with the two smallest ones, those for talisman artists and illusionists. There weren’t many books available here, and I could barely understand the ones that were. Overall, my impression was that these were combat-focused professions. I spent a couple of days carefully reading through all of the books, but I didn’t have the necessary background to completely grasp what they were trying to tell me. For the moment, they weren’t useful at all, and I couldn’t use them, but maybe they would be of some use in the future.

After I was finished with those, I decided to quickly go through the alchemy books. Minister Jin had said the information here was basic and that there wouldn’t be anything rare or outstanding. He wasn’t lying. There were some books with very slight variations on what I already knew, but reading through the alchemy books provided me with almost nothing.

The formation section was where things started to get interesting. Among the many books, there were three subsections with specific information that caught my eye: using formations in alchemy, using formations in herbalism, and using formations in beast taming. Each of these subsections had formations that were of particular use for the different professions.

In addition to formations for assisting other professions, I also found several types of formations requiring reagents. These included alchemy concoctions, herbalist-produced plants, or parts of beasts. I realized that formations had a deeper connection to the other professions than I previously considered.

The herbalism section had several simple techniques for assisting in growing plants, but what caught my attention were two simple manuals. The first described growing plants needed for formations, while the second focused on plants used as feed by beast tamers. Again, this showed me how herbalism was connected to the other basic professions. Beyond herbalism helping the other professions, I also found books about using manure from beasts to boost the productivity of fields.

Seeing a pattern here, I took out a piece of paper and wrote down these four basic professions at the corners of a square. I had already established the connection between formations and the other professions, so I drew a two-way arrow between it and the other three. With herbalism, I found information about how it was beneficial in raising beasts, so I drew a two-way arrow there. I also already knew that herbs were used in alchemy, so I drew a one-way arrow from herbalism to alchemy.

One of the Rank 0 ‘pills’ I was working on producing with the Hu clan was a powder that acted as a type of fertilizer when spread onto fields. While it was only useful with mortal crops, there had to be variations for higher-level plants. I opened up my mental library and began quickly flipping through various recipe books. Sure enough, I found powders for assisting Rank 1 and 2 herbs grow. I completed the two-way arrow between alchemy and herbalism.

Looking at my chart, I found that there was only one connection missing. Two-way arrows connected each of the four basic professions except for alchemy and beast taming. Did such a connection exist? Yes, it had to.

I began reading the beast taming section, trying to find how alchemists interacted with tamers. An obvious answer was that there were pills that could be used to help beasts gain power. However, reading through various books, I couldn’t find any references to alchemical pills or powders specifically for beasts.

Neither the beast tamer section nor the alchemist section referenced any method of the two professions interacting. Was it possible that every other profession would be interconnected, but there was simply no connection between alchemy and taming?

I rejected that immediately. There had to be a connection. Beasts could use pills, and alchemists must somehow use parts of beasts in their concoctions. I had never heard anyone discuss the idea of using beast parts to make pills before, and the area of the Pavilion that sold things to alchemists didn’t have any animal parts for sale, but I could feel it had to be possible.

Two important questions suddenly appeared in my mind.

“System, how much to complete my mastery of Rank 1 alchemy?”

Cost 9 million credits.

Why so expensive?

It could teach me countless herbs and recipes, but I doubted doing so would have much meaning. At this point, I had an extremely well-developed innate sense of how to use low-level herbs. Even if there were hypothetical herbs of rare elements I’d never seen before, it didn’t make sense to me that learning to use herbs I may never see in a hundred lifetimes would be so expensive. Also, if the herbs were that rare and powerful, could they really be considered part of Rank 1 alchemy?

It might teach me some new way to boost efficacy, but again, that idea felt underwhelming. I had already spent time learning to boost most herbs, but doing so rarely justified the time and energy required. There might have been a crazy trick technique to make herbs infinitely better, but again, even if that trick existed, how could that be considered Rank 1 alchemy?

There had to be something else, and now I had the lead I needed. I didn’t need to ask. I already knew what the answer would be. Even if the system told me I had to pay to learn the price, it wouldn’t change my conviction. Even if the price it gave me was different, I was already convinced of the truth of my answer. Still, I asked anyway.

“System, how much to learn everything possible about the connection between beast taming and Rank 1 alchemy?”

Cost 9 million credits.

I smiled but decided to ask one more question, just to be sure.

“System, how much for a complete mastery of Rank 1 alchemy excluding its connection to beast taming.”

Cost 21,562 credits.

So, a few bits of knowledge in the margins, but everything else was tied up with beast taming.

I didn’t want to pay for what I could learn by myself, and nine million was a high asking price in any case. I wanted to figure things out on my own, but I wasn’t sure where to start.

Beast taming had to have some way to supplement alchemy, that was clear to me. How? The obvious answer was parts from demon beasts could be used as ‘herbs.’ Nothing like this was mentioned in any alchemy book I had read, so I highly doubted taking any kind of alchemy class in the Mountain District would provide answers.

I could scour the various libraries around the city, but that also seemed like it would be fruitless. This wasn’t common knowledge people would just leave out in the open. The Pavilion might be able to provide me with some leads, but that was questionable. Aside from grabbing a beast and studying it myself, I only had one other idea for where I might find information about this.

I opened the book Pill Emperor Li had left me and started reading. I didn’t focus on the details and quickly skimmed over his explanations for Lord-level alchemy since it wasn’t useful at the moment. I only searched for any information about using parts from demon beasts when concocting.

I flipped through the book twice, just to be sure. There was nothing. None of the recipes mentioned in the book used any type of beast material, and it didn’t even hint at the possibility.

Returning the book to my storage space, I leaned back in my chair to contemplate.

No one seemed to have any idea that beasts could be used to make pills. Was it possible no one had ever considered such a possibility? Maybe I was just a frog in a well, and outside this small corner of the world, such alchemy was as common as dirt. That didn’t seem right, though.

Knowledge of how to use beast materials in alchemy had a cost of millions of credits. Could that mean no one in the world, or at least no one on this continent, knew how to do such a thing? They had to have thought of the possibility. I wouldn’t allow myself to be so arrogant as to believe I was the first to have such an idea, so if no one knew how to use beasts in alchemy, there had to be complicating factors I wasn’t aware of.

North Lake City was the perfect place for what I needed. I didn’t need to learn beast taming, but I did need to research and study the beasts themselves, and there were a multitude of tamers in the area.

I considered talking about this with Mei since she was likely studying taming. She hadn’t come to see me since the ceremony, though, so she seemed to be busy with her responsibilities as the city’s Chancellor. I didn’t want to disturb her, so I sent a messenger to ask her where I could go to study beast taming.

Shortly after, a different messenger arrived. Mei suggested I go to the Ouyang clan.

Chapter 91 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

While the Ouyang clan maintained a residence in the city proper, their main holdings were in the surrounding territory. The complex I needed to visit was located on the east side of North Lake where the foothills of the northeastern mountains began.

This area had a very diverse ecosystem. There was access to the water resources of the lake, open plains in the south, densely forested foothills to the north, and slightly further north, tall mountains guarded the kingdom’s borders. These different environments allowed them to raise, train, and support a wide variety of beasts.

The Ouyang complex itself was styled like an open ranch. In front, large pens housed various beasts that appeared to be derivatives of common domestic animals, such as wind horses, horned sheep, stone bulls, and fire chickens. Throughout the area, I could see people of all ages feeding and working with the various animals.

My appointment was with Ouyang MengYao, a Grandmaster Tamer, but as I approached the main complex entrance, a large group of women caught my attention. In the center of the group, Mei was leaning over a large lizard of some kind, examining it. It was nearly tall enough to come up to my waist and at least three meters long.

I thought about walking over and talking to her. It seemed strange that she would be here at the same time as my appointment, but everyone looked busy, so I held off. I wouldn’t interrupt professionals while they were working.

As soon as I approached the main building’s entrance, the doors swung open and a man who didn’t look too much older than myself walked out. “Welcome to my Ouyang family’s primary beast taming compound. I hope you are well, Lord Su.”

“Grandmaster Ouyang?” I asked.

He gave a slight bow. “Yes, Lord Su. How may I assist you today?”

This was one of the youngest grandmasters I had met so far, which suggested he had great potential for future development. If his personality was good, he might be someone worth keeping an eye on.

“Grandmaster Ouyang, I wish to learn more about the beasts you raise here.”

“Is the Lord interested in studying beast taming?” He looked genuinely surprised at the idea.

“Not quite,” I replied. “I’m looking to gain a better understanding of how alchemy and taming can be more mutually beneficial. What sorts of pills would be helpful for beast tamers? How might beast tamers help an alchemist?”

The young man laughed at that suggestion, “Lord Su, how much do you know about Demon beasts?”

“Nearly nothing,” I confessed. “I’ve never studied them, and my pursuits have always kept me confined to the cities, so I haven’t had many opportunities to interact with animals.”

“Lord,” the Grandmaster winced. “Please don’t call them animals. Demon beasts are quite distinct in their nature. As they grow more powerful, many can become even more intelligent than humans, and they can find the term animals quite… insulting.”

I gave a short nod of understanding.

Ouyang MengYao thought for a moment, then came to a decision. “Let me introduce you to someone. I think he can help you understand things better than I could.”

He led me to the back side of the manor where there is a large open pasture. It held beasts of various shapes and sizes, and they all mixed with each other. It was strange to see so many different types of animals, some herbivores and some carnivores, casually sharing the same space.

Grandmaster Ouyang walked me through the field until we ran into a large tiger with fur so orange it glowed. “This is HuShao,” he introduced. “He has been my companion for several years now. I met him when he was only a Rank 1 cub, and he’s grown up with me. He’s now a Rank 3 wildfire tiger. You will find that in martial combat, he is easily a match for nearly any Grandmaster cultivator.”

I stood awkwardly. I wasn’t sure how to react to being introduced to a large tiger, but HuShao handled things better than I did. He walked up to my side and forced his head beneath the palm of my hand, making me scratch it.

I obliged him and then gave a short bow. “Nice to meet you HuShao.”

“How did you raise him to be so powerful so quickly? As I understand it, normally, beasts take far longer to grow in strength than humans. Did you use pills and formations?”

The Grandmaster chuckled at my question. “That’s one of the things you need to see.”

MengYao gave a few short whistles, and a pair of wind horses swiftly approached us. “Climb aboard,” he said. Without waiting for me to move, he leaped up and mounted one of the horses.

Neither had tack or saddle, so I wasn’t sure how to proceed, but I did my best. Thankfully, the horse was well-trained, and its skill made up for my lack. As I jumped to mount it like MengYao had, the horse twisted its body slightly and hit me with a gust of air, forcing me into a proper seated position.

Once I was set, MengYao made a signal. The tiger and the two horses began swiftly moving into the forested foothills.

As the trees became denser, the horses needed to slow down. MengYao took this opportunity to approach me as we rode. “As you are an alchemist, you must cultivate fire qi, correct?” he asked with a smile.

“Of course,” I responded half-heartedly while focused on riding.

“Have you thought of looking at HuShao in qi vision?”

My head shot to the side to look him in the eye. Realizing his meaning, I turned to HuShao and studied him closely. His body was filled with dense fire energy. Its structure was markedly different from a Martial Grandmaster. It seemed to flow through his body naturally, without the need for constructed meridians.

More importantly, I realized something that shook me. The energy in his body wasn’t qi. I had seen a few types of energy at this point, the qi I cultivated, the medicinal energy in plants, and the strange energy in the Twin Mountains Sect’s affinity-boosting pool. This was something else entirely. All of these energies were types of fire energy, but they were each distinct.

I looked at Ouyang MengYao, wanting him to explain.

“HuShao is a demon beast. Demon beasts use a different type of energy. Some people call it demonic qi, but it isn’t qi. It would be more proper to call it demonic energy.”

“Beasts don’t use qi?” I asked, stunned.

“No, that’s going too far. It’s more appropriate to say that demon beasts do not use qi. The energy in mortal animals is usually qi, and there are rare beasts, called spirit beasts, that cultivate qi like humans, but demon beasts use a different energy entirely.”

As I began thinking through the implications, our small group started to speed up. HuShao who was in the lead, had begun chasing something. The only reason I didn’t fall off during the increasingly fast sprint through the forest was that my wind horse worked hard to keep me in place. I wasn’t sure how long it took us, but when we entered an open clearing, I saw a large buck running away from us.

HuShao pounced and took down the stag in a single blow. It wasn’t much of a hunt. A mortal deer didn’t have any hope of escaping from a Rank 3 demon beast, but HuShao showed restraint and didn’t use energy beyond what a mortal tiger would be capable of. This was a ritual, or possibly a game, to him.

“Watch closely in qi vision,” said MengYao.

Doing as instructed, I watched as the tiger took one bite after another from the deer’s carcass. The deer, a mortal animal, didn’t possess much energy in its body, but all creatures possessed at least a little. After each bite, energy from the deer meat entered the tiger’s body. The energy in the deer was a complex blend of different types of qi with a slight tendency toward wood. When it entered HuShao’s body, all of it somehow transformed into thin threads of the tiger’s own demonic fire energy.

“This is how most beasts cultivate,” said the grandmaster. “In the wild, beasts are vicious. They hunt anything with qi, humans especially. They do this to absorb the qi in the bodies they consume and convert it into demonic energy.”

I watched in awe as I saw the process unfold. I didn’t understand the process at all, but somehow, one energy type was transformed into another. This made me think about when people took pills. The medicinal energy in the pill transformed and blended into a cultivator’s body. This seemed to be somewhat similar.

“It goes both ways,” said MengYao. “If you take down a demon beast and kill it, you can eat it. Eating the meat of a high-level demon beast does wonders to improve your body. Not only does it integrate with your qi, but it also strengthens your muscles beyond their normal limits.”

I tried to pay closer attention to exactly what was going on in the tiger’s body. MengYao said that it both enhanced one’s energy and body, but how did that happen? The qi was being converted into the tiger’s demonic energy, but what was strengthening its body? It took me time to notice, but finally, I saw it. What I had considered impurities in the deer corpse were entering the tiger’s muscles and strengthening them, not the qi. These ‘impurities’ seemed to be blends of various other energy types.

The process was fascinating, and it had clear implications for how alchemy affected the body, but I wasn’t sure exactly what MengYao’s intended lesson was.

“Demon beasts don’t cultivate qi,” he restated. “So, what do you think a Qi Gathering Pill will do to a demon beast?”

I thought about it but answered in a simple way to allow MengYao to expound freely. “If a demon beast can absorb qi from a carcass and convert it into its own energy, a Qi Gathering Pill should work the same. It should allow the beast to gather environmental qi and convert it into demonic energy.” I knew my answer couldn’t be correct or we wouldn’t be having this discussion, but stating this openly seemed like what was wanted.

MengYao shook his head. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Demon beasts cannot gather qi from the environment properly. If you give them a Qi Gathering Pill, it will force qi into their body, causing serious blockages and impurities to accumulate. This does a lot of harm in many different ways. None of the effects are good.”

“If not Qi Gathering Pills, what about others? Healing pills should be fine, shouldn’t they?”

MengYao again just shook his head. “I don’t know how it works, but I can tell you that any pills meant for cultivators will not work properly on demon beasts. Trying will only cause more harm than good.”

One phrase he said stuck out to me: ‘pills meant for cultivators.’ Was it possible to create pills that were not for cultivators but were designed specifically for demon beasts? I hadn’t encountered such a thing before, but I didn’t see why it shouldn’t be possible. A big hurdle might be trying to concoct a pill intended for someone with demonic energy while using qi.

“Demon beasts cannot use pills,” he continued, interrupting my thoughts. “You asked how HuShao grew so quickly. First, hunting. As long as beasts are fed regularly, they can grow faster since the energy they absorb enhances their bodies. Second, formations. We have specialized formations for enhancing the growth and development of beasts. Finally, eating raw herbs. While pills are off the table, several herbs do wonders for demon beasts.”

The last bit surprised me. It was generally a very bad idea to eat raw medicinal herbs as the toxic energies in them could cause havoc in a person’s body. Only if they were grown to be exceptionally pure should anyone even consider eating them raw. Were beasts immune to these toxins?

On a ride back to the complex, I started to consider again. This entire discussion had led me astray. Right now, I wanted to focus on what beast taming could do for alchemy, but it seemed like everything had been about how alchemy could help beast taming.

“Grandmaster Ouyang,” I said, coming out of my reverie. “This might be a delicate question, but I am trying to explore new avenues of alchemy. I wanted to know if it would be possible to acquire the bodies of some demon beasts.”

MengYao chuckled and nodded. “It’s a common enough request. You can try buying entire beasts, but we have found most of their energies are stored in specific locations within their bodies. For HuShao, his paws and neck are where it’s most concentrated. If you can isolate the body parts you need, it will make things far easier on your suppliers.”

“Thank you for the advice.”

“We cannot supply you with anything here. Our beasts are raised as companions, and we don’t do any hunts from this location. Since you are part of the Pavilion, I would recommend going through them to set up contracts for adventurers to gather supplies for you. I haven’t heard of alchemists doing so before, but they are used by both beast tamers and formation specialists.”

We made a little more small talk on the trip back, but my mind had already left. I was ready to return and get back to work.

Chapter 92 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Upon returning to the island, my first stop was the Blue Wind Pavilion. The services offered in local Pavilion branches were generally more limited than in the capital, but since North Lake City was home to so many of the kingdom’s craftsmen, it had a robust system to serve the various tradesmen.

“Hello, sir. How may I help you today?” asked an attendant as I entered.

I felt slightly awkward but tried to appear confident. “I need to purchase a variety of parts from beast carcasses.”

“Of course, right this way.”

She led me to the back of the shop floor where there were several counters. These counters only held an assortment of jade boxes of various sizes. It seemed that what I needed had to be stored carefully to remain fresh.

“This is the selection that we have in stock,” she said. “You can purchase anything here directly, but I must caution you that our selection is somewhat limited. If you need something specific, we may need to place an order with the branch in the capital, and if it is particularly unique, we will need to special order it.”

I looked at the labels on the various boxes and saw that they were mostly parts from Rank 1 beasts. These included various parts from flames chickens, chicken heads, chicken wings, and chicken feet, as well as parts of various horses, sheep, bulls, bears, tigers, and several other beasts. The selection of higher parts from higher Rank beasts was much more limited, but my focus was only on Rank 1 anyway.

“What about entire carcasses?” I asked her.

“We don’t keep those in supply. That’s something that will need to be ordered.”

I didn’t know what I needed, and from what I read about beast parts while in the library, they seemed to lose effectiveness relatively quickly. Storing them in Jade boxes helped, but they still couldn’t be maintained indefinitely. I needed to plan to use whatever I bought within a week. Coming to a decision, I returned my focus to the attendant.

“Give me one of everything from Rank 1 beasts.”

She confirmed my order and began working with the attendant assigned to these counters to arrange it.

“Will there be anything else?” she asked once everything was handed over.

“Yes, I want to order three complete flame chicken carcasses.”

After arranging for delivery of the special order, I went upstairs and searched through the local pavilion library to see if there was anything about using parts from demon beasts in alchemy. As I expected, I didn’t find anything, but I submitted a request to the librarian to see if she could order any books on the topic. I didn’t expect to get any information from the kingdom branches, but I hoped that there might be something available in the main branch.

With all my purchases stored away, I returned to the City Lord’s Complex to begin my research.

To begin my research, I started with a straightforward idea. Parts for demon beasts were a type of herb. They were a strange herb that I knew nothing about, neither what types of pills they could make nor how to use them to make said pills, but they were definitely some kind of herb. So, I decided to treat them exactly how I would any other herb.

Since I was most comfortable working with fire, I decided to start with the feet of a flame chicken. Using my qi vision, I looked and saw potent demonic fire energy trapped within each foot. Setting myself, I began treating them exactly how I would treat any normal fire herb.

I placed the feet into my cauldron and began heating them. The first step of the alchemy process is to melt the herb’s outer shell, exposing the medicinal energy inside, so that is what I did. The bones and cartilage of the foot took significantly more energy to melt than a plant, but with a little care, I was able to complete the process without disturbing the demonic energy. However, the moment the physical chicken feet dissolved, the demonic energy also began to dissipate.

When a normal herb is melted, only its physical presence would dissipate, but the energy body would stay entirely intact. This didn’t seem to be the case with these demonic beast parts. I tried once more, just to be sure, but on the second try, I got exactly the same result. When the physical body dispersed, the energy body went with it.

I would need to come up with a different method to work with this energy. Trying to melt the physical body of this energy first seemed like it wasn’t going to work, so I came up with a bit of a strange idea. I would attack the toxins directly and eliminate them first instead. I wasn’t sure if it was possible, but it was worth giving a shot.

I decided to use a paw from a wildfire tiger for this experiment.

As I studied the toxins, I realized that they were very different from what I was used to, and based only on my previous experience with herbs, it was hard to immediately know what was or wasn’t toxic energy. Since I knew the most prominent energy that I could see was the demonic fire energy I wanted to preserve, I used that as a reference and worked on destroying anything different.

I started slowly carving up the apparent toxic energy. Even though the paw was theoretically a Rank 1 herb, removing the toxic energy while the physical shell remained intact consumed far more energy than normal. Still, my level of control and power at this point was high enough that it was well within my limits. If I hadn’t been so focused on ensuring there were no mistakes, I might not have even noticed the additional drain.

Once the toxic energy was removed, I wasn’t sure what to do. My first thought was to try and eliminate the physical paw so I would be left with pure demonic fire energy. The moment I tried that, though, the demonic energy collapsed, suggesting this path was not viable.

Choosing a paw from another type of beast, I tried again. This time, when the paw’s energy was completely purified, I decided to try physically grinding it into a powder to see what would happen. I used a small mortar and pestle to do the work, but after only a little grinding, the energy body of the paw collapsed once more.

Next, I attempted to extract the energy by pulling it out using my affinities. My thought was to take the stable energy and quickly force it into a pill before its instability could cause a complete collapse. However, I barely started before concluding that this method was once again a complete failure.

Running out of ideas, I decided to attempt what Pill Emperor Li said was the way to concoct Rank 4 pills. My fire affinity was low six-star, and my wood affinity was a six-star peak. Deciding to use the higher one for added safety, I searched through the materials I had purchased and found the heart of a Rank 1 moss bear.

Using my wood affinity, I concentrated on the demonic energy inside the heart and focused. I used all my strength of will to keep the demonic wood energy locked into place. I didn’t have the will of a Ruler to help me, but my affinities far surpassed what should be required for a lowly Rank 1 herb.

I melted the heart using a high-temperature fire, but I made sure to keep it away from the heart’s energy body. When the heart disintegrated, I felt a strong tug from the demonic energy. It wanted to dissipate as well, but with my high affinity, I was able to keep it trapped in place. I began cleaning up the chaotic, toxic energy that was spread throughout the demonic energy until it was pristine.

Unsure of how to continue, I decided to treat it like any other pill. I didn’t have a recipe to work from, so my first thought was to try and create a single-ingredient pill. I began condensing the heart’s demonic energy. It kept wanting to fight me, but I slowly coaxed it down into an ever-smaller size.

During the normal concoction process, once the pill energy is condensed sufficiently, it crystallizes into a solid pill. That is what I hoped would happen here, but it didn’t. I pushed more and more, making the heart’s energy smaller and smaller, but even after I reached my limit, it still refused to crystalize. Sighing in disappointment, I began releasing my hold.

Without the pressure from my soul and affinities keeping it in place, the energy expanded rapidly and then vanished in an instant without leaving a trace.

I felt like I was on the right track. I had the energy, and I could purify energy. There might have been another way to do it, but as long as I had the energy isolated, I just needed to find the right combination of different energies that would compress down and form a proper pill. Since the energy from the moss bear heart alone wasn’t sufficient, I needed to start investigating other beast parts it could combine with.

Rank 1 pills generally did not use the elemental cycle. Most of them focused on combining several herbs of the same element to create a pill, so that was the premise under which I began to experiment.

Deciding to make this easy for myself, I chose to first work with wood-aligned parts since that was my highest affinity. I contacted the Pavilion and canceled my order for the chicken carcasses and instead placed an order for multiple parts from Rank 1 wood-aligned beasts. I gave them a sizeable upfront deposit and told them to bring me anything they could.

Settling back into my workshop, I got to work.

I focused hard on this project for several weeks, but I didn’t make any more progress than I did on the very first day. No matter what combinations of ingredients I tried, when I attempted to compress them into a pill, they all refused to crystalize.

After exhausting the possibilities with wood, I tried branching out into the other elements. They were slightly harder to control, but my affinities were high enough that any Rank 1 beast’s energy was still within my capabilities, for the basic elements at least. However, it didn’t matter. No matter what element I tried. None of the energies were willing to condense and form a pill.

Deciding to experiment with some other ideas, I started combining parts of different elements. I tried combining them within the elemental cycle. I tried using subsets of elements that were found in other recipes that I’d made in the past. I tried combinations that I thought might work for random reasons. None of this had any effect, and I was never able to make a single pill.

This led me to the ultimate conclusion that it was impossible to make a pill from pure demonic energy. Demonic energy had to be usable in pills, but if I was going to use it, some extra ingredients were needed, something to act like a binder.

Thinking about it more deeply, I realized a potential mistake. I was trying to make a pill out of demonic energy, but did that make any sense? While I hadn’t heard of making one from demonic energy before, I had also never heard of making pills out of qi. Instead, pills were made from medicinal energy which was a completely distinct form of energy. While demonic likely had different properties, it seemed to be more closely aligned with qi than medicinal energy.

That pushed me on another path in my reasoning. There had to be pills that used demonic energy. If that were true, then it was also likely true that pills incorporating qi had to be possible. I remembered what Ouyang MengYao told me about spirit beasts. They were a rare type of beast that had used qi instead of demonic energy. That would mean my question about combining beast taming and alchemy could include both demonic energy pills and qi pills, depending on the beast used.

So, how do I create such a pill? It seemed impossible based on all my experiments. Pure demonic energy did not want to form a pill. That meant there must be something missing. I decided that something must be medicinal energy. Instead of only making a pill out of pure demonic energy I began trying to use a blend of demonic and medicinal energies to form a pill.

I spent another several weeks on this topic, combining beast parts with various herbs, but in the end, it got me no closer to my goal. Tapping my workbench in thought, I remembered asking the system about purchasing Rank 1 herbalism knowledge long ago. It had a price of 10 million credits, similar to the cost of Rank 1 alchemy. Was this where the trick was hidden? Were there Rank 1 herbs that were as unknown to herbalists as beast parts were to alchemists? If so, it was probably those herbs that I would need if I wanted to successfully concoct a pill using demonic energy.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any more ideas for how to proceed. I didn’t know what would be hidden under that herbalist purchase, and from all my experiments, I had no idea how to incorporate demonic energy. My cultivation technique drove me to focus on this topic, which was the only reason I was able to persist for as long as I had, but even I had a breaking point. After zero progress in my research, I had to call it quits. I had no way to make any further advances.

Possibly the only real answer I got from my weeks of research was an answer as to why I had never found any information about using beast parts in alchemy. Such a thing was close to impossible.

While this was a letdown, spending time on this topic did accomplish one thing important. It made me spend enough time that my factory building was complete. I wasn’t sure exactly where the Hu clan was in their research of my formation diagrams, but with the factory ready to go, I was ready to start implementing the more basic automated pill production lines.

Chapter 93 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The first sight of my new factory left me standing with my mouth agape. I’d been told that it was ready to begin installing the formations, and I had assumed that meant the building was complete. Instead, what I saw could only be called a building if I was being generous. In reality, it was little more than a shell.

The island expansion was still underway, and only the area that was needed for the factory had been entirely completed. No permanent roads had been built, but there was at least a shoddy wooden path that could allow limited wagon traffic to and from the factory.

The building itself looked like the worst example of brutalist architecture I’d ever seen. There were zero adornments, and the walls were solid, raw stone. The windows had no glass, and the floors were bare rock. It was in rough condition, but it was a starting point. While there was still a lot to do to make the building usable, it would at least allow me to begin working.

I met Minister Tang and a representative from the Hu clan to discuss how to move forward with the construction. When I entered the factory, I was struck dumb by the density of qi inside. I hadn’t noticed anything before walking in the door, but as soon as I entered, the incredibly qi-dense environment created by the formation under the building felt nearly overpowering. When the Hu clan representative saw my expression, he chuckled.

“This is your first time experiencing a Rank 4 Qi Gathering Formation, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s very impressive,” I replied. “I didn’t even notice it from the outside.”

The representatives gave a light snort. “That’s because the formation is full, so it can’t draw in any more qi. Once your production lines are up and running, they’ll start using up the qi here, and there’ll be no way you can miss it when the formation really gets going. It’s designed to pull in qi from above, so it should only have a limited impact on the area directly surrounding us, but you probably won’t want to use this neighborhood for cultivation in the future.

I looked to Minister Tang to get his impression. “Is this going to affect the plans for this area?”

“No, Lord,” he responded quickly. “The existing buildings are all warehouses, so they’re not going to be affected by this formation, and we can use the new land for mortal workshops which do not need qi. This might upset some people if they have to move to the edge of the island, but having close access to distribution warehouses should mollify them.”

I looked back at the clan representative. “Grandmaster, are we ready to begin working on the formations for the factory?”

“Yes, Lord. We have prototypes ready to be installed, and they should work to your satisfaction. However, our experts are still working on refining them further to make them more energy-efficient. The less energy they need, the less impact this factory will have on the surrounding environment. That would make it easier to find locations to build more factories in the future, especially in areas with less natural qi density than the island.”

I nodded. I trusted the minister to know what he was doing and to approach me if he encountered any problems. Putting these potential issues to the side, I looked to the Hu representative.

“Let’s get to work.”

I spent the following week watching as the Formation Masters and Grandmasters began installing everything necessary for the factory’s first production line. I used this as a chance to study what they were doing and how they were doing it.

I was very excited to study the formations for the lifts that would carry ingredients to the proper floor and the tracks that would transport them during the alchemy process since these were the two sets of formations that I hadn’t created prototypes for. I was impressed by their ingenuity and was looking forward to the completion of the entire system so that workers only had to place large quantities of herbs in a single bin on the ground floor for the alchemy process to begin.

The production line had a formation that picked up one herb and took it through the various stages of the alchemy process. At the end, what started as a simple herb had transformed into a small pill. It was then dropped into a chute that carried it to a large jade box. The plan was for all of the production lines to send their pills to the same packing station, and once the jade box was full, a lid would be placed on it, and the box would be sealed. After that, a lift would carry the box down to the ground floor where it could be loaded onto a wagon and shipped out.

I watched as our first production line produced its first official pill. From dumping ingredients into a bin on the ground floor, to lifting them to the second floor, all the way to where the pill slid down the chute at the end, everything worked perfectly.

I waited for a few pills to be produced before examining them. All of the pills the line produced were Perfect and had efficacies in the mid-sixties. This was better than my original prototype, but there was still room for improvement. I didn’t see any reason that extremely high efficacies shouldn’t be possible, but it would require significant enhancements to the purifying formations.

Unfortunately, creating 100% effective pills through automated formations might not be possible. That would require delicate manipulation of the herbs to allow qi to attack toxins without damaging the medicinal energy. Before we could even attempt to build formations capable of that, we needed more expertise with these simpler purifying formations.

After I collected a few of the pills and stored them in a small jade bottle, I sighed. I needed to have a meeting that I wasn’t looking forward to.

The Hu clan representative and I returned to the City Lord’s Complex where we had arranged a meeting with Minister Lu, my Minister of Revenue. If we were going to be providing these pills to the populous, the minister would need to be intimately involved.

“Lord Su,” she said, giving me a bow.

“Minister Lu, please take a seat.”

The three of us sat around the conference table as I outlined the situation to the minister.

We had a single active production line that would be capable of making one pill every five minutes once the factory was fully operational. We planned to have five production lines on the second floor, and all of them would be making Nutrition Pills. Other floors would produce different pills, which would add complexity to the situation, so for this meeting, I wanted to focus only on the Nutrition Pills.

The minister took out a piece of paper and started doing some quick calculations. When she was done, her face showed her astonishment.

“A single production line can produce over 100,000 pills a year,” she said. “This is going to make things difficult.”

“I want to make the pills available to everybody,” I told her. “My goal is that anyone in North Lake City who needs these pills will get these pills.”

She nodded in acceptance of the mission. “How much do they cost to produce?” she asked.

“The ingredients for each pill cost five copper.”

She jotted this down and was poised to write more, but I didn’t continue.

“What other costs are involved?” she prompted me.

“The logistics network for transporting both the pills and the ingredients will cost some amount of money, but I don’t have any idea how much,” I told her. “You might want to talk to Minister Bei since he’s in charge of personnel. He should have a better idea of what it will involve.”

“What else?” she asked.

“That should be all,” I said, but the Hu representative quickly spoke up.

“Lord Su, you also have to consider maintenance. Formations generally are not intended to be used constantly for years without end. If these production lines are constantly working, they will need regular maintenance.”

“How much?” Minister Lu asked.

“It’s hard to say.” A conflicted look appeared on his face. “We don’t have much experience doing something like this. Right now, I would say you need to budget for replacing all production lines once every year. That should be more than sufficient to make sure things stay operational. The cost involved will be significant, and such expenses will hopefully be unnecessary, but it is better to prepare up front.”

“How much?” the minister asked again.

“If it were a one-time expense, our clan might be able to reduce the price for you as a sign of goodwill, but we cannot absorb such a discount indefinitely. I will need to talk with our elders before I can guarantee anything, but expect each production line to cost around 20,000 gold a year. Again, this is just an estimate. I have very little information to work off of.”

If the factory was going to have dozens of production lines, this would equate to hundreds of thousands of gold spent on maintenance every year. This high maintenance cost was only temporary, though. I could look into finding ways to reduce it in the future. For the moment, I just wanted the factory up and running.

Minister Lu did some more math on her piece of paper. Finally, she worked out a number. “The pills need to be sold for at least 20 silver each,” she said. “That should cover the cost of everything. However, we might also want to raise the price further to increase the revenue they generate. This will be very helpful if maintenance costs end up higher than anticipated.”

“I don’t want to make money off of these pills,” I said. “The goal is only to benefit the people of the city, not to generate revenue.”

“Lord,” said the minister, “there’s something you might not have considered. If your factory has five production lines for Nutrition Pills, you will be making over 500,000 pills a year. The population of the entire kingdom is only a couple of million. 500,000 is more than double the population of Lake City.”

I hadn’t considered that issue. My goal was to design something that could supply an empire, but for a modest city lord, this factory was an extreme form of overkill. This wouldn’t stop me from making an empire-scale factory, but I did need to consider what justification I could use for building such a thing.

“What are you suggesting?” I asked the minister.

“Lord, this factory of yours is going to produce far more pills than we need. Not only is the size of our population limited, but the city also contains some of the richest farmland in the entire kingdom. While we do have impoverished citizens, and some people are malnourished, they represent only a small fraction of our population. The areas of the kingdom that truly need these pills are in the south.”

I began to understand her intentions. North Lake City didn’t need many of these pills, so most of them would be sold to outsiders. We would use a small fraction, a large amount would be sold to other cities in the kingdom, and anything remaining would be exported to other kingdoms and empires.

I looked at the minister. “Should we consider providing these pills to our people free of charge? If we won’t be using many within the city, it wouldn’t be much of a loss. We could give the pills away for free to our citizens, sell them to other cities in the kingdom for 20 silver, and then export everything else for 50 silver. If the regular market price is close to one gold, those numbers should work out.”

The minister quickly put an end to any such plans. “That’s not a good idea. We can’t have too big of a difference between the cost here and other cities in the kingdom. That could cause instability. I recommend a price difference of only five silver. Sell them here for fifteen, and sell them to the rest of the kingdom for twenty. Then, we can export the rest for 50 silver. Doing it this way will bring us no profits within the kingdom, but what we make from exports should be more than enough to pay for everything.”

“How should we sell them outside the kingdom?” I asked. “Do we go through the Blue Wind Pavilion?”

“Since you are a known member of the Pavilion, that would be acceptable. There are other channels we could use, but it’s your choice. You should also consider going through the king, but that has pros and cons. If you wish to curry his favor, it could be a good idea.”

I thought about her suggestion. Did I want to work with the king, or did I want to work with the Pavilion? Between the two, there wasn’t much of a choice. I might be able to make more profit with the king, but the Pavilion had played it straight with me. I would rather go through them than entangle myself deeper in the local politics.

With the major decision taken care of, I let Minister Lu take control of arranging everything. As the Minister of Revenue, this project fell within her domain. However, I made sure she would include Minister Bei, my Minister of Personnel, where appropriate.

I impressed upon her the importance of getting things done quickly. In only one more week, the pills from my factory would start hitting the streets.

Chapter 94 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

With my ministers taking care of all the small details regarding distributing and selling the pills, all I had to worry about was being able to produce them. While the first production line was relatively successful, the goal was to have five complete production lines making Nutrition Pills, and that required far more than just five times the work.

Installing so many different formations inside the factory had caused a problem. Once we had three production lines up and running, the qi in the factory started to become turbulent. Instead of smoothly flowing from areas of high density to areas of low density, the qi formed eddies in the air that left some areas bereft of nearly any qi at all. This caused the most problems for the middle of the line in the center, but every formation suffered at least a little.

This reminded me of problems I had with my Rank 1 cultivation technique. I had to be careful about the size and locations of the acupoints I used. If I wasn’t careful, they would begin to interfere with each other and slow down my cultivation rate. I wasn’t even sure how to address this problem from a cultivation standpoint, much less how to handle it for a factory filled with formations.

These thoughts reminded me of the Earth Rank cultivation technique I had stashed away in my mental library. It seemed to have some method for controlling the turbulence, but without cultivating it, I couldn’t be sure how it worked. I could give the technique to a Hu clan youth with high earth affinity and learn from their experiences, but I wasn’t sure if that would be a good idea or not.

While I was pondering this option, the Hu clan representative walked up and broke me out of my musings.

“This turbulence is difficult to deal with. Our usual approach has always been to avoid putting so many formations in a confined area,” he admitted. “This floor alone is probably going to have at least forty or fifty of them by itself when we’re done, and that’s causing new issues.”

“Do you have any ideas for how to fix it?” I asked directly.

He sighed. “This was one of the reasons we suggested using the Rank 4 Qi Gathering Formation. We were hoping that by pumping the area full of qi, this wouldn’t be a problem. Don’t get me wrong, it has helped. Having the extra environmental qi means that even if it’s somewhat turbulent, there is still always enough to keep the formations functional. The turbulence is only stopping them from running smoothly, so they create a worse final product than they should.”

We walked around the factory floor together while he contemplated how to proceed.

“As I see it, you have three options. The first is to install a few formations around the walls. We can use those to generate a kind of laminar qi flow over each individual production line. That would somewhat isolate the effects of each production line to its own stream and reduce the overall turbulence. That would require constantly moving large volumes of qi, though, so it won’t be cheap. We’re talking at least Grandmaster level with high maintenance costs.”

I shook my head. With a high price and low effectiveness, this wasn’t the way to go. “And the other options?” I asked.

“The second option is going to be even more expensive. This problem is caused by having multiple independent formations within the same room, each drawing upon the environment to power themselves. The straightforward method to solve this is to integrate them into a single large-scale formation. Think of it like this. Right now, each formation is drawing its own power. Instead, we would create one central power supply and use that to send power to each part of the factory. We could even look at restructuring the existing Qi Gathering Formation to provide qi directly to the formations instead of only creating a bubble of higher density.”

“If that was an option, why didn’t we do that to begin with?”

He slumped his shoulders. “The cost. Having a small formation that powers itself locally is simple to create with cheap materials, but if we wanted to do a distributed system like this, ordinary rocks would fail almost immediately. We’d have to use a much stronger substrate for the formations because the central power unit would constantly be pumping out a much larger volume of qi at a high density.”

I cocked my head to the side. “If gold can solve this problem, it isn’t a real problem.”

“Not gold,” said the representative. “You need Rank 4 materials. That costs spirit stones. Also, we would need to establish pathways and distribution hubs throughout the entire factory to control where qi gets sent and how much to send. This would likely require a Formation Lord. Having multiple separate formations is far simpler. Especially because if something goes wrong, you can just replace the piece that broke instead of needing to do major repairs on the entire system.”

The analogy that came to mind was wiring a building for electricity. Right now, we were essentially powering each formation off individual solar panels, but he was suggesting replacing that with an electric grid that would allow us to plug in formations and let them draw from a single generator. The complications inherent to creating a distributed qi network meant this would need to be put on the back burner for now, but it was an idea to look into in the future.

“So, you should know that isn’t going to happen, right? What’s the actual solution we are going with?” I asked.

He gave a wry chuckle. “Well, you built this monstrous damn factory. It’s over a hundred meters long, and each formation only takes up about a square meter of space. I was thinking we would have loads of extra room in here. Instead, we’re going to start spreading everything out as much as possible. The further the formations are from each other, the less they will interfere. It will mean a more robust track system, and it will slow down pill production a bit if the ingredients have to be carted across the entire floor, but it should mostly take care of the turbulence issue. Not perfectly, mind you, but it should be good enough.”

“Right now, our system is set up so that a production line is only working on a single pill at a time, right?” I asked. “If we change it so that there are five or ten pills in active concoction at any given time, the travel time shouldn’t be an issue. An herb gets melted, and when it advances to the purifying stage, another herb is added to the line to get melted immediately instead of waiting for the first to complete the entire process.”

This was how a real production line was supposed to function. Machines on production lines were constantly at work, they didn’t wait for an item to pass through every machine before starting on the next.

“If the line is too long and there is still a wait because of the herb’s travel time, separate the journey into steps,” I continued. “Melt the herb, move the track once, melt another herb, move it again, and melt a third. On the fourth step, a fourth herb is melted, and the first herb gets purified.”

The Hu representative looked pensive at this proposal. “Lord Su, doing this would indeed solve the issue of travel time, but it would destroy the original purpose of spacing everything out. The herbs need to be suspended in formations, and if so many are added to a track, the final result would be turbulence far greater than we are dealing with right now.”

I nodded. “I understand, but it’s worth attempting. Having the steps in between the stages might not work, but we should be able to get away with always having an herb at every station.”

“I’ll talk with the other specialists and see what we can do,” he conceded.

Construction in the factory continued for another week before everything was installed and operational. The formations weren’t perfect, but they were good enough.

My ministers had all been briefed, and they were ready to handle the first delivery of pills. Minister Lu would take care of purchasing the ingredients and selling the pills, while Minister Bei, my Minister of Personnel, took care of deliveries and distribution.

When the first cart filled with jade pill boxes left the factory, a surge of karmic energy immediately streamed into my dantian. My subjects didn’t have the pills in their hands yet, but the moment they left the factory, I was already credited with changing the futures of hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

When I looked at my middle dantian, where my karmic energy was stored, I found that this energy boost had provided me with more than enough to advance. I could finally step into the realm of Martial Lord.

Not wasting a moment, I rushed to the Water Library to begin studying the Rank 4 cultivation technique.

The first part of the Water Lord’s technique manual focused on warnings about how to know if one was ready to attempt ascension. This is how I learned how much energy I would need before I could proceed. Having now met all the requirements, I was ready to take the next step.

The cultivation technique was designed with only a single element in mind, but after studying it, I realized that this wouldn’t pose a problem for my dual-element technique. If the elements couldn’t form a constructive relationship, there would be problems, but I could simply feed wood into fire and use the resulting empowered qi where needed.

To begin, I took a small portion of karmic energy and shaped it into a flat disk. I didn’t have a karmic affinity, if such a thing even existed, so I was relying only on the strength of my soul to do this. The technique was designed for people without such an affinity, though, and my soul was unusually strong for someone of my age and stage of cultivation, so I was easily able to perform the necessary work.

Once the disk of karmic energy was formed, I treated it like a piece of clay. I pressed into the center and worked to slowly mold the energy from a disk into a hollow sphere the size of a large marble with a single small opening. Once it was shaped as well as I could make it, I moved it to the center of my middle dantian, and it locked into place.

Before the marble could fully set, I took additional karmic energy and generously layered it on top of the original, increasing its thickness. In a side commentary, the cultivation technique suggested if one were capable of creating a sphere of sufficient thickness without needing to do it in layers, it might be better, but it said that this layering process was necessary unless one had extremely strong control of their karmic energy.

The last step of the core formation process was the most difficult. I needed to create an aperture over the opening that would act as a one-way valve that would allow me to push qi into the core while letting none of it escape.

The valve design in the manual seemed questionable. It was extremely complex and required the karmic energy in some places to act like a metal and in others to act more like a rubber. This difference was caused by injecting small bits of qi into the karmic energy, weakening it. After studying the manual for some time, I decided not to follow it. It was clearly stated that the only purpose of the valve was to seal in qi that was injected into the core, and I believed I could create something better.

I decided to use a design based on the poppet valves in internal combustion engines. In concept, they were very simple to make, and they would create a positive seal within the core to keep anything from escaping even at extremely high pressures. Best of all, they could be created using only solid parts, so I didn’t need to try and weaken the karmic energy anywhere.

I built up the marble core a little more, rounded out the inside of the injection hole, and created a small structure on the outside of the core to hold the valve stem. Then, I created the poppet valve directly inside the core and attached the stem to the outside structure.

The only problem was that there was no pressure inside the core to hold the valve in place, so if I wasn’t manually controlling it, it didn’t seal the hole correctly. I could have tried to create some type of spring mechanism to hold it closed, but that would have been a bit complex, and once pressure started building in the core, it would be completely unnecessary.

With my core complete, I could be considered a Half-Step Lord, but that was a meaningless title. All it meant was that I was ready for the real breakthrough.

Before, qi refused to pass from my two outer dantians into the middle one, but now things had changed. With my core in place, I was able to easily pull streams from both dantians. There was only one opening in the core, so it could only accept a single type of qi. I began feeding the wood qi to the fire qi, making the fire qi fiercer and much more powerful.

Little by little, I worked on sending the combined qi into my core.

After an hour of work, the pressure started to build. I mentally grabbed the valve and slid it into place, trapping the qi in my core. I felt my power to see if it had changed, but all I felt was drained since my dantians were empty. My core needed more qi, but I didn’t have any to give it.

I sat down to rest and used Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills to quickly restore my energy. I set my jaw, gathered a large quantity of qi from both dantians, and sent it to my core. The pressure inside meant I couldn’t open the valve with my soul strength alone, but by pressing on it with the force of my combined qi, it popped open easily. I didn’t want the valve to move too far out of position, so I didn’t push too hard. Instead, I constantly built up the pressure I was using, making sure to never have more than a small gap between the core’s wall and the value.

An hour after I started this, my dantians were emptied, and the qi flow suddenly cut out. The moment the external pressure vanished, the pressure inside my core slammed the valve shut.

I rested, gathered energy, and began again. It took me several cycles, but after half a month of slowly forcing more and more qi into my core, I felt like I was on the verge of a breakthrough. I immediately cut off the stream of qi and allowed the valve to slam close.

If I had kept going, I would have broken through with qi alone, and that would have given me a far inferior result.

After taking time to refill my dantians, I centered myself and focused on my core. I pulled in strands of qi from both dantians and merged them, feeding wood into fire. Then, I grasped my last remaining strands of karmic energy. I could only hope it would be enough to finish the job. I started braiding them with my qi in the pattern the cultivation technique described. This bonded my qi with the karma of the city, strengthening and empowering it.

I forced the braided energy into my core. It met resistance almost immediately, but I kept pushing as hard as I could. A slow, sluggish qi flow wouldn’t work here. I need it to be sharp and forceful.

When my energy was nearly depleted, I felt the world break. The compressed qi at the center of my core collapsed into a singularity, opening a small hole into the world beyond.

A spear of braided qi and karmic energy pierced through that hole and attacked a chain forged from the laws of Heaven and Earth. With the power of that strike, one of the invisible chains that had been restraining my body shattered, and I gained a deeper connection with the world.

I had advanced to Martial Lord.

Chapter 95 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Lord 1

After ascending to Martial Lord and stabilizing my new realm, I immediately switched my attention to advancing my alchemy skills. There were other things that needed my attention. For instance, while the factory was operational, it still needed work. But for me, everything outside of alchemy was unimportant.

I settled into a cultivation room within the City Lord’s Complex and began studying the book Emperor Li had left for me. He had previously demonstrated that the key to Rank 4 alchemy was using one’s will to influence the world. By channeling my thoughts and energy through my core, I was supposed to be able to affect reality itself.

The first part of Emperor Li’s book outlined a few simple exercises I could practice to improve my ability to channel my will. Following its guidance, I took a piece of paper and threw it into the air. As it began to float down, I focused my thoughts through my core and attempted to lock it in place. Shortly after, the paper landed on the ground.

It took me many days to succeed in locking the paper in the air. At first, the lock was only partial, but after more practice, I gained more confidence. Then, I tore the piece of paper in two and threw both pieces into the air simultaneously. Simultaneously creating two separate locks was more than twice as difficult, but after several more days, I was able to do it.

Then, I tore both pieces in half again. After I mastered four, I tore them again. Four became eight, and eight became sixteen. On my best attempt, I was able to lock eleven in place simultaneously, but that was as far as I progressed.

One thing I didn’t expect was that while I could use my will to lock things in place, unlike affinities, I couldn’t use will to manipulate things. This meant that I wouldn’t be able to use my will to help concoct perfect pills since that involved deft manipulation of medicinal energy. Instead, I would need to lock the energy in place with will and then use my affinities to overpower the lock and slightly adjust the medicinal energy inside.

I wanted to practice these simple exercises until I reached the peak of perfection, but I didn’t have the luxury of time. I would only maintain lordship of North Lake City for nine years, and I needed to do my best to advance as far as possible in that time. Spending too much time practicing basic exercises could interfere with that goal. So, I decided to only push my will control as far as necessary, and then, after I left office, I would begin a more thorough exercise regime.

After my will-control reached a place I was satisfied with, I started working on the simplest Rank 4 pill possible. For this, I had already purchased ten Verdant Emerald Kairaway Pods, which looked somewhat similar to bright green soy bean pods. They were priced at 100,000 gold each and were one of the few Rank 4 herbs that could easily be purchased with only gold. Not only that, but they were also one of the few herbs that could be turned into a pill without any additional ingredients. This made them perfect for new Rank 4 alchemists.

I focused on a pod and got to work. Melting its physical body was not too difficult. It was similar to many of the Rank 3 herbs I had worked with. The energy body, however, was a different story. The pod’s shell was entirely made out of toxic energy, and the medicinal energy was only held within the beans themselves, but it was all disjointed and fragmented. The energy only existed as small flecks that were suspended in a substrate of toxic energy.

I had several pods to work with, so I allowed myself the leeway needed to experiment. With the first pod, I used the full force of my qi and fire seed to slowly destroy the toxins of the outer shell, leaving its small beans exposed. I thought that since there were still both toxic and medicinal energies within the beans, the energies might remain stable, but the moment the outer shell disappeared, the beans inside also began to dissipate.

Setting the remains of my failure to the side, I picked up another pod and prepared it. This time, I used the strength of my will to lock everything in place from the very beginning. The will-lock was not placed on the pod itself, but on the space that held it. So, when the combination of my spirit fire and qi entered to try to destroy the toxic energy, I found it very difficult to get it to move where I needed it.

Adjusting the strength of the fire within my will-lock, I found a balance that allowed me to make slow progress. With my mental fortitude flagging halfway through the process of removing the outer shell, I decided to switch the focus of my will. Instead of trapping everything within a single lock, I created smaller, separate locks around each of the beans, leaving the shell free. After making this change, my progress became swifter and smoother, and I was able to easily remove the remaining exterior toxins.

Then, I began working on the beans. This was a chore since I had no choice but to work through the will-lock while also being careful not to touch any of the medicinal energy.

My first several attempts were complete failures. Maintaining a lock strong enough to keep the medicinal energy from dissipating while allowing my spirit fire access to the toxins at the same time was exceptionally challenging. After each attempt, I needed to take a break to recover my mental energy.

It wasn’t until the fifth attempt that I was able to concoct a usable pill. By only targeting the toxins on the fringes of each bean, I was able to cleanse the energy sufficiently to condense the energy into a Low-Purity Soil Enrichment Pill. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

From there, I slowly began inching my way into the center of the beans. With every attempt I made, I progressed a little further inside, but I never pushed too far since a pill with lower purity was preferable to no pill at all. 100,000 gold was not an impossible sum for me to gather in a short time frame, but if I had to constantly sell Rank 3 pills to afford these bean pods, it would significantly slow my progress. I needed to be making pills that I could sell to cover at least part of my expenses.

After I used up all my pods, I was left with five Low-Purity pills and one Mid-Purity pill. This wasn’t a great success by any means, but it would let me keep walking forward.

I entered the North Lake City branch of the Pavilion and immediately went to the alchemy office to have my pills appraised.

“Lord Su,” said the attendant on duty, “how may I help you today?”

I placed the pill bottles on the counter. “I made my first Rank 4 pills, and I’m looking to sell them. I’m not sure what the going rate for them is, but I’ll take what I can get.”

“Congratulations on your achievement, Lord Su. No one currently in the building is qualified to appraise this level of pill, so we’ll have to contact our expert. I don’t know how long it will be, but we can contact you when it’s complete. After that, you can apply for your red-gold badge.”

“I understand, thank you,” I said.

I didn’t need the money immediately, but I would need it soon. I had built up a sizable cash reserve over the years while waiting to advance, but with the price of Kairaway Pods, eventually, even my deep pockets would feel the pinch. I had enough to keep working for the moment, at least.

I went downstairs and found the counter where special orders for herbalists could be placed.

“Hello,” I said to the attendant working there, “I need to place an order for a large number of Rank 4 Verdant Emerald Kairaway Pods.”

“Oh,” she said, her eyes widening, “Lord, how many do you need?”

“I’d like at least twenty for now, but I need to establish an ongoing supply. I anticipate needing twenty a week for the next two months.”

Ideally, I would’ve set this up several weeks in advance. Ordering dozens of Rank 4 herbs on short notice could be problematic. Unfortunately, I hadn’t had a grasp of how many pods I would need or when exactly I needed them, so placing an order ahead of time would have been difficult.

“Lord…” began the attendant, “this isn’t a simple order. It might be better if you worked with an Herb Lord directly.”

I thought about her suggestion and quickly decided to agree. Establishing a good working relationship with an Herb Lord would be very beneficial as I experimented with Rank 4 alchemy. The attendant wrote down the details of exactly what I needed and said she would post it immediately, but she wasn’t sure when I would get a reply.

Since I would need to wait for more ingredients, I headed back to the Complex to cultivate.

The next day, the Pavilion contacted me. Herb Lord Situ had requested a meeting.

When I entered the conference room in the Pavilion, Lord Situ and an attendant were already waiting for me.

“Lord Situ,” I said, giving a bow, “thank you for meeting with me.”

“Lord Su, please sit. I’ve been looking forward to our meeting.”

I took my seat, and another attendant entered to serve us tea.

“Lord Su,” he began after taking a sip, “I have been informed of your request for Verdant Emerald Kairaway Pods. First, I must apologize. I do not have a sufficient supply to meet your needs. However, I am willing to enter into a deal for the stock I do have, which at the moment is only fifteen pods. While this is far below your request, I believe you will find that such pods are not regularly produced in the quantities you are hoping for.”

I bowed my head slightly. “Thank you, Lord Situ. I would indeed like to purchase what you have available. If I were to order more from you, how long would that take?”

The Herb Lord gave an apologetic look. “It will take at least a year, and that would be if I used techniques, formations, and pills to increase their growth speed, which would raise the cost for such lowly herbs beyond all reason. At a normal growth rate, it will take five years.”

I realized I should have made these preparations not weeks earlier, but years earlier. I had put Emperor Li’s book out of my mind because I couldn’t use the recipes. I should have been reading through it and preparing contracts with herbalists.

“If you only wished to sell me fifteen herbs, I do not believe we would be having this conversation, Lord Situ. How can I help you today?”

He smiled slightly and nodded. “As a new Pill Lord, you will need a significant number of herbs to advance your craft. This can be quite expensive, and since you are focusing on Kairaway Pods, I do not believe you have the resources to fund this endeavor. I am willing to advance you the herbs you truly need.”

Lord Situ’s words suggested that he thought using these pods was a concession I had made to be able to begin studying Rank 4 alchemy. He had no idea that it was part of a thoroughly detailed plan for advancement created by a Pill Emperor. I decided not to correct his assumptions.

“And what would you require for such an arrangement?”

“Two things,” he said. “On a personal level, I need your assistance as well. I need resources to improve my herbalism. By working together, we can advance together.”

“I can agree to that, depending on the details, of course,” I responded without much thought. This sounded like a deal similar to what I’d done in the past with the Twin Mountains Sect and Pavilion.

“You might find the second condition more onerous.” He paused to sip his tea. “Beyond myself, I must also support my clan. Your term as city lord will end before the next King Selection, and with a strong foundation as both alchemist and Ruler, you will be one of the top contenders. I need your Oath that you will not participate in the next selection and that you will support the candidate from the Situ clan.”

I allowed the idea to bounce around my head for a time. There would be advantages, especially in credit gain, from attempting to pursue the path of Eight Flower King. However, my foundation was incredibly weak. I only had scant knowledge of the Lord realm, a little practice with Rank 4 alchemy, and no real backing within the kingdom. Competing to be the next King felt like it would be foolish.

I worked out the math in my head. The next King would be chosen when I was 47. As a Lord, qi stagnation wouldn’t set in until I was 80. If the path of Eight Flower King was viable, it would be better to pursue it when I was 67 anyway, so bowing out of the next competition wouldn’t do me any harm.

Did I want to agree to support the Situ competitor, though? I knew nothing about this clan and had no idea what political circles this could involve me in, but I didn’t care about such things. To me, the political situation was ephemeral. I only worried about whether it would impact my pursuits.

“What does supporting the Situ competitor look like, in your opinion?” I asked the Lord.

He looked me in the eyes. “Starting five years before the competition, we would need you to cease supplying pills to any other clan that is competing. Unless they drop out, they cannot receive any pills you concoct.”

“No,” I responded instantly. “I have a solid relationship with the Hu clan which I will not ruin over this. There are other sources of herbs and other clans that can provide them.”

The Herb Lord looked slightly frustrated at my prompt refusal.

I thought a little more before reaching my decision. “The Hu clan and the Ouyang clan. Our agreement will not touch my dealings with these two clans, but I will sever ties with every other clan that competes.”

This time, it was the Situ Lord who needed to think. He excused himself from the meeting to have a quick, private conversation with others from his clan. When he left, I took out Emperor Li’s book and a piece of paper to make a list of herbs I would need for learning Rank 4 alchemy. The Lord reentered the room shortly after I finished my list.

“I can accept those terms,” he said without joy.

I slid the paper over to him.

“These are what I need in the order I need them. The ones at the top are the most urgent. I look forward to working with you, Herb Lord Situ.”

Chapter 96 – Life 61, Age 36, Martial Lord 1

With a steady supply of herbs arranged, I returned to the life of a recluse. Technically, as city lord, I did have official duties to attend to, but from what I could tell, everything seemed to function well without my input. I was sure my ministers were more than happy with me leaving them alone and not doing anything that would create more work.

As a kingdom of cultivators, Rulers delegating away all of the ruling so they could seclude themselves for years was the norm, so my absence didn’t cause any major problems. At least, it didn’t cause any that I was aware of.

I spent my days slowly working through the book left to me by Emperor Li. The sequence of pills it outlined for training one’s alchemy ability was robust, with many options at every stage of advancement. This was important because the Situ clan had problems producing large numbers of any given herb. Without time to spin up large-scale production on a specific herb type, they could only provide haphazard assortments of herbs, so I had to constantly reference the book’s information to know what pills to work on with whatever herbs they had on hand.

The rate at which my alchemy skills increased during this time might not have impressed anyone, but I was making progress. After a few months of work, I was able to start breaking even with the cost of herbs, and after nine or ten months, I was beginning to make a small amount of profit. Since that profit was from Rank 4 pills, a fraction of it was even in spirit stones.

The agreement with the Situ Herb Lord was that I would help him raise his herbalism skills. In practice, that turned out to mean buying whatever excess herbs he had that were on the list I had given him at somewhat exorbitant prices. At first, the cost of herbs was simply deferred, but after I began making pills of sufficient quality, I would be paying him with the majority of the pills made from his herbs.

In the slow process of advancing my alchemy, there was one important event that pushed me forward more than anything else. Eleven months after entering seclusion, my store of karmic energy reached the point where I could break through to the next stage.

For the past year, while my focus was on alchemy, I still found time to add small amounts of qi to my core every day. It took me half a year to reach the point where my core was saturated and I was at the peak of Martial Lord 1. I could have tried to make a breakthrough at that point, but using pure qi was a last resort.

With enough karmic energy on hand, I enclosed myself in my cultivation room and began the process of breaking through. I braided my qi and karmic energy together in the pattern from my cultivation technique and forced it into my core.

The combined energies shot through my core and slammed into the wall that blocked me from ascending. I formed the energy into battering rams and slammed them against that wall one after another.

When half of my stored karmic energy was used up, small cracks had started to appear, but I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough energy stored to complete the breakthrough. This was a problem. If I stopped the process, the cracks would begin to heal and all my efforts, and the karmic energy I had used to that point, would all be wasted.

I rushed to empty my storage bag of the few spirit stones it contained. I hadn’t been able to save many, but I could only hope it was enough.

In preparing for this breakthrough, I had studied how to use them. I mentally attacked the stones, ripped the energy from them, and forced it into my central dantian.

While the energy in spirit stones was far more potent than qi, it lacked the true might of karmic energy. It was like a middle point between the two. I began using the energy from the spirit stones to dilute the karmic energy I had remaining so that I could throw as many battering rams against that wall as possible.

When I only had about five percent of my karmic energy stores remaining, the wall blasted inward and the energy in my core pierced through reality. The world shattered. Another chain forged from the laws of Heaven and Earth which had bound my body crumbled to dust. I was a Martial Lord 2.

The main perk of advancing was that it significantly strengthened the will I could exert on the world. Herbs that were a challenge before became simple to control. Of course, that meant I had to start working on new herbs that were even more challenging, but that was okay. I was advancing.

After a year of seclusion, I decided I needed to understand how my domain was prospering while I was away. I was an absentee city lord, but I still had to play the part sometimes. To gain a quick overview of the situation, I called for a full council session.

I again entered the main hall to see Mei, her Seeds, and my ministers waiting for me. After I took my seat, I started the session directly.

“I have been secluded for an entire year. Since no one has requested my presence, I hope that everything is progressing smoothly. Flower Mei, are there any urgent issues we need to address?”

Her gaze stayed fixed across the room, but she seemed to flinch when I addressed her.

“No, Lord Su. North Lake City is prospering, and no major matters require your involvement.”

I nodded at this. “Thank you, Flower Mei. Ministers, is there anything the council needs to address?”

The first to step forward was Minister Tang. “Lord Su, I am happy to announce that the island expansion project has been completed. The land and roads are all in place, and we have started constructing workshops for artisans who wish to move to the new area.”

“Has the factory also been completed?”

“With Flower Mei’s assistance, our tasks have been completed ahead of schedule. It has been fully furnished and decorated. The Nutrition Pill lines are all fully operational, but installation of the other production lines has not yet begun.”

The Seed who acted as my intermediary with the Hu Clan stepped forward.

“Lord, the Hu Clan has completed formation designs for two more pill types and is awaiting your approval before moving forward with full-scale deployment.”

“Understood,” I said, nodding to both the minister and Seed. “I will discuss this further with the clan.”

With no more issues to bring before me, Minister Tang stepped back, and a man I barely recognized stepped forward. Quickly flipping through my mental notebook, I remembered he was Minister Mo, my Minister of Justice.

“Lord Su,” he said bowing, “there are no immediate issues that require your involvement. However, a couple of young scions of two minor clans recently got into an argument. This is well within our abilities to manage, but both clans have Lords. If the Lords become involved, we will need you to step in to help mediate the situation.”

“Understood, Minister Mo. Inform me if things take a turn for the worse.”

He seemed to hesitate, but he glanced at Mei who nodded at him. He stepped back into line without further comment.

Next, Minister Jin stepped forward. “Lord Su,” she said in a concerned voice. “We have a problem. While it is normal for Rulers in Eight Flower to enter seclusion for long periods and miss important events, during your seclusion, a new queen was selected, and you did not participate in the ceremony.”

I raised my eyebrow. “If this was an issue, why was I not informed at the time?”

Mei stepped forward and looked at the minister. “I instructed her not to interrupt you. While it is considered proper for current city lords to attend, I deemed it unnecessary to disturb your work, so I handled the situation personally.”

I looked at Mei in surprise before turning back to the minister. “I will accept Flower Mei’s judgment on this matter. This is a past issue, though. Why have you brought it up during this meeting?”

“Lord Su,” she said, trying to maintain a proper demeanor. “Missing the Queen Selection is a serious issue, but as you said, it is in the past. I bring it up now to ask you to ensure you visit the upcoming Thunder Groom Selection. Missing two such events in a row… would not be good.”

“Understood, minister. I will make an effort to attend.”

“Thank you, Lord,” she said, bowing and stepping back into line.

Next, it was Minister Lu. “Lord Su, I do not have any issues to report at this time. I wish only to tell you that your factory has benefited our city in numerous ways. While we lose money when selling the pills locally, the increased production from a healthy citizenry has more than made up for that cost. Through following the Flower’s guidance, the profits from selling pills abroad have been exceptionally beneficial, allowing us to move forward with many projects that would have otherwise been impossible.”

“Understood,” I acknowledged.

Minister Lu stepped back, and the final minister, Minister Bei, my Minister of Personnel, stepped forward.

“Lord Su, I regret to say that I must report an issue similar to Minister Lu. As the Water Groom, it is your duty to assist in nurturing the people of the kingdom. We are capable of handling the training of most regular craftsmen, and Flower Mei has done an admirable job of nurturing new talents in your stead, but as Lord, I must request that you train a group of cultivators personally. The number of people and type of training is at your discretion, but it is improper for the Lord of North Lake City to not have any students.”

I nodded. “I will begin such lessons once my current work is complete. Please prepare a list of those you think would be suitable.”

The minister looked unhappy, but he still bowed and stepped back.

No one else stepped forward, so I decided to end the meeting.

“That will be all for today. I thank you all for your efforts in ensuring the city runs smoothly.” I turned to Mei. “Flower Mei, I would like to have a private discussion about certain matters. Please come with me.”

Mei and I sat down at a conference table while a maid stayed in the room to serve tea.

“Mei, you’re studying beast taming with the Ouyang clan, correct?”

I noticed that her eyes were fixed on a point over my right shoulder.

“Yes, Lord Su,” she affirmed.

A genuine smile crossed my face. “Excellent. How far have your studies advanced?”

“I have only reached the level of a high Master Tamer. While I have worked to study the craft, I have not been able to devote sufficient time and energy to take it further.”

“Right, right,” I muttered. “How much can you tell me about low-level beast taming? How do you take control of them?”

Her eyes drifted toward mine, but with a sudden jerk, she once again focused on that point over my shoulder.

“It isn’t taking control, Lord. Tamers use a series of techniques to connect with beasts on an instinctual level and influence them to behave as desired. At low levels, this means only giving very basic commands, like ‘attack.’ However, the more powerful a tamer grows, the deeper connection they can form with beasts.”

I bobbed my head up and down as I thought. “My water affinities are decent, and I have access to a spirit flame with water energy. Do you think you could teach me some of the basics?”

“Sorry, Lord, but if that is possible, it is beyond me. I only know how to interact with beasts through water qi. Water is important because it acts upon the blood of the beast when sending commands. I do not know if becoming a tamer is possible without cultivating water qi.”

“Alright,” I said, setting the issue aside. “Can you tell me anything about using herbs or pills to help beasts grow? I talked with Ouyang MengYao some time ago, and he seemed to suggest using normal pills was impossible.”

“We have been instructed to never give a demon beast any alchemic concoctions,” she confirmed. “They can have severe deleterious effects. The Ouyang clan uses several formations to improve cultivation rate, healing rate, growing speed, and various other factors. Where cultivators can consume pills, beasts must make do with only formations. This causes their progress to be slower than may otherwise be, but it also means we do not need to worry about the buildup of pill toxins.”

“And herbs?” I asked.

“There are a variety of herbs we feed our beasts, but we have to be careful. Too many too quickly can cause the same buildup of toxins that we avoided by not using pills. As it was explained to me, since the herbs retain their natural form, the vast majority of the toxic energies will be expelled through the normal digestive process. Toxins from herbs are only an issue if too many are fed to a beast too quickly.”

I hadn’t heard of this before, but I never looked into consuming herbs directly. Was there a trick here that I could use?

Mei continued, “While feeding herbs to beasts is expensive, herbalists will offset a portion of the cost if we provide them with the beast's manure.”

“Manure?” I interrupted her.

“It is supposed to help them to grow their crops.”

“Manure…” I muttered.

I looked down at the table in thought. Mei seemed to slightly shift her glance when I was no longer looking at her.

“Fan—”

I suddenly stood up and raced out of the conference room.

The beasts were eating herbs, and a large portion of the physical herb, along with some part of the energy body, was being excreted. If manure could be used in herbalism, that meant it contained some form of energy. I didn’t know if it was demonic energy from the beast or medicinal energy from the herbs. It could potentially be a mix of both.

I needed to get my hands on some manure.

I got in my carriage as quickly as I could and raced to the Ouyang clan.

Chapter 97 – Life 61, Age 37, Martial Lord 2

Demon beast manure turned out not to be nearly as useful as I had hoped. After a week of experimentation, I had no idea how it could possibly be useful in herbalism. When I looked at it in qi vision, all I could see was a large pile of toxic energy. Herbalists must have some way to utilize energies that alchemists couldn’t, or maybe just energies that I couldn’t. Either way, my research into trying to use manure in alchemy ended quickly.

Over the next couple of months, my karmic energy grew quickly as the factory began producing more and more pills. My karmic reserves were swiftly reaching the point where I felt comfortable making another breakthrough, but even if I had enough karma, I would still need to delay because I didn’t have sufficient qi.

I considered attempting to use the excess karmic energy during normal cultivation, but I decided that would be too wasteful. If this pattern of excess energy persisted for several stages, I might consider it, but not until I understood how much energy I should expect to receive every month.

When my cultivation finally reached a point where I felt comfortable breaking through, I was interrupted once more.

It was time for the selection of the new Thunder Groom, and I had promised Minister Jin that I would attend.

While the first stages of the Groom Selection were in progress, all current and former Rulers of the kingdom gathered in the back of the amphitheater for a quaint ball.

I delayed my arrival slightly so that when I entered the hall would already be full. I did my best to remain unobtrusive as I entered and tried to slip in unnoticed. I was extremely uncomfortable in this type of gathering, so I just wanted to be in and out with as little fuss as possible.

The hall was arranged in the pattern of the Eight Flower Kingdom, with a black and blue area for North Lake City at the far end. I did my best to deftly move through the crowd without notice to avoid having anyone approach me for a conversation. When I reached my designated area of the hall without incident, I breathed a sigh of relief.

My relief was quickly cut short when a handsome man dressed in fancy dark blue robes approached me.

“Lord Su, you’ve come! Excellent. I expected you to only send your Flower again.”

I looked at the man and was surprised to recognize him. “Lord Situ,” I said, bowing my head, “a pleasure to see you here. I didn’t realize you were a former Water Groom, though maybe I should have.”

He chuckled lightly. “I was your immediate predecessor. I did my best for the city, but I’ve been amazed at what you have accomplished in only a couple of years. You should be able to advance much further than I did while city lord.”

“Thank you for your praise,” I said with a dip of my head, “but I must credit everything to my excellent ministers. Without them, I’m sure the city would have been in shambles by now.”

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists,” responded Lord Situ. “Delegating matters to your ministers and only focusing on implementing your most important policies is the correct course of action. You have done your job admirably, and your Flower has done an excellent job implementing your vision.”

I nodded in acceptance.

“Lord Situ, it has been quite some time since we discussed business matters. I trust things have been prosperous on your end. Have you managed to scale up production recently?”

“Lord Su…” he said with a small shake of the head. “Yes, we have, but this is not the proper place for such discussions. I hope you understand.”

This comment destroyed the budding eagerness I had begun to feel for this event. If business could not be conducted here, what was the point?

I made a little more small talk with the Herb Lord and then excused myself. I wandered to a far corner of my section and just stood there to observe the festivities. Since I wasn’t paying too much attention, I was surprised when Mei approached and grabbed my elbow.

“We have an audience with the queen,” she said in a quiet, rushed voice. “Don’t worry too much. Just act natural. She wants to thank you for the improvements to the kingdom. She may make an offer of some kind, but you should be hesitant about accepting it. Don’t outright reject it, but consider it carefully before moving forward.”

She hauled me by the elbow to the center of the ballroom where the queen was waiting. When we arrived in front of her, we both gave deep bows but did not speak first.

“Lord Su, nice to meet you. Flower Mei, a pleasure as always,” said the queen with an impassive face.

“Queen Duge, it is my honor,” said Mei with a pleasant smile.

“Queen Duge,” I acknowledged.

“Lord Su, the Nutrition Pills from your domain have done wonders for the kingdom. Not only have they improved the lives of our people, but they have also provided a nice increase in tax revenue. I thank you as both a queen and as a cultivator.”

“You are welcome,” I said, bowing slightly. I wasn’t sure what else to say in this situation.

“Lord Su, are you aware of my background?”

“No, Queen Duge. I have not studied the other Rulers of the kingdom thoroughly.”

“Then you may be surprised to know that my family is not of this kingdom. Since you were not at the Queen Selection,” she said with a raised eyebrow and a meaningful glance, “you may not know that I was allowed to hold this position as part of an exchange between the Eight Flower Kingdom and the neighboring Brilliant Sun Empire. It was your own Flower Mei who was the most vocal in support of this arrangement.”

I didn’t care much about why she was chosen, but one part of it caught my attention. Was there a hook here I could use?

“Oh? Are you from one of the major clans in the Brilliant Sun Empire, then?” I could only hope there wasn’t a greedy glint in my eyes.

“It depends on how you look at it. My family is a branch of the imperial clan, and we do rule a small kingdom, but we are not held in particularly high esteem by the current Emperor,” she said, addressing my comment before returning to her planned speech. “The exchange that brought me here was to allow me to learn from this kingdom and bring new ideas back to my own. At the end of the queen’s eleven-year rule, I will be returning home, and the young lady from Eight Flower who took my place in my kingdom will return here to marry the new King.”

“I see. I hope this exchange will benefit both kingdoms.”

“I believe it already has,” she said, smiling. “Lord Su, your term will end shortly before my own. When I step down, I would like you to consider venturing to my home with me. We would be exceptionally pleased if you could build a factory for us as you have in North Lake City.”

That was the ask I was expecting, and in truth, I did want to build one in Brilliant Sun, but a small fringe kingdom was not my goal. Building such a factory there would certainly improve the importance this Duge branch had to the main family, but that wasn’t my concern. If I did this, it would likely end up with me completely sidelined.

“Queen Duge,” I began hesitantly, “I don’t believe that is within my powers. I have sworn oaths with the Hu Clan. I cannot share any information about formations, not even the ones I helped design. They have complete autonomy in this matter, though, so they will be able to provide you with any assistance you may need.”

The corners of the queen’s mouth dropped slightly. “I see. So, you will not help me in this matter?”

“Your majesty, this is beyond my power. I am bound by strict oaths which prevent me from sharing any information about formations. This matter must pass through the Hu clan.” I paused briefly, trying to remember Mei’s advice. “I can help facilitate a meeting with them if you wish.”

“Thank you for your candor,” she said with a slight frown. “Please, enjoy the festivities.”

Mei pulled my arm and led me away.

After the gathering in the hall, we adjourned to our private boxes to watch the selection of the Thunder Groom. The focus of the questioning centered around building a place for people to live and enjoy. I tuned it all out and spent the time thinking about how I would proceed with my cultivation. I was at the peak of Martial Lord 2, and as soon as I returned to North Lake City, I would enter seclusion for my breakthrough.

During the competition, I only noticed Mei glance at me a single time. She didn’t say anything, and her eyes quickly darted back to the stage. Internally, I was shaking my head. I had no understanding of how to deal with the situation. Her blessing had too firm of a grip on her, and trying to talk with her would be pointless.

When the competition finally ended, I didn’t pay any attention to who was chosen. I quickly headed for my carriage and returned home.

My ascension to Martial Lord 3 was extremely smooth. I had built up an abundance of karmic energy, so there was no need to consider depleting my small supply of spirit stones. With my newly advanced cultivation, I wanted to see how I could advance as an alchemist, but Minister Lu requested an urgent meeting, and I was required to attend.

I expected a small meeting between the minister, myself, and maybe one or two others, but instead, it was a gathering of my entire council, Mei and her Seeds, and a couple of Hu Clan representatives.

Minister Lu was the first to speak. “Lord Su, the pill factory has encountered a problem, and we are having a hard time solving it.”

I gestured to her to continue.

“It’s the herbs for the Nutrition Pills. The production lines consume them at a prodigious rate, and we require constant deliveries to keep the factory working at full capacity. Because–” the minister hesitated. “Due to recent events… Many of our suppliers have decided to end their cooperation with us. If this continues, it will severely limit the number of pills we can produce.”

I furrowed my brow. “Isn’t the needed herb cheap and common? Can we buy them from elsewhere?”

“Lord Su, the necessary herb is the seed pod of a common weed. The weed grows nearly everywhere in the kingdom, and when it’s ripe, someone just needs to pluck it. However, these weeds are scattered across the kingdom, and we need strong supply channels to gather them for us. Our current suppliers are refusing to work with us, and it is likely they will not allow anyone new to encroach on their territory.”

She wanted me to ask, so I obliged. “How can we solve this problem?”

“In the short term, we can begin trying to source them from other kingdoms. It will raise the cost, but ingredient costs are minimal anyway, so this will only have a small effect on our returns. Relying on supplies from other kingdoms and empires is not sustainable in the long run, though.”

“What do you suggest?”

“We need a farm, several farms actually, to focus on the production of the seed pods. We need growing formations to speed everything up, high-quality roads to transport materials, enforcers to make sure everything runs smoothly, and countless other things. Only by providing the ingredients ourselves will we no longer be tied to the whims of our suppliers.”

I considered the idea, and it was something that would have to happen eventually. “How are we going to pay for this? As you know, I cannot personally fund it.”

“Lord Su, the factory has made sufficient profits to fund any such projects by itself. Putting everything in place might temporarily stretch the budget slightly, but we should be able to handle that with a small increase in pill prices.”

I waved that away. “You are the minister in charge of these things, do what you think is best.”

“Thank you, Lord Su,” she said. Then, she stepped back into line with the other ministers.

“You have all heard the proposal on the table,” I said, addressing the room. “I would like everyone’s input on this and suggestions for improvements.”

That began a long-winded debate amongst the various members of my council. Everyone could agree on the broad strokes, but countless small details touched on other interests that needed to be negotiated.

I only listened for a short time before tuning out the discussion and only listening for my name. Mei seemed more than willing to control the discussion in my absence.

Creating a farm was important for the city, and understanding the process would benefit my plans, but worrying about the small details of the project was a distraction. I wanted to return to my workshop so I could focus on more important tasks.

Chapter 98 – Life 61, Age 37, Martial Lord 3

I wanted to return to my alchemical pursuits after the meeting, but I needed to ensure my karmic income remained at a high level. I decided I had to deal with the issues my ministers had raised in both this most recent meeting and the previous one.

The first issue was something that was not only important to the city but also important to my idea of creating a factory valuable enough to catch the attention of the Brilliant Sun Empire’s ruling family. We needed a way to produce more herbs for Nutrition Pills. The plan we had decided on was to make farms, and I knew little about arranging such matters. I would let my minister work on designing them, and I would just copy their work to my library. There was one thing I could help with, though. Those farms would be significantly more productive with Soil Enrichment Pills.

The Rank 4 Soil Enrichment Pills I had been producing recently were, of course, a terrible idea for such farms. Instead, I needed Rank 0 pills. It took me time to look up the recipe, but when I did, I was happy to see that it was another basic pill that only required a single ingredient.

The herb in question was simply called a Grower Pod. Similar to a Kairaway Pod, Grower Pods were long bean pods with several ‘beans’ of medicinal energy. Unlike the Rank 4 pod, though, the beans inside them were nearly pure medicinal energy, so purification mainly involved destroying the outer shell of toxins.

I made a couple of the Rank 0 pills to get a feel for the process. The toxic energy of these was much more robust than in other herbs of this quality, so it took more than a light touch to cleanse it. It took more energy than a normal Rank 1 herb would, but not nearly as much as a Rank 2.

The entire process made me slightly confused by the ‘Rank 0’ rating the pill was given. Throughout purification, they seemed easy enough for a low-level Disciple Alchemist while not being so easy that any untrained fire cultivator could make them. It felt like it should be a Rank 1 pill, and since they only affected mortal plants, the name would normally be Rank 1 Basic Soil Enrichment Pill with the version that helped Rank 1 plants would be Rank 1 Superior or something.

So, why was this considered a ‘Rank 0’ pill?

The answer came after the purification step. To my surprise, the individual beans began separating and dispersing, somewhat similar to how Rank 4 herbs acted. I allowed the energy to disperse freely and studied it as it did. There was no way this cheap pill would require a Lord to make it, so I tried again.

This time, as I burned away the toxic energy, I locked the medicinal energy in place with my wood affinity. This allowed me to smoothly make the pill with little difficulty.

Reviewing the process, I estimated that concocting such a pill would require the skills of a low-level Disciple Alchemist, the soul power of a high-level Disciple Alchemist, and at least a low seven-star wood affinity. This made the number of people who could make such a pill rather small, and those who could certainly had better things to do with their time, so I decided to accept the pill’s Rank 0 rating.

The advantage of the pill was that any alchemist who was capable of making it could easily make it as a Perfect pill with high efficacy. This placed our factory formations in an uncomfortable spot. If we wanted high efficacy, we would only be able to make High-Purity pills. If we wanted to make Perfect pills, it would involve targeting small flecks of toxins trapped inside the medicinal energy, which would tank the efficacy.

I had no idea how impurities would affect the results of such a pill, or if they were even important at all, so I decided to try taking a broad approach to the matter. We would design both High-Purity and Perfect versions of the production lines and use whichever gave the best final results. At worst it would be a waste of time and money.

Pills in hand, I was ready to visit the Hu clan.

“Lord Su, if I had known you were coming, I would have greeted you from afar. Welcome to the Hu clan,” said a Grandmaster when I arrived. “How can we help you today?”

“I was told there were new formation designs available, so I came to take a look. I apologize for taking so long to find time to visit.”

“Not at all, Lord Su. Our formation specialists have simply taken the opportunity to further refine the initial designs. I think you will be happy with the results.”

The Grandmaster led me through the Hu complex and showed me the two designs they had created.

The first was for a Rank 0 Healing Pill. It only worked on mortals, and it could only heal simple injuries, so such pills were considered extremely wasteful. Mortals could recover on their own from any injuries the pill would be able to heal, so why bother making such a thing? The low price meant it wasn’t worth the effort, and the price couldn’t be raised because then people would just buy Rank 1 pills that did a better job.

The second was a Rank 0 Energy Pill that restored a person’s stamina. Again, it only worked on mortals, and how much money was giving mortals a little extra stamina worth? It would let a farmer work longer, but you could always just hire a second person instead of feeding the first one pills.

I estimated that these pills would end up producing significantly less karmic energy than Nutrition Pills had, but they were cheap, so there should still be a solid return on investment.

The main difference between the designs for all the different pills was the purifying formation. It had to be specially calibrated to target impurities in a way that would create results with maximal efficacy. Creating a formation that could handle the variations within a single type of herb without ruining any of them was extremely challenging.

“Grandmaster Hu, these designs look excellent to me, what are your results?”

“Thank you, Lord Su,” he said while taking out a pill bottle and handing it to me. “These are the pills we have made with our prototypes.”

I appraised them and found them excellent. They were both Perfect with efficacies in the high eighties.

“Excellent job,” I said, taking out a bottle of Soil Enrichment Pills. “Here is your next challenge.”

I spent the day working with Grandmasters from the Hu clan. First, I described the process of refining the pill and the various difficulties I could foresee in automating the process. Then, I began demonstrating for them. I concocted the pill as slowly as I could and allowed the Grandmasters to closely observe the entire process.

The first time I made a pill for them, my process of concoction was somewhat organic, and I sent qi in places I deemed appropriate using whatever means I felt best. This resulted in complex qi movements to conform to the curvatures of the various energies within the herb.

After that, the Hu Grandmasters gave me instructions on how to make the process easier for formations to handle. I followed their guidance and concocted a second pill, but the result of doing so was a steep drop in efficacy. The simple movements they requested made it impossible to attack some toxins without hitting large swaths of medicinal energy.

We spent a long time going through an iterative process. At each step, I would demonstrate what they wanted, and we would discuss how to make improvements for the next attempt.

We outlined two formation designs, one for a High-Purity version and one for a Perfect version, and once everyone was happy with the resulting efficacy from my demonstrations, the Hu clan got to work on the hard task of actually designing formations to do what we had outlined.

Situation well in hand, I left the Hu clan to attend to the final matter of importance. I needed to teach some students.

Minister Bei had done as I had asked of him previously and had assembled a list of fifteen cultivators for me to personally instruct in alchemy. Five were new Disciples who wanted to learn the basics of alchemy, five were Masters who wanted to improve, and five were Grandmasters who wanted to refine their skills before the next King Selection.

Initially, I was hesitant to teach others alchemy since I could see no way it would help me in acquiring the fire seed in Brilliant Sun. Additionally, when I died, everything would be reset, and the skills I imparted would vanish. Only my own skills would persist, so my time was best spent on them alone as they would be what I would have to rely on to complete my mission.

However, I remembered a simple proverb I had once heard: “To teach is to learn twice over.” I needed to teach these students alchemy. Not for them, but for myself.

Teaching the Disciples was perhaps the most rewarding part of this process. They knew nothing about how to concoct pills, so I had a clean slate to work from. Long ago, Rudy started me off by having me make countless portions of Qi Gathering Powder. He didn’t care about how well I did, just that I acted as his workhorse.

In my classes on nurturing talents, I studied how the Eight Flower Kingdom expected me to do the job, but I didn’t feel bound by their expectations. I was willing to try different strategies to see how well they worked, and if I found a valuable teaching technique, it could be another bargaining chip for the future.

I created a teaching plan which catered to several different learning styles. I prepared reference books for them to read, lectures about pills and herbs, visual demonstrations so they could see what they needed to do, and kinesthetic exercises to help them feel what they needed to do.

To me, the most interesting of these was the visual demonstrations. The students didn’t have well-developed qi vision, so they couldn’t easily see what they needed to do. I remembered a technique I used to help teach SuYin long ago and decided it would work well here. I increased the intensity of my fire qi and manipulated it to emit light as I worked. They couldn’t see the medicinal energy very well, but this did let them see in detail what kind of qi movements they would need to employ.

For the Master Alchemists, classes were much simpler. They didn’t need any help with concocting pills. They understood that well enough to not need my assistance. Instead, they needed help learning to control their spirit flames.

I wasn’t a complete master of using spirit flames since I focused so much on using my seed, but I was close. The fire seed mastery I purchased came with far more information about spirit flame manipulation than a typical Grandmaster would know, so teaching a few basics went smoothly, but because I was just conveying purchased knowledge by rote, I didn’t gain too much from the teaching process.

The Grandmaster class was its own version of challenging, though. These five were all skilled alchemists, and most of them seemed to believe they were my equal, or at least close to it, and all of them saw me as a competitor for the position of Eight Flower King. We were all close to the same age, some of them were even older than me, and I had only recently advanced to Lord, so our skills shouldn’t be too far apart, right?

I had to field a barrage of questions about why I chose to employ one specific technique over another, or why I spun my qi clockwise instead of counterclockwise. The class was a lesson in torture.

I felt that many of the questions they asked were inane. Like, why does it matter what direction I spin the qi? Spin it in the direction that works. It almost seemed like they were asking random questions to trip me up and prove I should bow out of the race and support them to become the next King.

However, their questions made me think more deeply about the reasons I did what I did. Over the years I had formed many habits without realizing it. Some were good, some were bad, but I didn’t have a solid rationale for any of them. The process of being grilled by somewhat arrogant Grandmasters helped me develop a deeper understanding of my actions.

All that said, I didn’t enjoy teaching. It helped, and I learned from it, but it didn’t help me advance my goals, so I didn’t plan to seek out opportunities to do more of it. The fact that I learned from the process only meant that I wouldn’t fight against Minister Bei when he suggested that I do my duty as Water Groom and nurture the Kingdom’s talents in the future.

Chapter 99 – Life 61, Age 37, Martial Lord 3

During my reign as city lord, I had set three main objectives for myself. The first was to reach Martial Lord Peak so that I would have access to as many credits as possible in the event of my death. The second was to master the skills of a Pill Lord to the best of my ability. The third was to find novel means of boosting a domain’s karmic energy production in ways the Brilliant Sun Empire would see as valuable.

All of these goals required intense study and concentration, and they resulted in me spending countless hours locked away in a cultivation chamber or a workshop.

Reaching Martial Lord 4 was not too difficult. I had excess karmic energy after ascending to Lord 3, and gaining enough for Lord 4 only took a few short months. My bottleneck was once again my qi levels. I couldn’t cultivate qi fast enough to keep up with my karmic energy gains.

It took me three more months of long hours cultivating to scrape together enough qi to advance. I ascended to Martial Lord 4, but I knew these delays due to lacking qi would only grow longer. I needed a solution. I needed Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills.

My alchemy skills were starting to grow quickly, at a far faster pace than I originally anticipated. Early in the process of learning Rank 4 alchemy, I had difficulty maintaining will-locks, and they would often cause problems with my control of qi and spirit fire. After creating a foundation with the Soil Enrichment Pills, though, things started to flow more easily.

The book Emperor Li left me was a big part of this rapid progress. I didn’t have to worry about large difficulty spikes when learning a new recipe because he laid everything out in an extremely methodical fashion. This not only allowed me to advance quickly, but it also meant I wasn’t wasting precious herbs by trying to make pills far beyond my abilities.

The more my alchemy progressed, though, the more lopsided the deal with the Situ Clan felt.

The arrangement I had reached with the Situ Clan was that they would provide me with an ample supply of the herbs that I needed to raise my skills, and in return, I would give them 80% of the pills I made with those herbs.

Early on, this arrangement seemed beneficial to both of us. I was wasting a significant number of herbs in the learning process, so to me, having the Situ Clan absorb the upfront cost of herbs was worth the excessive compensation in pills they received.

However, as I became more skilled, I stopped wasting too many herbs. The final pills weren’t always up to my standards, but they could almost always be sold for enough to cover the cost of ingredients.

At that point, the main benefit of working with the clan was that they provided me with access to a large number of herbs, but this benefit also began to fade. As I started needing more expensive and rarer herbs, the clan could no longer provide them in large quantities.

When the situation had nearly reached a breaking point, one of Mei’s Seeds intervened to help solve the issue.

The first thing she did was completely renegotiate my agreement with the clan. She established a complex percentage structure based on the quantity of herbs available, the rarity of the materials, the value of the pills produced, and several other factors. I didn’t understand how the math worked at all, but with some herbs, I had to pay 90% of the pills I produced while with others I only had to pay 30%.

After leaving the Situ Clan, she insisted we visit the Blue Wind Pavilion to begin negotiating agreements with other suppliers. Her main concern was contracting herbalists to provide large quantities of the herbs needed to make the Rank 4 pills I had already mastered. She wanted me to have as much access as possible to the most profitable herbs. She also wanted to begin negotiations with groups from other kingdoms to provide any rarer herbs that I might need.

She had already proven herself a far more capable negotiator than I was, so I decided to just let her handle everything. I offered her a percentage of my returns since she would be acting as my agent in these matters, but she turned it down, insisting that it was her duty as a Seed.

While my progress in Lord-level alchemy was swift, it wasn’t without problems. Even with increasing herb supplies, I was still unable to make decent Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills.

I tried the recipe in Emperor Li’s book, but to purify the herbs without the medicinal energy dissipating, I needed to use my will-lock at full force. Because of this, when my qi and spirit fire entered the locked space to cleanse the toxins, I lost nearly all control over them. It took everything I had to move them the slightest bit.

I made several attempts at creating Qi Gathering Pills with the Cold Mountain Fire, but I eventually had to concede that it was futile. The best I had made was a Low-Purity pill with 60% efficacy. It was complete trash. To do better, I needed a better spirit fire.

I still had the Three Thousand Flames Spirit Fire that Emperor Li had given me, but I was worried about trying to use it. Whenever I opened its jade box, every fiber of my being screamed that it was something far beyond my ability to control. I could attempt to fuse with it, but if I failed, the best case was expelling the flame and letting it evaporate into the air. That was something I considered unacceptable.

I needed a Profound-Rank spirit fire. Something powerful enough to work through my will-lock while weak enough for me to control.

I had slowly built what profits I could from making Rank 4 pills, but I wasn’t having any luck finding a suitable one for sale that I could afford. Despite putting out feelers through the Pavilion, I had yet to hear any good news, so it came as a shock when a Seed approached me about a way to acquire one.

“Lord Su,” she said with a small bow, “there will be an auction in Moonlight Dew City next week. We have information that a wood-based Profound-Rank spirit fire will be up for auction and have arranged transport for you through the Pavilion.”

If this information was freely available, why hadn’t I heard anything? Were my sources in the Pavilion less reliable than I had hoped? That was something to keep in mind for the future, but for now, I needed to get that fire.

“Understood,” I replied to the Seed. “Please leave me the details for the transport you have arranged.”

The trip to Moonlight Dew City was somewhat grueling. I expected it to be in Brilliant Sun or another neighboring domain, but it took a carriage pulled by Rank 3 wind horses six days to reach. I didn’t pay close attention to exactly how far we traveled since I spent my time cultivating, but we had to have crossed through at least one entire empire.

The Seed who accompanied me on this trip was extremely professional. The entire time we were in the carriage, she was reading ledgers and taking notes. I looked at her cultivation and saw that it was only a middle Grandmaster, so I expected her to cultivate more, but she was focused on her work. I was grateful to have someone like her looking after the city so I could focus more on my personal goals.

Moonlight Dew City was in the Cold Moon Empire. It was a small remote border town that must have only barely qualified for the title of city. Nearly all the buildings were dirty and ramshackle, and I had a hard time believing anything of value could be found anywhere in the place.

When we arrived at the auction house, I found that it was a dilapidated building that looked like it only rarely received any visitors. Inside, slightly more than two dozen people were sitting on dusty wooden chairs waiting for the auction to begin.

After the hall was about half full, a portly man walked up on stage to begin the event.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Moonlight Dew Auction House. We have a very special treat for you today. A few brave cultivators from our fair city recently entered a Trial in an attempt to win its inheritance. They did not succeed, unfortunately, but they were able to bring out many fascinating treasures that I am sure will astound and amaze.”

He gestured off to the side. A homely young woman brought out a pedestal covered in a cloth and placed it in the middle of the stage.

“Our first item for today is something no cultivator can do without. It is a weapon of incredible power!”

The woman removed the cloth and revealed a chipped steel sword. It looked ancient and hadn’t been maintained in years if not centuries. Wondering what was so special about it, I looked at it in qi vision.

The sword had lines of metal energy running its entire length concentrated along the cutting edge. I wasn’t sure what they did, so I could only guess that they made it cut better in some way.

“As you know,” said the auctioneer, “refined weapons are extremely rare. Our appraisers have concluded that a Master Refiner took part in the creation of this blade, making it a priceless artifact. This may be the only chance you ever have to buy such a majestic weapon, so think carefully before letting it pass into someone else’s hands. The starting bid is 10,000 gold.”

I looked at the blade closely. I wasn’t sure how much a Master-level refined weapon was worth, but there was no way this blade was worth anywhere near that price. The lines of energy in the blade had gaps and gouges missing. I would be scared of the damn thing exploding if I hit anything with it.

The bids instantly flooded in, though. The final sale price was 32,500 gold. It was insane to pay so much for a shoddy blade, but there are always people with more money than sense.

Several other items went up for auction after the sword, but I ignored them. None of them would help me with my goals.

Slightly after halfway through, the auctioneer removed a cloth to reveal a worn and battered jade box. When he did, the Seed sitting next to me put her hand on my arm and squeezed.

“This box was found at the end of a dangerous corridor where one of our brave citizens risked his life to secure it. We haven’t been able to open it, so we cannot speak to its content, but any item guarded in such a way must be of great value. The starting bid is 100,000 gold.”

I was about to speak up when a young man in bright robes holding a colorful drink shouted. “500,000 gold.”

No one else bid, and the auctioneer was about to start counting down to the close, so I raised my hand. “600,000.”

The man gave me an evil look. “700,000.”

“Eight.”

“Nine!” he shouted.

“One million,” I calmly responded.

“This item belongs to the Wei Clan! Are you challenging the Wei Clan!?” he snarled. “One spirit stone!”

The crowd gasped at this. Most of them had never seen a spirit stone before.

“Five spirit stones,” I nonchalantly responded.

The man threw his drink on the floor. “You’ll regret this!”

The auctioneer looked worried but completed the bidding process. “Five spirit stones. Sold!”

I sat through the rest of the auction in case something interesting came up, but there was nothing useful. Mission complete, it was time to head home.

When the Seed and I stepped out of the auction house, however, a large gang was assembled and waiting for us with the young man from the auction at its front.

“That spirit flame belongs to the Wei Clan. Hand it over and we’ll leave you with a complete corpse.”

I looked at the men around me and saw that none of them were above Martial Grandmaster 1. I could kill them all without lifting a finger by simply locking them down with my will. I stepped forward to take care of them so that I could hurry back to start working on concocting Qi Gathering Pills with my new fire.

Before I could move, the Seed placed her hand on my arm and shook her head.

“Take out your Pavilion badge,” she told me.

Deciding to follow her lead, I reached into my storage bag, pulled out my red-gold badge, and held it up for all of the thugs to see.

The Seed spoke loudly so that everyone could hear. “You are threatening a Pill Lord who is a red-gold member of the Blue Wind Pavilion. Is the Wei family going to war with the Pavilion?”

The crowd immediately froze, and the Seed didn’t wait for a response. She pulled my arm and led me to our carriage at a leisurely pace.

After we were seated inside, she spoke. “They still may attempt to stop us. Probably not, but we should be safe. If they have spirit stones, it means they have a Lord backing them. I will guide the carriage so that we are not followed.”

I let her do what she felt was best. I needed to begin a more important task.

Opening the jade box was a simple process. I only studied it for a short time and was able to easily see through the locking mechanism using qi vision. I inserted my qi in the correct pattern and the lid popped open. I stuck my hand inside and quickly fused with the spirit fire.

After it was successfully absorbed, I began practicing. In the carriage, all I could do was get a basic feel for using it, but I gained an understanding of the differences between Yellow and Profound fires. The core of the difference was their power. Profound spirit fires had a higher quality of energy, and it made them much more difficult to control, but a Peak six-star affinity was just enough.

Once I returned home, I began the real work. With a proper spirit fire in hand, I started making Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills. I couldn’t make Perfect ones, but they were near the peak of High-Purity. I generally disliked taking non-Perfect pills, but it was something that every cultivator did eventually.

Using the pills, I began to rapidly increase my cultivation base and reached Martial Lord 5 in short order.

Unfortunately, while I wanted to spend all my time in seclusion, there were other matters that also required my attention due to my position as city lord.

Chapter 100 – Life 61, Age 44, Martial Lord Peak

A note from G Tolley

Because I believe 100 and 101 are best read together, I have decided to make this a two chapter day. That means no chapter Friday.

Even though problems arose because of the events at the Thunder Groom Selection, Minister Jin still insisted that I attend the Fire Flower Blossoming the following year. She was willing to concede that the associated social gatherings were optional, but she was firm in her stance that I needed to attend the actual competitions themselves if at all possible. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I accepted this as a responsibility I assumed when I became the Water Groom.

At the Fire Flower Blossoming, I sat with Mei in our designated booth. We were both hesitant to speak, so we mainly focused on the stage, but I did glance at her occasionally. She looked more tired than she had the previous year. I wasn’t sure what projects were consuming so much of her energy, but I was slightly concerned about what her blessing’s goals could be.

The tension between us seemed to build as we sat together alone in silence, so I tried my best to diffuse it. “Are you sleeping well?”

She flinched at my words. “Yes. Things have just been busy recently.”

I nodded, but I didn’t know how to continue the conversation, so I returned to watching the competitors. I noticed Mei turned her head slightly toward me, but she quickly jerked it back to focus on the stage below. This made me sigh with regret. I wished I could help her, but her psychological burdens were hers to bear. I had no way to assist with them.

After the competition, I swiftly returned to North Lake City. I wanted to immediately seclude myself again, but I needed to talk to someone about what Mei had been up to. I wasn’t sure who to ask, but since Mo was my Minister of Justice, he should know a little bit about everything happening in the city, so I decided to have a quick consultation with him.

“Minister Mo, do you know what Flower Mei has been doing recently?”

He looked surprised but responded promptly. “Yes, Lord. I told you some time ago that young scions of two of our city’s clans had gotten into an argument. The situation has deteriorated quite a bit since then, with both clans constantly at each other’s throats. This has caused a great deal of damage to the city, and few are willing to offend either clan by trying to stop it. Flower Mei has been working to calm both sides and restore sanity to the situation.”

“Thank you, minister. That is all,” I said, dismissing him.

Such a conflict should have involved the city lord, and I should have gone out to put a stop to the chaos myself, but no one had come to inform me of the escalating nature of the situation. It seemed Mei’s blessing was trying to keep me away from it.

I wasn’t sure what game she was playing by putting herself in the middle of such a conflict, but I would allow it to happen. In the end, this city wasn’t important to me. It was only a means to accrue karmic energy and test some of my ideas. If Mei’s blessing wanted to do something to it, I would let it.

I needed to return to work.

As the years passed, my cultivation grew rapidly. With the new production lines in place and the beginning of new herb farms to feed them, the karmic energy I gained from the city accumulated faster than I could spend it.

This growth in karmic energy production was slightly surprising. I thought the effect of the factory would taper off as the benefits from the pills plateaued over time.

Nearly everyone in the city who needed a Nutrition Pill was provided one within the first year, and I didn’t expect the continual supply to have much of an effect. My working assumption had been that making everyone healthy would have a large impact, but keeping them healthy would at most keep karmic energy production constant. However, the rate at which it accumulated only continued to grow.

This could partly be explained by the additional production lines we created for new pills, but it still seemed like far too much. None of my other projects were of much benefit to the city, so I could only conclude my original assumptions about karmic energy production were wrong.

When I was 39 years old, this influx of energy allowed me to break through twice, reaching Martial Lord 7. From there, I broke through one stage each year, reaching Martial Lord Peak when I was 42 years old.

At that point, I had two years left as a city lord. It didn’t matter how much Lord-level karmic energy I built up, I would never be able to use it to break through to Martial King. However, I spent another year stockpiling enough reserves that I would be able to use it to ascend to False King if necessary.

Once all my possible needs for karmic energy were met, I still had over a year in the position of city lord and no use for the energy it gained me. Instead of wasting it, Minister Jin helped me through the process of naming Mei the nominal lord for that remaining year. During her reign, she had only reached Martial Lord 6. This nominal lordship should allow her to reach Martial Lord 8. Mei had helped manage the city during my long absences, and this was the only thing I knew to do for her in return.

I had begun secluding myself more and more the longer my reign persisted, and it helped me reap many rewards. The Hu clan and I developed production lines for over half a dozen simple pills, and my alchemy skills had reached new heights. I wasn’t able to concoct any Perfect Rank 4 pills because of my lacking affinities, but I could make well over half of the pills in Emperor Li’s book at the peak of High-Purity.

I had stopped having council meetings so I could focus on my work, which meant I only saw Mei once a year at the Flower Blossomings and Groom Selections. She seemed to be aging rapidly, and in later years she seemed visibly exhausted. I was angry about what her blessing was doing to her, but it wasn’t my place to intervene.

She seemed to want to talk to me a few times during these events, but the words got stuck in her throat. I considered trying to say something to start the conversation myself, but I didn’t know how.

Finally, after nine years as Lord of North Lake City, it was time for me to step down and for a new Water Flower to Blossom.

Before a Flower Blossoming, there was a celebration among the city’s Rulers to mark the blooming of the outgoing Flower. This was the final event I would take part in as Lord of North Lake City, and I was more than ready to shed that title.

The celebration took place in the grand ballroom of the palace at the top of the mountain in the center of Hundred Flower City. I entered alone to see dozens of Lords and Kings from years past talking and mingling while a small band played music in the background.

As I had during the Thunder Groom Selection’s party, I snuck through the ballroom and quietly secluded myself in the designated area for the Water Flower and Groom.

As I was skulking around the rear of the ballroom, I heard a loud commotion drawing ever nearer. There were sounds of congratulations and cheering and no lack of well wishes. It only took a moment for me to see what had caused such a scene.

In the middle of a large group of adoring Lords, I saw Mei walking toward the area of the room I was in. She was the most beautiful I’d ever seen. Her face showed only the barest hints of makeup, and her naturally red lips and cheeks contrasted against her pale jade skin, giving her the appearance of an immortal descended from above. She was wearing a form-fitting dark blue dress with silver highlights, and an unusual scarf of the purest white silk hung around her neck.

While countless Rulers were trying to get her attention, she didn’t stop to talk with any of them. She headed straight for me. When she reached me, she looked me straight in the eye and held my gaze for the first time in two decades.

A large, warm smile graced her face. She looked happier than I had ever seen her before.

“Fang, come dance with me.”

She didn’t allow me to refuse. She grabbed my arm like a young girl and hauled me to an open area in front of the small band.

I didn’t know how to dance, but Mei didn’t care. She twirled and weaved around me like a fairy in the middle of summer. The entire time, the white silk scarf around her neck twisted and turned with her movements as if it had a will of its own.

During a slower dance, Mei looked at me. “Fang, do you ever think about the future?”

“Yes,” I replied with confidence. “I think the pill factory designs are nearly complete. I will need to start spending more time researching the Brilliant Sun Empire. I need to find out what could be there that might interest a Formation Emperor, and I need to learn how I can get in contact with the royal family to pitch my idea for building them a factory.”

Mei smiled as I talked about my plans. “That’s good. I know you can succeed.”

The ball lasted for hours, and with Mei as a constant companion, the time passed far more quickly than I expected. I felt myself begin to relax and almost enjoy the event.

But as with all things, the night eventually drew to an end.

After returning to the City Lord’s Complex, I was ready to return to my studies with renewed energy. With the new Flower on the way, I would need to find a new residence the next day, and I had to finish a few projects first.

Before separating, Mei tenderly cupped my cheek with her hand.

“Thank you for tonight, Fang. I’m finally free.” With those final words, she departed, her scarf trailing after her.

The next morning while I was in my workshop, one of Mei’s Seeds burst in with a frantic look on her face.

“Lord Su, Flower Mei… Mei… One of her servants found her earlier today alone in her room with a white silk cloth around her neck. She… committed suicide, Lord. She’s dead.”

I stared at the young woman. Mei was dead? She committed suicide? She seemed so happy the previous night.

Realization struck me.

“Bastard…” Her damn blessing had driven her to suicide.

Why? What was it trying to get from me? Did it want me to feel pity and help her more in the next life? Did it want me to stay away from her? It was impossible to know, and it was impossible to second guess. No matter how I reacted, it would be exactly the reaction her blessing wanted. I cursed, but I couldn’t do anything to thwart her blessing’s machinations.

As I was about to react further, my body froze. I didn’t know what to do.

Mei’s death was tragic, but I couldn’t do anything about it anymore. I needed to return to work. She wasn’t dead forever after all, and I had to remain focused on what mattered.

I felt these thoughts were wrong deep in my soul, but it was impossible to express my feelings. I needed to see Mei’s body, to say goodbye, to say… something. A funeral… I had to arrange a funeral, right?

The thoughts of my body and the desires of my soul began to war against each other. I felt a fracture form between the two, cleaving my mind in half.

I wanted to visit Mei. I needed to return to my work. I felt I should say goodbye. I knew it wasn’t goodbye, so it didn’t matter.

I had to set aside my feelings for the moment. What was really important? Was it saying goodbye to someone I’d see in a few years anyway, or was it working to acquire the fire seed?

The thoughts of my body triumphed against my weaker soul. I returned to work.

A note from G Tolley

For information on the intended imagery, you can look at this page about gifting someone white silk.

Chapter 101 – Life 61, Age 45, Martial Lord Peak

A note from G Tolley

Today is a two chapter day. If you haven't read 100, you really, REALLY, need to read it first.

My thoughts remained focused on my work during the year following Mei's death.

Any time my riven mind drifted to Mei’s death, my entire being would freeze as the thoughts of my body and the feelings of my soul warred against each other.

I knew her death was caused by her blessing working to manipulate me in future lives. I just didn’t understand what its goal was. I knew it was impossible for me to outthink something that could predict my every reaction, so my thoughts kept trying to make me move on and focus on what was important. My soul, however, kept returning to the last moment I saw Mei alive.

That genuine smile of warmth didn’t come from her blessing. Her blessing couldn’t mess with me directly like that anymore. Was it possible that her blessing alone was responsible for driving her to suicide in such a short timeframe? I felt that was nonsense. There had to be more to the story, but my feelings didn’t hold any sway over my body.

Both body and soul were glad my time as city lord had come to an end. For the last two years, the title of city lord had been nothing but a distraction. There was no longer much I could learn from the position that would help me in my mission to acquire the spatial seed, so any participation in the city’s governance was nothing but a distraction.

With the title shed, I no longer needed to plan the future of the pill factory or associated farms, and I didn’t need to think about training disciples. Mei had helped take care of most things for me, but a city lord still had a few responsibilities even after everything was delegated out. Having stepped down from the position, I was free of them and could do whatever I wanted.

I needed to keep my focus on my ultimate goal. In a hundred years, Formation Emperor Du XiongMing would die, and I needed to find a way to be next to him when he did.

I needed to form a connection with the ruling family of Brilliant Sun, and I was already in a position to do just that. I was a decent Pill Lord and had designs for a revolutionary pill factory in hand. The problem was that I couldn’t teach formations this life without risking long-term consequences thanks to my oath connected to the Heavenly Dao, so using anything formation-related to form a connection to the empire was currently impossible.

I needed to understand the events that led to the Formation Emperor’s death. I knew nothing about the cause of his death or why he was even in the Brilliant Sun Empire to begin with. If I gained that knowledge, I would be able to set up a plan for acquiring the seed in my next life much more easily. That would be my task for the rest of this life.

Slowly, the thoughts began to converge, gaining a firmer hold over my mind. I regained my focus.

My connections in the kingdom were still in place even though I was no longer a city lord. I could slowly work on raising my alchemy skills while time passed around me. After a hundred years, I just needed to pay for news about the events in Brilliant Sun, and then everything I needed to do in this life would be complete.

That last thought made me smile. I felt happy because that would mean this life could be over once the job was complete.

I took a carriage out of North Lake City and returned to the capital. I booked a room in the Pavilion Residences, and after a long day of rest, I headed to the Workshops to begin my seclusion.

That plan was to let the world drift by for a hundred years, but it only took one for the peace and tranquility of my seclusion to be broken.

I was working late at night when the door of my workshop burst open in a shower of splinters.

Standing in the doorway was someone I hadn’t seen in decades. SuYin.

She was dressed in a ragged, travel-stained robe. Her hair was a mess, and tears were streaming down her face.

“What did you do? What did you do, you bastard?” Tears were streaming down her face.

I looked at her blankly. My mind couldn’t process what was happening. Why was SuYin here?

“What?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Mei! What the hell did you do to her?”

I dropped my head and slowly shook it. “It wasn’t me. Her blessing drove her to suicide for some reason. I still don’t understand it.”

SuYin moved faster than I could see. She appeared directly in front of me and slapped me across the face. The strike was so powerful it knocked me off my feet.

I looked at SuYin with wide eyes. She had to be at least a Peak Lord. My thoughts began to wonder if there was something here that could prove useful, but before they could think too much, SuYin snapped me back to the present.

“Don’t you dare say that,” she snarled. “You think I don’t know what’s been going on?”

She reached into a storage bag, pulled out a stack of letters, and slammed them down on my workbench, nearly cracking it in half.

“Mei sent me letters. She told me how you’ve been treating her. Don’t you dare say it was her blessing that forced anything.”

I stared at the stack of letters. Without looking at SuYin, I picked the top one off the stack. The letter was smudged and tear-stained. The writing was barely legible.

————

Yinyin,

I need to talk to someone, and I don’t know who else can understand.

I just met with Fang. He— The way he talked— It’s like he didn’t see me as a human. He spoke about me like I was only a puppet being played with by my blessing.

He— He did something to me. He took away the voices. Whenever I look at him, everything is silent now. I don’t know what to do. When I look at him, my emotions overwhelm me. It’s like everything the voices have been suppressing is released all at once. The feeling is terrifying.

After that, he just left. I— I don’t think he wants to talk to me anymore. I don’t know what to do. Please, I don’t know if you can come here, but please write. I need a friend.

-Mei

————

I picked up the next letter in the stack.

————

Yinyin,

It’s been a year and Fang still hasn’t contacted me. I don’t know what’s going on. I tried to send him messages, but I haven’t heard anything from him. I don’t know if he isn’t getting them, simply not responding, or just choosing to not even read them.

I can’t leave the city to go find him. I’m barely keeping things together here. I don’t know what to do.

————

Yinyin,

I finally saw Fang again today. It was at the selection for my husband, and he decided to participate, but I was too terrified to look at him. If I did, and the voices disappeared again, I would have broken down in front of everyone.

There were a few other guys in the final selection, and I tried to use them to get a better understanding of the situation, but it didn’t help. It’s so frustrating not knowing how to act around him. I don’t know what I should do.

Because of this damn ceremony, we’re going to be husband and wife now and I haven’t even spoken to him for over a decade. I can’t help but be afraid of being alone with him, but maybe if we can just talk to each other, if we can reconnect…

————

I flipped through the stack and picked up the last envelope.

————

Yinyin,

I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore. I think he is as afraid of talking with me as I am of talking with him.

It’s my last day as his Flower, and after this, I won’t serve any purpose any longer. I think he will cut me loose. I don’t know what to do. Thanks to his gifts, I can live another 400 years, but what is the point? Why live so long when there is nothing more to do?

I’ve decided to be his wife for the rest of my life, and there’s only one way that can happen.

Take care, Yinyin. I hope you have a happy life.

-Mei

————

I stared at the letters as thoughts raced through my mind.

The entire time I was reading, SuYin stood over me, glaring down at me.

“What voices?” I asked. I had never heard Mei talk about any voices.

“Did you ever even talk to your wife?” she exploded. “Mei's ‘blessing’ was a stream of incessant voices in her head that she couldn’t understand. They constantly suppressed her emotions, even when alone. Her feelings existed, and she knew what they were, but those feelings were blocked from affecting her body. When she looked at someone, some of the voices would get louder, pulling and tugging at her thoughts and emotions to give her information about how to behave.”

Slumped on the floor, I thought about everything I knew about Mei and tried to match it with what I had just read.

My thoughts began trying to find ways to use this new knowledge to accomplish my goals, but the mechanics of how her blessing operated wouldn’t make much difference. These revelations provided little to help me acquire the fire seed.

I began to feel that having Mei with me would be a benefit to my pursuits, though. If I were to go back to the beginning, I could start over and bring her along to help me.

Those feelings made me realize something.

“I was wrong. Even when she was alone, her damn blessing was controlling her. It could even get her to write these things,” I muttered. “It’s still trying to manipulate me.”

SuYin kicked me in the side of the head and left me sprawled on the floor.

She took a storage bag from her waist and threw it at my chest.

“Mei told me what you were doing. This is what she wanted me to give you. We’re done. Never contact me again.”

Before I could respond, SuYin stormed out of the workshop.

I felt I should chase after her, but I knew I shouldn’t. There was nothing I could say. SuYin was just…

I slowly bent my body to sit up. I ran my hands through my hair to calm down.

SuYin had been affected by Mei, she had to be. She and Mei spent a lot of time training together back when we were in the Pavilion, and SuYin never forgot anything. Every little thing Mei was forced to do would have left an impression on her.

I breathed out. My thoughts took a firm hold over my body, making me focus on what was important, granting me a moment of clarity. I needed to work harder to get the fire seed.

Tears began to stream down my cheeks, but my body paid them no attention. It began categorizing the contents of the storage bag. From what SuYin had said, it contained things Mei’s blessing thought I needed, so it should at least be helpful with what I needed to do in Brilliant Sun. I couldn’t trust her blessing, but I would accept its help.

Inside the bag was a wealth of technique manuals. The highlight was a set of Mid-Earth wood qi cultivation techniques for the Warrior tier. Aside from that, all the other manuals seemed to be basic techniques that were useful for growing low-level herbs.

When I set up an herb farm in Brilliant Sun, these would indeed be extremely useful.

The bag also contained a few assorted seeds that I didn’t recognize. With no idea how to use them, I tossed them in my storage space since they were small enough to fit and might be something I would want to hang onto after death.

I quickly read through all the manuals, storing the information in my mental library. After that, it was time to decide where to go from here. For the first time since Mei’s death, my body and soul began to work together to plot out how I should proceed.

My thoughts wanted me to stay the course. Living in the Eight Flower Kingdom was safe, especially if I stayed within the Blue Wind Pavilion buildings. There would be no worrying about surviving until the Formation Emperor died, and after that, I would be able to gain a wealth of knowledge that would help me snatch it in my next life.

My feelings argued against this. There was no way I could know what would happen in a hundred years. Better to go to Brilliant now and begin establishing a foundation. If I acted quickly enough, it was even possible I would be able to grab the seed in this life, saving a significant amount of time. I needed to hurry. If I tried to be too safe, I might miss something important.

I thought that made a lot of sense. My goal was to get the seed as quickly as possible. Why was I so set on waiting until my next life? I needed to get it sooner. It was more dangerous, but I wouldn’t be losing much if I failed. I decided risking a couple of decades to save a century was a good bet.

However, before I rushed to Brilliant Sun, both my thoughts and feelings agreed there was something I needed to accomplish first. Making a journey that had a high chance of my death meant I needed to prepare for a restart, and of all my possessions, the one I was most hesitant to lose was Emperor Li’s book. Before I died, I needed to try and save as much of it as I could.

I tried several tricks to smuggle information into my mental library, such as copying slightly incorrect information or storing only mnemonics, but nothing worked. Anything that would help me access Rank 4 information was banned from the library. So, I had no other option but to try and memorize it the old-fashioned way.

I chose which parts of the book to memorize carefully. Some of it was simplistic information I had already advanced beyond. While basic information would be useful to have as reference material, it wasn’t critical. Some parts were at a level far beyond what I had reached, and I could barely understand them. These parts were also discarded since they would be too difficult to memorize. I focused only on the sections that discussed topics slightly more advanced than my current level and memorized them to the best of my ability.

In the end, I spent over two years this way. The focus on my studies over these years caused the memory of SuYin’s visit to fade. I could think about it later, after my mission was complete.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 102 – Life 61, Age 47, Martial Lord Peak

I wasn’t sure what my trip to the Brilliant Sun Empire would entail, so I made thorough preparations beforehand. I needed to stock my storage space well just in case the journey proved to be fatal.

Pill Emperor Li had left me with three items. A book, a box, and a coin. The first two were too large to keep, but the coin was by far the most important to me anyway. I didn’t know what its significance was, but it was the first thing I stored away to take with me.

Another important treasure I needed to keep was the small pouch of seeds given to me by SuYin. I didn’t know what they were, but if Mei wanted me to have them, I felt that they must be important.

Next were pills. In the past, I always took cultivation resources back with me, but I had never needed them. Getting basic herbs for cultivation pills was easy, so they were just taking up space. Instead, the most important pill to take with me was the Nutrition Pill. The original Su Fang’s body was a mess, and I had relied on a Rank 1 healing pill to fix it. It did a decent job, but a Nutrition Pill could help further heal my body during those early stages.

The only other pills I decided to take with me were poison pills. I needed to be able to die as quickly as possible, no matter the situation. I had no idea how much effect the Rank 3 poison I had made in the past would have on a Lord or King, so I reformulated it with the most powerful Rank 4 herbs I could. I didn’t have a Lord to test it on, but I was confident it would do the job.

I went through everything else I had or could get, and there was nothing else I thought I needed to take. Spirit stones would be nice, but with access to the right herbs, I could earn them easily enough. I pocketed a little loose change, just to be safe, but other than that, I didn’t think there was anything I really needed.

So, it was time to start on Emperor Li’s book. My first idea was to try and copy down all of its information onto small, thin pieces of paper that I could safely place in my storage space. When I tried that though, my writing became smudged and illegible. No matter how many times I wrote down the information, no matter how careful I was, the final result was an illegible mess.

This strange effect seemed to only apply to the parts of the book I couldn’t understand. Everything from the simplest parts to the most difficult passages I had memorized were able to be copied without issue, but the parts of the book beyond my understanding would twist and turn as I tried to write them.

I could copy things I didn’t know, but I couldn’t copy things I was incapable of understanding.

That being the case, I began doing something I considered nearly sacrilegious. I couldn’t take Emperor Li’s book with me. It was simply too large. However, it was made of paper. I began ripping out every page that covered topics too advanced for me to understand. This hurt their value since they no longer retained the context of the entire book, but I had to accept that loss. I folded the papers and crammed as many as I could into my storage space, saving as much of the book as I could.

I looked at the jade box that contained the spirit fire he had given me. I never got to use it because of my lacking affinities. It was a shame. Maybe in a future life I would have another opportunity to try it out.

With the storage in my soul filled with what I wanted to keep, I packed my storage bag with all of the sundry goods that might be useful on a trip to Brilliant Sun then left to arrange transport.

My first thought was to use a Pavilion coach because it would be safe, and it would let me enter the empire in style. Delivered to the Blue Wind Pavilion, I would announce myself as a Pill Lord, apply to upgrade my red-gold badge to two-stars, take the test, and use it to grab the Royal Family’s attention with the same method that had made me stand out when I first entered Eight Flower.

The more my thoughts traveled down that direction, the more uneasy I felt.

My soul used all of its remaining strength to force my mind to accept a different plan. I needed to travel in a more low-key manner. I needed to understand the location terrain before making a show of myself. With those thoughts firmly planted in my head, I went to the Heaven District and boarded a somewhat worn-out carriage that was going to the Brilliant Sun Empire.

Not long after the carriage crossed the border, its rocking, bumpy movement came to an abrupt halt. Wondering what the problem was, I looked out the window and saw that we were completely surrounded by uniformed men on horses.

“Alchemist Su, please step out of the carriage,” boomed a loud voice.

With an impassive face, I opened the door and stepped out.

A group of three people approached me. In front was a middle-aged man in a bright red uniform with a military bearing about him. He stood stiff and straight, and he carried a blade at his hip.

On the left was an elderly man in black robes who seemed to have his head perpetually bowed. I assumed he was a servant or personal guard.

On the right was the former queen of the Eight Flower Kingdom.

“Queen Duge,” I nodded in acknowledgment.

She smirked. “My term recently ended, so I am no longer a queen. You may refer to me by my martial title. King Duge.”

“King Duge,” I bowed my head once more. “How may I help you on this fine day?”

“Alchemist Su, our kingdom is in dire need of your services, so I must regretfully conscript you. Please follow us to your posting.”

I wanted to laugh but held it in. “I assume I don’t have a choice in this matter?”

Her eyes narrowed. “No, you don’t.”

“Very well, lead the way.”

The man at the front gestured to a nearby soldier.

“Alchemist Su, please hand over any storage bag in your possession.”

I handed it over without comment. When I did, the soldier looked at his leader who nodded. This made me think the leader had some way to check if I had other hidden storage items.

“This way sir,” said the soldier, leading me away.

The carriage he took me to was much nicer than the one I had been riding in. The seats were well upholstered and had thick cushions. Its suspension was good enough that I barely noticed any movement as we traveled down a rocky road.

I was brought out of the carriage by a team of guards who watched my every movement and was ushered into an opulent courtyard mansion.

“Alchemist Su,” said the former queen, entering after I did. “What do you think of your new home? We’ve tried to provide you with every luxury available.”

I looked at the solid wood furniture, the delicate porcelains, and the gilded decorations.

“What do you want?”

“Direct as ever,” the queen smirked. “As we discussed before, I want the information about the formations used to create pills. Once I have it, this lovely manor is yours.”

I shook my head. “I told you. I’m bound by oaths. I cannot disclose any information about formations.”

She grinned. “Of course, but I’m no stranger to those pesky oaths. They only matter in Eight Flower. Here, even if you break them, nothing will happen.”

It was true, in a way. As long as I never returned to Eight Flower, it wouldn’t matter if I broke an oath because the only enforcement mechanism was the kingdom’s formation. However, since my oath was connected through the Heavenly Dao, I was pretty confident breaking it would have serious long-term implications for future lives.

“Sorry, Qu— King Duge. I will not break my oath.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Excellent, that’s what I was hoping for. I love a man with conviction.”

She clapped her hands twice, a servant entered, and the queen nodded at him.

“This way, sir,” the servant said in a dry voice.

I didn’t fight the process. It wouldn’t have done any good, and besides, I wanted to see what they had planned for me.

The servant led me down a flight of stairs into a stark stone basement. There was very little light, and it smelled of mildew.

The basement was a large open space with an alchemy workbench and bed, but a line of rusty iron bars crossed the length of the room, separating the exit from the living space. The servant opened a door and gestured for me to enter.

I did so, and he closed the door behind me.

I looked back at him. “You do realize that I’m a Martial Lord, right? I’m pretty sure I can easily bend simple rusted iron at point, let alone melt it with my fire.”

He looked at me impassively. “Sir, the bars are there for your protection. If you try to force your way across, a formation will activate, and you will be seriously injured. None of us would like that to happen.”

“Thank you for the consideration, then.”

“Of course, sir. The lady has asked me to inform you of her orders. You are to begin explaining your formation designs within a week. If you do not, we will begin to take more forceful measures that you will not enjoy. I will give you time to get settled and come back to check on your decision tomorrow. I apologize for any inconvenience you may have suffered.”

“Thank you for the hospitality,” I said in as polite a manner as I could. “See you tomorrow.”

The servant left me alone in the damp, dark cell to ponder my future if I didn’t comply.

A deep sense of hopelessness welled up within me. It was a feeling that nothing would matter at this point. There was no way to escape. My captors would never let me leave. They might make my accommodations better, they might treat me like royalty, but they will never give me my freedom. My entire soul burned with the knowledge that there was no way of achieving my goals in this life.

I felt a subtle shift in my thoughts. I began to think more clearly about how I must proceed. I couldn’t escape, but that didn’t mean my life was already over.

I sat down in the middle of the cell and started cultivating.

I was a Peak Lord and couldn’t break through to Martial King without kingdom-level karma, which I would never receive in this life. However, I did have a significant reserve of city-level karma stashed away in my dantian ready to use.

I had long ago cultivated to the limit of the Lord realm, and in that cell, I began to push further. As I pushed more and more qi into my core, the density increased further than ever before, but breaking through the wall of true advancement was impossible.

I kept pushing. Cracks started to appear on my core. The wall blocking me from advancing was as solid as ever, but my core could no longer withstand the pressure. I kept pushing.

When my core neared its breaking point, I braided all my reserves of karmic energy into my qi and shoved it into my core.

My core imploded.

Instead of bursting outward, the shards of my broken core rushed to the center of the concentrated qi it had once contained.

The world shattered, and I felt an opening to one of the chains binding me to this world at the center of the maelstrom of qi and karmic energy. I took every remaining bit of energy in my body and threw it at that chain.

The chain was far thicker and more durable than the ones I had broken in the past. This time, with everything I could throw at it, it didn’t break, but it did crack just the slightest bit. That was enough. I felt the laws of the world loosen their restrictions on me, if only slightly.

I had advanced to False King.

I collapsed onto the floor. My body was exhausted, and my qi was completely depleted. I wanted to lay there for the rest of my life.

The sound of clapping echoed through my cell. I turned my head to see the queen on the other side of the bars.

“I was wondering what was causing such a ruckus down here. You certainly do put on an excellent show. Congratulations on your advancement, but I will warn you, a False King has no better chance at escaping from here than a Lord does.”

Laying sprawled on the floor in my weary state, I still found the energy to smile at her.

“That… that is something I agree with.”

I mentally opened my storage space and sent a poison pill directly into my mouth. Before the queen understood what was happening, the pill dissolved in my mouth and poison entered my body.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a False Martial King. 200,000,000 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 200,000,000

Chapter 103 – Life 62, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Upon death, memories of my past lives were stored in my soul. As time passed, they would slowly be pushed further down, causing me to not think too deeply about them unless I actively sought to recall something.

Sitting in my tiny shack in the Su Clan, I focused on the memories from the life that just ended and did everything I could to keep them from fading. I needed to understand what happened to me. I needed to understand what went wrong.

My soul was in tatters. Fighting against my body for so long. Cutting itself away and breaking my mind into two. My soul had experienced more trauma than I had ever thought possible. I had pushed myself to the absolute limit to defeat my cultivation-mad body, and I had only barely been able to force myself in a position where it was possible to bring that life to an end.

Memories of my past life passed over through my mind. I started to remember everything that happened with M–

My soul began to collapse even further. I quickly created a barrier in my mind, willing a wall to block me from thinking about the last years of my life. I wasn’t ready to face that. Not yet.

I took a deep breath.

If I only counted gains and losses, my last life was a huge success. I had gained hundreds of millions of credits, skills beyond what I could have hoped for, and ideas that could change the entire continent.

On a personal level, though, the life had been a complete mess.

What went wrong? When did everything start spiraling out of control?

I thought back to when I had created my dantian. I wasn’t being careful. I’d made mistakes, and it was leaking qi from the very beginning, but I had never considered it important enough to go back and fix. Possibly, my errors at that stage had caused my mental state to become more unbalanced than it should’ve been. Possibly, ascending to Lord had some kind of amplifying effect on the mental state of cultivators that I was unaware of. I just wasn’t sure.

When I had purchased the cultivation technique from the system, I had requested it to do three things. The first was to enhance my personability. In retrospect, this had clear limitations. My social skills have always been limited. The cultivation technique only did its best to force me to act in what I thought was an appropriate manner, but my own limitations stopped it from being as effective as it otherwise might have been.

When addressing my ministers, I did my best to be what I thought was required, to be ‘lordly.’ When I talked with Her, I did my best to appear to be a friend. When I talked with the various clans, I tried to be a good negotiator. These attempts were all flawed by my own inability to handle the different situations.

This was most evident in how I had dealt with the queen. I had been told not to reject her, but how was I supposed to do that? She was the type of person who wouldn’t take no for an answer. How do I approach a situation where I can neither agree nor refuse? I don’t know how to handle that. My inability to do so is what caused that interaction to end so poorly.

From what I could tell, though, that part of my cultivation technique had little impact on how things ended. It did its part, and it was part of the reason I acted the way I did, but it was the other two aspects of my technique that had determined the final outcome.

I designed my cultivation technique to be exactly what I thought I wanted: dedication and focus. Focus on what I wanted to do. Dedicate myself to a task. I had never survived more than 80 years after a restart, but cultivators are supposed to be able to live for hundreds. For a Lord, it was possible to live to be 400 years old. If I were to live that long, dedication and focus had seemed to be important traits that would keep me on track and doing what I needed to do.

Well, it worked. I set myself the goal of getting the fire seed as early as possible. Early in that life, I had felt lost and undirected, so I had decided to simply follow Her wherever She felt She needed to go. After I set out on my own, though, it was the cultivation technique that kept me working and moving forward.

I had to acknowledge that I probably wouldn’t have achieved even half of what I did in that life if it weren’t for the cultivation technique continually forcing me to improve my alchemy and formation abilities and to research how to connect the two together. I was grateful that it had helped me in that regard. Even after everything, I couldn’t help but feel that having those impulses pushing me forward was extremely beneficial.

However, the problem was that I had completely lost control of them. The more I dedicated myself to the task of getting the fire seed, the more the dedication from the cultivation technique seemed to reinforce itself. The longer it went on, the harder it was to focus on anything that didn’t directly relate to acquiring the fire seed as soon as possible. At the end, I wanted to die. I needed to die. But I couldn’t kill myself. Anytime I tried to think about doing so, I was snapped back to thoughts of how to push further forward in acquiring the seed. Tricking my mind that a path toward certain death was the best way to acquire the seed had been my only recourse.

I didn’t know what the right balance was, and I didn’t know how to achieve that balance. I wanted to have the ability to put myself into a state of hyperfocus, where I could ignore everything around me, but having it completely out of my control was unacceptable.

I could not let my cultivation technique control me anymore. I need to find a way to control it.

With the general whys and wherefores firmly planted in my mind, I tried to slightly lower the wall protecting myself from what happened at the end.

My soul shuddered.

I had read Her letters to SuYin. That meant they were now part of my mental library, and they would stay there for as long as I lived. I would never be able to forget what She wrote in them. I could put it out of my mind, but it would still be there, waiting for me.

I didn’t understand my relationship with Her. Even after reading the letters, even after everything, I still felt scared of Her. I could believe that She meant me no harm. I could believe that She, the woman, only wanted a friend and companion, but even after SuYin explained more about how it worked, I was still afraid of Her blessing.

I could appreciate what SuYin said about how it affected Her, about how it drove Her mad. I could accept that it might not be as omniscient as I had convinced myself it was. What I couldn’t do was convince myself that it was benign. No matter what, one truth remained above everything else. I never knew what She was thinking. I only know how She appeared to act.

That thought made me laugh. I only knew how She appeared to act, but I didn’t know what She was thinking. Was SuYin any different? Did I have any better idea of what anyone was thinking? All I saw was the mask they wore, and everything else was a guess.

Thinking back through everyone I had known in this world, everyone I knew in my previous world, how well did I know what any of them were really thinking? I didn’t have the tools to understand people. I didn’t have the capacity within me to grasp how anybody really felt.

Did people like me? Did people want to help me? Throughout everything, I’ve always assumed the worst about people. I always assumed they just wanted to take from me. so I began to focus on what I could take from them.

Elder Mu in the Twin Mountains Sect. When he had transferred me to the Eyes, I cast aside any obligations I felt I had toward the man, but was Elder Mu truly so heartless to me? What if he was only doing what he thought was best for me and my understanding of his actions was completely off base?

What about Jiao? She treated me like a friend, but after being sent to her faction, I began to treat her as nothing more than a random business partner I barely knew.

I treated everyone as if they were mercenaries only looking out for their own interests. In doing so, I became what I thought they were.

I needed to be better.

Taking everything into account, I decided to make two purchases.

First, I needed to purchase something I’d been putting off for far too long. I had convinced myself that I would be able to control the mental influences of cultivation techniques if I used them properly. I had convinced myself that if I had the perfect cultivation technique, with the exact mental effects I wanted, it wouldn’t be so bad. These were lies that I could no longer keep telling myself. I needed a real solution.

Long ago, I had tried to purchase a cultivation technique from the system that didn’t have any mental influences. I learned that would be impossible, so I gave up on the idea and instead focused on personal improvement to try to overcome the situation. I took my susceptibility to cultivation techniques as a personal failing. While that may be true, I couldn’t continue with the status quo. I needed to change something.

“System, I want to purchase resistance to the mental effects of cultivation techniques without lessening their effectiveness. I want to purchase as much resistance as possible for 25 million credits.”

Mental Resistance to Cultivation Techniques. Cost: 25,000,000 credits. Confirmed. 175,000,000 credits remaining.

I didn’t know how much 25 million would help me. It was possible that such a purchase would barely have any effect at all. I didn’t care. I needed to do something. I needed to feel like I was doing something to protect myself.

The second purchase was something else that I needed. It wouldn’t help me cultivate. It wouldn’t help me become more powerful. It wouldn’t help me reach immortality. It would only help me live a more normal life.

“System, I want to purchase an aptitude for learning how to read other people's thoughts and emotions based on their behavior. A comprehension boost for social skills. I want it to help me learn to understand how people feel. I want it to help me understand the true thoughts of even someone like Her who may have their emotions suppressed or controlled, whether by their blessing or another entity. I want this to at least help me with anybody that doesn’t have a blessing specifically guarding them from being read in such a way. I want to purchase as much comprehension as possible with twenty-five million credits.

Increased social comprehension. Cost: 25,000,000 credits. Confirmed. 150,000,000 credits remaining.

I spent a quarter of my credits on two things that would not help me advance, but they were things that needed to be purchased. I could worry about becoming a better cultivator, becoming a better Lord, becoming a better alchemist… I could worry about these things later. I needed things that would help me be a better me.

I had many more credits to spend, but I wasn’t in a rush. I didn’t want to jump back into the grind of trying to become the best cultivator in the world. I wanted a simple life. I wanted… I wanted to be able to relax. I had to take some time for myself.

Even as those thoughts passed through my head, urges within me pushed me in a different direction. I thought about the fire seed that I had spent so much time and energy trying to acquire. I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been worth everything I’d put myself through. I wanted to know. I wanted to at least see the seed, to hold it, and to know if it was worth it.

I decided that I would live a quiet life, but at the same time, I wouldn’t waste my time.

Deciding on a course of action, I chose my destination. I needed to travel a long way to get where I needed to go, but the thought of going to the Blue Wind Pavilion… The thought of running into a young girl at the entrance… I couldn’t handle that situation. I had to do something different.

“System, how much to teleport me directly to a discrete spot in the capital of the Brilliant Sun Empire?”

Cost 26,725 credits.

In the past, that amount would have been an impossible dream, but now it was a rounding error.

“Confirm.”

Purchase confirmed. 149,973,275 credits remaining.

A note from G Tolley

As a reminder, no chapter tomorrow because of the double chapter Tuesday.

Chapter 104 – Life 62, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

I appeared in a dirty alley. After taking a quick look around, I headed in the direction that sounded the noisiest. The alley opened onto a street that felt oddly familiar. Old women were selling vegetables from blankets lying on the ground, and busy men and women could be seen everywhere, hauling boxes and guiding wagons. It looked a lot like where I always appeared in Dragon Gate City.

The architecture of this city didn’t feel too dissimilar from the Wastes. The common blue brick and yellow tiled construction was evident everywhere. However, the buildings here were much taller. Most reached at least four stories, with some over six.

The clothes were of a slightly different cut. The collars, hem, and trims were all a bit off from what I was used to, but it was all subtle. My clothes might have marked me as a foreigner, but their tattered state put me in the same economic class as the people here, so no one gave me a second glance.

As I looked around, I began to wander aimlessly through the streets. I had teleported here without any real idea of what I wanted. I wanted a normal life, but I didn’t even know what that meant. I had no idea how normal people lived. All my time had been spent with cultivators. The only true mortals I had ever really talked to were the Pavilion attendants.

What was a mortal anyway? The general answer seemed to be anyone weaker than yourself. For low-level disciples, a Martial Disciple 1 was a mortal. For high-level Disciples, anyone up to Martial Disciple 3 or 4 might be a mortal. For a Martial Master, any Martial Disciple could be seen as a mortal.

As I looked around at people who had never cultivated in their lives, I had to wonder if it was even correct to call them Martial Disciple 1. That’s how the system had referred to me when I died without having cultivated. If everybody was a Disciple, then were Disciples mortals?

The nature of mortality filled my mind, and I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. I was just walking. As the day began to fade, my stomach began to growl. I needed to find a place to sleep for the night. I needed to find a meal. Where could I go?

After a bit more wandering, I found a street full of vendors selling various foods to the passersby, so I approached to buy something to eat.

There were people selling some type of bun, people selling skewers of unidentified meat, and a lot of people selling stir-fried vegetables they were making over an open flame.

I decided to approach a man who was standing behind a tandoor oven. I watched him take a piece of dough, make a pocket in it with his thumbs, place some meat inside the pocket, seal it up, wet his hands, and stretch the dough ball into a flatbread. Once it was about the length of his forearm, he picked it up and slapped it to the inside wall of the oven. After attaching several more, he scraped the first one out. It was a crispy golden bread that he then placed in a basket in front of him.

I walked up to him. “What are you selling?”

“New to the city?” he smiled. “The name is on the sign. It’s guokui!”

I nodded, accepting the name. “How much?”

“What kind do you want?” he asked, pointing to his sign. “Pork is five copper, lamb is eight, beef is ten.”

I was amazed at the low prices. Everything I bought for centuries had been valued in gold. I looked into my storage space and realized I didn’t have any copper. I had never needed it before. My face flushed with a tinge of embarrassment. I put my hand inside my robe to hide removing money from storage.

“Beef,” I said, placing a small silver coin on his counter.

The old man looked at the coin then at me and hesitated. “It’s a little early for me to break a silver. Why don’t you just have this one on the house?”

He slid the coin back to me.

Was it true or was he just trying to be kind? “Please… take it.”

He breathed out a heavy sigh, but slid the coin into his money box and pulled out nine large 10-copper coins.

“Do you want hot oil on it?” He gestured to a small pot of red liquid sitting on his counter.

Unsure, I shook my head.

“Alright, then.” He picked up one of the crispy breads with tongs, folded it in half, and passed it to me. “Here you go, enjoy.”

I was about to leave, but I didn’t know where to go. I looked back at the man.

“Do you know where I can find a place to stay? I’m new here. I’m not sure where to go.”

“Hmm, looking for a place long-term, or just for the night?” he asked as he started working on another batch of bread.

“Long term,” I decided. I needed a place to stay. If his recommendation didn’t work out, I could just leave.

“How much you looking to spend?”

“I… don’t know.” I didn’t have too much money in my storage space. I would need a job to pay for any place I wanted to stay. How much did jobs pay? I had no idea. “How… how much do people get paid here?”

I couldn’t help but wince. A former Martial Lord, Lord of North Lake City, had no idea how to get a job or how much to expect to get paid.

Realization crossed the bread seller’s face, and he gave me a compassionate look. “It’s the time of year for awakening ceremonies, isn’t it? You were awakened and decided to come to the city to make something of yourself?” He shook his head. “Kid, life is tough here. It’s going to be a hard life. You might want to go back home.”

“I can’t…” I didn’t know how to explain things.

The old man breathed out heavily. “Alright, look. I need to work here another few hours. Help me out and you can stay at my place for the night. In the morning, we can talk about your future. Deal?”

I looked at the man. I wasn’t sure if I should trust him, but he seemed to have a sad look in his eyes, not a malicious one, so I decided to accept his offer.

“Alright.”

The man gave me a long look that gave me a feeling of remorse. “What’s your name?”

“Su Fang.”

“Fang, you can call me Old Pei. Head on over to the well down the street and wash up a bit. I need you to help me knead some dough. It might not look it now, but this place is about to get crowded, and we need to be prepared.”

After another half hour, the sun finally set below the horizon. That’s when the people arrived. They descended upon the street vendors eating everything in sight. Old Pei and I were constantly busy kneading, filling, stretching, and cooking guokui. We sold hundreds that night, but when I looked at what we had earned, I couldn’t help but feel depressed. All that work had amounted to only a few silver. Was this all a mortal could expect from such hard labor?

After the crowds dispersed, Old Pei guided me through the process of storing his oven and workbench. Then, he led me to his home.

The area where we had been selling food was simple. All the buildings were made from crude bricks, and there were no decorations to make the area more beautiful. At the same time, it was well maintained. All the buildings had been in good repair which showed a modicum of wealth for the people who lived there. They weren’t wealthy people, but neither were they poor.

The location of the old man’s home was different. Instead of brick, all the buildings were made out of rough-hewn timber. Most of the buildings had missing or broken boards, and rotten wood was a common sight. It wasn’t that the people who lived here didn’t want to maintain their homes, they just couldn’t afford to.

The buildings reminded me of my shack in the Su Clan. I had a hard time believing that a strong wind wouldn’t blow them over and make the entire place collapse.

It was getting late at night, and both of us were tired from several hours of hard work, so the old man led me into his house. It was a one-room affair made out of solid wood. The only thing inside was a ragged sleeping mat.

He took the blankets from his mat and laid them on the floor. “You can sleep here for the night. Tomorrow we’ll figure things out.”

I looked him in the eyes. This simple gesture nearly made me cry. “Thank you.”

“Get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

Not wanting to keep him from his rest, I lay down on the blankets he prepared for me. Sleep didn’t come easy to me. Memories of a past life played through my head and prevented me from drifting off, but the exhaustion of my body finally won out, and I faded into unconsciousness.

I woke up to Old Pei entering the house carrying two cups and a couple of sticks of fried dough. He sat down and handed me one of each.

“Doujiang and youtiao. Perfect for waking up after a long day.”

I looked at the warm cup of white liquid he gave me and took a sip. It was simple but had a nice tangy, savory taste. As we ate, Old Pei began discussing my future.

“Last night you saw what it takes to survive in the city. We worked hard for several hours and only earned 33 silver. Now, before I can go back to work today, I have to go buy flour, meat, and wood to keep the stand supplied tonight. After costs, we made a total of 1 silver 30 copper yesterday.”

He took out a small silver coin and three large copper ones and placed them in from of me.

“The two of us working together for several hours only made a little over one silver, and that was on one of the busiest nights of the week. That’s all we have to pay for food, housing, and everything else we need. Living in the city is a hard life. Are you sure you won’t go back home?”

“I can’t…”

The old man nodded, and his face turned solemn. “In that case, you need to decide what you want to do. Don’t spend your life like me. You still have a chance to be something more than a poor street vendor. What do you want to do? What are you good at?”

I thought about what to tell him. There were several things I could say. I was so good at alchemy that I could use it to prosper beyond his wildest dreams. That’s not what I wanted, though. I wanted something simple. I wanted something normal, but I didn’t even know what that meant.

The big question I had to decide was if I wanted to cultivate.

I wanted to see the fire seed. I wanted to see the Formation Emperor, if only from a distance. To live long enough for that to happen, I had to be a Martial Master, so I had to cultivate.

“I want to cultivate.” I was unsure of exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew I had to do that.

Old Pei dropped his head in defeat. “Yeah… I know. All young men dream of cultivating and becoming warriors of legend. Listen to me. It’s not going to happen. Becoming a cultivator means resigning yourself to a life of torture that will be far, far shorter than you can possibly imagine. Please, don’t.”

I leaned back against the wall of the house and stared at its broken roof.

“I have to. There’s something… someone I want to meet. I have to cultivate to live long enough. I don’t want to be a soldier. I don’t want to be a legend. I just want to live.” I looked at the man. “If you know a way to cultivate and live, please tell me. I don’t want to die.”

It looked like the life had left the old man. “The only ways to survive are to have power beyond anyone else or to be beneath everyone’s notice. With the awakening ceremonies happening, the palace will begin its yearly recruitment soon. They can teach you cultivation. If you want to cultivate and live, become a servant. That’s the only way.”

After finishing his piece, the old man stood up and walked out the door. As he did, I checked him in qi vision. He was a basic mortal with no cultivation at all. I could only wonder what happened to him in the past. A brother, son, or lover who was a cultivator and had an end similar to the ones I had? I didn’t know, and I couldn’t ask.

I accepted Old Pei’s advice. If I could become a servant in the palace, that would place me exactly where I needed to be. I just didn’t know how difficult it would be to be hired for such a position.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 105 – Life 62, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

After Old Pei left, I didn’t stay alone in his house for long. I didn’t know what his story was. His demeanor, the way he acted, it made me want to help him. His kindness to me made me want to help him. I just didn’t know what I could do for him.

I could take him away from this place and let him live a life of luxury for what years he had remaining, but would he even want that? Would uprooting him from everything he knew be a blessing or a curse?

I needed to leave and not look back. My presence was causing him pain. The only thing I knew to do was to leave.

As I was walking out the door, I turned around and went back to leave most of my silver and a single gold coin under the blankets. It was the only thing I knew to do to repay his kindness. I was worried about leaving the gold since too much money was more curse than blessing, but Old Pei seemed smart enough to handle things.

As I wandered the streets in the morning sun, I centered my mind.

If I wanted to survive long enough to meet the Formation Emperor, I needed to become a cultivator. I could do that on my own. I had plenty of cultivation techniques that I could use to quickly raise my cultivation, but I didn’t want to do that.

I wanted to try to understand what life was like for a normal person. I didn’t know if it was possible, but I wanted to try.

Old Pei had mentioned that the palace would be recruiting servants and that those servants would be taught to cultivate. If I wanted to meet the Formation Emperor, embedding myself in the palace would help me do that, so I decided to try it out.

I drifted around the streets for the entire day, listening in on people’s conversations. Finding out about the recruitment wasn’t difficult, it was the only thing most people were talking about.

Awakening ceremonies were currently happening around the empire, and the palace was allowing one week for these events to conclude to allow time for the newly blessed to travel to the capital. Then, they would start their recruitment.

I wasn’t sure what I should do while I waited or where I could live, but I found a small hotel that only charged 10 copper a night for a room. I handed them one silver to book a place for ten days.

After that, I had a little over a week to do anything I wanted, but what did I want to do? I wasn’t going to cultivate before entering the palace, and there wasn’t a safe way for me to work on alchemy or formations. I didn’t want to, either. I wanted to try to just live… to be normal. What did most people in this world do with themselves? How did they spend their time? I had no idea.

I decided to simply walk the streets, to observe people as they went about their daily tasks and see what they did.

The answer seemed to be work. Almost everybody I saw was doing work of some kind. No one was simply relaxing. Men were carrying lumber and bricks to feed the construction projects that were happening all around the city, women were sewing and embroidering garments, and both men and women could be seen selling various foodstuffs from stalls all around the city.

The only people I saw who were actually relaxing were two old men sitting on the side of the road playing a game of chess with a small group of onlookers watching them. I walked over and observed as they played. I didn’t know the rules of the game. It was different from the games of chess I’d seen in the past, but they were moving small wooden discs around the board, trying to capture the other person’s pieces, so had to be some relative of chess.

I only stayed to watch for a few moments before moving along and continuing my exploration.

After several days of this leisurely life, it was finally time for me to take the test to enter the palace.

The palace recruitment wasn’t only for servants. There were several different jobs one could apply for with the right qualifications. For example, if one had a metal or earth affinity, they would welcome you as guardsmen. If one had a wood affinity, they could get a job as a gardener or farmer. To get a job as a palace servant, a water or fire affinity was needed.

I wanted to stay in the palace, and I didn’t want to have to fight. I saw becoming a guardsman or soldier as the most dangerous option. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live as long as possible this time. On the other hand, if I became a gardener or farmer, they might send me away somewhere. To stay alive and in the city, the place where the Formation Emperor would most likely appear, I needed to become a servant.

I wasn’t sure what affinity to show, though. I had more experience with fire qi, so it would’ve made sense to choose that, but I had an aversion to going with fire yet again. I wanted to break away from my last life, so I decided to go with water.

At this point, all my affinities for all of the basic elements were mid eight-star, so if I used a testing orb, it should show that I had no affinities at all. What level of affinity was proper for a servant to have?

If it were too high, I might get assigned to duties that I didn’t want. If it were zero, I would simply get rejected. I needed the highest affinity that would let me get a job as the lowest-level servant. That would put me in a position of authority among my peers while also being among the least valued and most overlooked.

I wanted to find information about what affinity I needed to achieve this goal, but I didn’t know how to do so. I tried going to places where I saw other young people gathered, but I couldn’t make myself go up and talk to them. I just ended up standing alone and watching them.

Even if I had talked to them, I reasoned, it wouldn’t have helped. They probably didn’t know what level of affinity the palace was looking for any more than I did, so talking with them wasn’t something I really needed to do.

Walking to a hidden alcove, I decided I had to lean on the only thing I knew that would work.

“System, I want to make it so that when my affinities are next checked, the testing device shows me as having a water affinity at the level that will result in me being selected as the lowest level of servant in the palace. I want it to appear as the highest possible water affinity that will result in this outcome.”

Calculating… Masking affinities. Cost 10,000 credits. Confirmed. 149,963,275 credits remaining.

It would have felt like a steep price to me in the past, but right now, not having to worry about if I guessed correctly was well worth such a small percentage of my credits.

With affinities taken care of, I went back to my rented room to await the servant selection.

The servant selection was held in an outer courtyard on the east side of the palace there. An elderly man in simple, clean robes stood in front of everyone who had come to apply.

There were only three dozen young men and women there, which was a little surprising to me. I thought that most of the people in the city would be fighting for an opportunity to enter the palace, even if it was as a servant, but from what I could tell, only the lowest of the commoners had come here. Every single person was wearing frayed and worn robes, and many of them looked like they hadn’t eaten in several days.

Following the man’s orders, we began entering a small room off to the side one by one to test our affinities.

When I walked in, I was seated in front of a partition and told to place my hand through an opening. The testing orb was on the other side so that the one being tested would not be able to see it. I wasn’t sure of the reason for this. Was no one in this empire told their affinities? Everyone outside should have been water or fire cultivators, so they must have been told at least that much, but they might not have been told the level of their affinity for some reason.

Unable to guess the rationale here, I just followed their instructions and put my hand through the opening, touched the orb, and channeled qi into it. I knew it would show water, but I had no clue what level the System decided I needed. My best guess was mid nine-star since that was high enough to cultivate but low enough that no one would care.

After I was done, I went back out into the courtyard to wait for everybody else to finish. The process took a little over two hours to complete, and when everyone was done, they dismissed all but eight of us. Then, they split those who remained into a group of four guys and a group of four girls.

Our group was assigned to a middle-aged man dressed in clean brown robes, and we followed him into the palace complex. We were taken to a library and each assigned a cultivation technique based on the results of our test, but we weren’t told the names or levels of these techniques.

I only caught brief glances at what the other boys were given, and they all seemed like regular Rank 1 techniques, but the one I was given was strange. The manual was a book far thicker than any other Rank 1 cultivation technique I had seen before. Even the Peak-Earth technique I had couldn’t compare to this one for sheer size.

I wanted to open it to see why it was so different, but once everyone had a book in hand, we were quickly herded out of the library.

Our last destination for the day was the dormitory where the four of us would live. There was only slightly more room than necessary for the four of us to all be able to lie down.

“Your duties will start tomorrow,” said the man. “Spend the night studying your cultivation techniques and start practicing them as soon as you are able. The first person to achieve Martial Disciple 4 will be chosen as group leader and earn four copper a day instead of just two. This is your best chance to stand out, so don’t miss it.”

After saying this, he left us alone to rest.

I expected the others to start studying the cultivation techniques immediately, but they just threw them on their beds and started talking.

“I’m Ko,” said a large muscular boy. “Since I’m the biggest here, I’ll be your big brother. If anyone tries to bully you from now on, just call on your Big Brother Ko.”

Ko pounded his chest with one fist. He seemed to be staking a claim as the leader, and I expected the other two to start fighting for it, but they just laughed cheerfully at the proclamation.

“Big Brother Ko. I was the second one here to be tested, so I’ll be your second brother. Call me Brother Hong.”

The third man looked at me, but I didn’t know what to do. I just shook my head meekly.

He smiled and patted me on the back. “I’ll be your third brother. Call me Brother Tu.”

They all looked at me.

“I’m S—” I started, but I realized no one else had claimed a clan name. “I’m Fang.”

“Brother Fang.” Ko patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, us brothers are here to help you. You can count on us. Right?” He looked at the others.

“That’s right Brother Fang. If you have any problems, just let us know,” said Hong, raising his arm to show his muscles.

Tu just gave me an encouraging thumbs up.

I nodded, not knowing what to say.

The three boys talked late into the night about their dreams for the future, but I stayed mostly silent and sat in the corner. I was more an ornament than a real part of the conversation. Listening to them, I was able to learn a bit about the city, but most of the talk was about trivial personal things that didn’t interest me.

It wasn’t like I had never talked to people before, but it had been so long, so very long since I’d had anything that could be considered normal human interaction. If they wanted to talk about formations or alchemy, it would be easy, but they just wanted to talk about life. What could I add?

When everyone settled down for the night, I finally had a chance to look through the technique scroll I had been given. I didn’t have time to read the entire book in detail, and figuring out why the technique was so complex would take hours if not days, but it didn’t take me too long to come to the most important conclusion: This was a slave technique.

That explained why only the lowest commoners were here. They were the only ones ignorant or desperate enough to be willing to cultivate such a thing. It also explained the reward for cultivating to Martial Disciple 4 as quickly as possible. They wanted the technique’s hooks to lodge firmly within our minds.

If I made sure to use a Peak-Yellow level filter and cultivated the technique perfectly, based on my past experiences, it should only have a minimal effect on my thoughts. With the resistance to mental effects I had bought, I shouldn’t have any problem suppressing anything a Rank 1 technique might do to me.

Still, after everything I’d been through, there was no way I was going to cultivate this technique. It may be worth studying it to understand its complexities, but I would not risk letting it control me.

I opened my mental library and began flipping through my cultivation techniques. I found a Peak-Yellow technique that had the effect of making one less outgoing. This was the least intrusive technique I had, and using its effects might help me remain overlooked, so I decided to cultivate it instead.

“System,” I subvocalized, “I am going to cultivate the Subdued Waves Mantra, but I want it to look like I’m cultivating the technique I was just given if anyone up to the Emperor level tries to check me.”

Masking cultivation technique. Cost 30,000 credits. Confirmed. 149,933,275 credits remaining.

None of the others had started cultivating, so I didn’t either. I wanted to stay ahead of them, but not by too much. I needed to always be just slightly ahead of the pack.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 106 – Life 62, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

The next morning, we were woken up early and marched outside.

Each of us was given different chores. I was led to a kitchen where I was forced into hard labor scrubbing pots and pans for the entire day. I didn’t get back until late in the evening.

When I returned, my three roommates were just sitting around playing cards and having fun. This slightly bothered me because I knew we were supposed to be spending this time cultivating. If we weren’t careful, there might be someone like my old instructor from the Su Clan who came and started killing people to make a point.

I entered the room silently to not make a scene, quietly sat on my bed, and picked up the cultivation technique scroll I’d been given. Just as I was about to open it, Ko spoke up to stop me.

“Put that down for a while and come join us,” he said. “Don’t worry about that thing.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be cultivating?” I asked. “We need to be careful, or the boss might get angry. We need to try and advance to Martial Disciple 4 like he wants, right?”

Ko looked at the other two boys and they all simply nodded their heads. They all stood up as one, and Ko looked at me. “Stay here for a moment,” he said to me. Moving furtively, the group snuck out of the dormitory.

Less than a minute later Ko carefully opened the door and slid back inside alone. He walked close to me and started talking in a quiet voice.

“Listen, you’re new in the city, right? I’ve not seen you on the streets before. You must’ve come in from some farm somewhere. You don’t know how things work around here, so I need to give you a few warnings. Don’t read that technique. Don’t cultivate. No matter what they tell you, don’t do it.”

“What do you mean?” His words sounded threatening, so I thought I would need to defend myself, but looking at his expression, I felt he was actually concerned about me.

“I know guys who came here before. The treatment is pretty good. Get a free house and food for a year, but you gotta make sure you don’t read that book. Otherwise, they’re going to trap you here.”

He seemed to glance around the room at the shadows, worried that someone would overhear him.

“This guy, right, well, he’s a couple years older than me. Well, he came here like all of us to get a free place to live and earn a little money. Well, he had this idea. He was gonna cultivate up to level three or whatever. Then, he’d return to the street like a king. With the power he got, he would be able to lord over everyone out there. Thing is, he never came back. The guys who were with him said after he started cultivating, his mind began to change and all he could think about was how to make the boss happy so he could keep advancing that technique of theirs.”

“But… aren’t you all here to cultivate? Why did you come here?”

Ko shook his head sharply. “No, you see, as long as you work and do the job, you get free food for a year. They pay you even if you don’t cultivate as long as you do the job. You can just walk out after that, and no one will say anything. If you cultivate, though, you’re gonna be trapped here for the rest of your life.”

I hadn’t expected the boys who came here to be servants to know so much. If this had been happening for a long time, sure, they would pick up on some things, but to know how dangerous it was to cultivate? I didn’t expect that.

Still, I understood what he was saying, but that didn’t change what I needed to do. If I wanted to live long enough, I had to be a Martial Master, so I would cultivate. It just wouldn’t affect me in the way they thought it would.

I knew that if I did this, it would change my place in the group. I also had to accept that the plan of simply staying slightly ahead of the other boys was not going to work. I would have to figure out how fast to cultivate on my own.

“Sorry, Ko, but this is something I have to do. I understand what you’re saying, and you’re right, but this is something I have to do.”

Ko shook his head again quickly. “Look, I understand you’ve had a tough life, but this isn’t the way to do it. Just… think about what I said. Oh, and don’t talk to anybody else about this. If the boss hears we’ve been saying things about cultivation, they might punish or expel us, so just keep it quiet.”

After speaking, he went to the door and knocked twice. Then, the two other boys reentered the room. They had been stationed as lookouts during our conversation.

As I was about to pick the technique manual back up, one of them spoke up. “Fang, come over here and join us for cards. I need some help to take these bastards down.”

I saw a pleading look in his eyes, like he really wanted me to join them. I knew what I would have to do, but I didn’t have to do it that night. I decided to sit down and just play some cards.

For the rest of the week, I was assigned various chores involving washing things around the complex. At night, any time I moved to pick up the cultivation technique, one of my roommates would find an excuse to pull me away from it.

I didn’t need that book to cultivate, but it was unique enough that I needed to get it stored in my mental library for future research. To do that, I would need to find time to sit down and read it carefully without interruption. Since that didn’t seem likely, I decided to implement an idea I had been thinking about for years.

The requirement of carefully reading every book before it could be stored in my library had been extremely restrictive. If I wanted to add hundreds of mortal reference books, I needed to spend years carefully studying them first. I needed a better solution.

“System, I want to add a new capability to my mental library. I want a perfect copy of any book I touch to be directly added to the library.”

Host’s current mental library is capable of storing information up to Rank 3. Upgrading the library to store any information Rank 3 and below upon touch. Cost 10 million credits.

That was a bit more than I wanted to spend at the moment.

“How much to just apply this upgrade to mortal and Rank 1 information?”

Cost 100,000 credits.

That was acceptable. “Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. Remaining credits 149,833,275.

I reached for the cultivation technique I had been given and gave it a light tap. With a thought, I saw that it had successfully been stored away.

Once it was successfully stored, I shifted my focus to cultivating the Subdued Waves Mantra. I wasn’t sure what rate the boss was expecting us to grow at, but with only doing an hour or two at night before bed, there was no way I was going to rush through any levels too quickly, so I didn’t worry. I just cultivated at a pace that felt natural.

At the end of the week, we had a day off. A different group of servants would be taking over our duties so that we had a little time to relax. At first, I was a little surprised at this since it seemed strange that they would give the servants any free time at all. From what I’d seen in the city, it seemed like everybody was working all the time. Then, I realized what this time was for. It was to give us an opportunity to cultivate without interruption. The people in charge wanted us to advance, so we needed to have a chance to do so.

I was considering doing as they wanted me to and cultivating the entire day, but Ko came up to me and pulled me out of the dormitory with the others.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re going into the city. You know, the girls are going there too. We might get a chance to spend some time with them. I think Meimei might even have a bit of a crush on you.”

I froze.

I didn’t know who Meimei was, but the name… I wasn’t willing to pursue any ideas about someone with that name.

Ko saw my reaction and didn’t bring up the girls again, but he didn’t take no for an answer. He insisted that I go with them into the city no matter what.

The four of us walked to a poorer area I hadn’t visited before. They said there was a place to get some good food, so I followed them. They took me to a food stall where a lady had a big pot of meat simmering in a light stew. On the side, she had a few small buns and several more cooking in an oven.

“Old Liu, four Roujiamo!” announced Ko.

“Right away, Young Master Ko,” the lady said with a wide grin. They both seemed happy, and it felt like this ritual had been played out countless times before.

The woman took the buns one at a time, split them open, filled them with meat, then drizzled a little stew on top. She finished them off with a few sprigs of a green herb.

“Here you are. 48 copper for the lot.”

Ko took out a large copper coin and two smaller ones, placed them on the counter, and took his sandwich. When the other two boys followed suit, I went ahead and did the same.

I took a bite and was amazed at how good it was. Ko saw the look on my face and couldn’t help but comment on it.

“I told you. This is the good stuff. Expensive though, so it’s a bit of a treat for our first day off. If you want meat, better to stick with donkey in the future, it’s a lot cheaper.”

I was somewhat alarmed at the idea of eating donkey meat. When the flash of fear showed on my face, the other boys couldn’t help but laugh.

We walked down the street as we talked, but we were soon stopped by two groups of boys facing off against each other. I wanted to retreat immediately, but Ko calmed me down and pulled me forward to take a look.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Things aren’t gonna get too out of hand here. This is just a small fight for some territory. Both of them are cultivators and one probably advanced recently, so he’s looking to take over a few more streets. They won’t bother us if we don’t get involved.”

“You think you can take me now?” The larger boy puffed out his chest and cracked his knuckles. “Sounds like you need to learn a little respect.”

His opponent smirked. “You don’t stand a chance. I’m not the same person I was last time. I’ve advanced. I’m now a High Middle Martial Disciple 2 just like you. If you don’t want to get hurt, leave now!”

The large boy laughed. “You think just advancing to High Middle Disciple 2 is enough to face me? You’ve only just advanced while I’ve been at this stage for months. I’ve already advanced to Middle High Middle Disciple 2!”

His opponent’s eyes widened in shock, but he grit his teeth and kept his feet planted.

I looked at Ko confused. “Middle High Middle?”

He nodded. “You might not know. Martial Disciple is the first realm of cultivation and it’s divided up into several stages. 1, 2, 3, and so on. Well, each stage is a pretty big gap, so they are divided up into Low, Middle, High, and Peak. Just because two people are at Middle Disciple 2 doesn’t mean they’re equal, though. Those two are both High Middle Disciple 2, so they can defeat most other Middle Disciple 2 cultivators.”

I blinked at him wordlessly.

“Now, Shin is a Middle High Middle, but Yang should only be Low High Middle since he just advanced. Their power is nearly the same, but even the smallest advantage can mean the difference between life and death as a cultivator.”

My mind went blank for a second at the absurdity of it all. Did these boys have any affinities at all? Even with a low nine-star affinity, Martial Disciple 2 shouldn’t be very challenging to skip through. Why did they need so many substages?

I watched as the two finally started fighting, but there was little to see. They didn’t use their qi at all, they just started throwing punches and kicks at each other, and they weren’t even good at that. It finally made sense to me why Ko said someone thought he could rule the streets by only advancing to Martial Disciple 3 if this was his competition.

Their small gangs started to get involved in the scuffle, but that’s when Ko suggested that we hurry and leave. If the fighting drew attention from actual cultivators, we didn’t want to get caught in the mess.

After spending the day in town, the boys all returned back to the dormitory, and I began secretly cultivating.

They were living the simple life of mortals, facing mortal issues. Their biggest concerns were where they were staying for the night and where their next meal was going to come from. They didn’t have to deal with Lords and Kings plotting against them.

Watching my roommates live their lives, I couldn’t help but think back to Old Pei. He was what these boys would become one day. He had lived a life of sorrow and was never able to climb out of the poorest district in the city. That was the destiny of most mortals in this world.

There had to be some that rose above their station. Honest craftsmen could earn more than a street vendor, and there certainly had to be mortal merchants who were able to become quite wealthy, but all of it was balanced on a razor's edge. The moment they made a cultivator upset, their life could end in an instant.

I wished I could change it, but even with the immense power the System granted me, I had no idea how to even begin. I could help those I met. I could provide something for the people who were kind to me. But I couldn’t fix the structural problems of this society.

I sighed. I didn’t know what I was looking for in this life anymore, but I knew I wouldn’t find it here among Ko and the others.

If there were any answers for me in this place, I needed to advance to find them.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 107 – Life 62, Age 16, Martial Disciple 3

Without pills, I wasn’t sure how fast I could cultivate, but with my grasp of cultivation techniques, I was sure I could do it far faster than would be normal for someone in my position. I just needed to decide what speed to display for the palace observers who were no doubt watching us. Being either too fast or too slow could prove fatal.

This was difficult because I didn’t know what kind of speed was considered normal here. I also didn’t know what level they thought my affinity was at. How high of an affinity would the System have shown them? For all I knew, they could think I had a one-star affinity for some strange reason. I could purchase that information, but I decided to just let it be. It wasn’t worth the credits. Whatever would happen would happen.

The information I did have was that the boss had wanted us to advance to Martial Disciple 4 by the end of the year and there was a guy in the past that had set his goal as reaching Martial Disciple 3. Another thing to consider was that if I wanted to advance to Martial Master before my cultivation calcified, I needed to reach Peak Disciple by the age of 28 or 29. If I did that, they should give me a Rank 2 technique to continue cultivating.

I decided that I would plan on rising two stages in the first year, but I would slow down my progression at a steady rate so that I ended up as a Peak Disciple when I turned 28. I could adjust my plans to compensate if I heard any additional information about what cultivation speed was expected. If they were looking for a servant that had reached Peak Disciple by age 25 or so, I could cultivate faster to accomplish that.

With this plan in place, I began cultivating at a steady, relaxed pace. During the day, I would do chores around the palace, washing everything from dishes to buildings. In the evenings, I would do my best to fit in with the other boys, but once the lights were out, I cultivated.

This routine lasted for nine months. That was when I hit Martial Disciple 3 slightly ahead of schedule.

The day after I hit Disciple 3, the boss caught me on my way out of the dormitory.

“Come with me,” he growled.

I looked at the man as he started walking away. His tone and demeanor showed anger. He looked like he was furious with me. However, I got a faint sense that this was completely wrong. It was more like he was annoyed, but not exactly at me. What I sensed of his feelings toward me seemed to be simple disinterest.

He led me to a deserted area of the palace where a large stone building with only a single entrance stood.

At the entrance, he handed me a small black book. “Go inside. There is a wooden chair in the middle of the room. Sit down. Read this book. Do everything it tells you to do. Do not leave the building.”

“Yes, sir,” I bowed, accepting the book.

He opened the door and I entered.

I saw the chair he was talking about and slowly began walking toward it.

As I did, I started thinking as quickly as I could.

What was the point of this? What was he trying to do?

A possibility appeared in my head. I had just advanced to Disciple 3.

I rapidly came to a simple conclusion. This was a test of some kind.

What were they testing?

They wanted to make sure I had cultivated their slave technique.

They wanted to know if I would follow instructions properly. That was easy enough to do. It couldn’t be that simple.

Right before I reached the chair, I began to subvocalize.

“System, I want to purchase an ability that will last for only this life. I want to be able to instinctively know how someone who cultivates the techniques I am supposed to be cultivating would react at all times.”

Cost 100,000 credits. Confirmed. 149,833,275 credits remaining.

I sat down and began to read the first line of the book.

‘Stand up and leave the building.’

I stood immediately, but I didn’t move. ‘Do not leave the building’ superseded the instruction to ‘Do everything it tells you to do.’

I returned to reading the book.

‘Enter the door to your right.’

I walked over, opened the door, and went inside.

On the other side, there were two men in a fierce battle. I hadn’t sensed anything from outside the room, but inside, qi flew everywhere, and the sounds of swords clashing together were incessant.

One of the men was dressed in the maroon livery of the palace guard.

The other man was dressed in all black and looked like nothing more than a stereotypical assassin. The only thing that stood out was a small token attached to his left shoulder.

“Kill him!” shouted the guard.

I didn’t move. The technique was supposed to prevent me from killing.

I started to look down at the book to read the next line.

“Subdue him!” the assassin shouted.

I immediately dashed to the man dressed as a guard. From the strength he had displayed, this man had to be a Grandmaster, so my actions were little more than throwing an egg against a brick wall, but anyone wearing the token on the assassin’s shoulder must be obeyed without question, save for when a superior has already given explicit orders otherwise.

As the knowledge of what I was supposed to do rushed into me, I was amazed that whoever had designed the cultivation technique had been able to embed so many explicit commands and contingencies within its mental influence. I had never heard of a cultivation technique that could do this before. In my experience, they only amplified personality traits.

I didn’t let my incredulity delay my actions. I ran forward.

When I reached the guardsman, I was quickly batted away. A light swipe from the Grandmaster knocked me back several feet and sent me reeling on the floor.

I was about to stand up and charge him again, but the knowledge from my new ability stopped me. I hadn’t completed the task, but in this situation, I was supposed to abandon it.

I stood up and read the next line of the book.

‘Go back the way you came then leave the building.’

I walked back into the large room I started in and stood in front of the chair.

My boss entered the room.

“Follow me. You have a new assignment.”

I was led through a series of passageways that I could barely remember. Our final destination was a small building in the far northeastern corner of the palace complex. It was of a plain design, but large enough for a Lord and a small retinue.

The boss led me around the back and into a side room where we found an older man reading over reports.

“Steward Lee, a new servant for Prince XianHo,” said my boss.

The steward didn’t show even a flicker of emotion. “Understood. Leave him.”

My former boss immediately bowed and exited the room.

“You are to learn every job given to servants,” said the steward, “including mine. You have experience in the kitchens, so you will start there. The quicker you learn, the quicker you may be elevated in rank. If you do not learn, you will be returned to your previous position. Dismissed.”

Instinctively, I bowed and exited the room. Outside, a young maid was waiting to guide me to the kitchen.

My time under Prince XianHo lasted for decades. After learning all the jobs in the kitchen, I was sent to do the gardening. Then, I learned to wash the clothes of the prince and all of his servants. Then, I spent time learning the intricacies of cleaning each type of room in the palace.

I didn’t even catch a glimpse of the prince until I was assigned as his valet, responsible for arranging his ensembles and helping him dress.

This lasted for over sixty years. At first, learning the various tasks the servants were responsible for was interesting. This wasn’t a topic I had studied before, so everything was new.

I tried to talk with a few of the other servants under the prince, but it was difficult to engage with them. Our life experiences were completely different, and I had no interest in their gossip about people’s personal affairs.

As the years wore on, I came to rely on my instinctive ability to act as if I were under the slave technique more and more. Eventually, I nearly stopped thinking entirely, only letting my ability guide my actions. The peace of being a simple servant and only following my instincts, not needing to think about anything, was relaxing. In a way, this wasn’t unlike when I had been in the thrall of cultivation techniques in the past. The difference was that this only affected my body. My mind was free to drift off to sleep.

At first, I thought that if I reached Peak Disciple before thirty, I would be given a technique to advance to Martial Master before my cultivation began to calcify, but that didn’t happen. I reached Peak Disciple at 28, and nearly 50 years later, I still hadn’t been allowed to advance.

I could have committed suicide and abandoned this life as a failure at that point. Maybe I should have. I didn’t seem to be learning anything that I had wanted to when I started down this path. The only reason for sticking around was a faint hope that I would have a chance to meet Formation Emperor Du XiongMing, but was that really so important?

I considered restarting, but I didn’t. Having downtime where I didn’t have to think about my actions was relaxing. I didn’t have to plan, and I didn’t have to worry about what would happen next. I just reacted. It was freeing.

Unfortunately, the end of this simple existence came when I was called to attend the prince on a trip outside the palace.

For this trip, I was the prince’s lone escort. Though this seemed strange to me, it wasn’t explained, and it wasn’t my place to question him.

We did not take a carriage. Instead, we walked, the prince in the lead, out of the palace and onto the busy city streets.

The prince made several stops to order various things he wanted to be delivered to the palace, and it all felt slightly out of place, but I had become so reliant on letting my ability control my responses that I didn’t question it overly much.

The more we walked, the more the crowd thinned out until we were the only two people on the street. While this seemed like it should be concerning, the prince was walking casually as if nothing were amiss, and my ability wanted me to keep following him calmly, so I didn’t worry about it.

We were walking down a wide stretch of road, buildings walling us in on both sides when a group of men stepped out of the shadows and blocked our path forward. At the same time, I noticed another group blocking the way we had come from. We had been trapped alone on a deserted street.

The prince remained calm. So did I.

A large man with bulging muscles in a shirt of ripped-off sleeves walked through the men and stood in front of us.

“Du XianHo, it’s time for you to die.” His mouth twisted into an evil smile as he stared at us.

“Yi HongNian, I was hoping to find you,” laughed the prince.

Without another word, the prince rushed forward and started attacking the muscly man. As he did, the man’s gang started to approach me with murder in their eyes.

Everything felt off.

My ability wanted me to continue standing here calmly. I was not to defend myself nor was I to try and assist the prince. I was just supposed to stand here.

I nearly rebelled against what I was supposed to do, but I realized that I couldn’t sense any malice from anyone. Even though the men appeared to be thugs who wanted to kill me, it all felt like a bad act. This was a test, nearly identical to the last one I had been given. Was this check if I had just been faking my obedience last time? To see if the passing of several decades had led to me no longer following the script I was supposed to?

Deciding to let things play out, I followed my ability’s advice and didn’t move.

The prince was stabbed and fell to the ground bleeding.

I didn’t react.

I was given a heavy hit and knocked to the ground.

I calmly stood and dusted myself off. Shortly after I did so, the prince also stood and looked at me with piercing eyes. The gang surrounding us made no further movements.

The prince called to the man who had just stabbed him. “Raise him to Master and send him to Prince CaoHan.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 108 – Life 62, Age 79, Martial Disciple Peak

A soldier took me to a small cultivation room on the edge of the palace complex.

“Swallow this,” he ordered once I was seated in the room.

He handed me a pill that I didn’t recognize. I held it in my hands, examining it for a couple of seconds, but the soldier’s demeanor suggested that he wanted me to take it without delay. I didn’t know the exact effects of the pill, but I could tell that it was some type of poison. I didn’t seem to have any choice, and I didn’t think he wanted to kill me, so I put it in my mouth and swallowed.

Pain lanced through me, and all of the qi in my body trembled. He had indeed given me a poison pill, but it was not a poison for the physical body. It was one that acted on the energy in my body.

My cultivation base began to fall into a weakened state, and it felt like it might collapse entirely. I was a Martial Disciple, and what he had given me was at least a rank 2 poison. I had almost no resistance to a pill of this power.

“Swallow this,” he said, handing me another pill.

This time I easily recognized it as a Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pill. To me, giving such a pill to a Disciple was one of the worst ideas I could think of, but the soldier just looked at me emotionlessly. He wasn’t willing to take ‘no’ for an answer.

I swallowed the pill.

“Give me access to your qi,” he commanded.

Relying on my ability I instinctively gave him control. He reached into my body and began twisting qi similar to how I had done it for… for Mei…

He began braiding my qi. Everywhere he worked, I felt a sharp, stabbing pain. The poison he had given me earlier acted to alleviate the problems caused by calcification, but the way it did so was torture. My body was in agony both from the poison coursing through my system and the feeling of my flesh being ripped apart as the man slowly constructed meridians throughout my torso.

The soldier was skilled though, and he was able to complete both of the meridians in my chest in less than a day. That told me that he had both high affinities and a lot of experience doing this.

The biggest worry now was that my meridians followed their slave technique. This put me in a far more dangerous position than I had been in before. I considered trying to disperse the meridians he created and finding a way to forge new ones on my own, but this deep into calcification, I wasn’t sure I could manage it. If I significantly increased my water affinity, maybe, but it would be a risk.

I had cultivated a different Rank 1 technique, I had the resistance enhancement from the system, and I didn’t plan to go past Martial Master 1, I convinced myself that I would be able to protect myself against any mental influences from only two meridians.

Once he was finished, the soldier spent several minutes examining my body, checking to confirm that the job had been done correctly. I noticed that the meridians he had created were far more complex than those I had made in the past.

Once he was satisfied with what he was seeing, the soldier nodded his head and looked me in the eye.

“Follow,” he ordered.

I was taken to a dilapidated building on the western edge of the palace complex.

The gardens were overgrown, and weeds were poking out everywhere. The cobblestones and the sides of the building were caked in dirt. I didn’t hear any sounds of movement from within the courtyard.

Above the entrance hung the sign ‘Cold Wind Palace.’ The ‘palace’ was large enough to house dozens of people, but it felt abandoned.

When the soldier brought me inside, I saw a young man sitting alone in the lotus position in the middle of the main hall. The young man was concentrating on cultivating, but the soldier didn’t give it any mind.

“Prince CaoHan,” he said, “Steward Fang has been assigned to you.”

After saying this, he didn’t wait for a reply. He simply turned around and walked out of the building.

I felt awkward standing there right inside the building’s threshold, but what was I supposed to do? My ability told me to just stand still and wait for orders from the prince, so that’s what I did.

The prince continued cultivating silently for several hours without even looking at me, so I just stood there and watched him.

I examined him with qi vision and saw that he was a Martial Disciple 1 who had never drawn any energy into his body. He was practicing creating his first qi filter, but his movements were rather inept, and he struggled with creating even the most basic shapes.

When he applied a filter to his arm and began to try and pull in qi, his filter collapsed immediately. From what I could tell, his affinity had to be in the nine-star range.

When he finally gave up, he gave me a cold look. He was angry, not at me, but at the world.

“Prepare dinner,” he instructed.

I gave a bow, turned, and did as ordered.

Over the next several days, this situation continued as the prince spent all his time working on basic cultivation while I performed simple tasks to keep him fed and clothed.

After days of practice, I noticed that the prince had finally been able to create a filter capable of remaining intact as he drew in qi. However, I noticed that the purity of the qi he was pulling in was abysmal. It wasn’t my responsibility to step in at this point, but he didn’t have a teacher, and if he continued the path he was going down, he was going to ruin his future.

I probed my ability at this point to see if it was appropriate for me to step in, but I didn’t receive a clear answer. I had not demonstrated any capacity to be able to teach him, and I wasn’t officially his teacher, so I had no responsibility to step in and help him. At the same time, there was nothing that would prevent me from doing so. If I had the ability to help, it would have been expected that I would do so in this situation.

I saw a lot of myself from the early days in this world in the prince. He was going down the same path I had when I first started cultivating, and I knew where that would lead him. I didn’t want someone else to make the same mistakes I had if I could prevent it.

Beyond that, if the prince continued down this path, he would have no future. If the prince had no future, I doubted if I would have much of a future either. It was in my best interest to keep him as sane as possible.

Making my decision I stepped forward.

“Prince CaoHan,” I said, speaking in a commanding voice. “Stop.”

He ignored me and continued to cultivate.

Not knowing what to say that could make him listen, I crossed the room, walked to his side, and pressed heavily on his shoulder to get his attention.

“Stop, prince.”

His qi scattered.

His eyes widened in anger as he slapped away my hand.

“How dare you!”

“Prince,” I bowed, “that is not the way. You need to perfect your qi filter first.”

“You dare lecture a prince on how to cultivate!?”

I kowtowed before him. “Apologies prince, but I must. Cultivating like this will only harm you. Please allow me to assist.”

He visibly struggled with this request. He wanted to send me away, but he had to know the path he was on would only lead him to failure.

“Fine, assist me then,” he snarled.

“Prince, please allow me to look at your cultivation technique.”

He clenched his jaw and ground his teeth, but he relented and pulled a scroll from his robes.

“This is the Indomitable Earth Mantra. It is a secret technique of our dynasty. You will never speak of it to anyone. It is said that whoever successfully cultivates this technique can never lose.”

I opened the technique and quickly read through it. It was a basic Peak-Yellow earth qi cultivation technique, so I just needed to quickly note the filter design and the details for each acupoint.

The prince’s words about a person who cultivates it never being able to lose worried me. There was nothing about the technique that made the cultivator special. That meant this technique would create a mindset within the one who cultivated it that would either make them believe they were unbeatable or make them unwilling to accept any loss. It was a dangerous technique, but looking at the prince, I could sense I wouldn’t be able to talk him out of using it. The best I could do was help him cultivate it as well as possible.

Before I could help, I needed to know what I was working with.

“My prince, what is your earth affinity?”

His eyes blazed with anger, but his voice was cool and detached. “I was only granted a mid nine-star affinity.”

That was going to be a problem. Training him to be able to cultivate a Peak-Yellow technique perfectly would take years, and if he wanted to advance smoothly, he didn’t have that kind of time.

The thought of boosting his affinities popped into my mind, but I quickly dismissed it. That would have been beyond foolhardy. I needed to take a different approach.

“My prince, please form a qi filter on your upper right arm.”

He was angry with his situation, but he was smart enough to know that he needed help, so after a quick snort, he complied.

I reached out with my affinities to try to fix the problems, but I didn’t have sufficient strength. I was only a Martial Master 1 with a mid eight-star earth affinity. Forcibly manipulating the qi in someone else’s body required either a high cultivation level or a high affinity, preferably both.

I considered my options. I couldn’t raise my cultivation, but nothing was stopping me from raising my affinity. I had a Peak-Earth earth qi cultivation technique to try out, so I would want to raise my earth affinity soon anyway.

“System,” I subvocalized, “permanently raise my earth affinity to peak seven-star.”

Permanent Peak, 7-star Earth Affinity. Cost 172,500 credits. 149,660,775 credits remaining.

That should prove to be more than enough for what I needed to do.

I reached out and began manipulating the prince’s qi filter. As I did, his face showed discomfort, but he didn’t speak.

“My prince, this is the proper filter for your technique. Try to draw energy through it.”

As he did, I slowly relaxed my hold over the qi filter, expecting the prince to instinctively take control to stabilize it.

He didn’t.

The qi filter began to wobble, so I reasserted my control.

“Prince, try to keep the filter steady.”

He tried, but he simply didn’t have the strength. The filter was too complicated for him, and managing that while keeping the qi flowing at the right angle and velocity was beyond him.

“Stop, my prince. We need to discuss this.”

I saw frustration on his face, but he relented and let go of his qi.

“Speak.”

I had started down this path, and I didn’t know where it would lead me, but I would commit myself to it because I expected that if I didn’t, I would be trapped as a servant for a cultivation-mad prince until I died.

“My prince, you need to make a clear decision about your future cultivation. There are a few ways to proceed, and you need to choose your path knowing the consequences of that choice.”

He simply nodded in acknowledgment.

“The first option is to proceed as you were before. Cultivate on your own and try to advance immediately. This will result in a severe mental influence that will control you for the rest of your life.”

“No.” His left eye twitched with annoyance.

“Second, you can try to find a way to increase your affini—”

“No.”

I nodded to his quick response.

“I could help you train your ability to cultivate on your own. With your current affinity, you will require a significantly stronger soul before you can even begin to practice your cultivation technique properly. I can help you train, but it will still take time.”

“How long?”

“I cannot be certain. At least ten year—”

“No.” He glared at me. “I must reach Martial Grandmaster before thirty.”

I sucked in a breath.

“Then I will need to directly assist you during cultivation. The only options you have are how much assistance I provide. The more I help, the better your foundation will be. However, if I control too much of the process, you may not have the experience you will need at later stages.”

He looked me directly in the eye with fierce determination.

“Do everything you can to make it perfect. I need a flawless foundation, but we must hurry. The faster I can cultivate the better.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 109 – Life 62, Age 80, Martial Master 1

I worked with Prince CaoHan every day to try and increase his cultivation as swiftly and perfectly as possible, but some limits were hard to surpass.

While I stabilized his qi filter as he cultivated, alleviating him of that burden, the prince still found it difficult to draw in significant quantities of qi. This was due to lacking experience, lacking affinities, and the fact that he was trying to drag it through a perfect filter which required considerably more pressure.

His anger and frustration over his situation drove him to dedicate himself to harsh cultivation every day. Still, at the end of our first year together, he had only reached Martial Disciple 4. Since each stage became more difficult and took longer, there was a risk that he wouldn’t be able to reach Martial Master by 20 and qi stagnation would set in.

The prince’s solution to this problem was straightforward. He was allowed a stipend of Qi Gathering Pills from the palace, and he planned to use them to push his cultivation forward as fast as possible. This wasn't a terrible idea, but when I saw the pills he was given, I had to convince him to find a different path.

“My prince,” I said, pleading with him, “you were given Mid-Purity pills. If you use those, it will cause severe damage to your foundation. We can find a better way. Let’s at least go out and purchase High-Purity pills.”

He seethed at my entreaty. “Do you have any money for pills? What do they cost? A gold each? Do you have that much money? I have none!”

Why hadn’t the palace given him better pills? Even Perfect Rank 1 pills would have cost them practically nothing, but they had given the prince pills that would ruin his foundation and he had no choice but to take them.

I wanted to step forward and offer my services as an alchemist, but I couldn’t. I was already risking too much simply by training the prince as I had. Being a skilled teacher was one thing, being a trained alchemist would be entirely different. The palace would have to take notice at that point.

“Let’s continue,” he grunted, taking his place in the center of the main hall.

After consuming the pill, qi quickly began to gather around the prince, allowing him to progress far faster than he had before. The pill would cause damage, but I could only hope that if he didn’t take more than one per stage of cultivation, the damage would be limited.

With the prince focused on cultivating, years passed, and I came to learn more about the prince and what drove him.

He had been essentially cast out of the imperial family because of his low affinities. This seemed a little strange until I found out that when a member of the imperial clan turned 16, they would undergo the family’s Disciple Trial. His low affinities were a direct result of his poor performance during this test. It was also because of this result that his family had severely limited the resources he received, cutting off his future.

Because of this, he was relegated to living in this shack. While other imperial scions had scores of servants, he had only me. His situation was better than mine had been in my early days, but the change in his life once his affinities were announced was more than most could bear.

I couldn’t help but feel that his situation resonated with my own.

He wasn’t only cast out because of his affinities, though. His blessing was considered equally weak since it only slightly boosted his physical strength. We had found that every time his cultivation advanced, the physical strength his blessing provided would also increase. However, even if this increased strength were substantial, the prince was convinced that it was not a blessing the imperial family would value.

What would they value, though? A pristine foundation? With my help, he could have achieved that, but he didn’t have the necessary resources. If he had been provided only a couple of gold a year, he could have had a perfect foundation as a Martial Disciple. Instead, he had one stuffed full of pill toxins.

When the prince was 19, he reached Peak Disciple, avoiding the risk of stagnation. He wanted to push further, entering the Martial Master realm immediately, but I saw that three years of hard work had taken a toll on him.

He needed a break.

I convinced him to take a trip into the city for a bit of relaxation. I was a little worried about our safety because he didn’t have any guards and I was only a Martial Master 1. If someone caused trouble, it would be difficult for us to defend ourselves. However, even though CaoHan had been dismissed by his family, he was still an imperial prince. There shouldn’t be many who would be willing to attack him in the city.

Going outside the city would still be extremely risky, but there shouldn’t be much he needed to fear within the imperial capital, so the two of us set out for a day in town.

The trip felt a lot like the last time I had been in the city. That time, the prince I was following was attacked and appeared to have been killed in a test of my adherence to a slave technique. I was hoping this trip would go a little better.

Our biggest problem was that Prince CaoHan had very little money to spend. The palace provided him with a small stipend, but it was not at the level someone of his stature was accustomed to. To maintain appearances, he still needed clothing that was suitable for a prince, but he was not willing to spend what money he did have on what he considered frivolities, so anything he bought needed to be maintained in top condition so that it would rarely need to be replaced.

A couple of lives ago, I had bought an extremely nice set of robes from the System with formations sewn into them to keep them clean and in good repair. I wished the palace had been of a mind to provide all their scions with such clothing, but in its absence, maintenance of the prince’s wardrobe fell to me.

One of our top priorities during this trip was to find the prince a new set of robes that was both cheap and fashionable. If the prince wanted people in the palace to give him any face, he needed to look like someone who deserved it. Our hope was that when presented as a Martial Master in well-tailored clothing, the palace might be willing to increase his stipend.

We were walking through the city, slowly moving from the upper-class areas to the middle-class areas, when the prince froze stock-still.

He was staring at a girl buying food from a street vender. She couldn’t have been older than 15. To me, her appearance was ordinary. She wouldn’t have stood out when placed among any of the other women I had met in my travels.

She had long black hair and smooth skin, but that was common enough among girls of even modest means. She wore a simple tan hanfu which showed she was likely of the lower middle class. Overall, my appraisal of the girl was that she was ordinary.

“Beautiful,” whispered the prince. “I’ve never…”

“My prince?” I asked, worried about the sudden change in mood.

He continued to stare at the girl, mumbling to himself. “Would she? Of course, no one would deny me. Is it possible? Yes, I can accomplish anything I want…”

A gleam appeared in the prince’s eyes.

“At last, I have met my first wife,” he said with a tone of reverence.

He radiated confidence. There was no question in his mind. This was his wife.

He began to walk toward the girl, but before he was halfway there, a young man walked up to the girl and started talking to her.

The prince immediately became enraged.

He rushed forward and backhanded the boy, sending him sprawling to the ground.

“How dare you speak to my wife!”

Both the girl and boy were in shock and didn’t know how to respond.

“Come, wife. Return to the palace with me immediately.”

The girl was frightened and could barely speak. “Who… who are you?”

“I am your husband. Follow me back home,” he said with a slight bow to her.

This exchange had only lasted a moment, but all I could do was stand there horrified at what was happening. Something had triggered in the prince’s brain that made him decide to kidnap a young girl. What should I do?

My ability gave me an instinctive response. In this situation, if I was cultivating the slave technique properly, I was supposed to walk up and support the prince. That meant breaking several bones in the boy’s body for daring to tarnish the prince’s woman.

No. That wasn’t going to happen.

Until this point, I had allowed that ability to guide me. I had shown more of my skills than I should have, but I never acted in a way that was contrary to the slave technique. Being able to zone out and rely on its guidance had been comforting.

The days of doing that were over.

If the ability wanted me to brutalize a child and help CaoHan kidnap a girl, I would no longer play by its rules.

I walked up to the prince’s side.

“My prince, would you please introduce me?”

“Steward Fang, this is my wife. You shall treat her with the respect she deserves.”

The poor girl was nearly crying at this point. She was shaking and afraid to move.

What was going on? What triggered in the prince’s mind to make him so certain this woman was his wife? It had to be the cultivation technique, but it shouldn’t have such an impact. Was it because of all the pill toxins?

My eyes widened when I realized something I had forgotten. The ability to resist a cultivation technique’s influence depended on one’s soul strength. It had been a long time since I concerned myself with this since I exercised my soul and increased it through alchemy, but the prince had done nothing that would have strengthened his soul.

Even with a perfect foundation, with zero soul strength, he might still fall under the technique’s influence, and his foundation was far from perfect.

What had it done to him?

“My prince, mistress,” I bowed to both of them, acknowledging the prince’s claim. “How did such a union come about?”

The prince smiled. “You saw it yourself. I glanced at my wife as she was shopping and knew that she must be mine. If I decide something must happen, then the world must bend to my will. The moment I decided to marry her, she became my wife.”

My mind raced to try and get a handle on the situation. How could I defuse it?

“Of course, prince. If your will is to marry her, then that is what will happen, but why don’t we return to the palace first to make preparations? Let this young woman return home and tell her parents the good news.”

The prince snorted. “It is my desire that she returns with me today. I will slay anyone that stands in my way.”

“Of course, my prince, of course,” I said, scrambling for a response.

The technique said that he ‘could not lose.’

“If it is your will, the young lady would be honored to follow us back, I’m sure. It is only a shame that the introduction of your bride will pale in comparison to the spectacle of when your brothers introduced their wives.”

I had no idea if there was any truth at all in my statement. I could only hope.

The prince’s nostrils flared. “They dare!”

“My prince, let’s return to the palace first. Allow the lady to return home and coordinate with her parents while we prepare her celebration.”

“Yes.” He nodded firmly. “We must display her beauty properly for all to see. Come. Let us return immediately.”

Without taking another glance at his ‘wife,’ the prince turned and began walking toward the palace at a swift pace.

I only had a moment to give the girl a brief look of apology before hurrying after him.

I didn’t know why everything went so wrong in the city, but I could only blame it on a combination of powerful mental effects from a corrupt foundation, a weak soul, and a teenage boy’s hormones.

No matter what the problem was, I had to ensure both CaoHan and that young lady were protected. I would rather end this timeline immediately than be a party to something like what almost just happened.

The only thing I could think of doing was to delay and try to keep his mind off the subject of taking a wife.

“Steward Fang,” the prince called out, “begin preparations for welcoming my wife in a grand manner.”

“Of course, my prince, but this isn’t something that should be rushed. If you show your dominance too quickly, your family might object.”

He snorted. “They wouldn’t dare.”

“Your brothers may not be as intelligent as you expect. They may attempt to stop you.”

He glowered at me. “Then I will strike them down!”

“Exactly, but you need to first raise your cultivation. You cannot be stopped, but that doesn’t mean you cannot be slowed. Please, accept my guidance on this. I will begin preparations, but we must wait until everything, including you, is ready.”

This finally calmed him. “Yes, I understand. I still need to gain strength. I am powerful for my age, but…” He trailed off in thought.

I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t, he only turned around and returned to the main hall to resume cultivating.

Once he had left, I hurried to prepare. Not to welcome a bride, but to train the poor boy.

His soul was too weak. It needed strengthening.

I had never even considered soul cultivation before, and I had no idea how to do it.

I quickly looked through my mental library. I had plundered many technique collections over the years, and I was certain there had to be at least one soul cultivation manual in it.

After a quick search, I managed to find three basic techniques. I didn’t know their quality, but they were all Rank 1. While none of them seemed like anything I would ever want to use personally, they were exactly what CaoHan needed.

I flipped through the manuals in my mental library and finally settled on one that seemed both easy to cultivate and had an effect that seemed like the best available option for balancing the prince’s mind.

The manual said that cultivating it would lead to a feeling of detachment from the world, making everything feel less important. It wasn’t a good effect, none of the ones I had were, but at least this one had a chance of stopping him from kidnapping that girl.

I took out several sheets of paper and quickly made a copy of the technique then went to deliver it.

“My prince, your qi cultivation has been proceeding admirably, but you need to go further. Soul cultivation is the key to mastering the power you have gained. Only by combining both can you become truly unstoppable.”

He looked at me, and I could feel he was about to object, so I preempted him.

“My prince, as you know, in your current condition, you require assistance to advance in qi cultivation. With soul cultivation, that will not be the case. If you practice this, you will gain power that truly belongs to you alone.”

I could see wheels turning in his head, trying to figure out what my goal was, but his cultivation technique won out. It didn’t matter what I planned. He would always be able to win through.

“Fine. Give it to me.”

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Chapter 110 – Life 62, Age 83, Martial Master 1

The following year, I held the prince back from advancing to Martial Master. He wasn’t happy about the delay, but there was no meaningful difference between advancing at age 19 and advancing at age 20. Instead of advancing a year earlier, it was much more important for him to take that time to cultivate his soul.

I didn’t have any knowledge of soul cultivation, and I wasn’t willing to attempt practicing it myself, so all I could do was provide the prince with a technique manual and allow him to learn how to cultivate it on his own.

After he started doing so, I never heard him talk about bringing that girl back to the palace to be his woman again, so that matter seemed to have been successfully dealt with, but I wasn’t sure what the cost would be. The soul cultivation technique said that he would feel detached from the world, which could complicate future matters, but I had no choice but to try and deal with such issues as they arose.

After a year of improving the strength of his soul, I helped CaoHan advance to Martial Master. I would have waited longer if I could have, but we were out of time, and stagnation had started to become a real risk.

Once he broke through to the Master realm, we decided that he would set a pace that would allow him to advance steadily while still meeting his goal of reaching Grandmaster before 30.

I did my best to ensure each meridian he formed was as perfect as I could make it, but pill toxins were still an issue. Advancing to Martial Master allowed CaoHan to requisition a supply of Meridian Builder Pills, but they were also only Mid-Purity. Even limiting him to one pill per meridian, the foundation we were able to forge was far worse than either of us would have wished.

At 28 years old, he ascended to Peak Master. All that was left was constructing his dantian and compressing his qi.

This was where we hit a roadblock. His earth affinity was still only mid nine-star, and with a peak seven-star affinity, I didn’t have enough control inside of his body to help him advance to Grandmaster.

After giving it some thought, I decided I had enough credits in reserve that I could spend a few on an upgrade I would need in the future anyway.

“System, permanently upgrade my earth affinity to peak six-star.”

Permanent Peak, 6-star Earth Affinity. Cost 16 million credits. 136,660,775 credits remaining.

With a six-star earth affinity, I was able to help him smoothly advance to Grandmaster at 29, meeting his goal one year earlier than necessary.

The day after the prince’s advancement, a man dressed in the livery of an imperial guard entered the main hall of the prince’s palace without knocking or announcing his presence.

“Prince Du CaoHan, by order of his imperial majesty, you have been granted permission to enter the Grandmaster Trial on the fifth of next month.”

He didn’t wait for a response and immediately turned around and left.

I looked at the prince and saw a look of exultation on his face.

“My prince, what is the Trial?”

“It is my opportunity to prove myself.”

I considered asking for more details but decided to follow a different course. “What do we need to do to prepare?”

The prince laughed. “Nothing, no one can stop me now.”

I was concerned because it felt like the effects of his cultivation technique were beginning to overpower any increases in his soul strength. The manual I had given him was only equivalent to a Rank 1 technique, so it couldn’t keep up once he reached Grandmaster. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a better soul technique to give him.

“Very well, my prince, how shall we proceed?”

A look of conviction crossed his face. “I need to cultivate. I need any edge I can get to push as far as possible.”

When the date of the prince’s Trial arrived, both he and I were taken to a carriage. It had no windows, and I noticed signs of formations that would confuse our senses so we wouldn’t be able to deduce our destination from the coach’s movements.

Normally, as a steward, I wouldn’t have been allowed to join the prince for this event, but since I was the sole member of his retinue, I was required to play the role of his observer.

We exited the carriage on top of a bluff overlooking a rock quarry where dozens of nobles had already assembled. The path down into the quarry led to a dark crevasse where the Trial was to take place. To both the left and the right of the crevasse’s entrance, there were five tall crystalline pillars.

On the bluff, at the head of the trail down, sat a large palanquin from which a powerful voice echoed.

“Prince Du CaoHan, son of Emperor Du XianTong, descendant of Emperor Du XiongMing. Present yourself!”

The prince straightened his back and lifted his chin. With a powerful demeanor, he walked to the front of the palanquin and kneeled.

“Father, I am ready to prove my strength.”

The same voice boomed out again. “Prince Du CaoHan. Proceed to the Trial. Display your might for the empire to witness.”

The prince lowered his head in a subtle bow and then stood. Walking with all the pride of an imperial scion, he descended into the quarry and entered the dark crevasse below.

Once he was out of sight, the nobles around me began to discuss.

“How high do you think he will get? Think he can make to eight-star this time?” someone said with a laugh.

“Come off it Jin, he’s a Grandmaster. If he can’t make seven-star, he’ll be the joke of the empire.”

“Isn’t he already? I bet all he does is whore around all day. That’s all someone like him is good for.”

“Jin! You really shouldn’t say that about a prince…”

The men’s words were cut off by a dull brown glow bursting forth from the pillar furthest to the left of the entrance.

Jin laughed. “Well, at least he made it to low nine-star. I’ll give him credit for not being entirely worthless.”

Over the next few minutes, the brown glow intensified until a narrow beam of light shot from the top of the crystal toward the entrance of the crevasse.

“Peak nine-star,” boomed the voice from the palanquin.

“So, he has actually improved since the first time. Do you think the nine-star test was to see how many women he could bed? Maybe his practice is paying off,” said Jin with a snide tone.

His conversation partner just shook his head.

After a few more minutes, a second pillar started to glow a rusty red color. Fifteen minutes later, it too shot a narrow beam of light toward the opening.

“Peak eight-star,” boomed the voice.

“Now we get to see if he actually learned anything or if he’s just a paper tiger.”

Half an hour later, a third pillar began to glow with a beige hue, and an hour after it began, it reached peak brightness and shot a third beam toward the opening.

“Peak seven-star,” announced the man in the palanquin.

An hour passed, and a fourth pillar began to glow with a faint ochre light.

“See Jin, I knew he would reach six-star.”

I looked around and saw that the crowd of nobles had become tense. They were here to see the empire’s number one failure, not the rise of a competitor.

Two hours later, the fourth crystal brightened fully, and another beam struck the Trial’s entrance.

“Peak six-star!”

A hush fell over the crowd. No one was happy. When the fifth pillar began to glow a soft russet brown, people began to whisper. However, when it suddenly shot out a beam of light without brightening further, the mood instantly relaxed and people breathed a sigh of relief.

The prince was forcefully ejected from the crevasse and was flung to the base of the palanquin.

“Du CaoHan, present yourself!” The voice boomed.

The prince looked spent, but he quickly kowtowed.

“Prince CaoHan, you have shown promise by ascending to Grandmaster at such an early age, and you have been granted a low five-star affinity by the Brilliant Sun Grandmaster Trial. The Emperor hereby awards you one hundred thousand gold, a full retinue, and lordship of Red Sword City in the Brilliant East Kingdom.”

“Thank you, father,” the prince said through gritted teeth.

When we returned to the main hall, the prince was in a foul mood.

“That cur of a father only granted me a remote border city! How dare he! He must be afraid that I will usurp his position as Emperor. I won’t allow this to stop me. Nothing can stop me! I will kill that bastard father of mine and take his throne by force if I have to!”

To me, being given a significantly higher affinity and a free lordship seemed excessively generous, but it didn’t meet the prince’s expectations for a reward following his feat. Even though he had done well in the Trial, his cultivation-madness had been triggered. He felt like he had lost, and he wasn’t allowed to lose. The Grandmaster technique he had insisted on using would only continue to amplify these effects, and I worried about what would happen in the future.

I felt like it was all my fault. I should have provided him with Perfect pills. I had a good reason not to do so, but the pill toxins were ruining the boy’s life.

I refocused my mind. The past was the past. I couldn’t change it, we just needed to decide what to do from here.

Later that day, the prince’s palace was filled with new people. The full retinue award by the Emperor had arrived, and there would be ministers and servants to take over managing everything in the prince’s new domain.

I was set to become a steward in truth at this point. With professionals available, I should have been relegated to merely managing the servants while those more knowledgeable took over guiding the prince. However, CaoHan hadn’t agreed with this course of action.

The prince gathered his entire retinue in the main hall to plan our future course.

“Welcome, advisors, to the Cold Wind Palace.”

There were scattered bows and murmurs of thanks, but the reaction was muted.

“While I welcome you all, I do not know you. You were all appointed by my father, and while I admire his judgment, I must place my trust in those who have proven their loyalty.”

The prince gazed meaningfully at his new followers.

“Therefore, I announce Steward Fang’s promotion to the position of Chancellor. He has been with me for years and is one of the reasons I have reached this point. I expect you to work through him in the days ahead.”

The prince nodded to me, and I stepped forward.

“The prince has been entrusted with the lordship of Red Sword City. We will be departing for his new domain next month. Return to your quarters and begin drawing up plans for how the prince may be able to begin improving the city and boosting its productivity. Everyone is dismissed save for Tutor Long.”

Everyone cleared out, leaving the prince, the tutor, and myself alone in the room.

“Tutor Long, I understand you have significant experience in training cultivators, is that correct?”

“Yes, Chancellor.”

I looked at the prince, and he nodded at me.

“Due to his circumstances, the prince was forced to consume several pills with rather poor purity. The amount of pill toxin that has accumulated in his system is… unfortunate. Do you know of any way to resolve this issue?”

In the past, my solution to pill toxin buildup was to avoid it in the first place, so I hadn’t done much research on solving the issue. I could only hope an imperial tutor would have some ideas.

“How many pills has he taken and what was their quality?”

“One pill at each stage of cultivation since Martial Disciple 4, starting about 13 years ago. All were Mid-Purity.”

The tutor winced. “This is a serious problem.” He hesitated but kept speaking. “The toxic energy from pills is far more tenacious than something like impure qi. It is difficult to remove. I know of only one solution.”

He paused, looking at the prince.

“You must completely disperse your cultivation. Then you can take an Energy Expelling Pill. It will be able to completely cleanse your body of all energy, including the pill toxins.”

Something about the tone of the tutor’s voice and the way he phrased things made me want to slap him for his impertinence. He should never say the prince ‘must’ do something. I felt my hand twitch instinctively. It wanted to slap him, but I caught the reaction in time and stopped myself.

“I must become a mortal once more?” asked the prince in a neutral tone. I could see the complete rejection of the idea boiling under the surface.

“Yes, but as long as you can return to your current cultivation within a few years, there will be no long-term side effects. The biggest risk would be not being able to cultivate swiftly enough to keep stagnation at bay. If we can secure a source of Perfect pills, this shouldn’t be a problem though.”

The prince nodded, considering the option.

“There is one difficulty,” said the tutor. Discomfort showed on his face. “Your system likely has a substantial amount of toxins in it, and they have been there for far too long. A Rank 3 Expelling Pill won’t work. You will need a Rank 4 one, and that is expensive Lord-level alchemy. The cost will be dozens of spirit stones.”

The prince responded before I could say anything. “Is that the only way?”

“It is the only one I am aware of, my prince.”

“Very well, we set the issue aside, then. I cannot allow for such delays in my cultivation. I simply need to gain mastery over such petty concerns. Chancellor Fang, arrange for better pills in the future, but do not bring this issue up again.”

“Yes, my prince.” I bowed, accepting his ruling. I could have tried to change his mind, but I didn’t have any real solution to the underlying problem.

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Chapter 111 – Life 62, Age 92, Martial Master 1

As a reward for his performance in the Trial, the prince had been awarded the position of Lord of Red Sword City. Moving his entire new retinue to the city took several weeks, and when it was finished, I was exhausted, but I didn’t have any time to rest. As soon as everything was settled, the prince called his council to determine how to proceed.

“As I am only a Martial Grandmaster 1, I need to spend my time raising my cultivation. Chancellor Fang will take charge of the council in my absence. Your only goal is to improve the city's prosperity sufficiently to allow me to swiftly advance through the Lord realm. Do whatever you need to do to make this happen.”

After giving everyone a firm look, he departed the room, leaving the council to rule in his stead.

I drew in a deep breath to help me concentrate.

“Ministers, you are the experts, and I will defer to your judgment on most things, but I need to be sure everything proceeds with the prince’s best interests in mind. Let’s take the rest of the day to assess the city and see where we can find places to improve. We will reconvene tomorrow at noon.”

The ministers all agreed so the council was dismissed. This began my stint as a city planner and manager. It wasn’t a role I had trained for, and it made me regret delegating away all my responsibilities in my last life, but I was determined to do my best to learn. These skills would be essential in the future.

My main vision for improving the city’s prosperity wasn’t too dissimilar from that of my last life. I wanted to raise up the lowest level of society. I viewed the city as a pyramid, and the mortals were its base. They were the foundation everything else was built upon. If we improved the lives of the mortals, we improved the lives of everyone.

Pulling out my designs for a pill factory would have been exceptionally foolhardy, so instead, I decided to work with several low-level alchemists to set up an Alchemy Association. Its goal was to train as many people as possible to make low-Rank pills. It was unlikely they would be able to find many people willing and able to make a substantial number of Rank 0 pills, but I convinced the ministers to grant various benefits to anyone who did so.

I could not focus my efforts on this task alone, though. I had to be involved in every area of the city, from planning celebrations for various festivals to making decisions on who to appoint to a myriad of important positions. The ministers were the experts, but they needed a firm hand to ensure that everything they did was to the prince’s benefit and not just their own.

For me, one of the most difficult tasks was working with the Minister of Justice. I didn’t have the cultivation level needed to power through situations, and while the minister was a Grandmaster, many families in the city also had Grandmasters. I had to learn to negotiate situations as best as possible to prevent fights from breaking out.

I wished I had a blessing that would guide me through these situations, but I didn’t. My ability to know how the slave technique would have me react had been causing problems ever since the prince’s Trial. It constantly tried to compel me to do things such as slapping the prince’s tutor when he couldn’t help with the pill toxin issue. I had begun completely ignoring what it told me to do.

I considered using some of my credits to boost my aptitude for city management, but in the end, I held off. While it would have been beneficial to learn my job faster, I didn’t feel like the purchase was necessary. This was something I could learn to do without the crutch of the System.

During this time, I completed a task I had put off for far too long.

My storage space was stuffed with pages from Emperor Li’s book, and I needed to get them transferred to my mental library.

“System, upgrade my library to be able to hold Rank 4 books.”

Cost 900,000 credits. Purchase Confirmed. 135,760,775 credits remaining.

I began trying to carefully read the pages, but they were nearly incomprehensible to me. Without the cultivation base of a Martial Lord, the information from the book seemed to reject me. I didn’t plan for this situation, but it only made another purchase I had been considering more important.

“System, I want to upgrade my library so that the information it records is always accurate. Even if I misread a passage, I want the stored copy of the book to be correct.”

Host’s current mental library is capable of storing information up to Rank 4. Upgrading the library to perfectly store information Rank 4 and below. Cost 10 million credits.

It was expensive, but it would save me considerable time in the future since I wouldn't have to reread each book several times to make sure my copy was accurate.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 125,760,775 credits remaining.

I began to read Emperor Li’s book again, and although the information still rejected me, checking the library showed that perfect copies of each page I read had been made. There were even blank pages for the parts of the book where information was missing.

Once everything was safely stored away, I burned the remains of the book so that no one would find them.

The council and I spent nearly two decades managing Red Sword City on the prince’s behalf.

There were issues, that was unavoidable, but I felt like we were slowly making progress. I didn’t know how much our efforts had improved the prince’s karmic energy gains, but looking at the city, I could tell that we had made a difference.

One of the most important projects we implemented was installing a new sewage system throughout the entire city. It wasn’t perfect since we didn’t have anyone with knowledge of how to properly design such a thing, but it dramatically improved the welfare of the city’s poorest districts.

Beyond that, the Alchemy Association was starting to bear fruit, and the city housed many new Disciple Alchemists. They couldn’t do much, but they could provide simple pills and powders. This put money in their pocket while also boosting the health and strength of the city’s citizens.

The development of the city was on a good track, and I was optimistic about where it could go in the future. That was when the prince called a meeting of the entire council.

He had just broken through to Martial Lord, and he needed karmic energy to continue advancing.

“Accumulation of karmic energy in this remote border village is too slow. We need to increase it,” the prince announced.

My body, weary from the work we had put in to improve the city, sagged a bit at his words. “My prince, we are doing everything possible, but increasing karmic energy production takes time.”

He looked at his ministers. “Do you all agree with this assessment?”

They all bowed their heads.

“Very well, if you can no longer increase the prosperity of this village, then it is time to appoint a Minister of War.”

My head jerked around, and I stared at him. “My prince?”

“Chancellor Fang, appoint a Minister of War. We will begin attacking nearby settlements and pillaging their resources.”

Without saying another word, he turned and left the room.

I didn’t know what to do. I looked at the Minister of Rites.

“Can you explain the situation to me?”

The minister bowed his head. “While the empire doesn’t explicitly encourage war among its cities, it is an accepted practice for boosting a Ruler’s karmic energy. With a Minister of War, we will attack others, and we will be attacked in return. When we bring back spoils, the prince will gain an energy boost from it. When our lands are destroyed, he will get a boost from repairing them. I do not have a complete understanding of the principles behind the practice, but I can say that war is considered a valuable tool for boosting a Ruler’s karmic energy gains.”

I closed my eyes. It might help the prince, but how would it affect the lives of his people?

“Alright,” I took a deep breath, “if we are going to do this, we need to be smart about it. Let’s ensure we take as little damage as possible.”

Ju DaoRong was appointed as Minister of War. He was a Martial Lord who had served as the prince’s personal bodyguard. With the prince’s advancement to Lord, Ju DaoRong was now able to spend time on other assignments.

Once the appointment was made, the prince began a bloody crusade against the surrounding towns and villages. Slowly, he worked his way up to attacking small cities.

I did my best to guide these attacks, trying to minimize the damage they caused, but my efforts were futile. The prince wanted destruction. That was the quickest route to more energy for himself.

With the boost he was receiving from pillaging the empire, the prince quickly rose through the Lord realm and hit Peak Lord in only 12 years. However, that was where he was blocked. Without a kingdom, he couldn’t advance any further.

The council was gathered in the prince’s throne room when he laid out his next plan. He had servants bring out a large table, and he spread a map on it for us to see.

“Minister Ju, you have done an excellent job as Minister of War, but now it is time for your real test. I mean to forge a new kingdom.”

I quickly sucked in a breath.

“My prince—” I began but was cut off.

“This is a map of the surrounding territories. If we slowly absorb the marked cities, we should be able to gather enough of a population to forge a new kingdom.”

“My prince, if we do this, we will be facing Martial Kings on the battlefield.”

The prince nodded. “Minister Ju, select a group to be raised to Martial Lord. Then, I want to begin working to raise you and your most promising subordinates all the way to False King. That will allow us to hold off any enemy Kings. We don’t need to be able to defeat them right now, we just need to be strong enough that they don’t want to attack us directly.”

We followed the prince’s plans. We assembled our armies and marched to war to forge a new kingdom.

At first, it worked. Kings were reticent to spend too much effort defending small border cities, but over the years, as the prince’s nascent kingdom grew, the opposition we faced grew as well.

Every day, I had to read reports of the toll his war was taking on our population. Every day, I regretted that I didn’t step in to stop him from this madness.

I didn’t know how it would all end, but I expected it to be with the prince’s execution. His war had angered several powerful Kings, and once we were defeated, I doubted any of his council would survive the aftermath.

That was when something happened that had the power to change the entire course of the war.

A messenger arrived from the imperial capital. The Du Clan ancestor, Du XiongMing, was nearing the end of his life, and all direct descendants were required to return.

The prince assembled his entire cabinet to discuss the situation.

“This is our opportunity,” he said, fervor blazing in his eyes. “The old ancestor’s death is the solution to all of our problems.”

I could tell that the prince’s words made the entire room uneasy, but everyone did their best to hide their reactions.

“The empire relies on the old ancestor for its protection. I learned as a child that he has a powerful object in his possession that can determine the fate of the entire dynasty. If I take control of it when he dies, there can be no question of my ascension to Emperor.”

I looked at the ministers and saw that none of them were excited. Everyone was simply afraid.

“My prince,” I said, deciding to be the one to voice everyone’s concerns. “Even if that is the case, it will be difficult to acquire such an item. If it is so important, the Emperor will surely seize it before anyone else has a chance.”

When the prince looked at me, I saw a cunning glint in his eyes that frightened me.

“That is where you come in, Chancellor Fang. The old fool is a formation specialist. Stealing anything from him directly is suicide. We need to take it from his corpse. The imperial family has already agreed to a truce. No one is allowed in the room with the ancestor when he dies in order to prevent an immediate battle from breaking out between the different factions within the clan. However, since you are only a Martial Master 1, and you were trained as a servant, I will convince my family to let you serve the ancestor in his final moments. When he dies, steal his treasure, and bring it to me.”

I was stunned by the prince’s brazenness. “Will the others agree to this?”

“If they don’t, then I will make them,” the prince responded, gnashing his teeth.

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Chapter 112 – Life 62, Age 143, Martial Master 1

A note from G Tolley

Note: Today is a double chapter day. There will be no chapter Friday.

During the carriage ride, I considered what was about to happen. No matter what the fallout was, my death was guaranteed. I had to prepare for what would happen next.

I emptied my storage space of almost everything. All I kept was a small jade bottle with two poison pills inside, Emperor Li’s coin, and the small bag of seeds SuYin had given me. Each item was tucked into a separate corner of the space, allowing just enough room for me to then place the spherical-shaped seed of the Cold Mountain Fire within.

We arrived at the capital city late in the day, but the prince didn’t even consider resting. He quickly rushed us all deep into the palace complex.

At a large intersection, a team of guards was stopping a small horde of people from entering a blocked-off corridor. The prince advanced and spoke to their leader.

“Guardsman, I am Prince CaoHan, I request entry into the ancestor’s chambers.”

The guard smirked. “You may enter, Prince CaoHan, but none of your… followers are allowed to join you.”

The prince’s upper lip curled in a snarl. “Steward Fang will attend me.”

“That will not happen. You–” the guard was about to laugh, but his voice quickly cut out. A moment later, he looked at me. “Steward Fang, you may enter.”

I bowed my head to the guard and followed after the prince. I was to be a servant here, not a chancellor.

We entered an enormous room where a sizable group was crowded around a large bed. We approached, and I saw that it held a withered old man who looked to be on his last breath. Despite his aged appearance, whenever I looked at him, I felt a deep sense of foreboding, like he could end my life with only a thought.

“Father,” said a man who looked only slightly younger than the one on the bed, “it is time for us to depart. May your journey be swift.”

The speaker, along with everyone else, gave the old man on the bed a deep bow and turned to leave.

The prince, who had just arrived, quickly spoke up.

“Ancestor, forgiveness.” He dropped to the floor in a kowtow. “Please allow my steward to accompany you in these final moments.”

The elderly man who had just spoken was about to angrily chastise the prince, but the old man waved him off and gave me a deep, knowing look.

“Very well,” he said in a soft voice. “The rest of you may leave. Chancellor Fang shall accompany me on this journey.”

My eyes widened in shock that the old man knew who I was, but I did my best to reign in my reaction.

“As you say, father.”

The elderly man gave the prince a stern look and hurried him out of the room with everyone else, leaving me alone with the old man.

I leaned on my ability to know what the slave technique would have me do in this situation and headed to the side of the room where a kettle and teapot had already been prepared. There should be a cup by the old man’s bed in case he needed it. After pouring and delivering the tea, I moved to place myself near the room’s entrance, but the old man spoke up, halting me in my tracks.

“I really admire people like you. I always dreamed of having what you have.”

I turned to look at him. He was staring right at me.

“Sir?”

He laughed heartily. All traces of weakness had left him. “Don’t worry, everyone else is gone. We can speak freely.”

My heart began to race. What was he talking about? What did he know?

With another chuckle, the old man picked up a glass of water that was sitting on his bedside table and placed his right hand over it.

“Do you know what my blessing is?” I could hear a wistful tone in his voice. There was sorrow mixed with acceptance.

He began moving his right hand like he was a puppeteer controlling a marionette. As he did, the water in the glass started moving. It turned into the detailed shape of a small girl in a long flowing dress. The girl gave a deep bow and started dancing to music only she could hear.

As the performance continued, the old man spoke. “This is it. I was given control over small quantities of water. This is the limit of my abilities. To be sure, I have done amazing things with this little trick of mine. It has even helped me climb to the peak of the continent, but that’s my limit. I can’t go any further. People like you, people with such powerful blessings… I really admire you.”

I froze. I could only croak out a single word. “How?”

He gave me a friendly smile, and I felt there was true warmth behind it. “I am 600 years old, not senile. I wouldn’t have lived so long if I couldn’t see through such a simple ruse. Do you know what cultivation technique you were given when you first entered the palace?”

I shook my head wordlessly.

“It is called the Brilliant Sun Servant Scripture. My son, the one who was speaking earlier? Knowledge of this cultivation technique was his blessing. It is at the Divine level. You managed to pass every test we have. Everything says you have cultivated this technique, but you are not bound by it. The only explanation is interference from an exceedingly powerful blessing.”

“Divine level?” I croaked. I had no idea what else to say.

“Yes,” the old man nodded. “Beyond Heaven-level techniques is the Divine level. A Divine level technique is not necessarily any more powerful than even a Low-Yellow one, but they all do something beyond what’s normally possible. They break the rules of this world. You breaking such a technique in turn is very interesting.”

I just stood there, unable to reply.

He gave me a grandfatherly smile. “We are alone here. Do you know why?”

I had an idea, but I shook my head. I wasn’t certain.

“Your prince is of course hoping that you will be able to help him steal something, though such an idea is beyond folly. The old folks out there, on the other hand, are more interested in finding out who you are and why you’re here. They might not like it, but since I sent the letter to bring you here and I requested this time alone with you, there wasn’t anything they could do to prevent it.”

The old man looked at my face and began laughing. “In any case, they already convinced themselves that your blessing just has to do with blocking the effects of cultivation techniques, so they aren’t worried about anything you can do, especially when I just promised them that I would kill you. Each and every person out there expects that the moment I die, you will follow me on my trip to the Yellow River. The only difference is how they plan to use your death to further their own agenda. This includes your prince, of course.”

I nodded in agreement. “The prince… he is beyond my help. I did my best for him, but I failed. He has dreams of using your death to catapult himself to Emperor, and I don’t know how to stop it. I expected to follow you into death, though now I think I might precede you.”

The old man cocked his head to the side and looked confused. “So, you will die. Interesting. I thought you had a way to survive.”

He lay in his bed studying me for a long time before coming to a decision.

“Tell me about yourself. Why are you here? The prince sent you, yes, but that isn’t the real reason. You chose to be here.”

I felt a shiver run down my spine. ‘Why am I here?’ It was a simple question, but the answer… Could I explain? Even if I could, should I explain?

I was terrified, but looking at the old man calmed me. I could see he meant no harm. He seemed genuinely interested. I had never told anyone about a past life. Would sharing stories between two people who are about to die be so bad? I felt an urge to talk that seemed to come from outside myself.

It might have been a mistake, but looking at the old man on his deathbed, I wanted to tell him. Maybe not the truth, but an outline of the truth.

I walked to the chair next to his bed and slumped down in it.

“Let me tell you about a man… my father, you could say.”

I looked down at my hand as I began to tell my story. “He was from the Wastes, on the western side of the continent. He was discarded by his clan, so he ventured out to learn and grow as a person. In his travels, he… happened to hear a foretelling about the time and location of someone’s death. He was told that this person possessed a valuable spirit fire seed. He made it his mission in life to steal that seed the moment the person died.”

I bowed my head, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw the old man smile and nod at this as if it were expected.

“During this quest, he met… a beautiful fairy… whose blessing was the strongest he had ever heard of. He helped her when she was young, so she devoted her life to him, doing everything she could to make sure he was successful.”

I no longer felt like I was talking. It felt like something was pulling the words from my soul.

“He didn’t value her, though. He was so focused on his goal that he didn’t notice anything she did for him. She began to despair. He didn’t value her like he should have… but because of the bond formed when they were young, she couldn’t leave him. In the end, she committed suicide because that was preferable to being discarded by him.”

As I spoke, tears began to run down my face as the wall that blocked me from memories of my past life crumbled to pieces.

“You asked why I’m here? The truth is… the truth is I’m here to see if it was worth it. Was causing so much pain worth it? I… I don’t think it was.”

Unnoticed, the old man had shifted in his bed and came closer to me. He placed a hand on my shoulder.

“I don’t know,” he said in a somber voice. “I don’t know how to judge the worth of such things. If anyone knows, they never told me.”

I shook as I cried tears I had suppressed for decades.

He let me sit there for several moments but finally had to ask a question.

“How did he plan on stealing away this fire seed you spoke of?”

“He was working to become a Pill King. He believed that with such a title, he would be allowed to tend to the person as they died.”

The old man barked a laugh. “You— He actually believed the imperial family would allow a Martial King to be anywhere near me when I died? Even with my help, the only reason you were allowed to step foot into this room is because it is impossible for a Martial Master to absorb a fire seed. Every Ruler that’s not of the imperial clan was expelled from the capital weeks ago.”

I slumped further in my chair. All my plans, all my efforts, had always been futile.

“You said that this person… that I have a ‘valuable fire seed,’ right? Do you know why it’s so valuable? Do you know why empires would go to war over it?”

I shook my head. Any seed was valuable. This one had importance to me, but I didn’t know any specific reason others would value it so highly.

“As I told you, my blessing is weak, but I used it to climb to the absolute peak of this continent. I am at the limit. It is impossible for me, for any emperor, to take a single step further.”

I listened quietly. I had questions, but this was his story to tell.

“My name is Du XiongMing. I reached Peak Emperor at age 168. Stagnation had already set in, and I wasn’t far from the onset of true calcification of my energy body. I wanted to become a Sovereign, but everything I had learned said that if I tried to do so, the powers that rule this continent would find out and come to slaughter me, likely my entire clan as well. If I wanted to advance, I needed to travel to the Central Continent. Do you know how to get there?”

I shook my head.

“The Nine Rivers Saint. You need him to take you. Only with the Saint’s help can you make the journey, and with my aging body, he swiftly rejected me. I didn’t give up though. I believed, many still believe, that the seed I possess holds the secret to reaching the Central Continent without the Saint’s assistance.”

He began to shed his own tears. “I did everything I could to acquire it. I betrayed friends and killed innocents. I destroyed my entire life in pursuit of my obsession. In the end, after centuries of study, I found that it was all meaningless. The seed doesn’t have the powers people claim. Now, after years of solitude, I’m on my deathbed, and you are the only person here to see me pass. You want to know if it was worth it? All I can tell you is that for me, the answer is no. Nothing is worth that.”

We sat together in silence for long moments, but Du XiongMing made his decision before I did. He used his will to freeze me in place and put his right hand on my chest.

“I’m sorry for this burden, but I don’t believe this is the end for you. If I don’t do this, it will mean the destruction of my entire family after my death.”

I felt a massive surge of power move from the Formation Emperor’s chest, down his arm, out of his hand, and into my chest. It forced open my soul and buried itself deep inside. The Emperor used his strength to seal my soul, not allowing any energy to leak out.

“I expect my death to come within the hour,” he said, looking at me with sad eyes. “You have that much time to make your escape.”

I looked at him as my soul burned. It was painful, but I suffered worse soul pain at the end of my last life, so it didn’t overwhelm me.

“Do you still want to advance to Sovereign?” I asked. “If I could raise you to Sovereign, give you another hundred years, would you want that?”

A faint smile crossed the old man’s face, but he shook his head. “No, this is my time. I’m ready for it. I’m no longer willing to pay the cost of advancing.”

He gave me a long look.

“I don’t know what secrets you have, but if you want an opportunity to become a Sovereign, you have to go to the Nine Rivers Sect. They can guide you, but you may not like where their path leads or the cost you will have to pay.”

I cupped my hands in a martial salute and gave him a deep bow.

“Goodbye, Formation Emperor Du. May your journey be peaceful.”

I walked to the corner of the room and sat down in a kneeling position. I reached into my storage space, grabbed a poison pill, and placed it directly into my mouth.

The last thing I saw was a smile on the old man’s face.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Master 1. 1,000 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 125,761,775

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Chapter 113 – Life 63, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

A note from G Tolley

Note: Today is a double chapter day. Make sure you have read 112 before proceeding.

I woke up in my small shack in the Su Clan.

I took a deep breath and examined my soul.

It wasn’t completely healed from my past trauma, but it was on the mend. There were still frayed edges, but it no longer looked like the slightest breeze could tear it apart.

Sitting deep in the middle of my soul, a spatial spirit fire seed of the deep black waited for me.

I looked at the seed, and my mind drifted to everything I had been through to get it.

What had the System told me at the start of all of this? ‘If you are present in the capital of the Brilliant Sun Empire at the time of his death, and you have a connection with its ruling dynasty, it may be possible for you to claim this seed as your own upon his death.’

It didn’t say I needed to become a Pill King. It didn’t say I should master formations. All I was supposed to do was forge a connection. That was all I was supposed to do.

Instead, I had wanted it, needed it, so much that I put all my effort into obtaining it. I drove myself to madness and Mei to suicide. I couldn’t let that happen again. I had to find a way to be better.

It would have been easy to simply blame everything on my cultivation technique. Having a technique that dedicated me to a singular goal so much was far more dangerous than I had anticipated, and it was an easy scapegoat. However, I knew that wasn’t the whole story.

I had chosen my path. I had chosen to focus on that goal even before I started cultivating.

My thoughts drifted to Prince CaoHan. His cultivation technique drove him to his own version of madness, starting a war that would destroy everything he relied on. Was that only his technique’s fault? The prince had dedicated himself to that path before I even met him. His desire to rise above his position as a castoff scion had led him to make choices that were clearly against his best interests.

And I had just stood by and let him do it…

I switched tracks. The Formation Emperor Du XiongMing wasn’t any better. I didn’t know how his cultivation technique influenced him, but his goal of ascending to Sovereign had destroyed something he felt was precious.

Could I continue to simply blame cultivation techniques for this?

They were a factor, yes, and they seemed to only make bad situations worse, but there had to be a way to gain mastery over them. Long ago, the System had implied that the mental influences from cultivation techniques were a desire of the Heavenly Dao. Did the Dao simply force them onto cultivators to be cruel or was there a path forward that I couldn’t see?

I sighed. These were questions I couldn’t answer. I didn’t need to though.

I just needed to know one thing: What was I going to do?

I needed balance. I didn’t know how I would achieve it, and I had no idea what it would look like, but I needed to find some kind of balance in my life.

Set a goal, ‘get the seed,’ but at all times, remain balanced.

I must not allow my goal to be the only thing I am living for.

With or without cultivation-induced madness, balance would always be key.

I breathed in and out, centering myself. A small smile appeared on my face.

I needed balance, but that also meant I needed to acknowledge my wins, not just my losses. I had been able to achieve my goal, and that was still worth celebrating.

I could finally begin to proceed with what was important to me beyond anything else. I could begin to build a world beyond the horrors of the Heavenly and Earthly Daos, beyond the madness of cultivators, and beyond the nightmare of an eternal, unending time loop.

I could finally build something that would last. Something that was permanent. Something that was real.

It would take me time to learn how, but now I had the tools I needed to get started.

With the necessity of acquiring the fire seed behind me, I felt free. Free to go anywhere and do anything I wanted. There were many paths I could go down, and there were many debts I needed to repay, but everything would come in its due course.

Where did I want to go next?

I tried to make a plan, but I suddenly realized I wasn’t sure what my affinities were like. It had been so long, and my memory of some things was starting to fade.

I could have bought something like SuYin’s perfect memory from the System, but no, that was a road to hell. My journal was my permanent memory. It stored everything I needed to remember. Everything else could be allowed to fade.

Still, it would be nice if I had easier access to knowledge of past purchases.

“System, I would like you to change the information I receive when I die to include information about any affinities and aptitudes I’ve purchased. Include their permanent levels as well as any temporary boosts that remain in effect.”

Improved Status Notification. Cost 100 credits.

I laughed. The System needed to get its pound of flesh. “Confirm.”

Purchase confirmed. 125,761,675 credits remaining.

I waited.

I slapped my forehead. Of course, I wouldn’t instantly get the information. That wasn’t what I had purchased.

“System, give me that status notification now.”

Status Notification. Cost 10 credits.

I shook my head. It was a meaningless cost, but still, no reason to waste good coin. I might as well do something I hadn’t done in a long time, just for old times’ sake.

I exited my shack and went to the large red door that kept us from leaving the training area.

I pulled on it with all my strength.

I had forgotten how hard it was to move. My best efforts only barely budged it.

The door was yanked open, and the guard on the other side glared at me.

“What are you doing? No one is allowed out,” he said, glaring at me.

I punched him in the face.

He punched me in the chest.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 1. 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 125,761,685

Affinities

Peak Six-Star — Earth

Mid Eight-Star — Water, Fire, Metal, Wood

Resistances

Mental Effects (Cultivation Techniques) – 25,000,000 credits

Mental Library

Capacity – Rank 4

Journal – Rank 3

Perfect Transcription – Rank 4

Touch Reading – Rank 1

Comprehension Boosts

Cultivation:

Cultivation Techniques – 520,000 credits

Qi Control – 20,000 credits

Nurturing Disciples – 500,000 credits

Professions:

Alchemy – 520,011 credits

Formations – 500,000 credits

Herbalism – 20,000 credits

Social:

Reading Emotions (True) – 25,000,000 credits

Skills

Enhanced Soul Growth – 20,000 credits

Pills Appraisal – Rank 1 (Comprehensive)

Technique Appraisal – Rank 2 (Yellow)

Language (Western Han)

.

End of Volume 2.

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Addendum: Volume 2 Earning and Spending Credits (Contains Some Spoilers)

First there was a quick edit to Chapters 63 and 66 to clarify the discount for creating new techniques:

Su Fang can only qualify for the new technique discounts a single time for each Rarity-Power combination. He will only get a single Profound Rank 1 discount.

Submission Successful. Contribution Confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 20,000 credits.

Note: Profound Rank 1 techniques will no longer qualify you for further discounts.

.

Below is the information known by the end of Volume 2. There may be a few spoilery things.

Known tiers of cultivation:

Warrior Tier

Ruler Tier

??? Tier

Martial Disciple

Martial Lord

Martial Sovereign

Martial Master

Martial King

???

Martial Grandmaster

Martial Emperor

???

Credits gained upon death for each known cultivation level:

Martial Disciple

Credits Awarded

Martial Master

Credits Awarded

Martial Grandmaster

Credits Awarded

Martial Lord

Credits Awarded

1

10

1

1,000

1

100,000

1

10,000,000

2

20

2

2,000

2

200,000

2

20,000,000

3

30

3

3,000

3

300,000

3

30,000,000

4

40

4

4,000

4

400,000

4

40,000,000

5

50

5

5,000

5

500,000

5

50,000,000

6

60

6

6,000

6

600,000

6

60,000,000

7

70

7

7,000

7

700,000

7

70,000,000

8

80

8

8,000

8

800,000

8

80,000,000

9

90

9

9,000

9

900,000

9

90,000,000

Peak

100

10

10,000

Peak

1,000,000

Peak

100,000,000

Half-Step Master

200

Peak

20,000

False Lord

2,000,000

False King

200,000,000

Purchasing a temporary reset point:

Basic cost is the number of credits gained from the current cultivation level + the number of credits gained from the next cultivation level.

The cost of a temporary reset point will double each time they are used. This doubling will reset upon a return to the permanent reset point.

Each temporary boost purchased via the System will result in the price of a temporary reset points increasing by 10% of the credits used on such boosts.

Note: Other costs and fees may apply, details unknown at this time.

The cost of increasing affinities for the five basic elements:

Note: Prices are cumulative. You can't just purchase Peak 7, you have to purchase every step before it too.

Basic Affinity

Permanent Cost

Basic Affinity

Permanent Cost

Basic Affinity

Permanent Cost

9*

Low

100

6*

Low

1,000,000

3*

Low

10 trillion

Mid

250

Mid

2,500,000

Mid

25 trillion

High

500

High

5,000,000

High

50 trillion

Peak

750

Peak

7,500,000

Peak

75 trillion

8*

Low

1,000

5*

Low

100,000,000

2*

Low

10 quadrillion

Mid

2,500

Mid

250,000,000

Mid

25 quadrillion

High

5,000

High

500,000,000

High

50 quadrillion

Peak

7,500

Peak

750,000,000

Peak

75 quadrillion

7*

Low

10,000

4*

Low

10,000,000,000

1*

Low

10 quintillion

Mid

25,000

Mid

25,000,000,000

Mid

25 quintillion

High

50,000

High

50,000,000,000

High

50 quintillion

Peak

75,000

Peak

75,000,000,000

Peak

75 quintillion

The price of a temporary affinity that only lasts one life is 10% that of a permanent affinity.

The price of secondary affinities (wind, lightning, light, and dark) are 10x that of basic affinities.

Miscellaneous Items:

Knowledge

Cost

General Knowledge priced based on the effect it will have on the world.

Note: Asking seemingly unrelated questions that tell you something important will cost the same or more than simply asking for that important information directly. Both ways of asking questions result in the same effect on the world, so the price is the same.

Western Han Language

100

Item

Cost

Rank 1 Minor Healing Pill

10

Rank 1 Minor Healing Pill (Recurring)

200

Rank 1 Minor Strengthening Pill

25

Storage Bag, 10 m^3

1000

Su Fang's Storage Space

30M per m^3

Profound-Rank Fire Seed

5 trillion

Basic Robes with Cleaning and Self-Repair Formations

1,000

Skill

Alchemy (Disciple Alchemist)

10,000,000

Alchemy (Master Alchemist)

10,000,000,000

Appraisal (Rank 1 Pills, Limited)

10

Appraisal (Rank 1 Pills, Majority)

5,000

Appraisal (Technique)

Lvl 5 of Rank

Mental Library (Rank 1)

1000

Mental Library (Additional Ranks)

x10

Mental Library - Perfect Reading

x10

Mental Library - Touch Reading

x100

Mental Journal (Rank 1)

100

Mental Journal (Additional Ranks)

x10

Mastery of a Yellow-Rank fire seed

100,000

Mastery of a Profound-Rank fire seed (limited)

5,000,000

Mastery of a Earth-Rank spirit fire

10 trillion

Techniques

Cost

Rank 1 Low-Yellow -> Mid-Yellow

200

Rank 1 Mid-Yellow -> High-Yellow

400

Rank 1 High-Yellow -> Peak-Yellow

700

Increased Rank (Disciple, Master, etc.)

x100

Ex: Rank 2 Low-Yellow -> Mid-Yellow = 200*10

2,000

Increased Power (Yellow, Profound, Earth, Heaven)

x10

Ex: Rank 1 Low-Profound -> Mid-Profound = 200*100

20,000

Ex: Rank 3 Mid-Profound -> High-Profound = 400*100*100*10

40,000,000

Multipliers refer to improvements of techniques of different levels. Upgrading Profound techniques cost 10x the cost to improve when compared to Yellow. They do NOT refer to improving a technique from Yellow to Profound.

Rank 1 Yellow Change Effect (with reference)

100

Increased Rank

x100

Increased Power

x10

Rank 1 Yellow Change Effect (no reference)

10000

Increased Rank

x100

Increased Power

x10

Volume 2 Afterword, Shameless Plug, Volume 3 Spoiler

Hello,

First, I want to thank everyone for sticking with my story through to the end of volume 2. It has been a crazy few months for me, and things have been happening much faster than I expected. So everyone is aware, I signed a contract with Mountaindale Press, and the series will get published eventually. At that point, the story will have to get stubbed. We are several months out from that happening, but I just wanted to go ahead and make it known.

Regarding the story of volume 2, I do want to say, I know this wasn't what many of you expected out of a xianxia/time loop story, but it was what I felt I needed to tell.

My original outline for this final life where he gets the seed was for him to plan a big operation where he puts together everything he learned to achieve his goals. To have him use the knowledge and skills he has gained to do something that should be impossible for a normal person. After I wrote chapters 100-102, though, I realized I couldn't do that. It would be rewarding all of Su Fang's bad decisions. I needed him to see that he was walking down the wrong path.

Acquiring the seed through this kind of big operation would be telling Su Fang, "Yeah, that life might have made you feel bad, but you did the right thing because it's what got you what you needed." I didn't like where that mindset would lead. Instead, it's not his planning, or his skills, or his System that gets him the seed, it's connecting with two people, the prince and the emperor, on a human level. That was the message Su Fang needed to leave this arc with.

That said, volume 3 will be starting Monday, and I think it will be more of what people are expecting: more power, more time loop shenanigans, and more action. Lessons have begun to be learned, and it will take time for them to fully sink in, but Fang now has a chance to get on the right track forward.

I hope you stick around to see what's next.

Now, for the shameless plug:

If you are interested in continuing the story right now, you can hop on over to Patreon.

For $5, you get 10 extra chapters right away.

For $10, you get 21 extra chapters now + releases every Saturday and Sunday until this tier is 25 ahead of Royal Road.

Note: My Patreon uses the Subscription Billing model, so you don't have to worry about when you sign up. You won't get charged again on the first of the month like their older billing models.

Also, if you are interested, you can head over to Discord to discuss the story. There's a small community there, but it's slowly growing.

Onto the volume 3 Spoiler:

For volumes 1 and 2, I paid for a professional artist to create something for me. For volume 3, I got into photoshop and made something myself.

This is only a working cover and working title. Both will definitely be changing, but it gives you a good sense of what to expect coming up.

Lastly, as you may have been able to tell by now, I'm not too big of a fan of doing a lot of shout outs. I've done a few, but generally avoid them. Well, yesterday, someone contacted me asking for a shout out, and I don't know, feels right place right time. This is what they said:

I'd love to become a full-time writer and Royal Road seems like the best place to start but I don't have the money to advertise on RR and I am not asking you to give me any. Instead, I am simply asking for a shoutout to my book to make my dreams come true.

I will say, I've been super busy recently and haven't had a chance to check it out, so I have no clue about the story or it's quality, but if you got a few minutes to spare, why not help this story rush up to Rising Stars.

Eternal Realm

Chapter 114 – Life 64, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

When I woke up, I smiled my most honest smile in centuries.

Returned once more to my small house in the Su Clan, I looked around at my surroundings. It was a tiny room in a shack made out of rotting wood. Some of the floorboards were missing, and the ones that were there were so old they’d nearly been worn through.

When I first came here, this house was a symbol of oppression. I was trapped in darkness and didn’t know any way to escape. This time, the small house began to feel like it represented something different. It was a symbol of freedom and possibilities. When I was here, I could choose to go anywhere and be anything I wanted.

So, what did I want this time?

I could stay in the Su Clan and show the arrogant bastards what I’d learned over the centuries, I could visit the Verdant Fields Sect and learn herbalism, or I take a riskier path.

I reached into the storage space in my soul and pulled out the large red coin that Pill Emperor Li had given me. He had said that I could give it to an attendant at the Blue Wind Pavilion’s main branch to request a meeting with him. I didn’t know if that offer would still be valid in this new life, but it was something I wanted to attempt.

By using an Emperor Li’s book on Rank 4 alchemy, I was quickly learning everything I needed to reach the peak of Pill Lord. His guide was laid out so expertly that I hadn’t even needed a comprehension boost to grasp its most difficult concepts. If he was willing to offer me personal instruction, it was possible that I might be able to reach the limits of Pill Emperor in only a single lifetime.

However, Formation Emperor Du had left me with another possibility. He had suggested that if I wanted to become a Martial Sovereign, I needed to visit the Nine Rivers Sect. I had never heard of the place before and knew nothing about it, not even where it was located, but the idea of advancing to Sovereign was exciting.

Four paths, each leading in very different directions. Which should I choose?

I looked at Emperor Li’s coin, and my mind began to drift. My emotional wounds had begun to heal, but the thought of rejoining the Pavilion, with its connections to my previous life… It still made my soul ache. I could do that later. There would always be time later.

Refocusing, I returned to the other options.

I also quickly decided to eliminate the Su Clan from consideration. Roughing up their Disciples would be cathartic, but if it meant I had to become a true clan member and act friendly with those people, I would rather avoid it.

So, it was down to the Verdant Fields Sect or the Nine Rivers Sect.

Now that I had obtained the spatial fire seed, I could begin expanding my storage space. I hoped to eventually grow it large enough that I could plant a massive garden inside and produce my own herbs for alchemy. To do that I would first need to learn herbalism. However, there was no rush. Creating such a garden would require a space of considerable size to be viable, and at the moment, my storage space was only a box ten centimeters to a side.

That left the Nine Rivers Sect. It was a mystery. I knew nothing about it other than that a Formation Emperor had suggested I go there. It would be a fresh start away from anything I had known before. That felt like what I needed, but… Was I just trying to run away from my problems? There were debts I needed to repay in the Wastes, and I couldn’t just ignore them. It might be better if I delt with the past first so that I could walk into the future without having to carry the burden on previous failures within me.

As my mind drifting more toward returning to the Wastes and meeting with old friends and enemies once more, a question was dredged from the depths of my soul. The question that had haunted me for centuries.

What was the point?

I could repay those debts once, but that was meaningless, right? I knew I needed to settle things to put myself at ease, but how? After just one death, all such efforts would disappear.

My storage space could travel back with me, and with my new spatial spirit fire seed, I could begin to expand it endlessly. This would let me begin creating a reality that would never reset, but I was far from reaching such lofty ambitions at this point, and getting there would be complicated. I couldn’t learn what I needed to learn to achieve this goal while stuck in the Wastes.

So, yes, I needed to go back and settle things, but first, I needed to find a way to use my storage space and my System to make whatever I did meaningful.

This brought up another problem. How would I meet my ever-growing demand for System credits? If I wanted to reach as high and as far as possible, I needed a strong foundation, and that was expensive. I needed credits, and to get more credits, I needed to die at higher levels of cultivation.

I needed to try and reach Martial King, but I couldn’t just rush there. I needed to learn more about being a Grandmaster and Lord first. Only after forming a solid foundation in these realms and accruing sufficient credits would I be able to ascend to Martial King and beyond with confidence.

These were two objectives that were diametrically opposed to each other. One was to advance to Martial King, and the other was to spend repaying debts in the Wastes, a place that no King could enter. I wanted to do the former, but I needed to do the latter.

I closed my eyes in thought and mustered my resolve. “One hundred years. I can live ten lives of ten years each. I will use this time to experiment and push myself as far as I can as fast as I can. At set intervals, I will reset and use my accrued credits to push myself even further, allowing each life to build upon the previous one. Then, after one hundred years, I will return and deal with my obligations in the Wastes.”

By carefully employing temporary reset points at key stages of development, I wouldn’t need to start fresh every time. I could ensure that I always returned to an ideal position to quickly amass a large number of credits. Intentionally limiting the length of each life would prevent me from getting stuck in dead ends and force me to explore more options.

This plan wasn’t perfect. I didn’t know what would happen when I entered the Nine Rivers Sect, and making hard and fast rules about resetting once every ten years would be a mistake. I would keep it as a strong guideline, but I wouldn’t let it dictate my actions.

At the same time, I had to bind myself to the 100-year total. If I wanted to walk confidently into the future, I first had to settle my obligations from the past. I needed this time to prepare and plan, but I couldn’t allow myself to ignore my obligations for thousands of years.

Still… it would also be bad to anchor myself so firmly that I only created new problems for myself. I needed to allow myself to resolve any lingering issues instead of forcing myself to return immediately. 100 years. Once that time was up, I would resolve everything as quickly as possible and return to the Waste to settle my debts and obligations to friends and enemies alike.

Decision made, I next had to figure out how to get to a sect I’d never heard of before. I could try using the System to teleport me there, but I didn’t know where I was supposed to go or how far away it was, and the more unknowns involved, the more the price of the teleport would balloon out of control.

I sighed. I had wanted to avoid the Pavilion, but it was the best way to get where I needed to go.

“System, send me to Dragon Gate City.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 30 credits. 125,761,655 credits remaining.

Walking through the city, I realized I had a problem. I didn’t have any money.

My storage space was nearly entirely taken up by a faintly glowing fire seed, leaving only a small bit of room in the corners. The only other things inside were Emperor Li’s coin, a small bag of seeds, and a jade bottle containing my last poison pill.

I couldn’t purchase a carriage to the sect without money, and even if I used alchemy to make some quick cash, long-distance travel through several empires was extremely expensive. I would need to be making at least Rank 3 pills to afford it.

I considered a few different options, but I decided to try something out. Worse case, I learned something new.

“System, I want to purchase robes similar to those I bought previously, but they should have a design suitable for a trained formation specialist.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,000 credits. 125,760,655 credits remaining

Ducking into a side alley, I donned my new outfit. It was a hanfu in various earth tones. The top was a pale ochre, and the bottom was a deeper mahogany color. It had accents in a variety of other pale yellows and browns and was embroidered with brilliant gold thread.

Looking like a respectable young gentleman, I exited the alley and headed to meet an old friend.

As I walked up the steps of the Blue Wind Pavilion, my knees almost wanted to give out. My entire body was shaking.

Seeing Mei again would be… difficult.

It had been over a century for me, but the wounds on my soul from causing her to commit suicide had yet to fully heal. The thought of seeing her again, of seeing her and her not knowing me…

I entered the Pavilion slowly, but no attendant came to greet me. It was the first time that had ever happened. Usually, someone would walk up the moment I entered. I looked around, but no one was walking in my direction.

I was both confused and relieved by the situation. I didn’t know why no one appeared, but I didn’t need an attendant’s help anyway. I walked straight to the stairwell and climbed up to the second floor like I belonged there. I knocked on WuJing’s door, opened it, and stepped inside confidently.

WuJing had been studying papers on his desk, but at my entrance, his head shot up and he stared at me.

“Hello, sir. How may I help you today?” His tone was cordial, but I could see shifts in his expression as he looked at me. At first, he was angry and annoyed, but then his emotions seemed to abruptly change.

His blessing had kicked in, I realized. WuJing had some way to tell how important a person was to his future. I wasn’t sure of the details, and I wouldn’t rely on what I half-remembered from our first conversation long ago, but I knew he saw something in me that changed his opinion of me for the better.

“Hello, Manager Chen,” I said, giving him a martial salute. “I need assistance. I am looking to travel to the Nine Rivers Sect as soon and as fast as possible. Would you be able to help me arrange that?”

“Of course, sir. You are…”

“Su Fang, not of the local Su family, of course.”

“Of course, of course.” He cleared his throat. A shift in his expression suggested that he discovered my lack of cultivation. “We can certainly arrange something for you. As you are no doubt aware, the Pavilion has regular carriages going that way, and you would be welcome to purchase a seat aboard the one next month. If you want to go any sooner, though, I must inform you that there will be a rather steep increase in cost.”

I nodded, took out Emperor Li’s coin, and showed it to him. “I wonder if you recognize this.”

I wasn’t sure if WuJing would have any understanding of its significance or not, and even if he did, I had no idea if it would help me in this situation. It seemed like something worth trying though. If the coin was connected to one of the Pavilion’s Emperors, it should carry some amount of weight in this backwater.

WuJing squinted as he looked at the coin. At first, he was just confused, but it only took a second for a look of sheer terror to cross his face.

“WuJing greets his imperial majesty.”

He knelt on the ground and kowtowed three times to the coin in my hand. That was not exactly the reaction I was expecting, but it was acceptable.

“I apologize for my rudeness earlier, emissary. I will ensure the swiftest coach is prepared for you immediately.”

Before I could respond, WuJing rushed out of the room. Shortly after, an attendant came in.

“Sir, Manager Chen has instructed me that you are to be given a suite on the fourth floor until your carriage is prepared. If you would, please follow me.

It only took a single day for WuJing to prepare everything, and he made sure I was resting in perfect comfort the entire time. I began to feel bad for the man. Showing him that coin had scared him, and I wasn’t even sure why. It was from a Martial Emperor, and sure, that was impressive, but this reaction still seemed to be a bit much. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come out and ask what was going on or I would blow my cover.

The System was of no help here either. Learning about what made the small coin so impressive was… expensive.

When everything was ready, WuJing came personally to lead me downstairs. We were halfway to the exit when someone stepped in front of us, blocking the path forward.

“Who are you?” asked Mei, staring me in the eyes. I saw a mix of fear, excitement, and joy in them.

I froze. What was I supposed to say…

While fear had made me lock up, Mei’s presence had the opposite effect on WuJing.

“Mei! How dare you block the emissary's path. Move out of the way right now!”

His words and tone made her afraid, but when she looked at him, that fear ebbed quickly, suppressed by her blessing. This made her turn back to me, and the fear exploded from within her, causing her to run away.

“Don’t,” I said, putting a hand on WuJing’s shoulder to calm him down. “Take good care of her, for my sake. Never treat her poorly, or I will find out. Understood?”

“Yes, yes, emissary,” he cried in fear.

“Then let’s continue. I have a carriage to get to.”

“Right this way, emissary.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 115 – Life 64, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

With the Pavilion’s fastest carriage, the trip to the Nine Rivers Sect was only supposed to take a month and a half. I didn’t want to cultivate during that time because it would interfere with plans I had for the near future. Still, there were two things I could do during the trip so that I didn’t waste any time.

The first was studying my Earth-Rank cultivation technique. I had looked at it several times already, and I spent time trying to understand it, but I had never actually cultivated it before, so I was expecting there to be issues. I would have to work those out before I could cultivate it successfully.

As an Earth-Rank technique, it was significantly more complicated than the ones I had used previously. I would need to open a total of 361 acupoints throughout my body. Each of these points required complex qi filters that would both purify the qi and allow it to flow freely into my body without turbulence. For some reason, the technique included four different filter designs which were applied to different acupoints seemingly at random.

I wanted to use this as my cultivation technique in this life, but before I did so, I wanted to understand how it would influence me mentally.

“System, how much to upgrade my technique appraisal to work on everything up to Rank 3 Earth.”

Cost 49,995,000 credits.

Too much for the moment.

“Upgrade it to only Rank 2 Earth, then.”

Confirmed. Cost 495,000 credits. 125,265,655 credits remaining.

I appraised the first two volumes of the technique.

Writ of True Earth, Peak-Earth Rank 1 Cultivation Technique, Earth Qi, Effects: Makes one more loyal.

Writ of True Earth, Peak-Earth Rank 2 Cultivation Technique, Earth Qi, Effects: Makes one more loyal.

Loyalty was an interesting effect. Had Manager Cao been trying to make me more loyal to the Pavilion when she gave this to me? That didn’t make much sense. She couldn’t have been expecting me to cultivate this technique personally, right? Was she simply trying to make my subordinates more loyal to me? This was possibly the kind of technique they used for all their high-level employees. Not a slave mantra, but something that would serve a similar purpose.

I thought about this effect for a while and whether it was something that I would be willing to accept. The implications of it being similar to a slave mantra worried me on an instinctive level, but I pushed beyond that and forced myself to analyze it critically.

After thinking about it, I decided I didn’t find the effect too objectionable. If I joined a sect or took a master, I would generally expect myself to maintain loyalty to them. A technique working to reinforce that was not the worst possibility.

The fact that these feelings of loyalty may remain after death was a slightly troubling possibility, but if the sect were true to me, I would be true to it anyway. If they betrayed me, any remaining thoughts of loyalty from a technique shouldn’t have too much of an effect on me. I just needed to make sure that if I felt its influence was becoming too powerful, I ended my life immediately instead of letting it linger.

In truth, at this point, I didn’t have a better idea of what kind of mental effect would be acceptable, so I was willing to walk down a path of loyalty for at least one lifetime and see where it took me.

I familiarized myself with the technique as much as possible, but when I was convinced there was nothing left to learn until I cultivated it, I put the book away and closed my mental library. I wasn’t ready to start advancing quite yet.

Next, I looked deep into my soul where the spatial fire seed had been waiting for me.

Long ago, I had purchased knowledge about how to expand my storage space without needing to spend credits on it. The key to that was this fire seed, but my knowledge of how to use it was somewhat limited. I had a basic idea from the earlier purchase, but before I started messing around with things, I needed more.

“System, how much for complete knowledge on how to use the spatial fire seed?”

Mastery of Seed of the Profound-Rank Expanding Realms Fire. Cost 10 billion credits.

All right then…

“How much for limited mastery, knowledge of ways to use it to expand my storage space?”

Cost 10 million credits.

“Confirm.”

Confirmed. 115,265,655 credits remaining.

The knowledge that flooded into me made me glad that I hadn’t simply tried to figure out how to use the seed on my own.

There were essentially two different ways I could use it to expand my storage space. I could use it externally, keeping it in my soul and applying the expansion effect to the space in its entirety, letting it slowly grow over time. The other option was to place the seed within the storage space itself. This would allow me to create the equivalent of a storage bag within the storage space. The second option held intriguing possibilities for the future, but it wasn’t what I needed at the moment.

In my soul, I moved the fire seed so that it was centered around the metaphysical location of the storage space within my soul. This allowed the seed to apply equal expansion in every direction. Instead of being a cube, the space would slowly turn into a sphere.

Seed in place, my storage space naturally began to grow at a slow pace. The seed drew energy from the environment, ‘burned’ it, and converted it into space. Located in my soul, the speed at which it could draw in energy to do this was extremely limited. The rate at which the space grew was nearly imperceptible.

To increase the speed, I need to send qi into my soul, feeding the fire. I wasn’t willing to advance my cultivation level yet, but I could still cultivate to draw in qi and send it directly to the fire. As a Martial Disciple 1, the amount of energy I would be able to send it was pathetic, but it was something.

I spent a day cultivating a Peak-Yellow earth qi technique and sending all the energy to the spatial seed. After a full day, it had grown by only one cubic centimeter, about a tenth of a percent of its current size. If I continued cultivating with all my energy, by the time I reached the sect, I might be able to increase its volume by a total of 10%.

This was a waste of time. I breathed in and out. I had told myself I needed to relax more and find more balance. Spending over a month on a futile task was the opposite of that.

I signaled to the driver, and the next time we approached a city, we stopped in front of a large bookstore. I didn’t have any money to purchase books with, but with a mere touch, I sent copies of countless tomes into my mental library. Once I was back in the carriage, I dedicated myself to reading histories and fantasies of the Nine Rivers Continent.

Engrossed in my reading, the trip sped by. This brief period of indolence lasted several weeks and was only broken when the carriage entered South Gate City, the main entrance to the Nine Rivers Sect. It was time to get to work.

“System,” I said the moment we passed through the city gate, “create a temporary reset point so that after my next death, I will return to this point in time.”

Confirmed. Cost 30 credits. 115,265,625 credits remaining.

While my goal was to join the Nine Rivers Sect, I had no assets and zero cultivation. I was in an untenable position, so the first thing I needed to do was gather resources. With a slowly expanding storage space, I could begin to freely carry real wealth back with me, but starting out was going to be a little tricky.

I stepped out of the carriage in front of the city’s Blue Wind Pavilion and turned to the driver.

“Can I borrow a few silver?” I asked with a sheepish expression.

He gave me a bewildered look. I had been riding in one of the most expensive carriages the Pavilion provided, yet I was begging for pocket change instead of tipping him. Thankfully, he was charitable.

“Of course, sir,” he said, handing me a ten-silver piece.

I gave him a short bow. “I will be sure to repay this debt.”

He drove away, and I entered the Pavilion.

“Hello, sir. How may I help you today?” asked an attendant in a blue and silver qipao when I walked inside.

“An alchemy room and as many sets of herbs for Rank 1 Superior Qi Gather Pills as I can buy for 10 silver.”

The attendant gave me a strange look. “Sir, a set of herbs for that pill costs 35 silver.”

“Ah, yes, sorry,” I said, blushing. This was what I got for not caring about money for so long. “What about herbs for the Improved version?”

“15 silver, sir.” She hesitated but continued. “Our alchemy workshops cost 5 silver per hour. With the other 5 silver, you can purchase five blue peonies for the Basic version. Will that be acceptable?”

“Yes, thank you,” I said, giving her a smile.

I almost felt lucky I hadn’t been thrown out of the building. What made me even more surprised was that while there had been several people within earshot of this conversation, none of them made any snide comments about me being too poor to be here. Everyone just acted… normal.

The attendant gathered the flowers for me and took me to a small workshop in the basement. It was cramped, but it was all I needed.

I sat down to begin working.

I would have liked to use one of my fire seeds to concoct pills more quickly, but I didn’t think I would be able to control the spatial seed properly, and I wasn’t willing to risk trying to swap it out with the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire. I thought about extracting a strand of spirit fire from the Cold Mountain seed, but it would be nearly impossible to use without qi.

Instead, I had to rely on controlling a common flame with my fire affinity and the few specks of natural energy in my body.

It was simple work that I could have done with my eyes closed, but my lack of energy made the process slow. At the end of the hour, I had only been able to make two pills.

I walked outside the room and found the attendant waiting for me.

“Will that be all, sir?”

I held up my two pills. “Please sell these for me. I will return inside for another two hours. You may deliver any remaining funds from the sale to me at that time.”

She quickly glanced at the pills, simply noting that they should be worth more than the two-hour fee, then nodded. “Of course, sir. I am happy to be of service.”

I turned around and got back to work.

Two hours later, I exited the room to see the attendant waiting for me.

“Hello, sir. 30 silver for the pills minus 10 silver for the room fee leaves 20 silver,” she said, handing over two coins.

I weighed them in my hand for a moment while I thought.

“How much longer are you open for the day?”

“About four more hours, sir.”

“How much does a decent hotel in the city cost for a night?”

“It depends on what you are looking for, but there are options which may suit you for as low as 10 silver a day.”

I was sure there had to be cheaper options available, but I was willing to spend a bit on somewhere nice and clean.

I handed the attendant the three pills I had just made.

“Three more, same quality as the last two. So, 45 silver, right? Give me four hours in the room and ten more peonies. That should be 30 silver. You can hold onto the excess for now, and we can settle up at the end of the day.”

“Of course, sir,” she said, carrying out my request.

Paying to use an alchemy workshop was eating into my profits, but buying a cauldron and making them in an inn room wasn’t an option without more upfront capital.

As the hours passed, my concentration and speed waned. I was only able to make eight more pills, leaving two flowers for next time. I sold five of the pills and kept three to help me advance my cultivation. Once I began breaking through, the speed at which I would be able to work would significantly increase.

My first day in South Gate City, I left the Pavilion with 90 silver in my pocket.

The entire process of earning money made me swear to myself to never go through a reset without a properly stocked storage space again.

After paying 10 silver at a nearby inn, I went to my room and quickly fell asleep. I needed to cultivate, but that could wait for tomorrow.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 116 – Life 64, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

The next morning, I woke up refreshed and ready to go. I was about to start cultivating, but I suddenly stopped myself. Before I began cultivating, I needed to gather information.

Unsure of where else to go, I headed back to the Blue Wind Pavilion. I hoped to have the same attendant as last time, but a different girl approached me.

“How may I help you today, sir?”

“Hello, I’d like to buy information about how to join the Nine Rivers Sect.”

Her face didn’t change much, but I could tell she found something strange about my request.

“General information about joining the sect is widely known, and I would be happy to share it with you. If you are looking for more specific information, I would recommend attending classes at one of the various schools around the city.”

“Oh, right, then can you just tell me some of the basics, then? Mainly, I just want to know when the recruitment starts, what cultivation levels they are looking for, and any specific requirements they may have.”

“Of course, sir. The sect opens recruitment once a year, two months before most blessing ceremonies begin. The next recruitment will start in about eight months. However, only Martial Grandmasters on the path to becoming Lords can become disciples of the sect. If you are below this level, I would recommend joining one of the feeder sects or taking courses at a cultivation school.”

“And are there any special requirements for who the sect recruits?”

“The specifics of how people are chosen are a mystery. While the schools can prepare you for the sect’s Entrance Exam, even they do not know exactly what is involved. If you are serious about joining the sect, I would recommend joining the Yellow Orchid Academy, as they have close ties with the Nine Rivers Sect and their Grandmaster instructors are all sect members.”

“I see. What are the costs for courses at this Academy?”

She smiled, but I could feel her evaluation of me drop several notches. People with money didn’t need to ask prices. “A year at the Disciple level costs 500 gold. At the Master level, it’s 50,000, and for Grandmasters, the cost is 5,000,000. The cost is high, but it is the best learning institution on the continent.”

“Thank you,” I said, nodding my head to her.

I felt bad asking for all this information without making a purchase, so I went ahead and bought two sets of herbs for Improved Qi Gathering Pills. I didn’t need them immediately, but an early purchase didn’t hurt anything, and it made me feel better to leave the store with a purchase in hand.

Thanking the attendant for her assistance, I left the Pavilion and hurried back to my inn.

Going to an academy to study cultivation sounded interesting. Nearly everything I knew I had learned on my own, so there was certainly a lot I could learn from trained, knowledgeable teachers.

My grasp of the Disciple realm was solid enough, and I didn’t have any worries about the Master realm, but I was sure there were things I could have been doing slightly better. If schools also taught Grandmasters, I could see a lot of potential value in spending time at one.

However, I quickly put the thought of studying cultivation at a fancy institute out of my mind. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested. It was the cost. As a Martial Disciple, gathering enough money to pay for tuition would take time, and there wouldn’t necessarily be any payoff for that investment. Better to use this life to accrue resources and learn about the situation in the sect. I could look at studying how to be a better Disciple in my next life.

Using most of my meager savings, I paid for five more days in the inn along with meal deliveries so that I could seclude myself for long enough to make a breakthrough to Martial Disciple 2.

Sitting in the middle of my room, I opened my mental library and began reviewing the Writ of True Earth once more. It was complex, but it was within my capabilities.

The upper arms and upper legs had the fewest acupoints, so as usual, I decided to start with my upper right arm.

Each upper arm had a dozen different acupoints. With other techniques I’d studied, every acupoint would use the same qi filter, just placed slightly differently. The Writ of True Earth, though, used a total of four different filters. It didn’t explain the reasoning behind why different acupoints needed different filters, so all I could do was follow its instructions and see for myself.

Normally, I would use the limited natural qi in my system to completely set up the filters I needed as a Martial Disciple 1, but there wasn’t nearly enough energy in my body to form a dozen qi filters simultaneously. Instead, I had to use what energy I did have to create the first filter and then use the qi I drew from it to form the others.

This process consumed a whole day on its own, but the result was far more stable than I had expected. I thought I would have to fight to keep all the filters in place at the same time, but once they were all complete, everything locked into place, requiring only a minimum amount of concentration from then on.

With the filters positioned correctly, I next had to create a ‘vortex.’ In the past, this had always been a simple whirlpool pattern. When I used a Profound-Rank technique, I had created several whirlpools to draw in qi through multiple acupoints independently, but the fundamental design remained the same.

This Earth-Rank technique, however, used a single complex qi flow throughout my entire arm that worked to simultaneously draw in energy through every acupoint at the same time.

It took time to master, but once I had it nearly correct, the complicated ‘vortex’ locked into place, relieving me of the need for extreme concentration.

I began to pull in qi, but as I did, I noticed a serious problem. Only one of the filter designs was letting qi through at high speeds. Two of the designs were only letting it in at about half that speed, and the final design wasn’t letting any through at all. In total, this meant that I was cultivating at about 60% of the rate I otherwise could have been.

I carefully examined the failed filters, trying to figure out what I did wrong, but every detail matched the technique manual perfectly. Had I made a mistake when transcribing it?

I carefully examined the filters, and the more I did, the more confused I became. The ones that were operating at half-speed had two paths for energy to flow into the body. One was allowing earth qi through, but the other was blocking it completely. The filters that weren’t allowing any energy through seemed to have a similar design as the blocked paths on the other filters.

Ideas clicked into place in my mind. These weren’t earth qi filters. They were preventing earth qi from passing through by design. They were for something else, but I didn’t know what.

My appraisal ability returned only limited information, and if I wanted to know more, I would have to purchase it from the System. I considered doing that, but after finding out the ridiculous cost of the information, I passed. I could learn what I needed on my own.

With my current cultivation speed, I expected I could reach Disciple 2 after another week. Sadly, I didn’t have enough money to pay for a hotel room for that long. I needed to earn some quick cash, and to do that, I needed a higher cultivation base, so I began taking pills.

After only two days, I advanced to Martial Disciple 2, and the qi filters and vortex of my upper right arm locked into place.

Next, I looked at the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire in my storage space.

It was only glowing faintly. My fire seed mastery told me that it was lacking energy and that if it remained in this state for too long, there was a chance that it could disperse entirely. This reminded me of when I stored a pill openly in the space without putting it in a jade bottle. Something about the storage space sucked energy out of anything I put inside.

It might be possible to halt the decay by placing the seed into a large jade box, but if I wanted to use its fire in the future, I needed to find a way to transfer energy to the seed while it was in my storage space. The first idea that came to mind was simply feeding it spirit stones, but I didn’t have any access to them at the moment.

This wasn’t an issue I could deal with immediately since I had neither spirit stones nor sufficient room for a proper jade container, but I noted it down in my journal as an urgent task.

Sighing with a bit of regret, I drew out a portion of spirit fire from the seed and filled my body with it. This damaged the seed further, but it was the best option I had in the current situation. Without the spirit fire, doing high-level alchemy would be significantly more difficult, and I needed alchemy to fund everything else.

At that point, I stood up and left my room. I wanted to advance further, but I didn’t have the resources.

I returned to the Pavilion and was happy to be greeted by the same attendant as the first time I came here.

“Hello again, sir. How may I help you today?”

“I need an alchemy room,” I said, handing over almost all of my remaining funds. “Just two hours to start with, but I plan to stay the entire day.”

Nodding, she led me back downstairs.

Before entering, I turned back to her. “By the way, what should I call you?”

“My name is Meng LuYao,” she said, giving a slight smile.

I could feel a little tension in her demeanor, so I decided to quickly end the conversation.

“Thank you, Miss Meng. I should be ready to make my next exchange in an hour.”

Giving a slight bow, I turned and entered the room.

After the fallout from my last few lives, I had committed myself to aim for a more balanced approach to life.

From the moment I stepped into that alchemy room, I broke that commitment in its entirety, but I told myself it was okay. I had to build up a nest egg for future lives, and focusing heavily on doing that in this one would let me have more freedom to aim for balance later.

That first day, I converted four peonies and two astragalus roots into one gold and five silver. From there, I could focus on only making Superior Qi Gathering Pills which had a much higher markup. I left the Pavilion that day with a little over three gold and four Perfect Superior Qi Gathering Pills in my pocket.

Using these meager funds as a starting point, I rushed as quickly as I could through the Martial Disciple realm. Completing my upper arms and legs wasn’t too difficult, but the lower arms and legs had over twice as many acupoints. Completing the torso was the most difficult, though, since it had nearly double the number of acupoints as the rest of the body combined.

Maintaining all the qi filters throughout my torso was possible not only because I had access to a large quantity of qi, but also because of the way the technique was designed. Instead of the torso being a single unit, it was broken up into several smaller sections, allowing each of the component parts to snap into place, requiring significantly less attention thereafter. It wasn’t easy, but it was manageable.

After a full year of dedicated cultivation mixed with alchemy to fuel it, I reached Peak Disciple.

I tried to test my body, but it didn’t feel overly different from any other time I had reached this state. I seemed to have access to slightly more qi, but that was it. I had no idea what advantages this Earth-Rank technique was supposed to provide that made it worth the insane complexity.

I didn’t linger on the topic. I kept pushing forward. I wanted to reach as far as I could as soon as I could, to push the bounds of what was possible, and to have time at the end to build a small fortune that I could use in the future.

The Rank 2 part of the cultivation technique wasn’t too dissimilar from what I had used in the past. It had a different braiding pattern and countless small capillary meridians, but what set it apart from those I had practiced previously was that it added eight extra meridians throughout the torso and head.

Again, I didn’t know what purpose these complications served, and I didn’t have the theoretical knowledge to figure it out beforehand, so I just started cultivating.

The Pavilion had abundant herb supplies, and with the pills I made, I was able to reach Peak Master after three more years. That was a little longer than I had hoped, and I wanted to get that number down, but the extra complications from the Earth-Rank technique slowed me.

Finally, the last thing I did before I allowed myself to relax was advance to Grandmaster. The technique called for a dantian that reminded me of a soccer ball made from several small patches.

The need for all the patches and the care with which they needed to be sewn together made the process incredibly slow, but since I only needed to create a single dantian this time, it didn’t pose too much of a challenge.

A few months after I turned 20, I ascended to Martial Grandmaster 1.

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Chapter 117 – Life 64, Age 20, Martial Grandmaster 1

When I exited seclusion, there were only eight months until the next Entrance Exam for the Nine Rivers Sect. As a Martial Grandmaster 1, I met the minimum requirements to compete for a position, but I didn’t know my odds of being selected.

Previously, I had only asked simple questions to understand the basic requirements for entering the sect, but I didn’t have any real information about the place or what they expected of someone trying out to become a disciple. Was Grandmaster 1 good enough, or did I need to try to reach Peak Grandmaster?

My first instinct was to go buy herbs for Rank 3 pills and cultivate as quickly as I could. With another eight months, I expected I could potentially reach at least Grandmaster 3, possibly 4 if I pushed myself hard enough. Having a higher cultivation at a younger age should make me appear more valuable since it would indicate a stronger talent in cultivation.

I thought about walking down this path, but I stopped myself. I’d already spent over four years doing nothing but cultivating. I had told myself I needed to find a way to have more balance in my life, and I had seemingly thrown that idea away the first chance I got. I had felt that it was for good reason since I had to at least reach Grandmaster within my self-imposed time limit of ten years, but it was clear to me that I was walking down the wrong path once again.

Instead of immediately returning to my room to cultivate, or going to the Pavilion to buy herbs to make more pills, I decided to spend some time exploring South Gate City. I wanted to learn more about this place and the sect I was planning to join. I could return to the Pavilion and ask Miss Kang, but relying so heavily on a single source of information was also a bad habit that I needed to get away from.

Still, I couldn’t completely silence the part of my mind that told me that only walking around town would be a waste of time. A part of me felt that doing such a thing could not possibly help me progress, even though I knew it would. I had to consider what it was that I wanted. What was I trying to achieve?

Aside from a general sense of improvement, what I wanted more than anything was a larger storage space which would allow me to fundamentally change the rules of my resets.

As a Martial Grandmaster 1, I could cultivate at a far greater speed than I had the last time I tried expanding it, and I could begin to make serious improvements to its size. I just needed to spend time gathering enough energy to do so.

Passive cultivation only granted me a limited amount of energy, which meant I needed to actively cultivate to grow my space as quickly as possible. It would be best if I had a way to grow my space while also exploring the city. Should I try to learn to actively cultivate while walking around outside?

Cultivating outside of a quiet, controlled environment was generally considered a bad idea. If I didn’t pay enough attention while actively cultivating, something could go wrong with my qi filters, and I might start drawing in impurities, damaging my foundation.

However, I wasn’t overly worried about this. I wouldn’t be using this qi on myself. I would instead be sending it all to the fire seed in my soul. Even if I draw in an extreme amount of impure energy that would harm me personally, the seed shouldn’t care. It just needed to burn energy, it didn’t care what type of energy I sent it.

The other factor in my favor was that even if impurities did enter my body, I could take Purifying Pills to cleanse them afterward. When cultivating for advancement, this was not a great idea because if I had to constantly purify my body, it would mean possibly backsliding on my cultivation level. Since I was a Grandmaster 1 without any qi reserves, I didn’t have to worry about this. Even if I purged all the free qi from my body, it wouldn’t cause any issues.

I didn’t expect to cultivate perfectly at first, and the results would likely be nasty, but I could handle it. The more I practiced, the better I would get. With enough practice, in future lives, I would even be able to do this for regular cultivation without worry. It was a good skill to begin developing, and it would allow me significantly more freedom to cultivate while doing other things. I just had to learn how to do it first.

I spent two more months in my inn room trying to practice cultivating while moving. After that, I spent another three months just walking around the city while cultivating. I didn’t have many interactions with people during that time, but it did help me develop a better feel for the city.

Once I was comfortable with being active outdoors while cultivating, I tried to do more than just walk around. The more I needed to concentrate on something else, the more impurities I drew in. If I tried to talk to someone, the quality of the qi I cultivated would drop significantly. However, the more I practiced, the better it got.

While my cultivation speed was greatly reduced during this time, sending all of my energy to expand my storage space as a Grandmaster 1 had an incredible effect. After these five months, it was nearly sixty times larger than it had been when I started. I had a long way to go to achieve my dreams, but this felt like significant progress.

With only a few months before the sect began recruiting, I was finally ready to begin my research. The timeline was tight, but that was okay. I could allow myself to delay a year if it came to that.

The first place I thought about going to learn as much as I could about the Nine Rivers Sect was the Yellow Orchid Academy. If they were as tightly connected to the sect as I had been led to believe, they should be able to provide me with a significant amount of information regarding it.

The cost of 5 million gold for a year of classes as a Grandmaster was significant, but I could have afforded it if I needed to. I would’ve needed to make over a thousand pills, but it could’ve been done. The big thing that stopped me was that it was too late to enroll for classes before the next Entrance Exam, so if I wanted to take classes there, I would need to wait nearly half a year.

If this was my only option, I would have considered it more deeply, but while the Yellow Orchid Academy might be the best school in the city, there were others. Several groups had set up smaller cram schools focused on only teaching what they thought was needed to pass the test to enter the sect.

I enrolled in one called the River’s Tributary. They claimed to know exactly what was needed to become a sect disciple. Based on what Miss Kang had told me, I didn’t exactly believe them, but it was better than nothing.

When I arrived, over four dozen Grandmasters were already waiting in the classroom for our lesson to begin. The teacher walked in wearing a dark blue silk hanfu and carrying a red folding fan. He had a tidy short beard and his hair was meticulously arranged into a tight bun. The feeling I got from him was that of an accomplished Confucian scholar.

“The truth,” he said, cooling himself with his fan, “is that entering the Nine River Sect is simple. As long as you have any ability whatsoever, you will be able to enter. If you're currently in such a bad position that you are unable to enter the sect, I cannot help you in the short time we have. It would be better for you to enroll in a regular class and wait until next year. Instead, this course focuses on how to quickly improve your results to gain a slightly better position with the sect.”

In front of the class, he uncovered a large diagram engraved on the wall.

“When you enter, you will be placed into one of several different categories. You will all be disciples of the sect, but those who enter the sect are divided between servant, outer, inner, core, and chosen disciples. Each rank has different responsibilities and will receive substantially different benefits. Beyond these five ranks, disciples are further subdivided, being given a grade between zero and three. If you are a grade zero servant disciple, you will receive nothing from the sect and spend every moment serving them.”

He looked around the room, meeting each of our eyes one by one. “You do not want to be a grade zero servant. I will do my best in the following weeks to help each of you improve by at least one grade.”

The instructor picked up several small manuals and began handing them out to the class.

“These contain the basics of what we will cover. You may have been told that no one knows what is needed to succeed in the exams. This is only partly true. We have studied the backgrounds of countless sect disciples and have come to clear conclusions about what can get you a better rating. Most important is this: go wide, not deep. Even if your combat ability is better than every Chosen in the sect, if that is the only thing you are good at, you will still only be a servant disciple.”

Several more instructors walked into the room and stood against the front wall.

“These will be your teachers. Go through the booklet I handed out and identify your weakest skill. That should also be the one that is easiest to improve. By raising it as much as possible, you will have your best chance at succeeding in the Entrance Exam.”

The booklet listed several different topics the school covered such as general cultivation knowledge, soul cultivation, alchemy, herbalism, and beast taming. It seemed to cover nearly everything I could think of related to cultivation. I looked at each of the topics briefly, but I knew which one I had to choose. Even before opening the booklet, if there was one topic that I had avoided more than any other, I knew what it was. I needed to learn to fight.

I walked into a large open courtyard where only a few students had gathered. The ground was smooth-packed dirt, and there were no trees or rocks to get in our way. Our teacher was a woman wearing black robes with the arms and legs strapped tight to her body with leather cords.

“Before I can train you, I need to see what level you are all at.” She pointed to a small weak-looking man. “You, step forward. No techniques, just basic qi control.”

He stepped forward, gave a short bow, then raised his fists. The instructor bowed in return, but instead of simply raising her fists, she charged at him.

The man jumped to the side, avoiding the charge.

The teacher swung around, punching out into thin air in his direction.

A bolt of qi shot from her fist and headed straight toward the man’s chest.

He met the burst of qi with his fist, and it shattered, dispersing it into the air.

The instructor was waiting for this. She used it as an opening to rush forward and kick the man in the abdomen, sending him staggering backward.

“Good,” she said, returning to a more relaxed posture. “There are things we can work on, but your fundamentals are solid.”

She looked at the other people in class and settled on me. “You, step up.”

After approaching, I did as the previous man had and gave her a bow before raising my fists.

She charged at me.

I didn’t have time to move out of the way.

She punched out at me.

I raised both arms to block it.

The strength of her strike was enough to blow me backward, knock me to the ground, and send me sprawling.

“Get up!” Her eyes narrowed in annoyance.

I stood.

She rushed at me again, but much slower this time. She swung her right arm to backhand me.

I again tried to block with both arms, but the blow was too powerful. I was knocked back down to the ground.

She looked at me and sighed. “You have no chance. Normally, we recommend going wide, shoring up your weaknesses instead of focusing on your strengths, but it won’t be possible for you to learn to fight without years of practice.”

“What?” I was stunned by her assessment.

“You lack even the most basic instincts that should have been drilled into you as a Disciple. You don’t even try to use your qi to help you move more quickly or fortify your body to block my attacks. Learning these skills as a Grandmaster is incredibly difficult, they need to develop along with your cultivation base. So, yeah, you may want to just focus on other topics at this point.”

I closed my eyes and accepted her judgment, knowing the truth of her words.

However, while I understood her message, I stayed in the combat class. Even though I accepted she may be right about being unable to perfect these skills as a Grandmaster, they were what I needed to learn the most, and gaining knowledge here would put me in a better position for the next time around.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 118 – Life 64, Age 21, Martial Grandmaster 1

After spending two months trying to learn to fight at the River’s Tributary, I walked away feeling as if there was a deep chasm between where I was and where I needed to be.

It wasn’t like I had never tried to fight before, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t watched people fight before either. I had just never been able to put the pieces together in my mind or practiced it myself. Partly, this was because I hadn’t been properly trained, but I knew it had more to do with my avoidance of the topic.

I had a choice to make. I had to decide how I should progress.

It was time for the Nine Rivers Sect’s Entrance Exam, and I wanted to participate and learn more about the place, but I felt that it would be a mistake. I wasn’t ready.

Another path I considered was signing up for classes at the Yellow Orchid Academy. Since they were the best school in the city, I should be able to make great progress there. The fact remained, though, that my time at the River’s Tributary had shown me that I didn’t have the necessary low-level experience to develop to my fullest potential as a Grandmaster.

I needed a fresh start. I needed to begin as a Disciple and slowly work my way up.

That’s what I needed to do, but it didn’t mean I needed to restart right away. Studying at the Academy would require significant funds, and I could use the rest of this life accumulating them.

Having strengthened my soul significantly over the past few centuries, I had been able to barely manage to make Perfect Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pills with only mid eight-star affinities, but if I wanted to make Rank 3 pills, I needed more.

“System, permanently upgrade my fire, wood, metal, and water affinities to peak seven-star.”

Confirmed. Cost 690,000 credits. 114,575,625 credits remaining.

I could have gotten away with temporary upgrades, but better to set this as my new ground floor. I considered that idea for a few moments and ultimately decided to pull the trigger on another purchase.

“System, upgrade my light, dark, lightning, and wind affinities to peak seven-star.”

Confirmed. Cost 7.1 million credits. 107,485,625 credits remaining.

This would allow me to work much more freely within the Grandmaster realm and below. Even if it wasn’t necessary at the moment, it was a minimal extra cost and would serve me well in the future.

Satisfied with my choice, I headed to the Blue Wind Pavilion.

Upon entering, I saw the attendant I had become most familiar with in this city.

“How may I help you today, sir?” asked Meng LuYao.

I rubbed my hands together slightly, showing a bit of nervousness. “Miss Meng, I wanted to know what I would need to do to become a member of the Pavilion.”

Members received significantly higher returns when selling pills, and they had opportunities to advance to Martial Lord. Originally, I hadn’t wanted to pursue this path, but since I had decided to delay my entry into the sect until my next life, this was the best method I could think of to reach the Lord realm in a short time span.

I could have tried to use Emperor Li’s token to bully my way through this process, but that would have been extremely risky. If the manager of this location was a Martial King, they likely wouldn’t be as easily intimidated by it as WuJing had been.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Meng LuYao clasped her hands and bowed her head slightly. “We do not accept applications for memberships at this location. If he deems it proper, our manager will reach out to you personally, but otherwise, you may wish to visit our main branch in Blue Wind City. A few paths to membership are available there.”

It was an option, but not one I wanted to pursue in this life.

“Understood. Then I will just purchase this list of ingredients for now.” I handed over a list of several Rank 3 herbs.

I had built up a sizable amount of money for a Martial Master, but it was somewhat pathetic when compared to what was needed to buy Rank 3 herbs. I only had enough for three pills. That was plenty, though.

I entered the grind of pill-making once more. First building up a small cash reserve, then using the excess pills to advance my cultivation.

I should have been careful when advancing through the Grandmaster realm. My body contained countless capillary meridians, and it would be easy for them to become clogged if I advanced too rapidly. I didn’t let that stop me. With only five years until my self-imposed deadline, I didn’t want to wait around.

In a past life, I had been able to advance from Grandmaster 1 to Grandmaster 6 in only a year’s time. That was using a dual-element Profound-Rank technique. With my Earth-Rank technique, I was able to draw in qi much faster, so I expected to advance through Grandmaster faster as well. However, in the first year, I only advanced to Grandmaster 5. In the second year, I advanced through Grandmaster 7 and was nearing 8. At the end of three years, I was a Peak Grandmaster.

This was slower than I expected, and the reasons were complex. My meridians seemed to clog much faster than they had in the past, it seemed like I needed significantly higher quantities of qi to advance, and the harder I pushed, the more it felt like I was fighting against my own body.

There was no world in which I would consider my current state ‘good,’ but it was good enough for what I needed to do.

I didn’t see a path forward to Martial Lord in this life, and that was a bit of a problem. I needed to start gathering spirit stones, and that required me to be able to make Rank 4 pills. Seeing no other quick option, I decided to advance to False Lord.

I didn’t have a manual to guide me through the process of advancing to False Lord, but I understood the theory, and it was simple enough to execute.

First, I braided my qi into a tight, compact ball at the center of my dantian. I built up layer after layer, forcing it to be as solid and powerful as I could make it.

Once I had a core I was sure could withstand extreme pressures, I started pouring my qi into it. As I pushed more and more energy into the small tightly braided ball, it began to expand slightly, giving me the impression that the qi was somewhat elastic. This made me nervous, but I didn’t stop.

When it looked like my shoddy core was about to explode, I felt a pop. My eyes widened in fear, but when my core was sucked through a hole in the world, I grinned. I mustered all of my remaining energy and slammed it into the chains that bound me. Only a hairline crack appeared, but that was enough. I had advanced to False Lord.

I reached into a storage bag, took out a pill bottle, and tossed it into the air. I slammed it with my will-lock. It froze in mid-air, but only briefly. After a slight pause, the bottle resumed its trip to the ground.

It would have to be enough.

I spent a few days cultivating in peace, allowing my energy reserves to recover, and then I went to the Blue Wind Pavilion to purchase a single Kairaway Pod. I could only afford one, and rebuilding cash reserves to purchase more using only Rank 3 pills would be annoying, so I didn’t want to mess it up.

Sitting in my rented workshop, looking at the pod, I knew I needed to do everything I could to make this a successful Perfect pill.

“System, permanently raise my wood affinity to peak six-star.”

Confirmed. Cost 16 million credits. 91,485,625 credits remaining.

I breathed in and got to work.

Holding all the bits of medicinal energy together with only a False Lord’s will was difficult, but I had enough experience to see me through. Using my improved affinities, I was able to slowly cleanse the energy and concoct a Perfect Rank 4 Soil Enrichment Pill.

Because of the weak force my will-lock provided, the variety of Rank 4 pills I would be able to create would be severely limited, but I would still be able to earn spirit stones, and that was all I was aiming for.

I wanted to hoard as much wealth as I could in the limited time I had remaining, but there was something else I needed to do.

If I wanted to bring that wealth back with me, I needed to expand my storage space. I had already expanded it significantly from where it started, but I needed an enormous space if I wanted to bring a large quantity of gold, spirit stones, and pills back with me.

Sitting in my inn room, I focused on the seed in my soul and began pouring all the energy I could into it.

As a Martial Disciple 1, it had only grown at a little over a cubic centimeter a day. With all the strength I could muster as a False Lord, it was growing at nearly 10,000 cubic centimeters a day. Previously, its total size was only 60,000 cubic centimeters. At this rate, it would take less than a hundred days to reach a full cubic meter.

Even though I had learned to walk around somewhat freely as I expanded the space, the idea of spending months, years, or even decades doing so was painful. Taking a Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pill allowed me to triple the speed at which the space grew for a short amount of time, but constantly consuming pills wasn’t a solution. If I wanted to grow the space to truly epic proportions, I would need to find a better method.

Still, in less than a week, I was able to turn my storage space into a sphere with a radius of nearly thirty centimeters. I continued this for nearly a month, expanding the radius to fifty centimeters, but that was where I decided to stop. That was more than sufficient. I could have pushed further, but since it wasn’t necessary, I decided to hold off until I found ways to improve the process.

I filled a tenth of my space with gold bars and spirit stones. 250 bars worth 500 gold each, and 100 spirit stones. To avoid needing to use gold bars all the time, I also packed a few bags of various coins for everyday use. Gold, silver, and even copper, just in case.

I would have liked to take larger quantities of gold since Grandmaster-level items could be worth hundreds of thousands each, but storing thousands, or tens of thousands, of gold bars would have taken up an exorbitant amount of room. Usually, bank notes from places such as the Blue Wind Pavilion were used in transactions of that level, but carrying notes with me instead of hard gold could lead to allegations of fraud that I would rather avoid.

Instead, I focused on storing a wide variety of pills. Several of these were for my own use, but most of them were for use as potential trade goods. While gold and spirit stones took up a significant amount of space, a single jade bottle containing just two or three pills could be worth over a dozen spirit stones. I would have to be careful when selling them, but pills were a far more compact way of storing wealth.

The last item in my space was a large jade box with thick walls.

My seed of the Cold Mountain Fire had continued to deteriorate, but the moment I placed spirit stones in there with it, it consumed them, regaining some of its vitality. In a way, this was good since it was healing the seed, but I needed the stones for myself, and I didn’t have enough to share with the fire seed. My solution was to stuff it into a jade box. This halted its deterioration while also keeping it from consuming other items in the space.

Of course, after I did that, I also quickly learned I had to place the spirit stones in a jade box to protect them from losing energy the way the seed had. I needed to understand what was causing the energy drain. If I had a chance, I would look for a Formation Grandmaster who was knowledgeable about storage bags to see if they could shed any light on this problem.

With preparations for my next life complete, I swallowed a poison pill.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a False Martial Lord. 2,000,000 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 93,485,625

Affinities

Peak Six-Star — Earth, Wood

Peak Seven-Star — Water, Fire, Metal, Wind, Lightning, Light, Dark

Skills (Updated)

Technique Appraisal – Rank 3 (Earth)

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 119 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

A note from G Tolley

Change to Chapter 74 to remove wording that caused problems for future events:

Old:

“System, how much to make all my current affinities permanent?”

Cost 1,892,500 credits. Discounted cost 946,250 credits.

“That should be the basic cost of the affinities. Don’t I get a discount since I already have them as temporary affinities?”

No, current affinities are a holdover from a previous life, so no discount is available. Plan your purchases better in the future to avoid wasting credits.

Nothing I could do to change the situation, so I moved on.

New:

“System, how much to make all my current affinities permanent?”

Cost 1,892,500 credits. Discounted cost 946,250 credits.

“That should be the basic cost of the affinities. Don’t I get a discount since I already have them as temporary affinities?”

No discount is available.

Nothing I could do to change the situation, so I moved on.

I blinked my eyes as I woke up in the Blue Wind Pavilion’s carriage. It took me several moments to adjust to my new surroundings, but as soon as I got my bearings, I remembered what I needed to do.

“System, set a temporary reset point to bring me back to this point in time when I die.”

Confirmed. Cost 60 credits. 93,485,565 credits remaining.

Smiling, I waited for the carriage to come to a stop. When it did, I saw the Pavilion outside once more, but I didn’t have any reason to visit. Instead, I directed my attention to the driver.

“Can you take me to the Yellow Orchid Academy?”

He smiled and bowed his head gently. “Of course, sir.”

The ride to the Yellow Orchid Academy took nearly an hour. The school was not located within the city limits but was instead a sprawling complex on its hilly outskirts to the west of the city.

The building the driver dropped me off at was large and imposing. It was two stories tall with a traditional design of bright red walls and a marble colonnade carved with various scenes of cultivators doing battle.

I began to walk toward the entrance, but before I took two steps, I turned back to the carriage where the driver was nearly about to leave. I reached into my storage space and pulled out one of the gold bars stored within. 500 gold was a small repayment for the assistance his 10 silver had given me.

“Thank you for everything,” I said, tossing him the bar.

Through his expression of shock, I could see he wanted to say something to stop me, but I just turned around and headed into the building.

Inside was a reception area with a middle-aged woman wearing a yellow uniform with white trim seated behind an ornate marble countertop.

I walked up to her and gave a slight bow of my head. “I need to register for classes as a Martial Disciple.”

“I see.” She gave me an appraising look, likely noticing my lack of cultivation. “What is your name?”

“Su Fang.”

“Age?”

“16.”

“Blessing?”

“Enhanced cultivation comprehension.”

She raised an eyebrow. Was she wondering how I could know this? I wasn’t sure, but she decided not to ask any questions and just pressed on.

“Have you ever cultivated before?”

“No, but the basics have been explained to me.”

She took out a standard affinity testing orb which I had used many times before. “Place your hand here and insert your qi.”

I winced slightly. These orbs weren’t good with mixed affinities. I pushed my qi into it and the orb lit up with an array of chaotic lines.

The receptionist raised an eyebrow at the sight. Instead of saying anything, she reached out with an index finger and tapped the side of the orb.

Instantly, the chaotic lines coalesced into nine bright images.

“How—“

She cut me off. “Your affinities are all decent. Two peak sixes and the rest are all peak seven. Nothing too spectacular on its own, but it’s a solid mix that will serve you well even in the Lord realm.”

She tapped her fingernails on the counter as she looked at me. “We are already one month into the term, but students have been focused on understanding the basics of their techniques so they haven’t started cultivating yet. If your blessing does help with comprehension, you should be able to catch up. However, please note that there is a potential for this to cause problems.”

I nodded in acknowledgment, glad that she was willing to tell me upfront, but I didn’t want to wait another year unless I had to. “I would like to start classes now if that’s possible.”

She smiled curtly at my direct answer. “You have two options. The first is the standard one-year course. It costs 500 gold, and at the end of the year, if you wish to continue your studies with us, you can sign up for a second term at that time.”

This was what I had heard about in the Pavilion so I didn’t have any questions. I simply gestured for her to continue.

“While you lack any outstanding affinities, the fact that every one of them is at least decent also qualifies for a four-year comprehensive education. You will be placed in a group of other Disciples who are just learning to cultivate, and you will be assigned a Master to guide you throughout all four years. This course will be slower than the normal one, but it will be structured to make you the best Disciple possible. This comprehensive education costs 5,000 gold a year.”

I blinked. “10 times the price?”

“Yes. The standard courses are taught by inner sect Grandmasters of the Nine Rivers Sect who have all been evaluated as excellent teachers. However, they have not yet been deemed qualified to teach Masters. The comprehensive course, on the other hand, is taught by the protégée of a core disciple. The teachers for these courses are only Martial Masters, but they are all extremely talented, and their Grandmaster will be monitoring classes to provide assistance where necessary.”

I tried to give her my best weighty stare. “If I have the money, is it worth the extra price?”

She just looked back at me calmly. “Yes. Aside from any other benefits, having a single teacher properly structure your entire education as a Martial Disciple is extremely beneficial. Is it worth ten times the price of a normal education? That is for you to decide, but if you have the money, you should spend it.”

All I could sense from her was honesty. She might be here to up-sell me, but it was also what she believed.

“Let’s go with the four-year course then.” I reached into my storage space and pulled out ten gold bars. It would eat into my savings, but that money was there to be spent.

”Excellent,” she said with a bright smile. She pulled out a large map. “Let me introduce you to our school.”

The introduction mainly consisted of showing me the important locations on a map and giving me my schedule. Most importantly, she showed me where my apartment would be during my stay.

After her introduction was complete, I left to get settled down. Because of the timing of my reset point, it was already late and I wouldn’t be joining classes until the next day.

I had just been reborn, so I wasn’t exactly tired, but I wasn’t sure what to do with my evening. Remembering the books I had copied on my trip to the city, I found a chair and sat down for a night of reading. After pushing myself hard to gather funds in my last life, a little downtime was nice.

The next morning, I dressed in the school’s white training uniform and waited for classes to start.

I delayed my entry into the classroom until five minutes after the scheduled time as I was instructed, then knocked and opened the door. At the front of the room was a young man wearing a dark brown uniform who didn’t look much older than his students.

“Come in.” He gestured me toward the front of the classroom. Inside there were only four other students. “This is Su Fang, our new enrollee.”

I gave a deep bow to the class. “Nice to meet you. Please take care of me.”

“Su Fang, these are your classmates.” He pointed to them one by one. “Lin LiTing, Chai Jiaqi, Shi Yulong, and Zhuge Yan. You will have time to get to know each other later. For now, we will continue with the day’s lesson. I will be your instructor, Sun WanYu.”

Bowing my head, I took a seat on the left side of the room.

“Our first month has been spent training you on the basics of cultivation. You are all now able to form proper qi filters, so we will begin cultivating today.”

He took out a stack of thin manuals and handed them around the class.

“I know several of you have your own techniques you wish to cultivate. However, we will put those to the side for now. This is the cultivation technique you will use.”

I looked at the manual he handed me and triggered my analysis ability to see what it was.

Raging Fires Mantra, Low-Yellow Rank 1 Cultivation Technique, Fire Qi, Effects: Fills the cultivator with unrelenting rage.

My eyes shot up to the teacher. This was among the worst techniques I’d ever seen. What was he trying to do?

“You will all cultivate this to Peak Disciple as fast as you possibly can. As an incentive, the school will allow the first person to do so an opportunity to enter the academy’s library where they will be allowed to choose a single technique.”

Not only was he giving us a horrible technique, but he was also encouraging us to cultivate it as quickly as we could. This didn’t make any sense to me, but I paid for this course, so I was willing to go along with it even if it got me killed.

The class spread out around the room and began cultivating. Using the Low-Yellow technique, it almost felt like tar was entering my body. I hadn’t allowed so many impurities to enter my body since my first few weeks in this world.

Based on my experience, I expected it would take months for everyone to slowly reach Peak Disciple, but shortly after I started drawing in qi, I noticed an immense surge of energy. Someone had enabled a Qi Gathering Formation, and its Rank wasn’t low. Energy flooded into the room, nearly overwhelming me.

I did my best to keep my qi filter in place and cultivate properly, but with the massive amount of energy in the air, it was like I was constantly consuming high-level Qi Gathering Pills. I simply couldn’t contain all that excess energy.

Under the immense pressure of the qi flooding my system, my Low-Yellow filter crumbled, and even more impurities began entering my system. I barely needed to think. My cultivation quickly advanced on its own.

I ascended to Martial Disciple 2, and only a few minutes later, I advanced once more. I moved up the levels swiftly, reaching Peak Disciple in only a matter of hours instead of months.

I looked inward at my foundation and saw what this rapid ascent had done to me. There were more impurities in my body than there was fire qi. As I looked at the travesty that was my cultivation base, I felt something well up within me.

I looked up at our instructor and I was filled with rage. What had he done to me? Why would he do this to me? My anger and disgust at this situation blended with the suggestions coming from the cultivation technique. I wanted to hurt someone I wanted to…

My cultivation base was sending me down the path of madness. Being pushed from Disciple 1 to Peak in a matter of hours using more impurities than qi was beyond anything I had experienced before, but still, it was only at the Disciple level.

I had purchased mental resistances, and my soul had grown far beyond low-Rank techniques, so even though my cultivation was this far gone, I was still able to suppress these urges once I realized what was happening. My soul clamped down on the anger, and I regained control of myself once more.

The instructor’s eyes shot to me. His brow raised, then his eyes narrowed. He walked up to me, looked me in the eye, and slapped me. His palm left a burning mark on my cheek.

The anger I had been suppressing wanted to burst out.

I needed to attack. I needed to… I needed to…

My soul pressed down once more and quickly reasserted its control.

The instructor slapped me again.

This time I had been expecting it, so the anger didn’t breach my defenses.

The instructor snarled and punched me in the gut.

The attack hurt, but it didn’t stop my soul from asserting its dominance over my body.

The teacher looked down at me, but then just rubbed his forehead. He looked to the side where a slightly older man in his mid-thirties appeared.

This new person picked me up, hauled me out of the classroom, and set me down in a small private office. He sat across from me and studied me as I worked to get myself under control.

“Have you cultivated your soul?”

“No,” I grunted out through the pain and anger.

“You caused a problem for my disciple back there. He didn’t know how to handle someone who could suppress the madness.”

I struggled to look at the man who must be the Nine Rivers Sect core disciple I had been told about.

“This little exercise is to let you feel the interface between your energy body, your physical body, and your soul. You may have been told that the qi of a Martial Disciple is stored in the muscles, correct?”

I nodded. I didn’t have the wherewithal to speak.

“This is not entirely true. Qi is stored in your energy body, which is entirely separate from your physical muscles. The mental impulses from cultivation techniques only affect your energy body. Try to feel where the rage is coming from. You are instinctively suppressing it, but you should still be able to feel where it is pushing into your mind from.”

I tried to do as instructed, but it felt like it was coming from everywhere.

“Nine points,” said the man, looking at me intently. “You should feel nine points that connect your physical body to your energy body and to your soul.”

Nine… that was the only clue I needed. I felt toward my acupoints and sensed the rage pouring through them.

Without knowing exactly what I was doing, I instinctively twisted my mind, and the acupoints sealed shut, blocking the impulses from affecting me.

The tension in my body vanished, and I collapsed like a bow with a cut string.

The man nodded. “That’s one way to do it, but it’s the worst. You will not passively absorb qi if you completely block them like that. My disciple can take it from here, though. Return to class.”

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Chapter 120 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple Peak

When I returned to the classroom, I was surprised to see the other students still cultivating. Examining them in qi vision, I saw that one boy and one girl were struggling to continue cultivating as Martial Disciple 4s, one girl was stuck at Martial Disciple 3, and the last boy was having trouble concentrating at only Martial Disciple 2.

I looked to Instructor Sun to see what I was supposed to do, and he gestured for me to retake my seat, so that’s what I did. I didn’t even consider cultivating again in the qi-flooded environment, though. Instead, I just watched as the instructor assisted the other students.

From what I could see, the problem was that they couldn’t focus, which made sense. I doubted they could even really think about cultivating. Rage from their techniques must be overwhelming them at all times.

When it was clear no one was making any more progress, the instructor went to each student one by one and tapped on their open acupoints. After his treatment, their faces immediately relaxed.

Instructor Sun walked to the front of the classroom and gestured at a diagram of the human body.

“I have sealed your acupoints, but you should still be able to feel them pulsing. Try to feel the location of these pulses as accurately as possible. That is the location of the interface between your physical body and your energy body.”

I reached out with my spiritual senses to my acupoints and felt them. They weren’t exactly pulsing like the instructor described, likely because I had sealed them myself, but I could sense a kind of pressure locked inside. It felt like there was an alien will that wanted to be released.

I had always considered acupoints as holes through my body, connecting my muscles to the outside world. As I examined them closely, I realized that this paradigm didn’t make any sense. There weren’t any holes in my body. I should have realized this sooner, but I never stopped to think too much about it. Now, I was beginning to see that instead of being holes in my body, they were more like holes through reality. Between realities?

The acupoints didn’t connect my muscles with the outside world, they connected the muscles of my physical body with those of my energy body, allowing the transfer of energy between the two.

“Right now, I have completely blocked your acupoints preventing your energy body from affecting your mental state. You will need to learn to do this yourself, but this also blocks you from absorbing or using qi. The key is to learn control.”

He walked over to the boy who had only risen to Disciple 2. Not giving the kid a chance to react, the instructor reached out and tapped one of his acupoints, completely unblocking it.

The boy screamed in rage and moved to stand, but the instructor held him down with a hand on his shoulder.

“Before, his acupoint was fully closed. Now, it is fully open. In most cases, neither state is ideal.” The instructor moved his qi to attenuate the energy flowing through the boy’s acupoint.

The boy’s expression shifted as he slowly regained control.

“That looks right. 5% open. It’s a bit low, but keeping it at this level will allow you to remain fully lucid while still having access to qi.” He looked around the room and met all of our eyes. “This is the idea. Learn to control the openings to your energy body. When you need a strong flow, or when you are cultivating with pills in a prepared chamber, fully opened acupoints may be best. However, in regular day-to-day life, you will want to keep them turned down so that the mental influences don’t overwhelm you.”

I thought about Instructor Sun’s explanation and tried to match it up with my experiences. It didn’t seem right. Back in the Twin Mountain Sect, I had reached a point where I could flip on or off the effects from two different cultivation techniques without limiting my qi flow at all. His description seemed to fit with my more recent lives better, where the cultivation technique took over my mind, but it still didn’t match up completely.

I had a bad habit of only taking the information people gave me and working to draw my own conclusions from there, but that needed to stop. With a trained, knowledgeable teacher in front of me, I needed to ask questions to help settle my doubts.

I raised my hand. The instructor’s eyebrow raised at the interruption, but he gestured for me to speak.

“As I understand it,” I began, unwilling to explain my direct experience, “a cultivator can block or accept the mental impulses from a cultivation technique without cutting off the qi flow. So why would we focus on blocking meridians?”

The instructor gave a slight smile. “As you cultivate, your energy body will develop its own… personality. If you have a strong soul and a solid grasp of who you are, you can block the influences of this personality and only let them through as you desire. However, you are all 16 years old. You don’t know who you are yet. If you let your energy body’s personality through, it can easily consume you. Putting limits on it will let you develop your own personality without its influence.”

I had an idea of what he was saying, but some things didn’t quite match. “Doesn’t a stronger soul—”

The instructor held up a hand to stop me.

“These are discussions to have much later.” He gestured at my classmates. “Right now, we need to understand the basics of acupoint control. The role your soul plays in this balance will be addressed in higher-level courses.”

I nodded, accepting his decision.

For the rest of the day, Instructor Sun worked with the other students to perfect their ability to regulate their flow through their acupoints. Just by watching how he controlled the other student’s energy flows, I understood what I was supposed to do. When I was in the room with the grandmaster, I was able to quickly figure out how to slam my acupoints shut, so learning to attenuate the flow of energy came easily.

At the end of class, the instructor walked to the front of the room to address us all at once.

“For tonight, I will leave your acupoints blocked. Tomorrow, I expect you all to be able to advance several more stages.”

He looked at me with a slightly conflicted expression.

“As the first student to reach Peak Disciple, you are granted one technique from the library.” He threw a token at me. “If you don’t have a proper cultivation technique, you should go get one now so you can start studying it. If you do have one, you will probably want to save that.”

I bowed and headed to the exit along with the other students.

“Su Fang.” The boy who had only been able to reach Martial Disciple 2 spoke up as we were nearing the door. “We always visit the dining hall together after classes. Do you want to join us?”

“I don’t know… I think—”

“Yes, he does.” Halted in our tracks by these words, the entire group looked back to Instructor Sun. He was glaring at me. “To know who you are after you become a cultivator, you must know who you were before being a cultivator. Spend time with them. Talk to them. Learn about them and learn about yourself.”

I dipped my head in acknowledgment.

The Academy’s dining hall was a large multi-story building that fed over a thousand students every day. There weren’t any private rooms, but after standing in line and receiving our meals, the group found a secluded table in the corner of the hall to talk.

“So, Su Fang, my name is Zhuge Yan. Nice to meet you,” said the boy who invited me to the meal, giving me a slight nod of his head.

“Nice to meet you.” I smiled awkwardly.

Not willing to let my apparent awkwardness dull the mood, the boy kept talking.

“This is Shi Yulong, Chai JiaQi, and Lin LiTing.” He pointed to the other boy, the girl who made it to Martial Disciple 4, and the girl who only made it to Martial Disciple 3 in order. “We’ve been here a little over a month, but you were able to beat us good today.”

I watched and gave a wry smile. If I had been paying attention to the others in the room, I wouldn’t have cultivated so quickly.

“No need to be embarrassed. It’s good that someone was able to call ol’ Sun’s bluff. I don’t think he really intended for any of us to get that free technique he promised.”

The meal devolved into silence as we began eating, but the girl named Lin LiTing finally broke it.

“So, Su Fang, where are you from? I’m a minor noble from the Waxing Moon Empire. One of the princesses decided I was talented and sponsored my education here. What about you?”

I knew the school could likely track me down if they wanted to, so I decided to be honest and see where that got me. At least, I would be as honest as I could be. “I’m from the Western Wastes.”

“Really?” She looked up in surprise. “Hey JiaQi, that's close to where you’re from, right?”

The other girl furrowed her brow. “Yeah, it’s a bit north of the Empire of Tranquil Springs.”

She looked at me with confusion in her eyes. “How did someone from the Wastes manage to come to the Nine Rivers territory?”

I did my best to maintain my honesty while leaning on a bit of misdirection. “A senior directed me here. He thought it would be a good place for me to learn.”

All four of the boys and girls at the table had a look of understanding when I said this.

The larger boy, Shi Yulong, looked at me with excitement. “I won’t ask who it was because I know the rules for such things, but can you tell us anything about the senior?”

I thought long and hard about what I could and couldn’t say. Again, there was information that wouldn’t be too hard for them to find out though. “He was from the Blue Wind Pavilion.”

Chai Jiaqi began to have confusion in her eyes. “If you were in the Wastes, how did you meet a senior?”

“This…” I had no idea what I should say. Did it make sense to tell them that I had left the Wastes? If I did, how could I explain taking a carriage from Dragon Gate City?

Zhuge Yan spoke up to calm me down.

“Don’t worry. None of us will pry into your secrets. Everyone has things that they can’t say.” He gave a meaningful look at the others around the table.

“Yes,” Lin LiTing confirmed swiftly, eyeing the others. “No one wants people looking into their secrets.”

Once again, the table fell into silence, but this time, I decided to be the one to break it.

“They said where they are from.” I gestured at the girls and then looked at the boys. “Where are you two from?”

Zhuge Yan gave me a surprised look and glanced at the other boy to signal for him to talk first.

“I’m from up north. I’m a prince and a branch family of the Empire of Eternal Winter. Each year the family has a competition to see who will be sent to the Academy, and I was selected this time.”

I nodded to him and looked at the other boy.

“I’m from the Zhuge family.” He looked down and did not elaborate.

I was about to ask more, but I caught the other boy shaking his head, so I stopped. Instead, I changed the topic to something that I considered more interesting.

“What are your blessings?” Lin LiTing froze at the question, so I hurried to clarify. “Is that okay to ask?”

“We all have comprehension blessings,” said Zhuge Yan, “as I’m sure you do as well.”

I raised an eyebrow at this.

“Grandmaster Ning always chooses people with comprehension blessings. Every Grandmaster has their own preferences, and his is for people who can easily specialize. Usually, that means comprehension blessings.”

I nodded in understanding. “Mine seems to be a general cultivation comprehension boost.”

Shi Yulong laughed. “That explains why you were able to cultivate so quickly today. I was wondering how you were able to beat us so bad.”

I smiled but didn’t respond. The boy continued.

“JiaQi and I both have martial arts comprehension boosts. You might be able to cultivate faster, but we’ll still be able to beat you up.” He flexed his muscles and gave a goofy grin.

“Mine is a boost to strategy and planning,” said Zhuge Yan. “It won’t help me much right now, but I think the Grandmaster is hoping I’ll be able to support him after he becomes a Lord.”

I should’ve realized it before, but his statements made it clear. This school wasn’t just about training us. It was about helping members of the Nine Rivers Sect establish connections with talented cultivators.

I looked to the last girl who hadn’t spoken, but she just shook her head, not willing to talk about her blessing. Understanding that this was the secret she was referring to earlier, I didn’t press.

For the rest of the meal, the other students talked about some of the things they had learned over the past month. It sounded like it was only learning qi control so that they could form their filters and begin cultivating. I might have missed something by arriving late, but it didn’t seem to be anything too vital.

After we finished eating, Zhuge Yan spoke up.

“Well, Su Fang, it was nice to meet you, but I’m ready to head back for the night. This acupoint is starting to become a nuisance, and I’m thinking I need to learn how to control it like you do before I’ll be able to get any kind of rest. Get some sleep tonight. You never know what tomorrow will bring.”

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Chapter 121 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple Peak

For the rest of the week, classes were focused on learning acupoint control. This was somewhat challenging for the other students to master, but with Instructor Sun’s guidance, they were able to get it down after only a few days. Once the impulses from their cultivation techniques were no longer a problem, by taking advantage of the Qi Gathering Formation, they were all able to swiftly advance.

After Zhuge Yan finally ascended to Martial Disciple Peak, Instructor Sun gathered us together and gave us each a pill bottle and a new technique manual.

“Go ahead and take that,” he said, gesturing to the pill bottle.

I opened it up and examined what was inside. It was an Energy Expulsion Pill. Far more powerful than a Purifying Pill, this pill would remove all the energy from one’s body. Understanding his purpose, I quickly swallowed the pill.

Energy exploded out of me in a quick burst and rapidly dissipated into the air.

I had returned to being a Martial Disciple 1 with no cultivation.

“Those,” he gestured to the manuals he had just handed out, “are Peak-Yellow cultivation techniques for your highest affinities. I expect all of you to be back to Disciple 2 before the next class.”

We had a day off, and I had expected the instructor to insist we use it to go outside and ‘learn more about ourselves.’ Needing to use it to cultivate was a surprise, but to me, it wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

However, just as I was planning a weekend alone in my apartment, Zhuge Yan came up to me to ensure I would meet with everyone for meals on our day off. I thought about refusing, but I knew how the instructor would react if I did.

Since the meals would interrupt me during the day, I spent the entire night cultivating.

With a peak six-star earth affinity, jumping up to Martial Disciple 2 in roughly a day and a half wasn’t much of a problem since Peak-Yellow techniques had significantly fewer requirements than my Earth-Rank technique had. Before I even met the class for lunch, I was already on the cusp of my breakthrough.

When I arrived at the dining hall, I was surprised to see a downcast expression on all of my classmates’ faces.

I looked at Zhuge Yan for an explanation. “What’s wrong?”

“We aren’t going to make it,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re going to have to start sacrificing purity to reach the speed needed.”

The shorter girl, Lin LiTing, gave a wry chuckle at that. “Pretty sure that was the intent. He wants us to build up some impurities so we’re still fighting in our technique.”

I thought about the situation and knew that there were several ways I could help them. I had to decide if it was something I should do, and if I should, how should I? I could make the decision myself, but looking at the group I thought that maybe they would have better insight into how to proceed.

I breathed out and planted my hands on the table. “Do you want me to help?”

The other three all looked to Zhuge Yan.

“That could interfere with the instructor’s plans… How could you help?”

There were a few ways I could let them advance in a short amount of time, but I had to think about the facade I was presenting to others.

“A Qi Gathering Formation,” I finally said. “Nothing as powerful as what they have in the classroom. Just one powerful enough to help you gather enough energy to advance tonight.”

“That could work.” I saw the wheels turning in Zhuge Yan’s head as he thought through the implications. “We would still be cultivating ourselves, so I don’t see any reason the instructor could have for admonishing us. But if he wants us to pursue a path of wild cultivation to meet his deadline, it would wreck his plans.”

“Let’s do it.” Shi YuLong had a wide grin on his face. “If ol’ Sun doesn’t like it. We can just blame Fang here.”

I wanted to object, but Chai JiaQi quickly spoke up in support. “I agree. Let’s cheat and let Fang take the fall.”

I felt annoyed at this response, but seeing that their expressions were playful instead of malicious, I just looked to Zhuge Yan. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘this is your problem.’

“Alright, where are we going to do this?”

We met in Zhuge Yan’s room a little over an hour later. He had procured granite blocks from somewhere and had them waiting for me when we entered.

A basic Qi Gathering Formation wasn’t too complicated. Every formation I had practiced had an inscription focused on drawing in qi. The only thing that made it special was that it created a small bubble to contain the qi it gathered.

Qi was drawn into the formation plate. Some of it was used to form the containment bubble, and some was used to fuel the gathering inscription itself. The rest was dumped within the bubble for use when cultivating.

To ensure we had enough energy for all five of us, I set up a separate formation in each of the cardinal directions. It may have seemed better for everybody to have their own separate formation, but since most of us cultivated different energy types, sharing a single environment was best. What were impurities to me was the energy others needed.

After a short test, we found that four formations were too many, and Zhuge Yan was having trouble purifying all the qi before it entered his body. I disabled two of them and the rest of us still had enough energy to cultivate without having to concentrate too much on drawing it in.

Yan was the last one to advance. He had to stay up all night to do it, but with less than an hour before class, he managed it. We were all Martial Disciple 2, and everyone had a pristine foundation.

When we walked into class, Instructor Sun examined us, and a look of annoyance appeared on his face. I saw his eyes dance between us trying to figure out who was to blame.

“Looks like I’ll have to set extra rules next time.” He grunted but didn’t pursue the matter any further.

My classmates smiled at this reaction.

“You have all started with your upper right arms, which is most common, and it will help us with today’s lesson, but next time you should think more about your cultivation technique.”

He pointed to Chai Jiaqi. “You’re cultivating the Flowing River Mantra. Water cultivators tend to be best at smooth, fluid movements. It might have been better if you started with your left leg instead. These are just small optimizations, and they won’t have much impact on what we need to do next, but they are things you should consider when cultivating.”

He made sure we all acknowledged this point. Then, instead of beginning the lesson directly, he started walking toward the room’s exit.

“Follow me.”

The instructor led us outside to a large open dirt courtyard with several thick stone pillars nearly two meters tall and half a meter across set up near its center.

“Su Fang.” He looked at me with a slightly malicious grin. I got the feeling that he knew who had ruined his previous plans. “Step forward and hit one of these pillars for me. If you can break it, I’ll give you another token to the library.”

Both of us knew that I wasn’t going to be able to punch through a granite pillar, but we also both knew that I didn’t have any choice other than to try my best.

I stepped forward and set myself before the stone.

If I threw a punch with all my might, I was certain I would end up breaking my hand. My upper right arm had been fortified, meaning my punches carried significantly more power, but my actual fist was merely mortal.

With the instructor watching me, I had to hit it with all my strength, but he only said ‘hit.’ He didn’t say I had to punch it.

I shifted my stance and drove my shoulder into the pillar with all my strength.

I bounced away, having done no damage to the stone.

Instructor Sun smiled, pleased with the effect of his lesson.

“You couldn’t break it. Why?”

I wanted to make a quip about how it was obvious I wouldn’t be able to break it, but I saw a look of concentration on Shi YuLong’s and Chai JiaQi’s faces.

The large man was the first to speak. “His attack didn’t have enough power, but even if it did, it still would’ve failed. His skin and muscles compressed when he hit the pillar and absorbed most of the strength of his strike. Only the bone had any real force behind it, and it would’ve broken before the stone did.”

The instructor gave a slight nod and smiled. “Yes. With the way Su Fang attacked, he would have broken himself long before he made the slightest dent in the pillar.”

Instructor Sun walked up to the pillar I attacked and mimicked my movements. When he hit the pillar, it shattered.

“Well?” he asked.

This time, it was Chai JiaQi who responded. “That wasn’t the strength of a Martial Disciple 2.”

“No? Then what was it?”

She looked at him and a calculating expression crossed her face. “You would need to be at least Martial Disciple 7.”

“Only 5,” corrected the instructor, “but you were close. 7 would certainly make it easier, but it is doable at 5.”

I felt a bit aggrieved that he had asked me to do the impossible, but I knew it was simply my punishment for setting up the formations last night.

“Chai JiaQi. Lin LiTing. Step forward and face each other.”

They did so. Lin LiTing looked a bit worried, but Chai JiaQi seemed confident. Her blessing would help her in her martial pursuits.

“Lin LiTing, punch her shoulder. Not too hard, no need to try and hurt her, just enough so she feels it.”

The girl stepped forward and threw out a simple jab. Chai JiaQi had planted herself to absorb the hit, but she still winced when it landed.

“Try to examine your energy body. Your qi is floating in its muscles. Push it outward and let it saturate the skin.”

I watched in qi vision as Instructor Sun demonstrated. Qi flowed to surround his arm like a sheath. This helped me understand what he wanted us to do, but I doubted any of the others could see it. They wouldn’t have developed their ability to see qi much yet.

Chai JiaQi tried to do as instructed, but it was obvious she either didn’t have sufficient qi control or didn’t understand what was needed.

I reached into my energy body and began manipulating my own energy, feeling how it was supposed to work. It wasn’t very difficult, just a matter of flexing my qi, but even flexing a muscle is difficult if you can’t feel it and barely know it exists.

“Continue trading blows back and forth. Use the pain to guide you. Send your qi where you feel the pain.” He looked at the other two boys. “You two, join them. Practice until you have it under control.”

They gave the instructor a short bow and began attacking each other.

Instructor Sun waved me over to the side of the practice yard.

“You’re a quick learner.” He eyed me up and down, reappraising me. “I’m assuming that if you already knew how to do this, you wouldn’t have been so careless with the pillar earlier. It will take them some time to learn what they need to do, so let’s begin the next lesson with just the two of us.”

He took a fighting stance opposite me.

“Don’t block, let me hit your shoulder. Use your qi to protect yourself.”

I did as commanded and shifted my qi to form a shell around my upper arm.

The instructor threw out a punch, and it bounced off my skin.

“Normal human strength can’t get through.”

He threw out another punch.

My qi barrier shattered, and pain lanced through my arm.

“Instead of hitting with normal strength, I shifted my qi to certain muscles to amplify their power. However, you have to be careful when doing this. I also had to put qi into every bone in my arm and fortify the flesh of my fist. Otherwise, with such strength, attacking a qi barrier would have crippled my hand.”

He waved me to the side where padded targets had been brought out.

“Your qi can enhance your flesh, fortify your bones, increase the strength of your attack, or improve your speed. There are other potential benefits as well, but these four will be our focus. While the others learn the basics, your job is to learn to move your qi to do what you need it to do as quickly as possible. If you leave it spread out, it will do everything at once, but it is much better to focus it. Think about what you need it to do and move it to where it needs to be.”

With this, he threw out another punch, blasting one of the padded targets apart.

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Chapter 122 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

After class, our group headed to the dining hall as usual.

Everyone was in low spirits from their lack of progress. While I had made significant strides in shifting my qi on command, they were all still struggling to form a basic defense.

To me, the problem was clear. The method Instructor Sun was using to guide them to using their qi internally was far from optimal. I had to assume that it would work, but I felt like spending more time explaining qi control and finding a way to show them what they needed to do would help them learn more quickly.

Using earth qi to demonstrate what they should be doing would be difficult, but my fire affinity was high enough that I could potentially manipulate environmental fire qi to give them a quick demonstration. If I showed them what they were doing wrong and how to fix it, I was sure that at least a couple of them would be able to learn in only a few hours.

Once we were seated around the dining table, I made my proposal.

“Do you want me to try and teach you how to control qi like he wants us to?”

My question caused everyone to fall silent, and they all looked at Zhuge Yan.

He rolled his fingers on the table in thought.

“How?”

“I can manipulate fire qi. I can use it to show you what you should be doing. I think one of the problems you’re having is that you can’t see your energy body very clearly. Using this method, I could show you what you are doing and what you should be doing in more detail. That would give you a better understanding of how to control your qi.”

Zhuge Yan sat in silence as he thought, and no one interrupted his process. It took him several minutes to reach a decision.

“No.” His demeanor was firm and unyielding. “We already undercut Instructor Sun today. It wouldn’t be good to do so again so soon. Your process might be faster, but it isn’t necessary. If Grandmaster Ning trusts that the current method will work, we can rely on it.”

I nearly started to argue back, to make the case for learning more quickly, but I could see that I had already lost. The faith the others had in Yan’s decision was nearly absolute. It seemed strange to me that they would trust someone they’d only known a little over a month so much.

For the rest of the meal, the others talked about their experiences in the combat class. I was a little disappointed that my input wasn’t welcome, but I understood. They wanted to learn through Instructor Sun’s process.

Instead of contributing, I simply sat and listened to their descriptions of what it felt like when they were trying to fortify their skin. Their thoughts seemed to run counter to my own experiences.

---------------------------------------------------

The next day, our class returned to the training yard. I went to my corner to practice while the others started punching each other again.

When the sparring started, I carefully observed the instructor's expression. He showed a look of surprise and then grinned in delight when everyone was as poor at defending themselves as they were the day before.

We spent all day on basic fighting drills, and at the end of it, I felt I was reaching the limit of what I could learn from this type of practice. As we were gathering to leave, the instructor called me over.

“Follow me.” He turned and exited the courtyard in the opposite direction from the other students.

We didn’t walk far before I found myself once more in Grandmaster Ning’s office, but this time, Instructor Sun stood by the Grandmaster’s side.

“You offered to teach them, didn’t you?” He looked at me from across his desk with steepled fingers.

“Yes.” There was no reason for me to hide it.

“Show us how you intended to do so.”

I looked at him in confusion for a moment, but quickly turned away to look around the room. “I need a fire.”

The Grandmaster obliged and pulled a small cauldron from his storage space.

I lit the burner and started to channel the energy it let off. It wasn’t qi, just natural fire, but for my fire affinity, it was close enough.

I shaped the fire into an arm and made the area where my qi would be burn more brightly. Shifting the qi in my body to form a shield, I simultaneously moved the brightly burning area to envelop the flaming arm.

“Their problem is that they can’t see their own qi. By using this method, I hoped to let them visualize it more easily.”

The Grandmaster looked at my demonstration with interest, but didn’t comment on it. He only turned to Instructor Sun. “What do you think?”

“It could be useful, but right now it would ruin them. If he had shown this to the others, it might’ve delayed us by several weeks.”

Grandmaster Ning nodded. “Why?”

“The goal of this training is to get them to move their energy instinctively. This would show them how to do it consciously, but it would interfere with drilling in those instincts.”

The Grandmaster looked at me. “It’s good that you didn’t interfere with our lessons again. I’m sure I know who we have to thank for that. I’m willing to try this method, but not with your class and not right now. We’ll revisit this topic later.”

He turned back to the instructor. “It seems that Su Fang isn’t burning up enough energy. Get in touch with Rei and have her send a student over tomorrow to help him learn his lessons more swiftly.”

Looking back at me, the Grandmaster smiled. “Good day.”

I felt a shiver run down my spine.

---------------------------------------------------

During class the next day, we were joined by a young woman. Taking a quick look at her in qi vision, I noticed that she was a Martial Master 4. Were they planning to train me by pitting me against a Master?

“Everybody, continue your normal practice. Su Fang, starting today you will be receiving private lessons from Master Tan.”

Master Tan gave me an evil smile. “Come with me.”

She took me to the corner of the courtyard, and once we arrived, without saying anything, she turned around and threw a punch at my arm.

Her fist connected, leaving my arm bruised and stinging.

“I was told you understood the basics.” She assumed an attacking posture with her fist raised in front of her. “Block the blows you’re able to block. Absorb the blows you can’t. When you see an opening, strike.”

She moved forward and began assaulting me.

I quickly realized that all her blows that were intended to connect were aimed at my upper right arm. This gave me an advantage, but it wasn’t much. I moved all my qi to simply defend and absorb her attacks.

At first, this purely defensive style seemed to be working, but with each hit that landed, I could feel my energy fade. If I continued to absorb all her hits, I would soon run out of qi.

Intellectually, I knew what I was supposed to do. When her attacks were headed toward me, I should use my qi to make my arm move faster. Once it was in place, I could shift my qi to my muscles and have them absorb the impact to break her rhythm. Then, I could return the qi to my muscles, making them faster and stronger, allowing me to strike when I saw an opening.

I knew this was what I was supposed to do, but in the heat of battle, all I could do was defend.

Once my energy was exhausted, Master Tan stepped back.

She shook her head. “This is going to be a lot of work.”

I couldn’t help but agree with her.

---------------------------------------------------

I spent the rest of the day getting beat up. I tried to make the proper shifts in my qi, but it was difficult. When she attacked, by the time I knew how to respond, the moment had already passed and Master Tan had struck me once more.

During my breaks to recover energy, I watched the others practice. Zhuge Yan and Lin LiTing weren’t having much luck, but Shi YuLong and Chai JiaQi were starting to get the hang of it. While I was moving to protect a large swath of my arm, they had learned to localize their qi to only the area that would be struck. This gave them far more defense than I was getting.

It was clear that they would quickly begin to outpace me. While I could direct my qi more nimbly than they could, it would be difficult for me to develop the reflexes they had. Aside from their blessings, Grandmaster Ning was right. I kept getting tripped up because I was doing everything intentionally instead of instinctively.

If their blessings were powerful enough, there would be nothing I could do to match them, but I could at least prevent myself from falling behind too quickly.

“System,” I subvocalized, “improve my comprehension for martial arts as much as possible for ten million credits.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 10 million credits. 83,485,565 credits remaining.

It was a large chunk of change, but if the teachers at the River’s Tributary had been correct, I needed to master each and every discipline important to cultivators, and fighting was surely among the most important.

Turning back to Master Tan, I set my feet and smiled. It was time to get learning.

---------------------------------------------------

With my new comprehension boost in place, it only took a few days for me to become proficient in the basics of instinctive qi control. Shi YuLong and Chai JiaQi had extended their lead over me, but I was happy with the steady progress I was making.

At the end of the week, Instructor Sun made a new announcement.

“From now on, you are to advance one stage every week. No more, no less. You will advance on time.” He turned to me and glared. “You are not allowed to accept any help from others during your cultivation.”

“Yes, Instructor Sun,” we all acknowledged.

“Your combat training will continue unabated, but you will need to begin learning a profession. If you have not yet chosen one, take this weekend to decide. However, I will warn you right now, it is against school rules to ask anyone about the details of their choice. If you wish to share, you may do so, but you must never ask someone what they are learning.”

I cocked my head to the side at this rule.

Why? Was a person’s profession such a well guarded secret? I had met countless alchemists, formation specialists, and herbalists, and none of them had shown any reservations at all when talking about their professions. How were you supposed to sell herbs or pills if no one knew you had them?

I didn’t think Instructor Sun would appreciate my question, but when I looked at Zhuge Yan, I saw a solemn look on his face. He knew the reason.

That night at dinner, once we were settled down, I broached the topic.

“Why aren’t we supposed to ask people about their professions?”

The rest of the table quieted down, and I could feel them become nervous. Zhuge Yan looked at me.

“There are two reasons. For combat professionals,” he gestured to Shi YuLong and Chai JiaQi, “they generally like to keep their profession a secret as much as possible because it can surprise an enemy. If someone is a water cultivator but suddenly starts throwing out countless talismans, it can serve as an excellent surprise. Of course, anyone can use talismans, but if you are a known talisman artist, people will be far more prepared for it.”

“That makes sense, I guess, but such a rule seems like a bit much if it’s only that.”

“The other reason,” he said, his gaze fixed on me, focused on not letting his eyes roam around, “is that depending on your profession, you can be in serious danger if people know about it.”

“You mean, like how someone might want to kidnap an alchemist and force them to make pills?” I asked, trying to put his words into a context I had considered before.

“That is a possibility, but for refiners, it’s much worse.” His face became stony. “Do you know that with a quality Rank 1 refined weapon, a Martial Disciple is capable of fighting an unarmed Martial Master? From what I’ve heard, with even just a Rank 5 refined weapon, a mediocre Martial Emperor might be able to defeat anyone on the continent other than the Saint and his Sovereigns.”

“Alright… but that’s not too different from the benefits a pill can give you. An alchemist can create pills that could allow a Disciple to fight against a Master.”

Zhuge Yan steepled his fingers, trying to think how best to explain. “A Pill Emperor can make pills that would greatly strengthen a Martial Emperor, yes. So, if the Martial Emperor is strong enough, they might kidnap the Pill Emperor to have a constant supply of pills, right?”

I nodded, accepting that reality.

“This would still require a constant flow of high level herbs, so they would also need to enslave a powerful herbalist. They would then need to protect their fields from being raided, so they would also need the services of martial cultivators. The scope and scale necessary for constant production of such pills expands rapidly, and there are many ways for that Emperor’s adversaries to interrupt the supply chain other than striking at the alchemist.”

“Is a refiner so different?”

“An Artifact Emperor can make a weapon that would make a Martial Emperor undefeatable. Once it is made, it’s made. No need for a supply chain. No need for more weapons. After the Emperor has that weapon, what do you think they will do?”

“Kid—” I began, but cut myself off. Why would they kidnap the refiner? They already had the weapon. They wouldn’t necessarily need more than one. They would just want to make sure no one else had access to its equal.

As a look of realization crossed my face, Zhuge Yan nodded. “Refiners are the top targets for assassination within every empire on the continent. The empires who have already managed to obtain Rank 5 and 6 artifacts will do anything they can to keep their edge. If a new empire or kingdom wants to train up a refiner to make them a new weapon, they must do it in absolute secrecy.”

Yan looked at me seriously to make sure I fully understood his message. “If someone is even suspected of being a high level refiner, they will be targeted. Both this school and the Nine Rivers Sect have protections in place to help refiners live long enough to be trained and grow up, but that doesn’t mean they are safe. Even within the school’s walls, there are people who would go to any length to prevent a rival faction from gaining a refiner.”

“Can’t the Sovereigns, or at least the Saint, do anything about this?”

He shook his head. “Possibly, but if they can, they don’t want to. They’ve arguably made the situation worse over the years.”

“But—”

Zhuge Yan cut me off. “We are broaching topics best left alone. Let’s talk about happier things.”

I nodded and allowed the conversation to change topics. I noticed that when we did, Lin LiTing, who had been extremely nervous as Zhuge Yan talked, finally relaxed.

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Chapter 123 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple 3

At the beginning of the next week, I was pulled into a private training room by Master Tan.

“You technically have a choice of which profession you wish to pursue. However, as you’ve already shown that you wish to become a formation specialist, we will skip some of the formalities.”

When did I do that? Wait, were we not starting with combat today? I was surprised, but spending time on formations instead of getting beat up was appealing.

“Are you ready?” I saw a look of eagerness in her eyes. Was she as happy to not be doing combat as I was?

“Yes,” I nodded.

Master Tan reached into a small storage bag on her hip, took out a small stone, and threw it at me.

I reached out to catch it, but when it was within an arm’s length of me, it exploded, sending a blast of qi directly at my chest.

I tried to react, but I was already too late. The wave of energy hit me and sent me sprawling.

“What are you doing?” Master Tan’s face was a mask of anger.

“What am I doing? What was that? I thought we were going to study formations.”

“Morning is combat training. Morning will always be combat training.”

I stood up and brushed myself off.

As soon as I regained my focus, without asking me again, Master Tan threw another stone at me.

This time, I didn’t try to catch it. I dodged to the side as quickly as I could.

The stone sailed through the air and landed on the ground with a dull plink.

“Why did you dodge?”

I looked at the woman and couldn’t help but feel annoyed.

“Because if I didn’t—”

“Wrong,” she cut me off. “You dodged because you weren’t using your qi vision properly. If you had, you would have seen that the stone didn’t have a formation on it. Now, let’s try this again.”

She didn’t go into long-winded explanations about what I should do. She knew what my capabilities were. At least, she partly knew about my capabilities. So instead of discussing further, she simply reached into her bag, pulled out another rock, and threw it at me.

This time I did as she told me to. I turned on my qi vision and saw that the stone was nearly bursting with energy.

I shifted my weight and dodged to my left as quickly as I could. I was a bit slow, and the burst of energy that came from the stone grazed me, but I was able to stabilize myself.

Master Tan didn’t wait for me to recover. The moment I stopped moving, she instantly threw another stone at me.

This time, I saw that it was filled with energy, but it wasn’t at the level of bursting.

As I was about to dodge, I understood what I was seeing. This stone did have a formation inside it, but it hadn’t been fully energized, so it wouldn’t explode.

I reached out and grabbed the stone. I was about to examine it when Master Tan threw another one at me.

This time I could see that it would explode, so I dodged to the right.

Next was a dud. I grabbed and pocketed it.

Then, she threw another dud.

After that, she threw an exploding stone, so I dodged.

I quickly regained my balance to prepare for what would be next, but I didn’t see anything else coming toward me. I let down my guard.

That was when a small stone made solid contact with my skull.

Reeling in pain, I could barely process Tan’s words.

“You became too reliant on qi vision. You stopped looking for normal physical objects and were only looking for balls of energy. That’s a quick way to get yourself killed.”

I sank to my knees. I knew I had to adjust to it, but I was annoyed by Tan’s teaching methodology: Make the student fail, then explain why they failed. Instructor Sun hadn’t been too different either, but when ‘failing’ meant getting knocked in the head with a rock, this method of learning started to grate on my nerves.

There had to be a better way to teach cultivators, but if this was the best academy on the continent, I shouldn’t expect to find anything better anywhere else. I would just have to learn to deal with it.

---------------------------------------------------

After several hours of being tortured, I went to have lunch with my classmates. Their praise of their new masters’ teaching abilities left me stunned. When they described their training, and I found they had endured just as much punishment as I had, I could only shake my head.

Once our meal was finished, I returned to my private classroom to see over a dozen square granite blocks each the size of a sheet of paper laying on the floor.

“You wanted to practice formations, right?” Master Tan looked at me from across the room and gestured to the blocks as she spoke. “Well, get to practicing. Show me what formations you know how to create.”

I nodded and grinned. Crafting. I could do crafting.

I approached the first block and began making a basic Rank 1 Qi Gathering Formation.

Using my earth qi, I first carved a swirling vortex inscription that would allow the formation to pull energy from the environment. Then, I made a simple shielding inscription to trap qi. After that, I drew a line going into the vortex, through the shield, and off of the stone. Finally, I injected a bit of my own qi to start the process.

A trickle of qi was pulled into the formation and was forced into the vortex inscription. This accelerated the pull, and more energy was drawn in. Once the vortex was saturated, the excess qi flowed into the shield, and a weak, invisible energy started to form. After the shield inscription was saturated, the remaining energy flowed into the shielded area where it could be used to cultivate.

Master Tan nodded her head, but she didn’t show any reaction. Making a Qi Gathering Formation hadn’t surprised her.

“Make something else.” She pointed to the next block.

I considered my options and decided to make something simple.

Using the same base inscriptions as last time, I strengthened the shielding portion and diverted all the energy into it, letting none escape. This formed a basic barrier formation. My reason for choosing this was to show I understood a few intricacies related to using the same inscriptions for different tasks.

Master Tan glowered. “Make something different.”

The formations I was most comfortable with were the ones used in the assembly line of the pill factory I had made in the past. I thought through the Rank 1 formations involved and decided to display the trap formation we had used to hold the pills.

I started by carving the same vortex to gather energy. Then, I carved a detection inscription that would identify when something was above the formation and trigger the next stage. Lastly, I carved a dual-inscription combination that would bind the detected person or object in place. I made the binding force as strong as I could with the space and materials available.

“Another,” Master Tan commanded.

I made as many different formations as I could think of, from lighting formations to simple growing formations.

“Another.”

At this point, I was out of ideas. I looked at the granite block and needed to think. Every formation started with the vortex to pull in energy, so I went ahead and carved that. Once it was complete, I sat to think about how to proceed.

After a couple of minutes, I came up with an idea and moved to start carving.

“Stop.” Master Tan was looking at me with slightly narrowed eyes. “You just decided which formation you wanted to create. You made that vortex inscription first then sat to think about what you would draw. Is that correct?”

I nodded.

She reached into her storage bag, took out two stones, and threw them at me.

Having learned my lesson earlier in the morning, I quickly flipped on qi vision to look at them. One had a formation, but it wasn’t energized, so it wouldn’t explode. The other was just an ordinary rock.

I reached out and grabbed them.

Master Tan waved a hand. “Copy my formation onto the blank.”

I had been dodging these rocks all morning, but I hadn’t taken the time to study them. Now, looking at one carefully, I became a bit confused.

The formation wasn’t like anything I had seen before. The rock had a single opening on it for qi to enter. From there, the qi would travel down a pathway, wandering and meandering throughout the stone, until finally looping back to near where it entered and starting the circuit over again.

There was nothing like the careful, structured inscriptions I was used to. Just a messy line weaving throughout the rock. Trying to duplicate it precisely would be difficult if not impossible.

I reached into my storage bag and pulled out one of the stones I had stashed away during our earlier practice. Looking at it, I saw that it had the same type of messy loop inside of it, but the twists and turns were completely different.

I decided that this meant the exact shape didn’t matter. It only needed to be a loop. I took the blank stone and began carving it. When I was finished, I held it up for Master Tan’s inspection.

“Push your qi into it,” she commanded.

I narrowed my eyes but didn’t argue back. I let a trickle of qi enter the stone, not too much. If I overdid it, the stone would almost certainly explode like hers had.

I had only pushed a small amount of energy into it when I suddenly heard the stone pop.

Horrified, I could only look on, expecting to be hit by a full-force explosion. It was far too late to escape.

The stone simply crumbled to pieces in my palm.

Master Tan chuckled at my expression. “There are a few lessons you need to learn. First, every formation you demonstrated was based on continual input of qi from a vortex inscription. There are other types of formation.”

I had known that, but my focus had been on making formations that would last. I had ignored the ones that needed a user to insert their own qi.

“Aside from that, you need to understand your materials better. The Explosion Formation on my rocks is perfect for you to practice with. The diameter of the channel you create, the length of the loop, and its placement within the stone are all extremely important. The diameter and length will determine how much energy the formation can contain. The placement will determine how much energy the stone can contain. Both of these factors need to be balanced correctly for the proper result.”

She took out another stone and held it in her hand. “What would happen if I injected enough qi into this?”

“It would—” She cut me off.

“Explode, that’s right. So, assuming you had made that one correctly,” she waved at the stone fragments at my feet, “why the hell would you inject qi into it while you were holding it? You need to learn to send qi into a formation from a distance. As a Martial Disciple, your control over it will be terrible once it’s far enough away, but that doesn’t matter. For the Explosion Formation to work correctly, you just need to be able to inject energy into it, not control it.”

She dumped a pile of small stones onto the ground at her feet.

“You have a surprising level of accuracy when drawing inscriptions, but you need to work on drawing them faster, smaller, and with a better understanding of your materials. Each time you create a prototype stone, practice injecting your qi from a distance to make it go boom.”

Picking up a small rock, she tossed it up and down in her hand.

“If you run out of materials to practice with, go outside and gather some more.”

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Chapter 124 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple 3

In the evening, I returned to our group’s primary classroom for Instructor Sun’s cultivation training.

The instructor spaced the five of us out around the room so that he could watch us all at the same time while giving us enough separation so that we didn’t interfere with each other.

“You already have the cultivation techniques you will use for this portion of your training. I hope you have all been studying them carefully.”

I hadn’t been, but I didn’t expect that to be an issue. He had given me a very basic Peak-Yellow earth qi cultivation technique. I only needed to pull it up in my mental library as a reference to know exactly how to place my filters and vortices. There wasn’t much to it.

“You will come here every night and cultivate it to the best of your ability. Your requirement is to break through a stage of cultivation exactly once every week.” He looked at us and smiled evilly. “That means you will be Peak Disciples in only a few weeks, right? Not so fast.”

He reached into his storage bag, pulled out a small pill, and held it up for all of us to see.

“At the end of each week, I will give you one of these. It will expel all the energy you cultivated that week, returning you to your previous state.”

I looked at the pill in his hand. It was a variant of a Perfect Rank 1 Qi Expelling Pill that was formulated to only affect one’s most recent stage of cultivation. I couldn’t help but think that even if these only cost a gold each, between the formations, pills, and instructors, the school was investing a lot of money in this class.

“Right now, you are all Martial Disciple 3. This will remain true until every single person in this room is able to form a pristine foundation for Martial Disciple 4. At the end of the week, if even one person’s cultivation base is lacking, the entire group will take a pill and try again. Is that understood?”

“Yes, instructor,” we all muttered.

“Very good. Now, start cultivating.”

I mentally pulled up the technique in my library and got to work. It was peaceful and relaxing.

“Stop!” Instructor Sun was standing over Shi YuLong who was cultivating the same earth qi technique that I was.

“Did you even read the technique? Your filter is barely passable, and your positioning is completely wrong.” He looked around the room at my classmates. “Everyone, get out your techniques and look at the positionings and angles called for. You must match them precisely.”

I didn’t think too much about it but did as he said. I pulled the technique from my storage bag, checked it, then put it away and continued cultivating.

I felt Instructor Sun’s eyes lock onto me. After a few moments, I heard him mutter something, but I couldn’t quite make it out.

He spent the next half hour helping my classmates get their filters and vortices into a position that was as close to correct as they could manage. This entire time, he kept looking over at me, but when he did, he only shook his head.

“Su Fang,” Instructor Sun shouted once everyone else had been seen to. “Outside.”

I followed him out of the classroom.

He glared at me but then breathed out in defeat.

“Just, don’t help them. The Grandmaster has his own thoughts about how much assistance students should be given. For the rest, they need to learn on their own. The process of slowly understanding the importance of positioning and how to do it correctly will be very beneficial to them.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

“I can’t find anything wrong with the way you are cultivating. It’s as perfect as I’ve ever seen. You don’t need these lessons. However, you will still be provided with the pills each week. I suggest you take advantage of this. Cultivate wrong. Do things you wouldn’t usually even consider, like only half constructing a filter before trying to use it. The more you know about such things, the better it will prepare you for when you are a Master.”

We went back inside, and I followed his advice. Instructor Sun might not have any way to help me during cultivation practice, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to learn something new on my own.

---------------------------------------------------

Our schedule at the Yellow Orchid Academy became somewhat routine. In the morning, we would study combat. In the afternoon, we would work to improve our profession-related skills. In the evening, we studied cultivation.

After the first month, our trainers no longer came to every class. Instructor Sun only showed up once a week to evaluate our progress, and Master Tan only came to give me guidance once every other week. The rest of the time, we worked as a group to help each other improve.

Half a year into this routine, Instructor Sun informed us that we could do anything we wished to help each other progress since the critical phase of our early training had passed.

Shi YuLong and Chai JiaQi had become significantly more skilled in combat than the rest of us, so they mostly led our morning training sessions. However, since they weren’t exactly skilled teachers, they relied on Zhuge Yan to help plan what we should learn.

Once we had all reached Peak Disciple, combat became significantly more complex. Instead of simply needing to fortify my fist as I punched, my qi had to be shifted everywhere in my body.

A single punch required strengthening the fist’s flesh and bones to keep it from snapping, enhancing the arm muscles to make it faster and stronger, and fortifying the torso and legs so that the punch had a solid foundation behind it. As Instructor Sun reminded us, a punch doesn’t come from the arm, it comes from the entire body.

My progress in pure martial combat was slower than the two specialists, but I wasn’t too dissatisfied. I felt that I was making solid gains.

This mainly came from the fact that I was quickly learning to integrate formations into combat. Aside from just throwing exploding pebbles, I had been learning to use disposable shields and trap formations to great effect.

Whenever we allowed such things during combat, I could easily match the two martial cultivators.

At first, I was hesitant to fight the others using formations since it felt like cheating. I was using something that they couldn’t. However, Zhuge Yan explained it simply. I needed practice using them, and the others needed practice defending against them.

After all this time, I was still unclear which professions the others had chosen. I had a solid guess at what Lin LiTing was, but none of the others gave any signs. This could’ve been because they were hiding their skills, but it seemed more likely that in only a year, they hadn’t yet developed to the point where their professions were usable in combat.

This was unfortunate because it meant that I didn’t receive the same practice fighting against someone with a strong profession, but considering how two of our members were still able to push me to my limits, I didn’t consider it much of a loss.

When it was time to practice professions, we separated out into private rooms. None of the others were willing to openly display their talents to the group, but we came back together in the evening for cultivation practice.

While Shi YuLong and Chai Jiaqi were excellent at fighting, their cultivation abilities were lagging behind everyone else. Even though Zhuge Yan’s affinities were slightly worse than theirs, his ability to comprehend esoteric concepts let him develop faster. I wanted to help them, but I didn’t want to go too far and interfere with the way Instructor Sun and Grandmaster Ning wanted them to learn.

Instead of helping them cultivate directly, which would have been terrible, or even showing them exactly how to place the filters, which might have been okay, I decided to simply nudge them in the correct direction as they worked. As they were cultivating, I commented whenever I noticed anything slip out of place. This helped, and I felt like I could do more, but I was worried about creating more problems they would have to deal with in the future.

When it was close to the end of our first year in the Academy, Instructor Sun gathered us together.

“Tomorrow, there’s going to be a little competition. We have been paired up against another Master’s class. You will fight as teams, five people on each side, but the fights will all be one-on-one. The first team to win three matches will be declared the victor, but all five matches will still take place regardless. Beyond winning, consider this an important training exercise against skilled opponents who have a good reason to see you lose.”

He let his words sink in for a moment before continuing.

“Plan your strategy for tomorrow yourselves. Just don’t embarrass me or Grandmaster Ning. The members of the winning team will each receive a token that will allow you to choose a single technique from the library.”

Once the instructor left, we all looked at Zhuge Yan.

He sighed. “Let’s get to planning.”

---------------------------------------------------

The next day, Instructor Sun led us to a large courtyard with a raised fighting stage where a Master and five Disciples were already waiting for us. The stage was a square ten meters to a side and was made of solid gray stone.

We had decided to follow a simple strategy. With no information to work from, we would just go up in the order of our ability: LiTing, Yan, me, JiaQi, and finally YuLong. If we noticed something strange during the match, or if we gained information about our opponents’ capabilities, Yan would be in charge of making adjustments to this order.

LiTing’s fight was rough. She took a lot of blows, but she was able to absorb them all, so she didn’t take any damage. Her only risk was running out of energy. Fortunately, her opponent slipped up and she was able to take advantage, ending the fight quickly.

Yan wasn’t so lucky. His opponent was stacked with bulging muscles, and he was a far better fighter than Yan was. Also, it seemed like he wanted to make up for his team's defeat in the first round. The large boy was great on the offense, but he had a bad habit of simply absorbing blows instead of blocking. This allowed him to counterattack more freely, but it also ate up a lot of qi.

Yan capitalized on this by focusing all his attacks on the boy’s upper right leg. It took time, but he was eventually able to deplete it of all its qi and deliver a devastating blow.

With one leg out of commission, the boy conceded the fight.

Yan stepped down victorious, and it was my turn.

My opponent was a petite girl with long hair in a braid behind her back that reached down to her waist. As soon as the fight started, she charged me. She focused all the qi in her legs on letting her run as fast as possible.

In the blink of an eye, she was right below me, sending a powerful blow toward my midsection.

I didn’t have time to think.

On instinct, I crossed my arms and fortified them as much as possible. At the same time, I shifted the energy in my legs and torso to keep my feet firmly planted.

Her blow hit me like a sledgehammer with bone-breaking force, but my fortifications held, and she bounced off.

Taking advantage of the opening this created, I shifted the qi in my legs, increasing my speed, and ran toward her.

Glancing in qi vision, I saw the energy in her forearms was disrupted, but attacking there wouldn’t have much of an impact. Instead, I focused on a small flaw I found on the right side of her abdomen. It wasn’t much of a weakness, but she would have difficulty moving qi to defend that area.

When I arrived in front of her, she had already regained her balance and was ready to defend, but the energy in her arms hadn’t yet stabilized, so she didn’t have the force or speed necessary.

I punched out at the weakness I had identified, but halfway through the motion, I pulled back and did my best to escape.

The ‘weakness’ had been a way of concealing a talisman against her body.

Lightning exploded out, and I was barely able to dodge. If I had let my blow land, I would have taken that blast at full force, and it might have been difficult to even survive.

I had expected a purely martial competition, but if this was the way things were going to be, I was prepared. I reached into my robes and pulled out a handful of small pebbles. Using Master Tan’s stones as a template, I had shrunk the design down so that I could toss half a dozen stones at once. This was a shotgun approach.

I energized the pebbles and threw.

The girl tried to dodge, but there was nowhere she could go.

The blast of qi that struck her wasn’t very powerful, but it forced her to close her eyes.

I rushed forward and struck her hard in the solar plexus, sending her sprawling.

After that, the fight was quickly decided, and I walked away the victor.

YuLong and JiaQi fought next, but there was no suspense. The other team’s best fighters had already been eliminated, so we won easily.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 125 – Life 65, Age 17, Martial Disciple Peak

We gathered in our classroom the day after the competition, and Instructor Sun greeted us with a stony expression.

“You won, but don’t let it go to your head. That was one of the weakest classes. None of them had combat blessings, and a couple of you still only barely managed to win. In the future, don’t expect things to be so easy.”

He reached into a storage bag and threw a pill and token to each of us.

“Take the pill and clean up your cultivation. Tonight, you need to start working on building your true foundation. If you don’t have a decent cultivation technique, go to the library and find one. If you do, get a martial technique. I expect you all to be back here at the beginning of next week prepared for class. You need to be Martial Disciple 2. No more, no less.”

Taking this as a dismissal, we all bowed and turned to leave, but the instructor spoke up once more, halting us in our tracks.

“And just so we’re clear, if you get a martial technique, make sure it can be used with the part of your body you fortify. Don’t cultivate your arms after buying a leg technique.”

This time he didn’t wait for us and instead turned and left the room before we could respond.

The academy library was a place I had been interested in visiting ever since Instructor Sun gave me my first token for a free technique. However, going there without knowing what to expect might have resulted in the loss of my only opportunity to plunder every technique possible, so I had delayed my visit. I wanted to understand what would happen when I went before I did so. Barring that, I wanted to at least learn how to gain extra tokens first.

With the reward from the martial arts competition in hand, I had more freedom to act.

My classmates and I arrived at the library as a group and entered to see a large reception area with an elderly man standing behind a counter.

“Yes?”

Zhuge Yan took the lead in responding. “We’re here to select techniques.”

The librarian gestured to the counter without speaking further.

I wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted, but the others weren’t so clueless. They each stepped up and placed their token on the counter. I followed suit just a beat behind.

The librarian nodded. “What kind of techniques do you want?”

Shi YuLong was the first to speak. “A martial technique for earth qi, as strong as I can get.”

The librarian acknowledged his choice and turned to the others. Chai JiaQi wanted a leg-based water martial art, and Lin LiTing wanted a metal qi cultivation technique.

Zhuge Yan had been struggling with his choice, but when he finally decided, his voice was firm. “I want a cultivation technique for dark qi.”

I sensed that the librarian was surprised for the first time, but he didn’t show any outward signs of disagreement. He just turned to me.

“Can these tokens be exchanged for higher-level techniques?”

“No, these are Rank 1 tokens.”

That helped me make my decision. I already had a good earth cultivation technique, so I wasn’t hurting for another one. I was presenting myself as an earth cultivator in this life, and I wanted to continue down that path for now. In any case, I didn’t worry too much about making the ‘correct’ decision because it didn’t seem like it would be very difficult to access the library again in the future. If I couldn’t get another token in this life, I would just wait for the next.

“An earth-based martial art.”

The librarian nodded once more. “Follow.”

He took us down a long corridor with several doors on either side. We walked until reaching the third door on the left.

“Martial water techniques,” the librarian said, gesturing to the door. “You have ten minutes to make your selection.”

He opened the door and ushered Chai JiaQi inside.

The next door we stopped at was for Lin LiTing who was also given 10 minutes.

Shi YuLong and I were sent in the third door the librarian stopped at. Inside, over a dozen shelves were filled with hundreds of rolled-up bamboo scrolls. Nothing had a label, and it was unclear which techniques did what.

I knew what I needed to do, but especially with Shi YuLong accompanying me, I had to play the part of a typical Disciple. I walked forward, picked up a random scroll, and read the first slip.

“Yellow-Ranked Heavy Staff technique.” I sighed in a show of despair. “How are we supposed to find anything suitable when nothing is labeled?”

YuLong grinned widely. “Fate.”

He walked forward and began picking up random scrolls, reading the first line before putting them aside and choosing something else.

I followed his method, but when I was picking my ‘random scroll,’ I brushed my hand across all the techniques around it, depositing copies of them into my mental library. If we were being observed, I didn’t want to be seen simply running around the room touching everything in sight.

I estimated that eight of our ten minutes had elapsed when I finished my plundering. That only left me two minutes to choose the technique I would have to use over the next few months.

In my random searching, I hadn’t found anything particularly valuable. All of the scrolls I had glanced at were only Yellow-Rank techniques. It was possible that there was simply nothing better in the room, but I didn’t believe that.

Of course, if there was anything good in this room, it would already be stored in my mental library, but that didn’t help me much at the moment. If I wanted to use the technique openly, I would have to take the scroll out of the room with me, and to do that, I would both have to spend time cataloging the techniques and then match them up with the physical scrolls.

I didn’t have time for that.

Not trusting myself to YuLong’s ‘fate,’ I believed there had to be a way to determine the good techniques from the bad. I could have asked the System for assistance, but that felt unnecessary. There had to be another way.

As I was looking at the countless scrolls, trying to see anything that differentiated one from another, something clicked in my head, and I had an idea. There was something special about cultivation knowledge. I couldn’t store high-Rank manuals in my library, and I could barely force myself to read knowledge that was too advanced. When I tried to memorize parts of Emperor Li’s books, I couldn’t understand a single word.

Extending this idea to technique scrolls, I turned on qi vision and started looking around the room. At first, nothing popped out at me, but I knew there had to be some kind of energy or… something in these scrolls. These scrolls had to contain something beyond just ink and bamboo. I wasn’t sure what I did, but I felt a piece of my mind twist, and all the scrolls around the room began to glow with a faint light.

My time was almost up, so I quickly darted around the room, looking for anything glowing with a brighter light. I thought that maybe there was a hidden cache of knowledge here, maybe something in a secret alcove available only to the skilled or lucky, but no such luck. The brightest scroll was near the center of a shelf in clear view. I picked it up and examined it with my analysis ability.

Earth-Rank Martial Art, Mountain Crushing Fist, Requirements: Martial Disciple 2 to Martial Disciple Peak, Earth Qi

To unleash the technique’s full power, I would need to be a Peak Disciple, but I could begin practicing it as a Disciple 2. That seemed to fit Instructor Sun’s requirements.

I looked at YuLong and saw that he had only found a Profound-Rank scroll. My eyes darted around the room, and I rushed over to grab the only other Earth-Rank technique I could find. I wasn’t sure of its properties, but I tossed it to the boy.

“Try that one. It should be better than what you have.”

He didn’t even look at it. He just placed the technique he had been holding down and decided to follow my advice. Maybe accepting things you’re given like this is what he considers ‘fate,’ or maybe he just wasn’t happy with anything he found himself and wanted someone else to blame for his bad luck.

We left the room at the same time as everyone else and found the librarian waiting for us.

I had one more token to use. From an outsider’s perspective, logically, I should have looked for an earth qi cultivation technique or grabbed another martial earth technique, but I didn’t need either of these. I wanted to grab the cultivation techniques for one of the other elements, especially the secondary ones, but it would be hard to explain such a choice if I was questioned about it.

I handed the librarian my second token. “I’m interested in multi-element cultivation techniques.”

The librarian narrowed his eyes slightly but took the token and gestured to the door closest to the reception area.

“You have ten minutes.”

I hurried inside. This room only held a little over a dozen books instead of the hundreds of scrolls that were in the martial vault. I acted the same as I had before, brushing my hand across everything while choosing scrolls to read at random.

Of all the scrolls here, the most versatile were the five Peak-Earth triple-element techniques for each of the constructive combinations in the five-element cycle, such as wood to fire to earth or earth to metal to water. For the secondary elements, there were only dual-element techniques available for the opposing elements, dark with light and lightning with wind.

After searching with the altered qi vision—energy vision?—I didn’t find anything special. Nearly every technique here was Peak-Earth, and choosing a technique was simply a matter of which combination one wanted to use.

Walking this path could be interesting in the future, but it wasn’t my plan for this life, so I left the room without taking a scroll, showing that I had decided not to cultivate any of them. This made the librarian scowl.

“You won’t be getting your token back.”

I dipped my head in acknowledgment.

The librarian took us to another room where a large formation was set up next to several blank sheets of paper. One by one, we handed him our chosen scrolls, and the information was copied from the bamboo slips onto the paper.

“These copies will only last for one month. You are not allowed to duplicate them or transmit the knowledge to anyone else in any way. If the Academy learns you have done so, you will be punished severely.”

He looked at Zhuge Yan. “Not even your family will be able to reduce the punishment for such an act. Is that understood?”

The librarian looked at each of us, getting our agreement.

I spent the rest of the week slowly cultivating my Peak-Earth earth qi technique. While the multi-element techniques were interesting, mastery of a single element was what I was looking for in this life. It didn’t take me long to push it to Disciple 2, so I spent the rest of my time before the next class practicing the Mountain Crushing Fist.

The technique as a whole was interesting. It used earth qi to bind my feet to the ground, allowing me to exert significant force without needing to worry about recoil pushing me away. This could be dangerous though. If I were to hit an unbreakable object, my fist might shatter instead of bouncing off. The risks of using a powerful technique were real, but as long as I was careful, it would allow me to attack with devastating strength.

I also began to consider if I could use the same principles defensively. Why not bind myself to the ground to help absorb attacks? I quickly flipped through my mental library, looking at the techniques I had just copied, and I found a Profound-Rank technique called the Mountain’s Repose which did exactly what I was thinking about.

I didn’t want to use any of the stolen techniques openly, but using the Mountain Crushing Fist in inventive ways should be expected, right?

I began consulting my library to help me think of other ways to use ‘the Mountain Crushing Fist’ to my advantage in the future.

The next week, our classes resumed with lessons on integrating our techniques into our fighting.

Instead of using the ones we had just gotten from the library, Instructor Sun had us start by using one of two basic Yellow-Ranked techniques called Punch and Kick.

Punch was a technique for taking qi from the arm and applying it to a punch. The way we were fighting before, qi was only being used to strengthen our bodies. Through this technique, the qi in a punch would cause damage separate from the physical blow. Even a soft punch could carry enough qi to cripple a mortal.

The two techniques were extremely simple, but learning to properly integrate the qi movements instinctively was still a challenge. Master Tan forced me to concentrate on learning to use Punch properly and wouldn’t allow me to even practice the Mountain Crushing Fist until several weeks later.

Our schedule of training resumed its normal rhythm of combat in the morning, professions in the afternoon, and cultivation in the evening. Every few months, we would be matched against another class for a martial arts competition. We won most, but when classes were focused around martial blessings, usually only YuLong and JiaQi were able to secure a victory.

Whenever we succeeded in these competitions, we received another library token. I plundered the earth qi cultivation and formation specialist rooms, but I wasn’t willing to show my hand by going into rooms for the other elements. Instead, I used the extra tokens to build out the martial techniques I could openly display. However, I did hold a couple of tokens back in reserve, just in case.

I added a movement technique that would help me travel faster and stealthier on bare earth as well as leg attacks and defensive arts.

In this manner, three more years passed. At twenty years old, we were all Peak Disciples. Our classes would soon come to an end, and we would have to figure out what we would do next.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 126 – Life 65, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

Two weeks before the end of our Disciple training program, our class had its final martial competition. In the class we were facing, everyone had a martial blessing that formed some type of external incarnation, a beast made out of pure elemental energy that would fight alongside them.

Neither Zhuge Yan nor Lin LiTing had blessings to help them, nor did their professions grant them any advantages that they were willing to display openly. This might have been offset if I had been allowed to give them a few formations, but a competitor was only allowed to use items they created themself.

Yan and LiTing did their best, but even though they had trained relentlessly, they weren’t able to match up against blessed fighters.

Shi YuLong and Chai JiaQi were a different story. Their blessings had let them develop martial skills far beyond what normal Disciples would possess. The external incarnations of our opponents were tricky to deal with, but the martial skills of the fighters themselves were underwhelming, so there was no question of YuLong’s and JiaQi’s victory.

That left my fight to determine our team’s victory or defeat.

My opponent was a tall thin boy with short raven-black hair. His robes were bright reds and oranges, and his blessing was a bird formed of fire that he could either control directly or allow to act of its own volition.

I didn’t expect much from the fighter himself, but the bird was going to be difficult to deal with. As a fire incarnation, it didn’t have a physical body. If I threw a stone at it, the stone would simply pass right through without dealing any damage.

To start the fight, I used a simple plan. I threw a handful of small exploding formations at the bird, disrupting its energy and blocking its path. Then, I rushed toward my opponent as quickly as I could, trying to end the fight before he could respond.

This strategy was going all too smoothly. When I was within only a few meters, the boy reached into his robes, pulled out a small object, and threw it at me.

Looking in energy vision, I noticed the tell-tale signs of medicinal fire energy wrapped in metal energy that told me it was a Rank 1 Explosive Pill.

I halted my forward rush, planted my feet, and activated my Earth Wall technique. The floor of the arena was solid stone, not the packed dirt I was used to. Moving stone took more energy, but it was still responsive to earth qi.

I pulled with all my might and a wall of stone rose up in front of me, blocking me from the pill’s blast.

I was protected, but defending myself caused me to delay for just long enough that the fire bird was able to free itself from the minor energy storm I had created and began approaching me. I needed to retreat so that I didn’t have to defend against both bird and cultivator simultaneously, but before I did, I connected my qi to the stone wall and began drawing a formation inside of it.

Keeping the raised stone between me and my opponent, I jumped backward several times, opening the distance between us before he could surprise attack me. As I did, I maintained a connection with the qi I left in the stone and continued carving the formation from a distance.

A small pill arched over the wall and exploded in a downward blast where I had previously been standing. My opponent must have thought that since I was still working on the formation, I hadn’t moved.

I stopped carving during the blast, waited a few seconds, then resumed, hoping to trick him into thinking that I had dodged and then returned to the previous spot.

He must have sensed my ruse, though, because he didn’t try attacking again. What surprised me was that he didn’t even try to destroy the formation I was creating. He must have thought it was nothing more than a deception. That was fine with me.

Unwilling to give me too much time to fortify my position, the boy circled around the earth wall from the left side while he sent his fire bird to circle around the right, aiming to pincer me.

I placed my hand on the ground and quickly inscribed a very basic formation, an unfiltered Rank 1 Qi Gathering Formation. I made it as strong as I could in the limited time I had. It would pull in energy at several times the rate of a normal Rank 1 formation, but it would burn itself out in less than a minute.

When my two opponents were nearly upon me, I activated the formation and rushed toward the boy.

The Qi Gathering Formation flared to life, sucking in as much energy as it could, including the pesky fire bird. Even after overcharging the formation, it wasn’t enough to keep the bird trapped for long, but it would have to do.

As I approached my opponent, he threw another Explosive Pill at me.

I countered with an exploding formation.

My formation didn’t have the strength to stop the explosion from the pill, but I was able to push the energy away, letting me advance further.

When I was right in front of him, I locked my right foot to the ground with a variant of the Mountain’s Repose and swung my left leg at him with a variant of the Mountain Crushing Fist.

He channeled all the energy of his arms into a blocking technique and prevented my blow from doing any damage, but the force of the impact had to go somewhere, and I was locked to the earth.

The boy went flying backward and hit the stone wall I had raised earlier. He was prepared for this, so the impact didn’t cause him any damage, but the moment he hit, I activated the formation I had created previously.

The stone wall burst apart.

It was a weak blast. The stone was heavy, and I hadn’t been able to infuse it with much energy, but it was enough to send several small rocks flying in every direction.

My opponent was pelted by stone fragments from behind, knocking him forward with great force and sending him to the ground prone.

I didn’t hesitate. The moment I had activated the formation, I had begun running forward. Before he could even begin struggling to raise himself off the ground, I was standing over him and punching toward his chest.

The moment my blow landed, the match was called in my favor to prevent me from doing any more harm, and our team won our final competition as Martial Disciples.

When we came to class the next day, Instructor Sun greeted us with his usual stoic expression.

“You won. That will make things easier for you going forward, but don’t think you can use it as an opportunity to slack off.”

After reaching into his storage bag, he handed everyone a token.

“Those will get you access to a Rank 2 skill. If you don’t already have a proper cultivation technique, this is your chance to get one. Just remember, you only have two weeks left before our classes end. If you do not continue your studies here, you will need to have anything you take from the library memorized before you leave.”

After we were dismissed, my classmates decided to head to the library as a group, but I begged off. I needed some time to think about my future. I returned to my dormitory to consider my options.

This life had shown me everything I was lacking in the Disciple realm, and I could only expect my deficits to grow as I ascended through Master and Grandmaster. I needed the education that this school could provide me with if I wanted to become the best I could be.

At the same time, I considered my plan to have no life last longer than ten years. It wasn’t a hard rule, and I was willing to bend it, but staying here for courses as a Martial Master would take ten years on its own, not to mention the time I would need to spend as a Grandmaster.

It would be time well spent, and I knew I needed to do it, but walking that path would mean that this life would be at least thirty years long, and once I finished the Grandmaster classes, I would likely want to follow the path the school and sect provided through to Lord and beyond.

It was one thing to bend the ten-year plan, but that would be breaking it entirely, and I wasn’t willing to do that. I had to return to the Wastes to begin settling debts, and if I didn’t follow through in this instance, I was worried that I wouldn’t follow through in the future either.

I couldn’t allow myself to follow the path of the Master-level courses in this life, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t an even better solution available to me.

“System, how much to move my temporary reset point to this moment?”

Cost 2,240 credits.

“Okay, now how much would it cost to add a temporary reset point that would bring me back to this point in time while also maintaining the previous reset point so that after one death I return here and after two deaths I go to that one?”

Secondary Temporary Reset Point. Cost 17,920 credits.

This price hike for the secondary point was a bit more than I was hoping for. It didn’t mean much right now, but it would become a real problem at higher cultivation levels.

“Purchase the secondary reset point.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 17,920 credits. 83,467,645 credits remaining.

Now, I could rush my cultivation up over the next six years, die, come back to this point in time, and then have ten fresh years to work with.

That solved one of my problems, but a more important question still needed to be dealt with. How was I going to make the most out of my remaining years?

I could easily rush to False Lord again, but doing so held little allure. In the past, I would have considered the credits I received from such a cultivation level to be a huge windfall, but now they were a bare fraction of what I had in reserve. My goal had to be higher. I needed to find a way to ascend to Peak Lord, False King, or possibly even true Martial King.

One way to get the karmic energy necessary to ascend to these levels would have been by going through the Blue Wind Pavilion, but I felt that path didn’t hold much promise. When I had tried to become a nominal city lord there through WuJing in the past, it took many years before it was approved. This could be different if I went to the main branch, but that would introduce many new complications.

If I didn’t have any other choice, I would have still gone down this route, but fortunately, I had other options available.

Shi YuLong was a scion of some imperial family. Even if it was only a branch family, he should still have connections that could get me a position as nominal city lord. The girls also had connections to various Kingdoms and Empires I could try to get a city from, but the person I felt I needed to talk to first was Zhuge Yan.

His blessing had given him a sharp strategic mind, and he seemed to know more about Rulers than most. If there was anyone who could help me plan how to reach the higher levels of cultivation, it was him.

Also, while he had never spoken about his family, and no one was willing to tell me anything about it in his place, the way he was treated by others told me a lot. When we first met, all he said was that he was from the Zhuge Clan, and everyone expected I would know what that meant. I didn’t, of course, but the expectation itself was telling.

If Zhuge Yan’s family was as powerful as I expected, it should be more than possible to make a deal for a nominal lordship with them. I just didn’t know what political concerns this would present.

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Chapter 127 – Life 65, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

Zhuge Yan and the others had gone to the library, so I waited in my dormitory for a few hours thinking through plans for the remainder of this life. When I was confident that he had returned, I left to visit him.

Shortly after I knocked on his door, he opened it up and invited me inside.

He looked concerned when he saw me. “Fang, what’s going on? Is there a problem?”

“I… need your help. I’ve decided to leave the Academy. I need to ascend quickly. I don’t have time to take the classes here.”

He nodded and gestured for me to continue.

“I’m confident that I can get through the Master and Grandmaster realms quickly, but becoming a Martial Lord is going to be a problem. I need access to karmic energy. I know you and the others have connections. I was hoping your family, or possibly one of the others’ families, would be willing to sell a nominal lordship.”

I reached into my storage space and pulled out several bottles of Rank 4 pills.

“If you think they would be willing, I can trade several of these pills in exchange.”

Yan picked up each of the pill bottles and closely examined them before putting them back down.

“This would be enough to get their attention. That’s for sure.” He folded his hands and sat in silent contemplation for several moments. “I don’t think I can help you with this. My relationship with my family is complicated. I should be able to get you a lordship with this in trade, but that’s not all you want, is it?”

I looked at him, and after a slight pause, slightly shook my head.

“If possible, I want to reach Martial King.”

“That will be difficult. Few would easily grant a nominal kingship to an outsider. Even with dozens of pills in trade, few Emperors are in a position where they can afford to lose much King-level energy. Pills are beneficial, true, but Rank 4 pills cannot create a King. Most Emperors need every King they can get to secure their domain. You could try to join an Emperor’s court, but they typically require some type of guarantee of loyalty.”

I understood this, but I felt there had to be a solution. There had to be a way I could make it to Martial King. If not, ending this life as a False King again would have to be acceptable, but I hoped I could go further. Rank 4 pills might not be able to make a King, but enough Rank 4 pills should have equivalent value.

“Gaining King-level energy from an Empire will be difficult. It would be better to approach a Sovereign power. The Zhuge Clan could help you, but I don’t have enough pull with them.” He looked at me meaningfully. “Instead of going through me, you’d be better off talking with Grandmaster Ning. His family might not be quite as powerful as mine, but it’s close, and he is highly positioned within his clan. If you can provide him enough benefits, he should be able to get you what you need.”

I hadn’t considered the Grandmaster as an option before. The distance between us seemed too great, and even if it wasn’t, I knew nothing about the Ning Clan.

I had only met Grandmaster Ning a couple of times. I didn’t know if he would be willing to go this far for me, but he was a core member of the Nine Rivers Sect and highly placed within a Sovereign clan. It might be possible… as long as I provided him with enough benefits.

Yan looked at me carefully. “Fang, you know this is going to ruin your future, right? If you do this, there’s not going to be any coming back from it. I don’t know why you need to become a King so quickly, but you should consider other possibilities. “

I smiled at him in gratitude. “Thank you, Yan, but I know what I need to do.”

A touch of sorrow crossed his face. “Everyone has their own dreams.”

I stood up to leave, but he caught me before I did.

“Before you talk to the Grandmaster, you should go to the library. It might be more difficult to do so after your talk with the Grandmaster, depending on how that goes.”

I dipped my head in thanks for his advice.

I still had three tokens that I had saved up over the past few months. One was the Rank 2 token I got from the most recent competition, but I also had two more Rank 1 tokens I hadn’t used yet. That meant there was a lot I could gain from a library visit, but first I had to make a quick purchase.

“System, upgrade my ability to absorb techniques by touch to Rank 2.”

Confirmed. Cost 1 million credits. 82,467,645 credits remaining.

When I arrived at the library, I placed all three tokens on the counter.

“Yes?” The librarian looked at me expressionlessly.

I had thought a lot about what I should use these tokens to get. When I returned here in the future, I would have to use them on earth qi techniques, but this temporary life gave me more freedom. This was an opportunity to take something slightly more unusual. I’d been wanting techniques for the secondary affinities, and now I had an opportunity to get them.

I didn’t have too much of a preference between them, so I picked one without much thought.

“Rank 1 and 2 wind cultivation techniques and Rank 1 martial techniques for wind qi.”

The librarian narrowed his eyes. “You understand that if you do not continue your studies at the Academy, these must be returned before you leave, correct?”

I nodded.

“Very well. If you insist, follow me.”

The librarian led me down the usual corridor. Our first stop was the door for the Rank 1 wind cultivation techniques.

He gestured me forward. “You have 10 minutes.”

The cultivation technique room wasn’t very large. It only possessed nine different books. I picked up each one and read their descriptions quickly. They varied from Peak-Yellow to Peak-Earth, and each had potential benefits and downsides. I didn’t worry too much about which technique would be optimal. I simply picked up one of the Peak-Yellow techniques and left the room.

Next, I was escorted to the Rank 1 martial wind technique room where I was also given 10 minutes. I repeated the same process I had used when I first entered the martial earth technique room and picked up random scrolls while brushing my hands against everything in sight.

The manuals I looked at had the basic attacks that had come to mind when I first heard of wind qi, such as wind blades, but they also contained a few more interesting techniques. For attacking, there were techniques focused on depriving people of air to breathe and ones for using gusts of wind to push and pull opponents. On the utility side, there were a variety of communication and listening techniques.

After spending 10 minutes copying everything inside, I picked up a basic Yellow-Rank martial technique that would send out wind blades when kicking.

I exited the room and noticed that the librarian seemed disappointed in my choice, but he didn’t say anything. He only led me to a staircase that took us up to the second floor. There, he guided me to the room for the Rank 2 wind cultivation techniques.

Unsurprisingly there were exactly 9 techniques available. Looking through each of them, I found that they were each the second volume of a technique in the Rank 1 room. After browsing through all of them, I picked up the technique that was a continuation of the one I had chosen in the previous room.

Selections made, the librarian took me to make copies of my scrolls.

As he handed them to me, he gave me a stern look. “You will return these before you leave.”

“Yes, librarian.” I bowed.

I waited until the next morning before going to find Grandmaster Ning. If there was a process to request a meeting, I hadn’t been told, so I simply went to his office and knocked on the door.

“Enter.”

I walked in and saw the Grandmaster seated behind a desk doing paperwork.

“Take a seat. I’ll be with you shortly.”

I sat down in a chair in front of his desk. As I did, I glanced at the papers he was reading. They were dossiers for the new Disciples who would be entering the Academy next term.

Once the Grandmaster was finished with the paper he had been examining, he put it down, made a few marks on it, and set it to the side. Then, he looked at me.

“If this is about joining my Master cohort next term, then I will have to disappoint you. I only have a few years left before returning to the sect, so I am not in a position to accept any new Masters. Instead, I have sent your class’s information to one of my former disciples. She is a skilled Grandmaster who has already become an inner disciple of the Nine Rivers Sect, and she should soon be promoted to core disciple. If she has the openings, I expect her to accept most of your class.”

“This…” I wasn’t sure what to say. I was a bit disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to take Master-level courses under Grandmaster Ning, but that wasn’t why I had come here.

I paused for a moment to recover.

“Grandmaster Ning, I need to talk with you about something. I have an offer for you, and I hope you will hear me out.”

He raised an eyebrow and gestured for me to continue.

“Due to personal circumstances,” I started, hoping he wouldn’t make me elaborate, “I need to ascend far more rapidly than courses at the Academy will allow. I plan to reach Peak Grandmaster in five years at most, shorter if I am able.”

The Grandmaster cocked his head slightly but didn’t speak. I could see he was trying to figure out my reasons for doing this based on what he knew of me. But even if he uncovered everything possible about my past, my reasoning would still be a mystery to him.

“At that time, I will need Lord-level karmic energy to continue advancing. After I do, I will ascend through the Lord realm as quickly as I am able. Then, I will need a source of King-level karmic energy. Such energy is precious, though, and I do not currently have the means of obtaining any.”

Ning tapped his desk in thought, ignoring my implicit request. When he spoke, his voice was slow and deliberate.

“This will ruin your future. If I’m right about you, as long as you cultivate diligently, you won’t have much difficulty joining the sect and rising to Martial Lord. I would say there is a greater than 50% chance you will be allowed to rise to at least Martial King.”

I nodded, accepting the truth of his statement. “That will take too long.”

Ning rubbed his chin. “What is your offer?”

I placed several pill bottles on the desk.

“Perfect Rank 4 pills. They are all lower-level ones, but they will be useful for a new Lord.” I picked up one of the bottles. “Rank 4 Basic Earth Skin Pill. It will let low-level Lords easily absorb most blows from their peers. While it doesn’t have the strength of the more powerful True Earth Skin Pill, it is still worth several spirit stones.”

Ning’s face remained impassive, but I noticed a subtle glint in his eye. He wanted these pills, but he wasn’t willing to say so.

“These will be useful for low-level Lords, yes, but you wanted a kingship? That is a bit out of the question.”

I placed the pill bottle back on the desk. “Let’s deal with the lordship first. 100 spirit stones worth of low-level Perfect Rank 4 pills for a nominal lordship.”

It was more than a fair price, it was downright extortionate, but the cost was meaningless to me. I just needed the karmic energy.

“One year,” the Grandmaster quickly responded. “I can arrange for you to have a nominal lordship for one year, but any more than that will be difficult. While these pills may have value to me, they fall short of my family’s needs.”

I smiled. “I am not a fan of a one-year deal. I need it for as long as necessary to build up enough karmic energy to advance to Martial Lord. If that takes two years, I need the city for two years. If it only takes a month, you can have the city back after that month.”

“Done.” He didn’t hesitate. Likely, he had access to a city that could generate more than enough karmic energy in a short timeframe. Adding that last condition might have only resulted in a loss, but I was still happy with the result.

I took out several more pill bottles and pushed them to Grandmaster Ning’s side of the desk.

“I like to work on trust, not oaths. I trust you to follow through, so I will leave these in your care.”

The Grandmaster smiled and nodded.

“Now,” I said, rubbing my hands, “as for a kingship… Once I reach Martial Lord, I can provide you, or your family, as many Perfect Rank 4 pills as you desire. This is for pills that only require herbs of the basic five elements. If they require herbs of the secondary elements, I will likely only be able to provide you with High-Purity pills.”

Ning’s eyes widened in surprise. “You have a good enough relationship with a Pill King – a Pill Emperor? – a good enough relationship that you can promise such a thing, but you can’t get a lordship from them?”

I ignored his question. “I can provide you with as many Rank 4 pills as you desire. In return, I need three things. First, you will provide the necessary herbs, and you will only receive 80% of the pills that are made from them.”

He nodded, happy with the high return.

“Second, you will provide me with a Profound-Rank spirit fire. The element doesn’t matter as long as it is from the basic five.”

Again, I could see confusion at this request, but I didn’t give him too much time to think.

“Finally, I will want a nominal kingship for as long as necessary to build the karmic energy needed to advance to Martial King.”

Ning scrutinized me carefully for long moments, trying to understand my motivations, but he couldn’t. He lacked vital information.

“Making such an agreement is beyond my power. I will need to discuss this with my father.”

He reached into his storage bag, pulled out a jade box, and placed it on the desk in front of me.

“You have shown me trust in providing me with these pills, so I will return it. This contains the Profound-Rank Implacable Earthflame spirit fire. It is a dual earth-fire element flame. Since it is worth somewhat less than these pills, you may keep it even if my father does not agree to your terms.”

I smiled and gave a short bow. Grandmaster Ning knew how to form connections with people. He didn’t know if I would be making the pills I had promised him myself, but if I made them or if I could have someone else make them for me, either way, he wanted such a connection.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 128 – Life 65, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

With my deal in place with Grandmaster Ning, I said a quick goodbye to my classmates, returned the scrolls to the library, and skipped out on my last two weeks of classes. This behavior might have raised some red flags for someone in the Academy, but when I returned, I was going to have to live these two weeks over again, and I didn’t want this life to taint what would happen next time.

After I left, my first objective was to reach Peak Grandmaster as quickly as possible.

Instead of booking a room at an inn, I used some of my cash reserves to purchase an apartment near the Blue Wind Pavilion. Inside, I set up a small alchemy workshop and a cultivation room with the best Qi Gathering Formation I was capable of creating.

In this manner, I spent the next four years in quiet cultivation. As I did, I was constantly asking myself if this was the balance I had been looking for. Several years of slow cultivation with classmates followed by long years of isolation. For some reason, it was more difficult to concentrate on pure cultivation than it had been in the past.

To simplify things, I didn’t use my Earth-Rank technique. Instead, I went with a Peak-Yellow one. It wasn’t nearly as powerful, but it let me cultivate quickly. For the Master realm, I only needed to create twelve basic meridians, which was far faster than the complex network the Peak-Earth technique required.

As for the Grandmaster realm, while I wanted to use a Peak-Yellow technique here also, I knew I needed to do better. Peak-Yellow dantians had problems that might come back to haunt me later. Instead, I took a hybrid approach, using the dantian construction from my Rank 3 Peak-Earth technique but connecting it to my meridians using the Peak-Yellow technique’s method out of necessity.

None of my classmates or teachers would have been at all pleased with my final result, but it was quick. Since I didn’t have any capillary meridians, I didn’t have to worry about them getting clogged as I cultivated at the Grandmaster level. Because of this, while the techniques I used were at a lower level than my last life, I felt more powerful since my qi moved freely.

Now, all I needed was for Grandmaster Ning to fulfill his side of our bargain.

Not knowing how to contact the Grandmaster, I sent a message via the Blue Wind Pavilion. I gave them the details of how he was my teacher at the Academy and that he may still be there or he may have returned to the sect. With the information network of the Pavilion, and the fact that Ning was a prominent family, this was all they needed to deliver my message.

The next day, a servant arrived at my door with an invitation to join the Grandmaster at his estate in the city.

As I found out, it was a stretch to say that this particular estate was ‘in the city.’ The carriage that was sent to take me there rolled out of the city gates opposite the direction of the Yellow Orchid Academy. While the western hills held the Academy, the hills east of the city held several sprawling mansions.

The one I was delivered to was a three-story courtyard-style complex surrounded by a large stone wall. Every inch of the wall had been carved with delicate reliefs in a grand display of the owner’s wealth and opulence.

The sitting room I was brought to looked simple by comparison. It contained only basic wooden furniture and a small stone tea set sitting on one of the tables. When I looked at the room in energy vision though, I saw that everything was brimming with power. The grain of the wood the chairs were made from looked like it might obliterate me if I touched it.

Only at the servant’s gentle urging was I willing to tentatively take a seat.

After sitting for 15 minutes, I was wondering how long it would take for Grandmaster Ning to arrive. After the wait stretched to 30 minutes, I began to get slightly annoyed. At the one-hour mark, I knew that the delay had to be deliberate, but the splendor of this mansion told me that it wasn’t my place to question my host.

Instead of worrying further, I needed to do something to keep my mind occupied. After a quick look around the room, my gaze landed on the stone tea set. The wood was interesting, but I didn’t know anything about plants. Stone, however, was something that I had been studying under Master Tan.

Looking at the small teacup, I couldn’t help but be enamored by the energy it contained. I instinctively reached out with my hand to pick it up but quickly caught myself. I turned to the servant who had been waiting patiently near the door.

“May I?”

After a brief pause, he nodded without saying anything.

I picked up the cup and began examining it closely. The energy inside of it was strange. It wasn’t qi, it wasn’t medicinal energy, and it wasn’t demonic energy. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I felt like I had seen something like it before. It felt familiar.

I had the urge to pull the energy from the cup and try to absorb it, but even if that didn’t get me killed, I was certain it would ruin this potential business relationship.

Instead of absorbing the energy, I simply studied this stone. I had spent years learning to analyze simple rocks made from granite and sandstone, but this one truly baffled me. I had no idea what type of stone it was.

It was pale gray with a tinge of green hue. No striations or lines marred its surface. At this point, my ability to analyze a stone’s crystalline structure was only rudimentary, but I could find no flaws in it. If I carved a formation into this cup, I felt that I wouldn’t need to worry at all about the stone’s integrity.

I don’t know how long I spent fixated on that small teacup, but my inspection was eventually interrupted by the opening of the sitting room’s door.

Grandmaster Ning walked in and took the only remaining chair. A maid followed shortly behind him to make tea.

After sitting, the Grandmaster gave me a short bow of his head.

“Apologies. That was my father’s way of testing new potential partners. He wants to know how people will react when kept waiting like that. People driven to madness by a mere wait make poor business associates.”

I smiled and dipped my head, showing that no insult was taken.

As I did, I quickly examined Grandmaster Ning in energy vision and realized that I was wrong to still refer to him as such. He had ascended to Martial Lord, though I couldn’t tell how far he had advanced in this new realm. I would have congratulated him, but making note of such an examination could have been taken the wrong way.

As was his place, Lord Ning started the negotiation.

“My father has provisionally agreed to your offer. He will give you enough karmic energy to ascend to Lord along with 100 portions of herbs for Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills. If you return 80 pills to us before the end of the month, he will grant you the energy needed to ascend to King.”

I was sure that a look of surprise showed on my face at this point. Even if they had someone track me, handing me 100 sets of Rank 4 herbs felt like a large gamble.

Lord Ning simply smirked at my reaction. “Don’t worry. We don’t have much reason to fear that you would take the herbs and run away.”

That statement definitely made me worry.

Lord Ning ignored my reaction and continued. “This energy will be given on the proviso that you continue supplying us with a modicum of pills for the foreseeable future. My father indicated that you are allowed to use this energy however you see fit. If you find that the energy allocated to raise yourself to King would be best spent establishing a firm foundation as Lord, a new agreement can be reached regarding Rank 5 pills and further energy allotments.”

He looked me in the eyes with deep intent. “My father made it very clear that he would be extremely interested in developing a better relationship with Elder Li.”

I froze. I didn’t expect that lie to catch up to me at this moment.

Ning smiled. He took my reaction as confirmation of his suspicions. “My father has informed me of the Elder’s condition, and it is well known he has been looking for a disciple. While his choice seems… odd, it does help explain a few things.”

I refused to speak in response to this probing. If I did, they might have a way of detecting any falsehoods. Instead, I changed the topic.

“One month might be difficult. The concoction process won’t start until after I have ascended to Lord.”

Lord Ning gestured to the servant with one hand. A moment later, a tidal wave of energy slammed into me.

The surge lasted only a few moments, but when it was done, my dantian was filled with far more karmic energy than I needed to reach Martial Lord. I could feel that I had enough energy, but looking at it, the space it took up was much less than I expected.

Probing it, I came to a simple conclusion: This wasn’t Lord-level energy.

“Use that sparingly,” said Lord Ning, looking at me with a bit of envy. “You should only need about two-thirds of it to form your core. The walls will be much thinner than your cultivation technique calls for. The rest can be used on your breakthrough.”

Still in a bit of shock at the quality of the energy I was given, I looked back at him. “Do you have a cultivation technique I should use?”

“Do you need one?” he probed.

I shook my head. “No, but as I understand it, most Rulers would wish me to use one of their choosing so that the domain’s karma isn’t tainted.”

He just found this funny. “Use whatever technique you like. A Lord-level cultivation technique will have little effect.”

Not wanting to overstay my welcome, I made my plea to leave. “I look forward to our future cooperation. In one month, I should have everything ready for pick up.”

Lord Ning nodded and waved me off.

Ascending to Martial Lord was more difficult than I had expected.

The karmic energy I had been provided with was far more difficult to shape than the Lord-level energy I had used before. I still maintained my belief that since it was unlikely many people had karmic affinities, cultivation techniques reflected this reality and were usable without it.

However, this belief was being challenged by the reality in front of me.

I knew what I needed to try, but first I had to make sure I could handle the obligations I had already agreed to.

“System, raise my water, fire, and metal affinities to peak six-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 48 million credits. 34,467,645 credits remaining.

Now to see what was possible.

“How much to raise my affinity for karmic energy to low nine-star?”

Cost 100,000 credits.

A thousand times more than the basic affinities. If it helped, it might be worth the price, but how much of an advantage would a low-level affinity give me?

I sighed. At this point, I didn’t have any choice other than to try it out.

“System, permanently raise my affinity for karmic energy to peak eight-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 17.6 million credits. 16,867,645 credits remaining.

I hadn’t felt much when I raised my basic affinities to peak six-star. I had become used to the sensations of boosting affinities, but raising this affinity to only peak eight-star gave me a tingly… ineffable feeling.

Refocusing, I decided that while I was boosting affinities, I might as well take care of another one that I should have looked into earlier.

“System, how much for a permanent low nine-star space affinity?”

Cost 10 million credits.

I felt my mind go blank for a second.

One hundred thousand times the cost of a basic element. A low nine-star affinity required all the credits I would get from dying as a Martial Lord 1. If the pricing was consistent with others, gaining enough credits to boost a spatial affinity beyond six- or seven-star might be completely impossible.

Having a new thought, I asked another question.

“System, how much for a permanent low nine-star time affinity?”

Cost 10 million credits.

The same, as I expected.

I grimaced. It might be a waste… But I did have the credits to get one of them…

“System, permanently upgrade my space affinity to low nine-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 10 million credits. 6,867,645 credits remaining.

I felt my insides twist. I felt a sharp pain in my soul. I fell to the ground unconscious.

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Chapter 129 – Life 65, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

I woke up in my apartment and groggily shook my head.

What had happened to me?

I thought back to the last moment I could remember. I had been improving my affinities, and there was a sudden pain in my soul…

Doing a quick examination of my soul, I didn’t notice anything different. It was healed slightly more than the last time I had looked at it closely, but that was the only difference I could find.

Then, I noticed my storage space.

There was a lot of empty space inside. Too much. From what I could tell, its radius had increased by nearly 10%. That might not sound like much, but it meant the volume had increased by 33%. The space inside had increased by well over 100,000 cubic centimeters, and it was still growing at a noticeable pace.

Putting everything together, I realized that gaining a spatial affinity had interacted with the spatial fire seed and my storage space in a strange way that had knocked me unconscious. The result of this wasn’t that bad. After all, I got a free expansion to my storage space, but if I enhanced my space affinity in the future, it might cause more severe problems.

To try and play it safe, I asked the System for guidance on the topic, but as expected, every request came back with prices far outside of my budget.

There wasn’t much I could do about this. I couldn’t exactly tell anyone about the situation, and bringing it up as a hypothetical in front of anyone knowledgeable on the topic would throw up way too many red flags. Hell, I didn’t even know who I could possibly ask other than Du XiongMing, and I doubted I would be able to gain an audience with him anytime soon.

I would just have to play it safe. If and when I decided to raise my space affinity, I could look at transferring the fire seed out of my soul to prevent such a situation from happening again. But I wanted to be at least Lord, preferably King, before I started playing around with fire seeds.

Breathing in and out, I refocused my mind. I needed to get to work.

While it felt like I had been unconscious for only a moment, it could’ve been hours or days. I could have gone to ask somebody what day it was to find out, but the answer wasn't important. No matter how long I was out, it was too long.

I had only been given one month to make 80 Perfect Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills. I didn’t have time to lie around.

I looked into my dantian and saw the karmic energy that was waiting for me. I reached out with my mind and started to shape it.

I had hoped that gaining a karmic affinity would make this task simple. All it seemed to have accomplished was reducing the difficulty back to where it was when I used standard Lord-level energy.

That did put creating a core within the realm of possibility though, so following the manual I had used as the Water Groom to the best of my recollection, I began assembling it.

I didn’t make any changes or embellishments. I simply made a replica of what I’ve done in the past. The only difference was that I limited the amount of energy I invested in it based on Lord Ning’s instructions.

Once it was complete, I needed to begin filling it with qi.

To accomplish this as quickly as possible, I would ideally use Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills, the same pill I was attempting to ascend to be able to create. I had inquired about purchasing some through the Blue Wind Pavilion, but they were not readily available. I would have to contract a Pill Lord to create them, and that would require a long lead time.

The other way I could cultivate more quickly was to use a Rank 4 Qi Gathering Formation. I had looked into having a formation specialist construct one in my apartment, but the response I got back indicated that it would be impossible.

Formation specialists in the city were not in the habit of building Qi Gathering Formations for others. They seemed to have an unwritten agreement between themselves to do no such thing. If I had stronger connections, it might’ve been possible, but it wasn’t something that simple spirit stones could buy.

The reason for this was simple. They had formed a cabal focused on forcing people to rent cultivation rooms. Instead of purchasing permanent formations for 10 or even 100 spirit stones, cultivators were forced to rent a room at a cost of two spirit stones per day.

This was annoying, but it was something I could work with. I asked around about the date and found out that I only had 24 days remaining before the pills were due. I hurried to the closest cultivation pavilion and paid 48 spirit stones to book a room for the rest of the month.

Once seated in the middle of the room’s formation, I reached into my storage space and pulled out a Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pill. Its help would be extremely limited considering that I was working on ascending to Lord and that I was already in a Rank 4 formation, but I would take any assistance I could get to make the process faster.

It took me two days to gather the energy needed to break through. When I did, I sent a combination of qi, spirit stone energy, and karmic energy to destroy the chain barring me from Martial Lord 1. The moment the karmic energy touched it, it vaporized like it had never been there.

I felt the world shift as the laws of Heaven and Earth loosened their grip on my body.

As a Lord 1, the first thing I did was to make a Perfect Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pill as efficiently as I could. Previously, I hadn’t been able to make such a pill until higher stages, but with my experience, a full suite of peak six-star affinities, and the Profound-Rank Earthflame spirit fire, I was able to pull it off.

Unfortunately, it took me 12 hours to make a single pill.

If I was only making this one pill, I could have reduced this time to somewhere between six and eight hours by burning through my qi at a faster rate. That, however, would have left my dantian empty, and it would have taken a significant amount of time to replenish it. To complete the entire eighty-pill order in as little time as possible, I needed to match the rate I burned through qi with my regeneration rate.

I only knew of two options that could speed up the process.

The first was to use the Profound-Rank spatial fire seed. As I had learned, it was much less energy intensive, and much quicker, to use a fire seed instead of a spirit fire when concocting pills. However, I knew I wouldn’t be able to control it anywhere near well enough for high-level alchemy. Aside from that, I had an instinctive fear of the seed being detected by others, so I wanted to keep it as hidden as possible.

My only other option, then, was to advance. As a Lord 2, my qi would be slightly more powerful and would regenerate at a slightly faster rate. Also, my will-lock would improve, giving it more control and strength.

I used the pill I had made and cultivated as quickly as I could for the next 12 hours. With the combination of the Qi Gathering Formation and Pill, my cultivation base increased at a rapid pace, but trying to break through to Lord 2 in only a matter of days would be impossible. I could do it in a month, but not in only a couple of days.

This experiment had given me a new idea, though.

The limitations on my speed were the strength of my will and the rate at which I could recover qi. I couldn’t do anything about the first, and being in the gathering formation already helped with the second. However, the formation only increased the amount of ambient energy available. The pill increased the speed at which that ambient energy entered my body.

I made another gathering pill as quickly as I could and consumed it. With its effects boosting me, I was able to concoct a pill in only six hours while still matching my burn rate to my regeneration rate. This was good news, but the effect of a single pill only lasted for 12 hours.

If I went with this strategy, a third of the pills I made would be used up in the concoction process. The Ning Clan might be willing to consider the lost third as the cost of doing business and only require me to hand over 80% of the remaining pills, but I very much doubted it.

This setback didn’t make me despair. I still found a potential avenue to meet my deadline. I had 20 days. If I could make a pill every six hours I would be able to make 80 pills. That meant no sleep, but I could manage that through other pills. I just needed something that would help me gather qi more quickly.

Without a better idea in mind, I opened Emperor Li’s book in my mental library and began searching through it for recipes.

After advancing to Lord once more, I found that some of the passages that had once been inscrutable had revealed themselves to me. After a few hours of careful searching, I found what I needed, a Rank 4 Qi Replenishing Pill.

The gathering pill was useful for advancing one’s cultivation, but the replenishing pill was useful for daily activities. Its effects lasted for an entire 48 hours, meaning I would save money by not having to take as many of them, but its power was significantly worse. It was most effective at low energy levels, but even then, the boost it provided was only about half what a gathering pill could do. Using one would help, but it wouldn’t allow me to meet my deadline.

The Emperor's book, though, contained a special recipe for a variant of the replenishing pill. Its effects were only good for 36 hours, but as long as my body contained less than 10% of its maximum qi capacity, the effects of this pill would be increased to be roughly 50% stronger than a gathering pill.

This was of course good news. I just had to be able to get the ingredients for said pill.

At the Pavilion, I found out the price for each set would be eight spirit stones. This made me wince, but I still handed over a large number of the pills that I had made in my previous life for several sets of herbs.

Living on Fasting Pills so I wouldn’t have to eat, Restoration Pills so I wouldn’t have to sleep, and Replenishing Pills so I wouldn’t run out of energy, I slaved away in the pill room for sixteen days. The additional boost from the Replenishing Pills was helpful, but I was still only able to average five pills per day.

Lord Ning hadn’t told me any specifics for which element the pills should target, so I decided to make sixteen for each of the basic elements. This might not have been what he wanted, but it met the brief I was given.

I spent my final days in the chamber converting the remaining herbs into earth-based pills for my own future use.

When an attendant knocked on the door to inform me that my allotted time had expired, I breathed out a sigh of relief. My time there had been way too stressful.

Thirty days after my visit to the Ning mansion, the same servant as before knocked on my door once more. I welcomed him inside to conduct our exchange.

I handed him a small storage bag I had purchased to make the transaction smoother.

“80 Perfect Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills. As the element wasn’t specified, there are 16 of each.”

He took the bag and nodded in slight acknowledgment. After pausing strangely for several seconds, he tapped a small stone on his wrist.

I was bombarded by a flood of energy. My mind went blank at the onslaught. When I recovered, I found that I was sprawled on the floor.

“Please, allow me to assist you, Lord Su.”

The servant reached down and carefully helped me stand.

Blinking in confusion, I looked inside my dantian and saw a storm of karmic energy inside. There was nearly no room left for qi. I wanted to complain that this would cause problems with my daily activities, but I suddenly realized that with so much of my dantian blocked off, the Qi Replenishing Pills would always be operating at their highest efficiency.

I decided to accept this situation as a win.

“Thank you.” I gave the servant a slight bow.

“I was instructed to tell you that the energy you have been provided is sufficient to either advance from Martial Lord 1 to Martial Lord 9 or to advance from Martial Lord Peak to Martial King. The choice is yours. If you require more energy in the future, another deal can be arranged. If you decide to use this energy to advance to Martial King, you should use 50% on your core and 50% on your breakthrough.”

He reached into his storage bag and took out a small book.

“This contains the list of pills we would like you to concoct for us as per the ongoing portion of our arrangement. We, unfortunately, do not have a list of every ingredient needed. If you can provide us with such a list, we will procure them for you as our arrangement specifies.”

I flipped through the book and found that it was asking for dozens of different types of pills.

“This…” Had I really agreed to do so much? We hadn’t specified how many pills I would be making for them after the first batch. If this was what they were expecting…

“We understand that an alchemist’s time is valuable. We would request you choose one pill every other month. We will provide ten portions of herbs. At the end of the second month, I will arrive to take our portion and deliver herbs for the next pill you choose. Our only request is that you choose a different pill each time.”

I narrowed my eyes. These terms were incredibly suspicious. They were clearly still testing me. It worked in my favor, though.

I flipped open the book and quickly chose one of the simpler pills that I could concoct without spending too much time and energy on it. I needed to save as much of that for myself as I could.

The servant handed me a piece of paper, and I wrote out the necessary herbs.

“Very well, Lord Su. Do you require anything else before I depart?”

“N—” I was about to dismiss him, but I caught myself in time. There was indeed something I needed, but I was a little afraid to ask for it.

“I… need a Rank 5 cultivation technique.”

The servant smiled, reached into his bag, and pulled out a small black book.

“This was anticipated. I have been permitted to sell this manual to you.”

I wanted to rub my temples. I felt a headache coming on. “How much?”

“The price is simple. Every additional pill you were able to make with the ingredients previously provided.”

I couldn’t help it. A laugh bubbled up from deep inside of me. I reached into my storage bag to hide that I was taking several pill bottles out of my storage space.

I passed him the remaining 18 pills.

“Is that all of them?”

“Y—” I caught myself again. “No. I have already consumed two.”

The servant paused. “Very well. Those pills will be considered irrecoverable.”

He passed me the cultivation technique.

“Good day, Lord Su.”

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Chapter 130 – Life 65, Age 24, Martial Lord 1

After completing the initial phase of my deal with the Ning Clan, I no longer had to worry about meeting any hard deadlines. I only had two more years before my self-imposed ten-year limit, but I wouldn’t let an arbitrary goal dictate my actions overly much. I would reap the harvest I had sown.

But before pushing myself further, I needed a short break. I had spent four years deep in cultivation and the last month scrambling to complete a near-impossible mission. I was running on fumes at this point and needed a short downtime, so I decided to go shopping.

While South Gate City was a major city connected to the Nine Rivers Sect, it wasn’t a major economic center. South Gate was an important destination for wealthier scions from all over the continent since it was the primary training center for youths wishing to enter the sect, but it was also located only a few days' ride from Blue Wind City, where the Pavilion’s headquarters were located. This drew most of the potential business opportunities away from South Gate.

I considered visiting Blue Wind City myself but decided I should put it off until a future life. I had already gotten into a mess because I had leaned on Emperor Li’s token, and going to Blue Wind City right now wouldn’t help matters.

In any case, while South Gate might not have the variety of goods Blue Wind would, it did have things that appealed to me. Since the city was focused around training students, several stores specialized in selling things that students aiming to enter the Nine Rivers Sect would need.

This brought to mind an important question: Where were they getting their spirit fires? These were students who were being trained in at least Master-level professions. Rank 2 professions, Rank 2 alchemy at least, required the use of a spirit fire.

Where did the students get their spirit fires? Sure, they could’ve all been given to them by their families before they came here, but this city was focused on selling goods to students. Was there a place students could go to purchase them?

I found it in an upscale part of the city, a store called ‘The Crimson Flame.’

When I first saw the place, I thought it was more of a temple than a storefront. The ground floor was large and rectangular, with the walls made of bright marble. Atop this base, was a massive dome made from a silvery metal that shone in the afternoon sun. To either side of the entrance were two-meter-tall phoenix statues made of pure bronze.

When I walked inside, I was greeted by an elegant woman who looked to be in her late twenties. She wore a bright red qipao dress with gold embroidery. Her fingernails were long and lacquered, and at least a couple of pounds of gold jewelry weighed her down.

The store sold a wide variety of spirit flames for all nine elements as well as space. The cheapest fires were those composed of multiple elements, with the least expensive of them being a five-element spirit flame. While a multi-element flame had benefits for people with the right affinities, the number of potential users was significantly smaller since one needed affinities for every element in the flame to control it properly, so they were in less demand.

Yellow-Rank spirit fires ranged from 1,000 to 100,000 gold, depending on the specifics of the flame. Profound-Rank fires ranged from 10 to 10,000 spirit stones, with the most expensive being the four pure fires connected to the secondary elements.

While most of the Yellow-Rank flames were freely available to be purchased, the Profound-Rank flames were not kept in stock. After a purchase was made, the store would contact the seller, likely the holder of a fire seed, and arrange delivery. If a particular spirit fire was too popular, there might be a waitlist, but the store seemed to be doing its best to manage this through price controls.

The attendant only laughed when I asked about the possibility of purchasing a fire seed. Even if a clan were in dire straits, they would rarely consider selling one and never on the open market. Selling a seed’s fires was an economic lifeline that kept several clans afloat, and they wouldn’t want to lose that for a one-time benefit.

I wanted to buy every spirit fire in the shop, but I didn’t have enough room in my storage space to hold everything, and even if I did, I didn’t have the cash reserves to do so. I wasn’t in a place to make any big purchases just yet, but I noted the store down as a place to visit once more before I died.

Putting my brief downtime behind me, I rented a new formation-enchanted cultivation chamber and restarted my ascent.

Since I was no longer in a rush to make pills, I no longer needed to use Qi Replenishing Pills in my alchemy, but with nearly my entire dantian occupied by karmic energy, I found that they had a surprisingly good effect on cultivation.

To advance as a Lord, a cultivator needed to inject qi into their core, slowly building up the accumulated energy within. This was much easier with a full dantian because there would be more pressure to assist with the process.

In my condition, over 90% of my dantian was filled with karmic energy, so when it was full, I only had about 7 or 8% of my maximum potential qi reserves. This meant that I benefited both from the effects of a full dantian and the increased duration and efficacy Emperor Li’s variant Qi Replenishing Pills had on depleted dantians.

With the multi-element technique I had practiced in the past, this wouldn’t have been the case. That technique used a set of three dantians with one dedicated solely to karmic energy. But with this single-element technique, I only had one. Karmic energy and qi were stored side by side with the core in the center.

I had to sell a few pills to pay for cultivation resources, but working through the Pavilion, I contracted an herbalist to provide me with a steady stream of ingredients to make pills both for myself and for use as trade goods.

Under the constant effects of both the formation and the pills, I was able to break through to Lord 2 in only a month and a half. My breakthrough felt very different from those of the past. After the energy in my core shattered the world and opened a hole to what lay beyond, I threw only qi and spirit stone energy at the chains binding me.

The energy was able to slice through them, freeing me, but the chain didn’t shatter. It almost felt as if the weight of the severed chains settled onto my energy body, encumbering it. The difference wasn’t very noticeable, but my qi became slightly more sluggish.

I had already known I would have to pay a penalty for breaking through without using karmic energy, though, so I didn’t let myself focus on the negatives.

After that, each subsequent breakthrough took longer, and the weight my energy body was forced to bear only increased. I was advancing and getting stronger, but because of this metaphysical weight, the speed at which I could concoct pills was slowing down.

My will-lock was stronger, so I could do things that had previously been impossible, but my slowed qi made it more difficult to do the work quickly and efficiently. It was a tradeoff that I would have to consider carefully in the future, but while the sluggish qi was annoying, it didn’t prevent me from working and advancing. It only slowed me.

Five years later, I finally reached Peak Lord once more. That was longer than I had hoped, but it was acceptable.

According to the manual provided by the Ning Clan, a normal advancement to Martial King involved infusing the core with King-level karmic energy, slowly reinforcing the existing Lord-level energy.

A piece of paper that had been stuffed into the book noted that such a process would not be necessary for me. I just needed to build out my existing core.

With nothing more reliable to work from, I followed the instructions and got to cultivating. Strengthening my core went relatively quickly since I already had the necessary karmic energy, and I was done in only a few days.

Then, I had to fill the core with qi.

This took much longer than I had hoped. Enhancing my core had been a process of compressing and molding the karmic energy I had been storing. While my core had increased to several times its original size, it was still relatively small compared to my dantian. This freed up a significant amount of extra room to store more qi. That might be considered a good thing, but it meant I no longer received the same benefits from the Qi Replenishing Pills. Instead, I had to switch back to regular Gathering Pills.

It took six more months of constant cultivation, but the world finally cracked once more.

I braided my qi, karmic energy, and spirit stone energy together and threw the combination at the chain holding me back from becoming a King.

Where this spear of energy should have stuck out with great force and power, it only slowly slid forward. The remnants of my Lord-level chains weighed it down.

If this had been a normal breakthrough, I was certain that the sluggishness of the spear would have led to my failure and I would have only ascended to False King, but this breakthrough wasn’t exactly normal.

The karmic energy that I had been given wasn’t from a kingdom. It slammed into the chain and instantly made it crack. As I poured in more and more energy, the cracks expanded rapidly.

When I was nearly spent, the chain finally shattered.

I felt a strange shift in the world as its laws fell away.

For the first time, I was a true Martial King.

Relaxing slightly after my breakthrough, I realized that I wasn’t too interested in exploring my new capabilities. I was ready to get back to school and put this period of ceaseless cultivation behind me.

Still, even though I felt that way, I didn’t rush to bring this life to a close just yet. I needed to push as far as I could.

Breaking through further as a Martial King was a painfully slow pursuit. There were no Rank 5 formations available in the city, and I had no information at all about Rank 5 alchemy, so I could only use Rank 4 pills and formations. Reaching the Limit of King 1 took me four more years, and when I did break through, I barely managed it. The chain seemed to have been made from solid steel, and I only barely managed to pry it apart.

Going any further was impossible. I had to accept that my path of cultivation had come to an end.

After that, with my cultivation level higher than it had ever been before, I spent another month dedicated to expanding my storage space as much as possible. I was assisted by Rank 4 formations and pills as well as my new spatial affinity, but the weight of all the broken chains slowed me tremendously.

After a month, the space grew to a sphere with a radius close to 85 centimeters with a volume of over two and a half cubic meters. I filled it with copious amounts of gold and spirit stones as well as a wide variety of Rank 1 to 4 pills.

I had returned to the spirit fire store a few years earlier to place orders for the highest quality Profound-Rank flames available in each of the nine elements. It took a significant amount of extra effort to make all the necessary pills to afford them, but I considered it time well spent.

I still had a bit of extra room, and I would have liked to have stored a few Rank 5 manuals in that space, but the only one I had was from the Ning Clan and I didn’t know how to get more. Instead, since I was playing the role of a formation specialist at school, I filled it up with a variety of simple items needed for Rank 1 and 2 formations so that I would always have them on hand.

The final task that I gave myself was to learn a bit about what happened to my classmates over the past several years. My presence would affect their outcomes, but it would be good to know the path they would otherwise have gone down.

I paid an intelligence service to look into them and tell me anything they could. For Zhuge Yan, that was nothing at all. They refused to take the case. For the others, I got at least a few pieces of important information.

Five years after the end of our classes, Shi YuLong and Chai JiaQi had left the academy and returned to their hometowns. It was unclear if they didn’t qualify for further courses, ran out of resources to pay for them, or something else had happened.

I would see if I could help them out next time, but it was Lin LiTing’s fate that bothered me. She died two years after I left. She was participating in a regular spar between classes and her opponent ‘accidentally’ struck her a fatal blow. There could have been several reasons for this, but my bet was that it was related to her profession. The school had punished the offending student, but I found it hard to believe he had acted on his own initiative.

If I wanted to prevent this from happening again, I would need to be on guard at all times. I knew roughly when she died, and I knew the name of the boy who killed her, but I didn’t know when the events that led to her death would have occurred. Preventing that one boy from acting would be meaningless. I needed to try and prevent her from being targeted in the first place.

I returned to my apartment and sat down in the middle of the main room. I breathed in and out, preparing myself to return to the Academy.

That was the moment that my front door burst apart, and a very angry-looking man appeared.

“So, you are this disciple I’ve been told I have. I should thank Elder Ning for letting me know about you.”

I looked at Emperor Li in shock. In my mind, he was a kindly old man, but at this moment, he gave off the impression of a true Emperor. He stood tall and proud with flowing white robes draped over his form. His long white hair fell behind him in a braid, and a small golden diadem adorned his brow.

“You will be coming with me to explain yourself. I am interested to know more about this copy of my token you seem to possess. I am very, very interested to know how you came to learn all my personal recipes.”

How would that conversation go? I had no idea, and at that moment, I didn’t want to find out.

I reached into my storage space and quickly made a poison pill appear in my mouth.

The Emperor’s eyes narrowed immediately, and he flicked a finger.

The pill didn’t dissolve like it should have. It was locked in place by the Emperor’s will.

My eyes widened in panic.

“None of that now. Come along peacefully.”

I pushed on his will-lock, but as a weakened King, I had no chance of overpowering an Emperor.

Then, I reached deeper. My spatial affinity activated. It wasn’t much, but when my weak King-level will combined with my spatial affinity, it gave me just enough strength to create a tiny crack in a small piece of the Emperor's lock. That was enough.

Poison trickled into my body, and the Emperor could only look on in shock.

Because of the slow release of the poison, I didn’t die quickly, but the poison’s strength meant that I was already beyond saving.

As I started to fade, I saw Li’s eyes unfocus. He shook his head sadly, turned around, and looked off into the distance.

“Is this all part of your game? What are you playing at? Why would you put this child in a position where he would kill himself?”

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial King 2 – 2 billion credits awarded.

Total Credits: 2,006,867,645

Affinities

Peak Six-Star – Earth, Wood, Water, Fire, Metal

Peak Seven-Star – Wind, Lightning, Light, Dark

Peak Eight-Star – Karmic Energy

Low Nine-Star – Space

Mental Library (Updates)

Touch Reading – Rank 2

Comprehension Boosts (Updates)

Professions:

Martial – 10,000,000 credits

Affinities

Peak Six-Star – Earth, Wood, Water, Fire, Metal

Peak Seven-Star – Wind, Lightning, Light, Dark

Peak Eight-Star – Karmic Energy

Low Nine-Star – Space

Resistances

Mental Effects (Cultivation Techniques) – 25,000,000 credits

Mental Library

Capacity – Rank 4

Journal – Rank 3

Perfect Transcription – Rank 4

Touch Reading – Rank 2

Comprehension Boosts

Cultivation:

Cultivation Techniques – 520,000 credits

Qi Control – 20,000 credits

Nurturing Disciples – 500,000 credits

Professions:

Alchemy – 520,011 credits

Formations – 500,000 credits

Herbalism – 20,000 credits

Martial – 10,000,000 credits

Social:

Reading Emotions (True) – 25,000,000 credits

Skills

Enhanced Soul Growth – 20,000 credits

Pills Appraisal – Rank 1 (Comprehensive)

Technique Appraisal – Rank 3 (Earth)

Language (Western Han)

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 131 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

I reappeared in my dormitory. The moments leading up to my death had been hectic, so I sat down and took some time to process them.

The Ning Clan had contacted Emperor Li and told him about our arrangement. Whether that contact had been made out of suspicion or gratitude, it had resulted in the Emperor showing up in front of me in a rather foul mood. His appearance was something I should’ve planned for, and I could do better next time, but what had me worried was his timing.

He appeared right as I was getting ready to trigger a reset on my own.

This precise timing could be explained by his blessing. I wasn’t aware of its specifics, but I knew it had something to do with timing. If the Emperor’s blessing dictated when he appeared, that might mean that I didn’t need to worry too much about him appearing unexpectedly to cause me problems, but it also meant he may have known about my existence for a long time.

For all I knew, even though he credited ‘Elder Ning,’ he might have already been informed about my use of his token years earlier. In that case, I wouldn’t be able to avoid his scrutiny even if I didn’t work with the Ning Clan.

Should I try walking the same path again? It would be dangerous, but it would also be rewarding. As long as events played out in a similar way, I would be safe.

Still, the only reason that was the case was because of my space affinity. That thought made me want to upgrade it further, but I was also afraid of the side effects. If it just knocked me out, I could work with that. Even if it was for more than a couple of days, I could manage the situation. But if increasing my space affinity to higher levels led to more serious issues, I could be in real trouble.

Before increasing it, I wanted to first remove the spatial fire seed from my soul to try and avoid any negative effects. That should wait until I returned to at least Martial Lord, though, since I would want to have a Ruler’s will-lock ability before experimenting with spirit fire seeds.

After noting this down as a future task, I allowed myself to focus on moving forward.

There were two weeks until the end of my Disciple-level classes, and I had a few library tokens to spend in the meantime. I could save them, but I didn’t see any real reason to wait. I would need to get into the Rank 2 martial earth technique room to prepare for classes anyway.

But before that…

“System, establish a new secondary reset point for me.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 35,840 credits. 2,006,831,805 credits remaining.

It was late in the day when I arrived at the library. The librarian gave me a bit of a sour look, but he didn’t say anything and allowed me to enter.

I didn’t spend much time looking around. I went directly to the Rank 2 martial earth technique room and copied everything inside as I had done previously. I noticed a few more Earth-Rank techniques than there had been in the lower-level room, but I settled on taking away the Mountain Destroying Fist.

At a glance, I could see that it was simply an alteration to the Rank 1 technique I already had which would allow it to work better with a Master’s meridians. I could’ve chosen an entirely new technique to use, but relying on what I already knew seemed like the sensible path to take.

Of course, since I copied all the scrolls into my mental library, I didn’t have to completely limit myself to this one technique. This choice was just about which one I would be allowed to openly display.

Making an allowance for future contingencies, I decided not to use my remaining two Rank 1 tokens and quickly left after retrieving the Rank 2 scroll.

I considered going to Yan’s room at this point, but my mental state was still a bit off. I might not be able to play the role of the boy he had talked to earlier that day convincingly, so I decided to just see what would happen in class the next day.

In the morning, Instructor Sun greeted us with his usual stoic demeanor.

“The techniques you all picked up yesterday should benefit you over your next few years of study. However, they are not what you will be using for the remainder of your time in this class.”

He reached into the storage and pulled out several small books. “These are basic Low-Yellow Rank 2s. Use them as references and cultivate as quickly as you are able. To qualify for the Master-level courses, you must be a Martial Master. These techniques will allow you to accomplish that. The higher the stage you reach before admissions, the more resources you will be granted to help you advance further.”

He looked around at all of us but gave me a particularly poignant look. “You may help each other through this process. This is not training. This is a test to see how well you are able to cultivate. If you spend time helping your classmates, they will receive more benefits. If you spend that time on yourself instead, you will receive more.”

He turned to leave us alone in the classroom, but I spoke up to stop him.

“Instructor Sun, can you please clarify? Is there anything this is testing other than the speed at which we advance through the Master realm? As long as we reach as high as possible, it will be considered a success, correct? There are no other hidden conditions?”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “There are no hidden conditions. This test is only about your ability to understand a new Master-level technique and cultivate it quickly. You must use the technique you were given, and you are not allowed to use outside resources. If you want to use formations, you have to make them yourselves. If you want pills, make them yourselves.”

I nodded. “Thank you, instructor.”

After Sun left, I turned to look at Zhuge Yan.

“Should I do everything possible?”

His face turned contemplative. “The instructor indicated that you could. It’s not clear if you should though. If helping us hurts your own advancement, those losses might outweigh any gains the rest of us get from it.”

“Don’t worry about that.” I smiled at him and turned to the others. “Has everyone begun practicing forming meridians?”

We hadn’t had any classes on the topic yet, but we all knew what was coming. I expected everyone would have at least attempted it.

“No,” said JiaQi. “I didn’t have a Rank 2 manual.”

YuLong shrugged. “Me neither. Didn’t see the point of jumping ahead of what they were teaching us. Wasn’t that supposed to corrupt our foundation or something?”

That would make things difficult, but fortunately, LiTing and Yan at least had the basic skills down.

“Alright, you all start studying your techniques. I’ll get things prepared.”

Turning away, I pretended to reach into my storage bag while taking out several small limestone squares from my storage space. Since I had the extra room, I had stored a few formation supplies just in case, but I hadn’t expected to need them so soon.

Limestone was more resistant to qi than granite or sandstone, so it made for a solid base for Rank 2 formations.

My grasp of Rank 2 formation knowledge was somewhat lacking when compared to where my Rank 1 knowledge now was, but during my time spent with the Hu Clan, we had covered the basics. Rank 2 Qi Gathering Formations were pretty basic.

Using the Cold Mountain Fire, I began carving the complex lines necessary for the formation. This wasn’t too much different from the Rank 1 version. What mainly set it apart were additional qi vortices to increase energy flow and a stronger barrier to contain all the extra energy. To accomplish this, limestone was needed because the increased energy flow would cause something like granite to just break apart.

Without meridians to transfer energy around my body easily, supplying enough qi to the Cold Mountain Fire to carve out the entire formation was difficult. Instead of guiding everything through my right hand, I had to constantly switch between different body parts to access further qi reserves.

Once it was complete, I activated the formation and stepped inside.

My qi was quickly replenished, and I started studying the technique I had been given. The meridians it formed wouldn’t align with my natural qi flows, which bothered me, but that was probably part of the lesson. Even though we were told this was only a test, I didn’t doubt there would still be some lesson involved.

Sitting there, I did a bit of mental math. Last life, I was able to hit Martial Master Peak in a year and a half using a Peak-Yellow technique. How much would using a Low-Yellow technique shorten that gap? Could I reach the peak in four months? Five?

In any case, reaching Peak Master in only two weeks was out of the question if I strictly followed the cultivation technique’s guidance.

I held out my hand and started crafting practice meridians.

Meridians were made of several strands of qi braided together to form tubes. The braid pattern and the structure of the strands were what separated a Low-Yellow technique from a Peak-Yellow. We were supposed to follow the technique given to us, but how closely did we have to ‘follow’ it?

I began stretching out the weave pattern and thinning the strands of qi. When the strands were nearly as fine as gossamer, they snapped. Working again, I stretched the strands back out and wove them as loosely as I possibly could.

Looking at my work, I knew it wouldn’t be able to hold even the slightest bit of energy. If I tried to channel qi through meridians like this, they would leak like a sieve, and if I kept pushing, they would quickly shred to pieces. That was fine. I would still technically be a Martial Master. I wasn’t sure if even my System would recognize such an advancement, but this would meet the basic definition of having formed two meridians.

I began cultivating for advancement, and in only an hour, both of my torso meridians were complete, and I advanced to what could charitably be called Martial Master 1.

I spent another eight hours cultivating and reached Martial Master Peak. At least, I called it Peak Master. I had all twelve meridians in my body. They were unusable, but they did exist.

With my advancement complete, I returned to the others. They were still working diligently at practicing this new technique so that they wouldn’t mess it up.

“Alright,” I said, looking at them. “I’ve advanced to Peak Master. Now, we just need to get you all there too.”

They looked at me in shock as I explained the plan.

“You do realize that Instructor Sun didn’t promise us pills to purge this cultivation, right?” asked Shi YuLong warily. “What if he doesn’t give us one after this test is over?”

I grinned. “That’s the best part. Because of how little qi is bound up in these meridians, and how loose the weave is, you will be able to disperse them easily. Don’t expect purging pills in the future. They are mostly for removing impurities. For removing meridians, you will have to slowly pick apart the weave yourself. Using such flimsy meridians will only make the process easier.”

While I wasn’t able to directly create meridians for the others, these pseudo-meridians didn’t take much time or practice to master. YuLong took the longest, but we were all able to create a full set of twelve meridians days before our two weeks were over.

A note from G Tolley

Dao of Cooking - [Xianxia-LitRPG]

When the system presented him with an opportunity to create spiritual dishes, Lei knew he had to become more than just a cook to do it justice.

After a life spent in horrendous kitchens, working under spiteful and pompous chefs, Lei had lost his passion for the one good thing in his life -- cooking. So when a car crash claimed his soul and hurtled it into a Xianxia world, complete with a cooking system that was anything but ordinary, Lei was more than excited to get to work.

But it turned out he had been chucked into a boiling pot, one filled with demonic cultivators, corrupt governance, and clues suggesting there was more to his reincarnation than met the eye. Lei has to make a choice: run away, leaving behind the kids who depended on him and his only friend in the city, or fight back using his overly spiritual dishes to cleanse the evil.

His recipes were about to stir up some magic.

Chapter 132 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

Our class went to apply for Master-level courses together and were greeted by the same woman who initially tested me for entry into the Academy.

“As your entire class has reached Peak Master, the school will permit you to continue to take courses for elite students.” I could hear a hint of sarcasm in her voice, but she tried not to let it show. “However, while it is permitted, to become elite Master-level students, you must also be selected by a Grandmaster and join their cohort. Your… choices of how to complete the final assessment may affect their decisions.”

This was slightly worrying, but Zhuge Yan spoke up to calm everyone.

“We understand. If a Grandmaster is unhappy with the way we completed the assignment, it wouldn’t have been a good fit for us anyway.”

The woman nodded in appreciation of this attitude.

“Very well. There are options for how you may proceed from here. Master and Grandmaster courses are divided into two five-year terms. You may attempt to enroll either as a group or as individuals. If you choose to enroll individually, your instructors will be core disciples of the Nine Rivers Sect near the end of their first term or at the beginning of their second term as Grandmasters of the Academy. They are experienced teachers with a proven track record.”

I looked at the others and spoke in the direction we were all thinking. “We would like to keep our class together.”

“If you enroll as a group, you may still be placed with an experienced core disciple, assuming there is one that wants your entire class as his cohort for the year. However, it is more likely that you will be placed under an inner sect disciple who is close to advancing to core. If you have a preference in this matter, it can be taken into consideration, but the choice is ultimately up to the Grandmasters themselves.”

We deferred to Zhuge Yan for this decision. “Other than the experience of the teacher, how do these two options differ?”

“With a core disciple, you will be one of their final Master cohorts, and after your first term, you will need to find a new Grandmaster to study under. They will be more experienced, but because of the change in teachers mid-way through your education, this is usually considered the inferior option.”

She mimed balancing scales with her hands.

“With an inner disciple, while they are less experienced, the quality of the education you receive will have a direct bearing on their advancement to core, so they have extra incentive to teach you well. As long as they advance to core disciple, you will retain this instructor throughout your Master-level courses. However, there is a risk that their ability will be lacking. This is not too different from the decision you had to make when first enrolling in the elite courses, but this time, your instructor won’t have someone above them monitoring your studies.”

We looked to Zhuge Yan for his decision.

He smiled. “We’d like to enroll as a group under an inner sect Grandmaster.”

He turned to us to explain. “We aren't just here to learn. We need to make connections. Being part of a Grandmaster’s primary cohort will be far more significant and will give us a firmer foundation when we enter the sect ourselves.”

After he was finished, the woman returned our attention to the enrollment process. “Once a Grandmaster selects your class as their new cohort, you will be informed. If none wish to do so, we will need to separate you and place you individually.”

“That shouldn’t be necessary.” Zhuge Yan looked confident.

“The fee for the first term is 2.5 million gold, 500,000 per year. Your enrollment will be processed once payment is received.”

The eyes of both JiaQi and LiTing shot open at this number. Chai JiaQi spoke hesitantly. “I… can’t afford that. My father expected me to only take the normal courses. Maybe I should—”

I put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’s not a problem.”

I looked at the administrator. “Do you accept spirit stones as payment?”

“Of course. At 900,000 gold per stone.”

I wrinkled my brow. “That’s a bit low.”

She shrugged. “You can try exchanging them in the city. Someone there will be willing to offer you the current exchange rate.”

I just shook my head. It wasn’t worth the trouble.

I reached into my storage space.

“12.5 million, so 14 stones with 100,000 gold left over, correct?”

She smiled. “The excess will be credited to your account.”

“Fang…” JiaQi was hesitant.

“That’s a bit much, man,” said YuLong with a chuckle.

“Don’t worry. It may be difficult for me to swing paying for everyone’s Grandmaster courses, but as long as it’s just this, I can manage.”

YuLong and the girls didn’t seem to think too much about my payment, just accepting it as me being overly generous. I also didn’t think the school would look into it too much. Based on my experiences, they seemed to take a hands-off, neutral stance on most things.

I just had to avoid Zhuge Yan’s assessing gaze. I wasn’t sure what all he knew, but I didn’t think he had anything on the level of the Ning Clan’s information network supporting him.

The woman behind the desk swept the stones into a storage bag.

“With payment received, we will now need to hold individual assessments to establish your personal goals as a Martial Master. If others would please wait outside, this needs to be done in private. Mister Su, we shall begin with you.

Once the others left and I was alone with the woman, she took out an affinity-testing orb.

“Let’s see if you have made any progress during the last few years.”

I widened my eyes. This wasn’t a good thing.

She smiled thinly. “You know how this works. Place your hand on it.”

I did so, following the normal routine, now wishing I hadn’t made certain purchases.

Like last time, when a mess of chaotic lines was shown, she tapped on the orb.

The lines transformed into the same nine images as before, but some of the colors had changed. There was also a strange static overlying everything.

She tapped the orb once more, but nothing changed.

“Strange…” She narrowed her eyes but quickly returned to her previous demeanor. “All of your basic affinities have advanced to peak six-star. This will be a firm foundation that may be of some benefit.”

She sunk into thought for several moments before speaking again.

“Based on your results thus far, if you wish to continue with the elite classes in your second term as a Master, your minimum requirement will be to raise at least two affinities to mid five-star within five years.”

“What? How?”

“The rewards for reaching Peak Master during the final assessment are enviable, but the cost is having to continue to excel. Your instructor will cover these issues with you when the time comes. I do not expect you will have much difficulty raising your earth affinity, but raising a second will be more difficult.”

She made a few notes on a piece of paper before looking back at me.

“If you wish to explain the oddities in your affinity test, you may qualify for additional benefits.”

“What oddities?” I forced my face to go blank.

She snorted. “You will not be penalized for them, but neither will you be rewarded until they are explained.”

I remained silent, so she dismissed me and called for Yan to enter.

We spent the next month undoing our cultivation and practicing properly. It was made clear to us that this would be a valuable use of the time.

As Martial Masters in the elite class, we were assigned a villa on a hill separated from the rest of the school. This villa was where we would eat, sleep, cultivate, and have general classes with our primary instructor. We would only need to leave for profession-related classes.

The building was empty of furniture when we arrived, with blank white walls and bare wooden floors. The only notable features were the large windows in most of the rooms that looked out on the surrounding countryside where we could see other private villas in the distance.

When we walked into the classroom for the first time, our instructor was already waiting for us. She was a young woman in her early thirties, though she looked to be only a year or two older than us. She had a small, slight frame and looked weak enough that any of us could easily defeat her. None of us were stupid enough to believe that.

“I’m Grandmaster Yuan TianYu. I’ll be your instructor from now on.” She spoke with a strict, harsh tone and gave us an appraising look. “You should know that most Grandmasters were wary of accepting your class. I only did so at the personal request of our shared Grandmaster, Ning ChenKun.”

“Welcome, Grandmaster,” we all replied in unison.

“Master Sun has told me about some of the peculiarities of your class, and I have been working with him to develop a training program that will best take advantage of the strengths you have presented. For now, we will focus on cultivation. Before you can practice any true Master-level arts, you need to develop a solid foundation as a Martial Master.”

She looked at me. “The school will not provide any formations or pills for this class. You must provide everything yourselves. Su Fang, you have already shown that you can construct a basic Qi Gathering Formation. I will need you to construct several around the villa so that everyone has access to them for both cultivation and practicing professions.”

She examined each of us. “Unfortunately, we do not have an alchemist among our number, so pills will be limited. This is not terrible. Having unlimited access to a formation will be far more beneficial for studying cultivation.”

She looked back at me. “If you can learn how to construct healing and rejuvenation formations, it would be very helpful once we start practicing combat. For now, it’s not overly important.”

She took out four technique manuals and handed them to my classmates.

“Everyone is using a high-level Rank 1 technique, so if you use a Low-Yellow Rank 2 technique, it will be difficult to practice martial or professional skills. These are Peak-Yellow. You will still have to be careful about not pushing too much qi through your meridians, but the foundation they provide will be sufficient for this first phase of training. Practice these techniques until you break through to Martial Master once more.”

She looked at me. “Let’s talk outside.”

In a separate room, we sat down at a table across from each other.

“I understand that you have a blessing that enhances your cultivation comprehension and were the impetus for your class’s ability to reach Peak Master previously. I’m assuming you will be able to create even Peak-Yellow meridians without any problems.”

She placed a manual in front of me. “Show me.”

I opened the cultivation technique and quickly read through its instructions. Then I held out my hand and created a practice Meridian following the pattern in the book.

The instructor nodded her head and took out several more books from her storage bag.

“You might not have anything to learn from a Yellow-Rank technique. These are four Low-Profound techniques that each work on different principles. One creates additional central meridians, one creates capillary meridians, one uses meridians of varying diameters to affect flow rates, and the last is an unusual technique that connects all the meridians into one large circuit to further enhance qi flow around the body.”

She patted the manuals as she continued.

“While the others are learning the basics of Rank 2 cultivation, you should study these. I have noticed that you are using a rather strange Rank 1 cultivation technique. I am not aware of the specifics of your technique or what benefits it may bring you, but as you practice, consider whether you should switch to a more conventional one.”

She paused while looking at me.

“You’re also only practicing a single-element technique. While it isn’t necessary, it would be easier to meet your personal requirement of raising two affinities to mid five-star if you were cultivating both types of qi. You should consider switching to a dual-element technique before we get too deep into the term and it becomes impossible to change. You can wait until after the first Trial to make your final decision on this, but if you are going to switch, it should be done before the second.”

“Thank you for your guidance, Grandmaster Yuan. I will think about what you have said. For now, I will continue exploring my current technique.”

The technique had several strange qi filters I hadn’t seen anywhere else, and I still didn’t know what they were for. Master Sun hadn’t been able to tell me, and it seemed like Grandmaster Yuan wouldn’t be able to either. I was extremely hesitant to give up on this technique with that mystery unresolved.

This could be a mistake, but it wasn’t an irrecoverable one. At worst, I would switch after this Trial she mentioned.

With new techniques in hand, the class and I practiced for six months until everyone had broken through to Master 1 with high-quality meridians. Finally, it was time to receive our reward for pushing our cultivation level so high during the assessment.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 133 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Master 1

The day after everyone finished advancing to Martial Master, Instructor Yuan had us gather in the classroom bright and early.

“At the beginning of the year, you were all given various assignments for raising your affinities.” Instructor Yuan walked back and forth at the front of the classroom as she explained. “While most of you no doubt have access to outside resources to help you meet these goals, you are not to use them. Doing so will result in the entire class being penalized. If anyone has already done so, speak up now and your assignment can be modified appropriately.”

She paused to let anyone speak up who needed to, but no one did.

“Very well, let’s continue.” She reached into her storage bag, took out a small clear vial, and set it down for all of us to examine. “Does anyone know what this is?”

I examined it closely. It contained the same energy I had seen in the chairs at the Ning Clan mansion.

“Some type of wood energy,” I stated, “but it’s strange.”

Everyone but Zhuge Yan shook their heads, so the instructor directed her attention toward him.

“Well?”

“It’s wood essence.”

She nodded and then looked at the rest of us. “Essence is what gives people affinities. We do not know if this energy is somehow stored in the body or if it is simply used up to change the body. What we do know is that essence cannot be recovered from a corpse, so we must assume it is the latter option. On the other hand, it is theorized that affinity testing orbs work by somehow measuring the amount of essence in the body, which would lend credence to the former explanation being correct.”

She picked up the small vial of essence and shook it. “In any case, the more of this you absorb, the higher your affinities will rise.”

Staring at the vial in her hands, I realized why the energy had seemed so familiar when I saw it in the Ning mansion. I had never seen earth or wood essence before, but I had seen fire essence. I had once used it to boost my fire affinity while sitting in a pool in the Twin Mountains Sect.

Instructor Yuan looked at Shi YuLong. “You are from the Empire of Eternal Winter, correct?”

“Of course,” he grinned.

“What is your water affinity?”

He froze.

“It’s… uh…” He looked down a bit embarrassed. “I don’t have one, not even low nine-star.”

Instructor Yuan nodded. “Do you know why?”

Shi YuLong’s eyes snapped to hers.

She continued. “Did you know that the crown prince of Eternal Winter has a peak four-star water affinity? The Saint allows each empire to harvest a single type of essence from within their domain. Eternal Winter harvests water essence. They use large, complex formations to gather all of the water essence in the empire and then pour it into their top prodigies.”

That was what had happened in Brilliant Sun, I realized. The imperial clan harvested earth essence and transferred it to their children through the clan Trials.

“The rules for kingdoms are a little laxer. Some may harvest essence of many different types, but they do not do so as thoroughly as most empires do. They leave enough for their populace to still occasionally gain a decent affinity with any of the elements.”

This was what Eight Flower had been doing with their Bagua Formation.

“Within the Nine Rivers Sect’s territory, you will find that no one is born with any affinities. They cannot be. The sect harvests all of the essence within its territory. They also impose a tax on any essence harvested by the empires and kingdoms throughout the continent. All of this essence is taken to the sect to help its disciples raise their affinities as high as possible.”

My face went blank as I processed what she was saying and why she was saying it. When I understood, a smile blossomed on my face. I knew what would come next.

“All members of the Academy’s elite classes are allowed to enter the sect’s Trials to compete for a share of essence. As you all reached Peak Master during your end-of-term Disciple assessment,” she rolled her eyes slightly, “you will be permitted to enter a Trial twice each year. This will be of great benefit to you, but it is also why you were all given more difficult requirements for remaining in these classes after this term is over. If you fail the Trials, you will receive very little essence and will end up being removed from these classes.”

Everyone was excited at the prospect, but I was the first to speak up.

“Can any affinity be raised in the Trial?”

“The sect is separated into different mountains for each element. Each mountain has a separate Trial. If you want to raise your earth affinity, you must enter the Earth Peak Trial.”

Shaking the vial in her hand again, she continued. “Upon joining the sect, you will be assigned to a particular peak. I am a member of the Wood Peak. As such, I cannot visit other peaks without special permission. Only students of Yellow Orchid Academy who have not yet joined the sect are afforded the luxury of freely choosing which Trial they wish to attempt.”

“Is there any reason to think about it?” YuLong laughed. “I’m just an earth cultivator. Why bother with anything else?”

“Remember the task you were assigned.” The instructor glared at him and then turned to explain further. “As a Martial Master, the Trial will only raise your affinity to a maximum of mid five-star. As your earth affinity is already above this level, entering the Earth Peak Trial will not increase it. There are other benefits to be gained from the Trial, but if you wish to work on your affinities, you will need to visit a different peak.”

“When do we go?” JiaQi asked. This was the question we all wanted the answer to.

“If there are no more questions, we will depart immediately.”

She looked around. No one wanted to delay the trip any longer than necessary, but Zhuge Yan spoke up to ask an important question we needed the answer to.

“What does this Trial involve? What do we need to do to get the most essence possible?”

“It will test your ability with the chosen element. Anything the Saint deemed important for someone with that element to know will be tested. The better you do on these tests, the more essence you will be awarded. As for the specifics, you will need to learn them on your own.”

Yan nodded in acceptance of this response.

“Anything else?” asked Instructor Yuan.

This time, no one spoke up.

“Then follow me.”

She led us out of our villa and took us on a winding path through the hills to a secluded building hidden deep within the territory of the Yellow Orchid Academy. She stopped in front of it and turned to face us.

She held up a small jade badge, showing it to us. “Never come here alone. Only members of the Nine Rivers Sect are permitted to enter, and only instructors at the Academy on official business are permitted to bring anyone with them. If you come here without a sect token, the formation that surrounds this entire area will kill you.”

Without waiting for a reply, she turned back and opened the door to let us inside.

There was only one room inside the small building. Its floors and walls were bare. The only thing inside was a stone archway.

The view through the arch was not simply the other side of the room. It opened out onto a small hill overlooking a sizable city at the base of an enormous mountain.

Instructor Yuan confidently walked through the arch and out onto the hillside where she waited for us to follow. We were all hesitant upon seeing this, but no one was willing to be left behind.

When I stepped through and out onto the dirt path leading away from the arch, I looked around at my surroundings. There were several other freestanding arches on the hill which should have led nowhere but instead led into other dark, windowless buildings like the one we had just left.

Standing there under the open sky felt surreal to me, and only the wind blowing through my hair convinced me that what I was seeing was real.

“These portals connect the Nine Rivers Sect to various places around the continent and are mainly used for recruiting and training disciples. You should feel honored. Only elite Yellow Orchid students are allowed to pass through them before joining the sect.”

She began walking toward the large city in the distance. As we followed, the ground seemed to pass under our feet at an unusual pace.

“This is Dragon Peak, the center of the Nine Rivers Sect.” Instructor Yuan explained as we continued walking forward. “If you wish to become a Sovereign in the future, all you have to do is climb to the top of this mountain and you will get your opportunity. Just don’t be too hasty. Very few can make it to the peak. Most die in the attempt.”

I wanted to say something, to ask a question, but it was too difficult to talk. We were traveling through some type of formation that was affecting our movements, and I had to spend most of my concentration on maintaining a steady pace forward.

Before I knew it, we appeared in front of a large arch that served as the entrance to the city. Across its crown, written in large gold embossed characters, was 龍生九子.

“The dragon has nine sons?” asked LiTing.

Instructor Yuan turned to us. “This is the motto of the Nine Rivers Sect. The Dragon has Nine Sons. For the sect to be successful, for it to fulfill its purpose, the sect must allow all types of people to enter. Warriors and crafters, merchants and beggars.”

She paused and looked at us intently. “All types. Including thieves and murderers. This is the City of Mortals. You will be protected while you are here, but once you leave, the sect is a dangerous place. Since you are all Academy students, this isn’t something you need to worry about for now. Just keep it in mind for the future.”

We followed the instructor as she guided us through the city.

As we walked, I felt it all looked a little odd. Everything looked… normal. People were walking around doing normal jobs. They were cleaning streets, hauling loaded carts, and repairing buildings. It didn’t look too different from Dragon Gate City. It certainly didn’t look like I had imagined the Nine Rivers Sect would look like.

When I checked with energy vision, the strangeness grew. Everyone was entirely mortal. They didn’t show even a hint of having cultivated.

“Everyone’s a mortal?” I asked, confused. “Are these people in the sect?”

That didn’t seem right at all, but I couldn’t understand the situation.

“These are civilians, not sect members. They are all descendants of current or former sect members. While most cultivators would rather not have children in a place where they would be born with no affinities, there are always people who don’t care.”

“Where are the sect members?” asked JiaQi.

“At their own peaks, higher up the mountain, or… elsewhere…” The instructor seemed nervous about elaborating further. “Usually, the only reason to come here is to trade with members of other peaks. For that, you would need to visit the economic zones designated for sect members. Most of the city, as the name implies, is for mortals.”

She pointed out a few more trivial things about the city, but that wasn’t the focus. We were swiftly guided to a large open plaza at the center of the city. A large pentagon was inscribed on the cobblestone ground, and at each of its points, there was a large stone arch. Outside the pentagon, a square was inscribed in the ground, and there were four more arches at its corners.

“This is the Gateway Plaza.” Instructor Yuan gestured at the arches. “These passageways will take you to each of the other nine peaks. Decide which affinity you would like to attempt to raise, and you may pass through the appropriate arch to visit that peak. Remember, once you become sect disciples, you will not be able to freely visit any peak other than your own.”

Without thinking, Zhuge Yan stepped forward. “Darkness.”

The instructor gestured to one of the arches on one of the outer square’s corners. Yan walked over to it, passed through the arch, and disappeared.

JiaQi chose metal and was likewise sent away.

Both LiTing and I chose earth. She because it may help enhance her metal qi abilities, and me because it was the primary qi type I was using.

“I’ll go earth too,” said YuLong with a grin.

The instructor looked at him with a straight face. “You won’t be able to raise your affinity for earth any higher as a Master.”

“You said there are prizes to be had other than affinities, right? I want to check those out first.”

Instructor Yuan just sighed and gestured for us to leave.

We tentatively walked up to the archway that led to the Earth Peak. All we could see was a hazy mist covering the passage, not the distinct image that we had seen through the arches outside the city.

“Well,” I said, mustering my courage. “Let’s do it.”

We stepped through and disappeared.

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Chapter 134 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Master 1

We stepped out onto a solid stone platform. Immediately a middle-aged-looking man approached us.

“Academy students?”

“Ye… Yes,” I said, slightly disoriented from the change in scenery.

We had moved from the middle of a bustling city to the outskirts of a small village surrounded by craggy, rocky hills. Instead of the city’s wide array of eclectic buildings, the village only had a few small stone huts.

The majestic Dragon Peak which had soared above the clouds had disappeared. The bounty of colors from its various features, such as the reds and greens from trees and shrubs to the blues and grays from creeks and rivers, were no more. It had all been replaced by a dull brown solid stone mountain that looked rather squat by comparison.

“Please come with me.” The middle-aged man gestured at one of the nearby stone huts.

Bewildered by our new surroundings, the three of us didn’t move.

“Is this the Earth Peak?” asked Shi YuLong. “Where are all the people?”

“Yes, it is,” the man confirmed. “Let’s get you registered first. Once that is taken care of, I can share a bit of information about the peak on our way to the Trial.”

Not wanting to delay matters, we put our questions aside and followed him obediently.

As we walked, I quickly checked his cultivation. He was a low-level Grandmaster. It felt a bit strange to see a Grandmaster being deferential to fresh new Masters. He was a Grandmaster in the Nine Rivers Sect. Did our position as Master-level Academy students somehow put us above him?

He brought us to one of the small huts near the archway and gestured for us to enter. Inside was a bored-looking young man with his feet up on his desk.

Our guide squeezed in front of us and waved us forward. “Senior brother, another group of students has arrived.”

The ‘senior brother’ waved lazily at us. “Instructor?”

“Grandmaster Yuan,” I answered.

“Names?”

“Su Fang, Lin LiTing, and Shi YuLong.”

He wrote something down on a piece of paper and threw it to our guide.

“Verify them.”

The guide ran out of the hut, and the young man turned his attention back to staring at the ceiling.

We waited in complete silence for several long minutes before the guide returned. When he did, he quickly handed another piece of paper to the young man.

“Take them to the Trial.” He waved us away as he dismissed us from his thoughts.

Our guide took us back outside and started leading us towards the base of the rocky mountain.

Once we were safely away, YuLong snorted. “That guy was a bit of a prick.”

The guide looked horrified at this and quickly shook his head in negation.

“Senior Brother Yang is a grade 2 outer sect disciple and has been growing quickly. He might rise to the inner sect during his next exam. We can’t afford to make him angry.”

“Is this what Instructor Yuan was talking about?” asked LiTing. “There are no rules in the sect, so he can kill anyone he pleases?”

Our guide once again shook his head. “That is only true on Dragon Peak, and to a lesser extent, the outer four mountains. The Peak Master of the Earth Peak is very strict about the rules here. It’s just that they are his rules, not the rules of the sect. Murder is not allowed here, but an inner sect disciple killing a servant disciple like me isn’t considered murder.”

We nodded silently in understanding.

“As Academy students, you have extra protections, but even if you don’t care about me, you should be careful not to anger anyone while you’re here. With the right connections, even an outer sect disciple can make your life miserable once you join the sect.”

Agreeing with his sentiment, I decided to ask about something else.

“Where is everyone? This place feels rather empty.”

The guide breathed slightly in relief at the change of topic before explaining.

“They’re around.” He gestured expansively to the surrounding landscape. “People only come to the Earth Peak to cultivate in seclusion, so they’re locked away in small caves everywhere around here.”

Looking closely at the landscape, I saw darker spots which might have been the caves he was referring to.

“The village has a store to purchase items from the peak and a place to arrange meetings and lessons, but that’s about it. You have to go to Dragon Peak if you want to see people just walking around or do any real trading.”

LiTing looked surprised. “So, everyone on the Earth Peak is just hiding out in some random cave?”

The guide chuckled.

“No, as I said, the only real reason to come here is to cultivate in seclusion. Most disciples are up on Dragon Peak or—” He paused abruptly, cutting himself off. “—elsewhere.”

He didn’t seem to want to say much more, so we quickly hurried on towards the base of the mountain where we were guided into an ornate cave opening. The passageway led downward, deep into the roots of the mountain. While it should have been dark, light was provided by a faint glow coming off the walls surrounding us.

The passageway ended at a small room where a stone archway provided a view into absolute darkness.

To the side of the arch stood an elderly-looking man. I checked him in energy vision, but he seemed to be nothing but a simple mortal.

“Place all storage items to the side.” The old man pointed at a shelf where two large bags already rested. “You’ll end up in a rather unhealthy state if you try to take them inside with you.”

We followed his order mechanically, but as I processed the statement, a twinge of fear shot through me. Was this Trial contained within a compressed space like a storage bag? What would happen if I entered while the storage space was in my soul?

I looked at the archway leading into darkness carefully. Something from my space affinity suggested to me that it was different from the portals we had passed through previously, but I couldn’t discern any details.

What if my storage space exploded within my soul when I passed through? Was that possible?

My thoughts raced as I tried to decide what to do.

“System,” I subvocalized, “what will happen to my soul if I pass through that portal?”

Cost 100 million credits.

Expensive, but did I have a choice?

“Purchase it.”

Purchase confirmed. 1,906,831,805 credits remaining.

Your storage space is located within your soul. The portal in question leads to an area of expanded physical space. Entering such an area will not affect your soul or anything inside of it.

That was good news. It opened up even more questions, but I wasn’t willing to spend the money necessary to ask them. I got the answer I needed for the moment.

After everyone had removed their storage items, we turned back to the elderly man.

“Can you tell us anything about the Trial? What are we supposed to do? How long will it take?”

“You have a maximum of one day inside, but you may exit at any time. In each room, you need only defeat your opponents to advance. Once they have all been destroyed, the way forward will open.”

I looked at my companions.

“Ready?”

LiTing gave a faint smile and nodded.

YuLong grinned widely. “Let’s do this.”

We stepped through into the darkness.

I appeared alone in a large cave. All the walls were solid stone, and there was only a single passageway leaving this chamber, but it was labeled ‘Exit.’ I had expected the other two to appear alongside me, but appearing alone wasn’t a complete shock.

Large stones were scattered everywhere, and a hulking two-meter-tall stone golem stood in the center of the cavern. It didn’t move. It only stood still as a statue in the middle of the room, but I was certain this was the first opponent I was supposed to defeat.

With the only instructions given being to ‘defeat your opponent,’ my first instinct was to barrel straight toward the stone monstrosity and try to destroy it with a powerful technique.

I quickly curbed this impulse.

I might be facing down a monster, but it wasn’t moving to attack me. There was no meaningful time limit, so I could spend a few minutes taking stock of my situation.

I looked around the room with energy vision, the walls, including the floors and ceiling, were covered in a soft haze. Whatever energies had been used to place me in this location and control the surroundings were completely hidden from me.

The stones scattered about the ground were completely ordinary with no traces of energy. This told me that I only needed to worry about the large stone golem in front of me.

Looking at it in energy vision gave me a far more interesting and detailed picture than normal vision had. It was a strange construction of countless different formations carved into several interlocking pieces of granite. Just one of its arms had over a dozen formations that controlled its movement.

In the center of its torso was what must've been the control center. It was encased in a thick wall of compressed stone. The tiny formations inside this core had threads of qi extending outward, connecting them to the arms and legs.

If I wanted to destroy this thing, the most direct method would be to destroy that central control unit in its chest. If the golem defended itself, that would be a difficult area to hit, but it would no doubt be the most effective. The only other option I could see would be to slowly disable it. First destroying its arms and legs, and only focusing on the control unit once the golem was completely disabled.

The stone the monster was made from was pure granite. By reinforcing my arm and fist, I might be able to break through it, but it wouldn’t be easy. Granite was weak to qi, but that didn’t mean it was easy to punch apart with qi-empowered fists. If I had a complete set of meridians, I would be able to transfer qi from around my body to sufficiently enhance the strength of my attacks. As a mere Martial Master 1, that would be incredibly difficult.

So, what should I do?

We had been told that this was a comprehensive test of everything an earth qi cultivator was supposed to know. The elder outside indicated that the test presented itself as pure combat, but that didn’t mean that I had to resort to fighting, there were other options.

How smart was this stone monster? When would it attack me? Without these answers, it would be difficult to form an ideal plan, but I would do my best.

I walked to a nearby stone and carved the most powerful Qi Gathering Formation I could into it without it breaking apart. Then, I moved around the room, quickly carving similar formations into several other stones. The goal wasn’t to create an area to cultivate. I wanted to quickly drain the room of as much qi as possible.

As I worked, the golem did nothing to stop me. Even when I approached it, it didn’t move. Once the ninth formation was up and running, there was almost no free qi left in the air.

At this point, I moved forward and attacked.

The stone monster responded by moving its arm back to take a large swing and knock me away.

Halfway through its motion, the giant locked up. It had run out of energy and couldn’t draw in any more.

Over the next several seconds, the countless formations throughout its body slowly began to dim until the creature dropped to the ground and fell motionless.

Not wanting to give it a chance to recover, I moved to its chest and started pounding it as hard as I could with my Mountain Destroying Fist.

It took me several blows just to make a crack in its armor. After over two dozen, the stone split apart, and the golem was put down permanently.

As soon as the monster was destroyed, energy flooded into the room. It wasn’t qi. It was essence. A few flickers of the essence touched my body and were quickly absorbed. The rest of it got trapped inside the various Qi Gathering Formations that I had set up around the room.

I went to the first one and simply allowed the essence inside to soak into my body. However, I was running low on qi after the fight, so at the second formation, instead of just collecting the essence, I sat down to cultivate and restore my energy. When I did, something strange happened.

Qi entered my acupoints as normal, but the filters and acupoints that had remained dormant ever since I had started cultivating this Peak-Earth technique finally came to life. As I cultivated, the essence in the formation was not absorbed directly into my body. It was instead pulled in through these acupoints.

That’s when I finally understood what I’d been using for the past several years. It wasn’t simply a qi cultivation technique. It was an essence cultivation technique. But what was its purpose? The instructor hadn’t mentioned anything about cultivating essence, and I didn’t know what effects it might have. Would it still increase my affinities?

Should I continue to cultivate it, or should I just let the essence absorb into my body as normal?

I could come back here at least 9 more times if necessary, so I didn’t feel any pressure to make the ‘correct’ choice. I could afford to do things wrong.

Simply absorbing the essence into my body was the normal, expected approach, but my cultivation technique was specially designed to absorb it into my acupoints. It might’ve been a waste, but I wanted to learn more about what this cultivation technique was doing and why it was doing it.

I decided to continue cultivating the technique. I quickly moved through the room, absorbing the remaining essence trapped within the various formations and sending it into my acupoints.

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Chapter 135 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Master 1

Once I was done absorbing all of the essence in the cavern, I turned my attention to the glowing formation that had appeared when I had finished off the golem.

I tried to study it and work out its secrets, but even with energy vision, it was like I could only half see it. The lines that formed it were disconnected, and so much was missing that what remained didn’t make any sense.

Giving up on the idea of stealing this knowledge for myself, I walked forward and stepped onto the formation. The room around me disappeared and was replaced with a nearly identical cavern.

I was standing near the passageway that served as an exit from the trial once again. This time, instead of just a single golem, there were two that I would need to defeat.

With the way I had claimed victory in the first room, the increased number of opponents posed no additional challenge. I repeated the exact same process, siphoning away all the qi and then engaging them carefully to drain their remaining energy reserves. They both fell to the ground without fanfare, and I brought an end to their existence.

Once they were both destroyed, essence flooded the room once more, and I cultivated to draw it all into my acupoints.

This pattern repeated in the next three caverns with the number of golems increasing each time. However, defeating five was no more difficult than defeating one. I just needed to create the formations and drain the room. The stone constructs posed no danger.

This made me wonder how my classmates were faring without the ability to build Qi Gathering Formations. They would likely end up having to fight these things in actual combat. I could only imagine the difficulty of trying to put down such creatures with only the strength of a Martial Master 1. I hoped they were doing well.

As I cultivated the essence that was my reward from defeating the fifth stage, I tried to understand what was happening with it. After the essence passed through my acupoints, it seemingly disappeared. The more I stared at my acupoints, trying to understand what was happening, the more I felt a twinge inside, like there was an itch I couldn’t scratch. Was that real, or had I just convinced myself I was feeling something? I didn’t know.

In the sixth room, I met my first true challenge. Once more, there was only a single golem in the cavern. It was smaller and looked more fragile than the ones I had ‘fought’ previously, but this time it didn’t wait around for me to drain away its energy.

Thirty seconds after I appeared in the cavern, it began lumbering toward me. It wasn’t overly fast, but if it struck me, I knew I would be in trouble.

I could have tried to use formations to siphon away the construct's power again, but needing to constantly move while continuously switching between constructing different formations felt like it would be too troublesome. I had a few other options I could use to fight these things, but I decided to demonstrate the combat techniques I had been learning over recent years.

Within an environment perfectly suited to earth qi cultivators, I used a movement technique to propel myself forward and into range of the hulking rock monster.

It swung its arm at me, but it was easy to dodge. I powered up my Mountain Destroying Fist and struck it in the chest with everything I could muster.

The stone of its torso cracked, and it was knocked slightly backwards. I took that moment to reset my balance and prepare for another assault.

This process continued for five more attacks. With each one, I would rush forward, strike with all my strength, and then retreat out of harm’s way.

On the sixth strike, the golem’s chest crumbled, and it fell to the ground limply. Even though these golems were slightly more fragile, needing to move and attack forced me to consume more qi than I had on my previous opponents.

Essence flooded into the room, and I created a quick Qi Gathering Formation to collect it so that I could easily cultivate to regain my energy more quickly.

As I rested, I thought about the trials to come. If I proceeded in the same manner, I would soon be facing up to five rock monsters at once. While taking one down was simple enough, it’d be much more difficult if five were attacking me at the same time.

I thought through the last fight and came to the conclusion that I was simply lacking power. I couldn’t put enough force behind my fist to swiftly end the creatures. If I could destroy a golem in a single hit, this trial would be much easier.

I only had about 20 more hours before I would be forced to leave. If I was going to do anything, I needed to be quick about it.

Using the abundant earth qi in the cavern, I began cultivating for advancement as fast as possible. This was surprisingly easy since the only energy in the cavern was earth qi and earth essence. This meant that I didn’t have to worry about any impurities. I just had to pull in energy as quickly as possible and then form it into meridians.

I didn’t have time to do anything fancy, but I was able to create a basic Low-Yellow meridian extending from my torso and into my right fist. It wouldn’t do much, but it would allow me to impart a bit more qi into my attacks.

The other thing I did was open my storage space, surreptitiously take out the Profound-Rank wood-element spirit fire that I bought in South Gate City, and absorb it into my body. If anyone were watching, there wouldn’t have been much to see in normal vision. If they were staring at me in qi vision, however, they would’ve seen something very unusual take place as I expelled the Cold Mountain Fire and absorbed the new flame. I could only hope that I wouldn’t be penalized for it.

With preparations in place and only 10 hours left on the clock, I moved on to the seventh chamber. I was faced with two golems that only waited a few seconds before moving to attack me. With new strength in my right arm, I punched out and slammed my fist into the first golem’s chest. The first strike wasn’t enough to put it down completely, but two more hits did the trick.

I hadn’t gained as much strength as I’d been hoping for, but it would have to do.

In the eighth chamber, I was faced with four golems at once. This was far more difficult to deal with, and I only barely managed to put them down using my fighting techniques.

After recovering, I entered the ninth chamber where I had to face eight of the stone monstrosities. There was no chance that I would be able to defeat them with only my martial prowess.

Tacking to a new course, I approached the nearest golem, quickly created a spear of wood spirit fire, and stabbed it directly into the thing’s core. The creature fell to the ground immediately. As the golem fell, I pulled back on the fire, reabsorbing it before it could dissipate.

Then, I turned around and stabbed a second spear into the next golem which had already closed in enough to ready an attack. Like the first, it fell to the ground motionless.

I backed off, giving myself room before I had to face the next six opponents. Spirit fire was incredibly powerful in this situation, but using it to stab my enemies with fiery spears was extremely draining.

Refocusing, I used my wood affinity to clamp down on the spirit fire. The spears were wasting a lot of energy because they were too large. I concentrated on creating the thinnest needle-like spear that I could. Using these long needles, I was able to down the remaining six golems, but I was entirely spent at the end of it. If I had to face sixteen of them in the next room, I didn’t believe that I would be able to emerge victorious.

I set up another Qi Gathering Formation and quickly absorbed energy to refill myself as quickly as possible. Because of the sheer abundance of earth qi, and the fact that there were no impurities in it, my reserves filled up at a remarkable pace. I was completely restored in only two hours.

As I was about to step onto the formation to enter the next cavern, an idea popped into my head, and I knew what I would have to do to defeat the next stage of this Trial.

Instead of entering the formation, I looked around the room for a rock large enough to hold a formation but small enough that I could easily carry it in one hand. After picking the perfect stone, I inscribed the best Qi Gathering Formation I could into it.

Stone in hand, I stepped onto the glowing teleport formation.

In the tenth cavern, I was indeed confronted with sixteen of the stone creatures. Quickly moving to the first two, I stabbed with small needles of wood spirit fire and destroyed them.

Then, I backed away, moving around the room to keep out of the range of my other opponents.

As I did, I cultivated, restoring the energy I had expended. This was something I had practiced during my first life in South Gate City, cultivating while actively engaged in another task. It wasn’t a great idea to do this since it usually led to pulling in a large amount of impurities, hurting one’s foundation. But in this cavern, there were no impurities. There was only perfect earth qi, so I was free to cultivate without worry.

It took me several minutes to restore a good portion of the energy I had used in that first attack. When I felt that I had recovered sufficiently, I moved and struck out at two more golems, all the while moving around to stay out of range of the others.

This hit and run tactic worked well, but it took up a lot of time. It was over four hours after I had entered the room when the final golem fell.

At that point, my energy was completely exhausted, so I sat down to cultivate. As I did, I examined the essence as it entered my acupoints once more. This time, I was sure I was feeling something. Was it the feeling of my earth affinity slowly growing? I couldn’t be sure. While I had increased my affinities in the past, I had never done it slowly like this before.

Recovering my energy took two hours. When I was done, I estimated that I had less than thirty minutes left before I would be forced to leave.

Even if I couldn’t defeat the eleventh cavern, I still wanted to at least see what was waiting for me.

I stepped onto the formation that should have teleported me to the next stage, but the room around me only seemed to flicker. I began to think that something might’ve gone wrong. That was when a large stone boulder flew through the air, barely missing my head and crashing into the ground beside me.

Pelted with shrapnel, I looked around in a panic, but I didn’t see anything. Then, I looked up and saw that the ceiling had risen several meters. There was now a ledge encircling the entire combat arena. Standing on top of that ledge was a new variant of stone golem, and it was lifting up another boulder, preparing to hurl it at me.

I began running, not wanting to be standing still when that stone was sent flying.

Ideas flashed through my head about how to handle this situation. Trying to climb a sheer rock wall to confront the thing openly would be difficult while it was throwing stones at me.

Deciding on my course of action, I reached into the ground and pulled. Earth walls sprang up one after another at increasing heights, forming a crude stairway. I stepped onto the wall closest to the ground and began leaping from one to another, quickly climbing up to the ledge.

Once I was there, the fight was easy, and I was able to quickly spear the golem through the chest with my spirit fire.

I sighed in relief and regret. While I wanted to continue to the twelfth cavern, I knew that it would be a bad idea. Trying to survive while two of those things were throwing stones at me would be incredibly difficult at my current level.

Besides, there wasn’t much time left to do that anyway.

I cultivated all the essence remaining in the room, stood, and then headed for the exit.

When I appeared outside of the Trial, I saw YuLong and LiTing already waiting for me.

“Have a good vacation?” asked YuLong with his customary grin. “We’ve been waiting for you for hours. What took you so long?”

I was about to respond when I registered what I was looking at. YuLong had a massive war hammer propped up against his right shoulder.

“What is that?”

He patted the hammer contentedly. “You guys might’ve gotten essence, but I got this, a Rank 2 refined war hammer. Got a simpler one for defeating the fifth stage, and it let me easily handle everything up through the tenth, where I got this baby. Putting down those rock monsters would have been impossible without it. No shame if you couldn’t get that far.”

He looked a bit smug, but I wasn’t going to burst his bubble by telling him I had managed to get further than he had.

“Everyone’s returned. Good.” Our guide appeared and gestured for us to follow. “With the Trial over, it is time for you to leave the sect.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 136 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Master 2

Upon returning to the Academy, Instructor Yuan took us each into a room individually for private discussions.

After I sat down across from her, she took out an affinity testing orb and placed it on the table between us. Without needing any guidance, I placed my hand on it and inserted my qi. Once she tapped it with her finger, the chaotic lines resolved into the exact same nine images as the last time I had been tested.

“You weren’t able to raise your earth affinity to five-star?” She raised an eyebrow as she looked at the orb. “This is going to be a problem. If you couldn’t even succeed at the Earth Peak Trial, it’s going to be impossible for you to raise an affinity with a qi type that you’re not cultivating.”

Her face took on a grim cast, and her tone turned severe.

“JiaQi and LiTing had their own rude awakenings and are currently in the process of deciding if they want to switch to dual-element cultivation techniques, but they at least already have their primary affinities high enough. If you couldn’t get past the tenth stage of the trial on this attempt, then you’re going to need at least three or four more just to raise your earth affinity sufficiently. If you want to raise a second affinity, it’ll take at least two or three times as many attempts.”

I wanted to justify my efforts. “Once I cultivate further into the Master realm, it will get easier. I was held back by my lack of meridians. The early stages would be much easier if I could pull qi from everywhere in my body.”

She snorted rudely. “The Trial gets harder as your cultivation increases. With a higher level, yes, you would be more powerful. It would help you, but you should only expect an increased cultivation level to help you complete a few more stages at best.”

The instructor’s assessment struck me hard. I wanted to continue studying my current cultivation technique, but destroying my prospects in this life might not be worth it. However, one thing she said stuck out to me.

“Tenth stage?”

“Yes. To raise your affinity from peak six-star to low five-star takes the total essence you would gather from stages one to ten. To achieve mid five-star, it will take the total essence from stages one to thirty. If you leave the trial earlier, that essence stays with you, so you won’t lose anything, but leaving early means it will take more total trips. If you can only get to stage six, it’ll take you two trips just to break through to low five, and if you want to get to mid five, it’ll take at least half a dozen more.”

I tried to make sense of what she was telling me. “So, if I had beaten the tenth stage, I should have gotten enough essence for a low five-star affinity?”

“Yes.” Her eyes narrowed, and she took on a vaguely threatening posture.

I sat there and quickly drummed my fingers on the table. If the essence hadn’t improved my earth affinity, what had it done? Was it still usable in some way?

I had to ask the instructor. “Have you ever heard of a cultivation technique that absorbs essence?”

The arms of her chair creaked ominously as she squeezed them.

“That’s why your technique is so strange? It’s a godsdamned essence cultivation technique?”

I looked at her with hope. “Do you know about them?”

“I have never seen one… I had never seen one. But of course I have heard of them. It’s just that no one in the sect is dumb enough to use them.”

A trace of worry shot across my face.

“It’s not that bad.” She sighed and shook her head. “You just need to stop using it and get a new technique. I believe you still have some Rank 1 tokens for the library left. Use them to get yourself a decent cultivation technique.”

I nodded but wanted to know more. “What’s wrong with it?”

“They’re good if you’re out in the wilderness where there’s free essence everywhere. Cultivation techniques with essence filters will let you cultivate normally while also slowly increasing your affinity over time. For a lot of people on the continent, that kind of technique would be a godsend. But you are in the Academy and should be joining the sect in the future. You don’t need to rely on slowly cultivating wild essence to improve your affinity.”

“It would still help though, wouldn’t it?”

She seemed amused at the question.

“The key word was ‘slowly.’ For whatever reason, if you cultivate essence, it takes ten times as much of the stuff to raise an affinity. The amount of essence you get for beating each stage increases the higher you go, but if you want to get a low five-star affinity while cultivating essence instead of simply absorbing it, you will have to reach at least stage 60. Simply put, not only are you weaker than someone with a cultivation technique more focused on improving their qi in some way, but you will also have to consume far more resources to advance. Get yourself a better technique. Preferably a two- or three-element one.”

“I… I will consider it…”

I did not want to change my technique. I needed to keep cultivating essence. If it took ten times as much energy to raise my affinities as normal, what did that mean? It shouldn’t make them better in any way, right? The instructor would have mentioned it.

Ten times the cost when cultivating essence instead of absorbing it normally. Would that make the improvements permanent? I had to know. Asking the System only got me a demand for an outrageous number of credits, so if I wanted an answer, I would have to figure it out myself.

After everyone’s debriefing with Instructor Yuan, we gathered together without her to discuss how we should prepare for future Trials.

“Weapons.” Shi YuLong patted his new hammer. “You all need to get yourselves some weapons. You wouldn’t believe how much of a difference a good hammer can make for breaking apart stone.”

I looked around at the group. “Does anyone know what the rules are for taking weapons into the Trial? We couldn’t take our storage bags, but would weapons be allowed?”

Zhuge Yan nodded. “I asked the elder at my Trial. Anything we make can be taken inside, but it has to be made by someone in our class. No outside pills, weapons, or armor will be permitted.”

No one wanted to put Lin LiTing on the spot, her profession was officially a secret, but it had been obvious for years.

She squirmed in the silence that filled the room as we considered how to proceed.

“Maybe I could—”

“No.” Zhuge Yan cut her off sharply. “If all of us show up to the next Trial with refined weapons, it will be obvious to everyone what happened. If we want weapons, we should try to earn them through the Trials openly. If anyone has an affinity above mid five-star, it might be worth using your next attempt to pick up equipment from that Trial.”

LiTing sunk down in her chair.

“What about regular, mortal weapons?” I asked. “Do we have to make those ourselves, and if we do, will doing so be problematic?”

Yan looked frustrated. “Yes, we do. As for whether they will cause similar problems, it’s hard to say, but I would lean toward being more cautious than not. How many people would easily accept that a cultivator is just a mortal weapon smith?”

I didn’t want LiTing to worry too much about the situation, so I changed the topic.

“What did you two face in your Trials?” I asked Yan and JiaQi. “You haven’t told us yet. We had to fight those damn rock monsters at the Earth Peak, but maybe another Trial would be easier without a weapon.”

“I had to cut things,” JiaQi grumbled. “Nothing to fight against. Well, nothing to fight against in the stages I was able to get through. Just cutting. I was able to use a water blade to get the job done early on, but once I was out of qi, I was finished.”

“Illusions,” responded Yan. “The first ten stages were all about escaping through various illusions. Since no one was controlling them, I’m guessing they were created by formations, but that knowledge didn’t help me much. I was able to struggle through to the tenth stage, but then I started getting attacked by enemies I couldn’t see, so I had to retreat.”

It was good intel, but what could we do with it?

“I can work to create some formations,” I offered. “We can all take them inside with us during the next Trial, but it will take time to design something that can help us. I know you all don’t like talking about your professions, but…”

LiTing sunk back a little further, having already gotten a response to any offer she could make.

JiaQi was the first to volunteer an idea. “I’m studying taming, but there is very little I can do at this point, so don’t expect me to gift you your own flame tiger or anything. I might be able to get us some small animals to help detect hidden opponents. I don’t know if they will be able to see through illusions, though. I’ll have to look into it.”

Yan shook his head. “I’m studying to be an illusionist. We might be able to work together to design some formations in the future, but I don’t have the skill to do much yet, and there is nothing I can provide others with.”

YuLong smiled. “Fang already had formations covered, so I didn’t need to think about that. I’m more of a fighter anyway, so I wanted one of the secondary professions. Went with talisman artist, not that it will help. I barely qualify to make Rank 1 talismans, and those won’t do much for us.”

Zhuge Yan put both hands flat on the table and looked at us. “Alright. Our profession lessons are starting back up tomorrow. We can discuss this with our teachers and see if they can offer any insights. If they aren’t willing to say anything directly, try to focus on topics that you think will help. And remember, even if something doesn’t seem valuable now, it might help in a different element’s Trial.

As we were preparing for profession training, Instructor Yuan informed us that, as Masters, we would need to begin specializing.

Instead of simply studying general knowledge of formations, I was supposed to pick a subtopic to focus on, such as permanent formations, disposable formations, or grand formations. I would still learn the basics of everything, but my true depth would be in my chosen specialty.

I wanted to choose spatial bags as my specialization. That was by far the most important topic to me. However, I was informed that ‘spatial bags’ was considered a rather low-class specialization. There simply wasn’t much depth required to master it.

At the instructor’s urging, and with my need to create something useful for our trials, I went with specializing in disposable formations. Master Tan’s explosive formations had left an impact on me, and if I could create something even more powerful, passing through the Trial would be simple.

Still, since mastering spatial bags was supposed to be ‘easy,’ I asked Instructor Yuan to arrange a few lessons with a formation teacher who specialized in it so that I could find out what I needed to know. She wasn’t happy about it, but she begrudgingly agreed to do so ‘later.’

My first lesson on Rank 2 formations was with Grandmaster Qin, and it was to cover the topic of disposable formations in more detail. I had thought about our conversation for ideas that could help us during the Trial and wanted his help to learn how to implement them.

“So, my idea is to have a prepared formation stone containing the earth wall technique that I can throw out to create a quick staircase. That’s just an example, but it’s the essence of what I want to accomplish. Encasing techniques into formations that I can throw out during a fight.”

Grandmaster Qin smiled at my description. “That is the essence of the disposable formation specialty, but you have to understand its limits. If you want to have a formation create a staircase, you will need a filter so that it only collects earth qi, a way to target different parts of the ground in a specific order, a variable method for controlling power output toward different targets, and several more components. This can be done, but it will be an exceedingly complex formation.”

He took out a fist-sized carved stone and placed it in front of me. “This is an Earth Spike Formation. Throw it out and it creates a spike of earth wherever it lands. It’s simple. Disposable formations are a lot like talismans. Use them once and then they’re gone. You don’t want to spend days working on a one-time-use formation. Usually, at least.”

I thought about it, but I liked my idea. Maybe it was just that ‘disposable formations’ wasn’t the right specialty for me. “I can still make something like that and just pick it up after so that it’s not a one-time-use item. It would still be useful.”

“You can, and it might be a good idea to keep something like that with you in the future, but you are looking to pass the Earth Peak Trial, right? That kind of formation will be difficult to take with you. That formation, with all the parts it would require, would need a large chunk of stone, and that’s something you don’t want to be carrying around without a storage bag if you don’t have to. Better to just use some Earth Spike Formations at different power levels and learn to jump between them.”

He tossed out a small rock, and when it hit the ground, a spike of earth burst forth.

“The advantage disposable formations have over talismans is that as long as you only inject a small amount of energy into one, the formation will not be destroyed, so you can use it again. The formation stone will only shatter if you use it at full strength. The drawback to this is that disposable formations have a lower peak output than an equivalent talisman.”

“That… could work.” I considered the option. It still had one big problem, though. “What about different Trials? If I go to the Fire Peak Trial, there won’t be any earth qi for the formation to draw upon.”

A look of chagrin crossed the Grandmaster’s face. “With your wide array of affinities, you have a few advantages in that regard that the rest of us don’t. I can teach you to translate martial techniques into formations, but you will have to then use that knowledge to take techniques of other elements and create new formations out of them yourself.”

This… This could be the excuse I needed to check out the other libraries without raising suspicion.

“When do we start?”

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Chapter 137 – Life 66, Age 21, Martial Master 3

Over the next few months, I dispersed the meridian I had formed during the Earth Peak Trial and followed a Profound-Rank technique focused on variable meridian diameter to form two new ones. I wanted to experiment with the benefits and drawbacks such a design would have.

During this time, I also studied how to transform some basic earth qi techniques into disposable formations that any of my classmates would be able to throw out and activate. The goal was to learn to design things that could let any of them easily pass through the early levels of any Trial.

At the course’s nine-month mark, we had a martial competition against one of the regular Master-level classes. They had all advanced to Martial Master 5 or 6 while we were languishing at only 2 or 3. This gave them confidence that they could easily overcome us, but as soon as the fighting began, the value of our elite training showed itself.

LiTing, our weakest fighter, was able to easily crush her opponent. The boy tried to use qi to shield himself from her attacks, but his barriers were so rough and flimsy that they could barely slow her punches of concentrated energy.

She could have won with a single hit, but she took time to experiment on the poor kid.

The rest of our opponents fell just as quickly, and we were each rewarded with a Rank 2 library token for helping teach that class about the difference in strength that comes from rigorous training.

While the others went to grab skills that would help them in their Trials, YuLong gave his token to me. I used both his and mine to purchase entry into the Rank 2 fire libraries for both martial and cultivation techniques. While I exited the building with only one technique of each type in my hands, I had a smile on my face and all the knowledge in both libraries safely stored away.

I spent the following three months dedicated to creating several different simple disposable formations around the fire techniques I had acquired. When it was time for our second Trial, I gave YuLong a large backpack filled with formation stones. He and I were both aiming to take on the Fire Peak, and I had prepared many contingencies for what we might face there.

The others were entering the Water, Metal, and Dark Trials. I couldn’t help them this time, but I would try to do so in the future.

YuLong’s reason for challenging the Fire Peak was simply that he had gotten as much as he could expect to get from the Earth Peak for now and needed to work on a second affinity. Since he was studying talismans, I expected he would want to raise his lightning affinity, but he said it didn’t matter. He would be able to get further with help from my formations, so he gave me his token and decided to go wherever I did.

I expected the Fire Peak Trial to at least resemble the one from the Earth Peak, but I was sorely mistaken. The elder at its entrance told us that we would appear in a long corridor, and we would only need to walk to the end of it to pass through to the next stage. Going back the way we came would allow us to exit the Trial.

Upon entering, I appeared in an old lava tube. Light emanated from the cave walls, giving the place a hazy reddish cast. No ‘test’ immediately presented itself. Before beginning my trek forward, I turned on energy vision and saw the situation more clearly.

Starting a meter in front of me, the lava tube was chock full of fire qi. If I stepped forward, I might not be burned alive, but I wouldn’t have a very pleasant time of it.

Among the formations I had prepared was a heat shield that I could use as protection in this kind of environment, but for this first stage, I was able to easily bull my way through by relying on my peak six-star affinity.

Once I reached the end of the tunnel, a glowing white formation appeared on the ground, but before I could step on it, I was bombarded with fire essence.

I didn’t cultivate it. I couldn’t have even if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to. I was here to raise my fire affinity as high as I could so that I would have as many chances to permanently advance my earth affinity as possible.

The following four stages maintained this setup. The only additions were small crevices with a few fire-based herbs growing in them. These were the ingredients necessary for concocting basic Rank 2 Fire Resistance Pills.

I could have used such pills to help me progress, but instead, I relied on a Heat Shield Formation. In normal use, this wouldn’t be considered a ‘disposable formation’ at all, but if the fire qi and temperature started to rise, the formation would activate in overdrive mode, protecting me while burning itself out.

In the sixth through tenth stages, creatures that looked like human adults made out of solid flame started to appear. The only goal was to get to the end of the lava tube, so if I had been capable of executing a fire-based movement technique, I should have been able to simply run past them.

As an earth cultivator, I did have movement techniques that could help me in this kind of situation, but I preferred not to use them. There was no earth qi in this Trial, so any of it that I spent was not coming back, and I might need it in later stages.

Instead, I dealt with these elementals the same way I had dealt with the fire construct during my final fight as a Disciple. I used basic Qi Gathering Formations to trap them in place long enough for me to run past.

On the first few stages where I faced off against them, this wasn’t much of a problem since I had carried several such formations into the Trial with me. However, the number I could carry was ultimately limited. Starting on the ninth stage, I had to forcibly take control of the environmental fire qi and use it to carve formations into the rock walls. This was difficult and time-consuming, but it was the only way I could think of to save my precious resources.

Still, the elementals themselves weren’t much of a problem. What was worse was that they caused the heat in the corridor to soar. As I ran through the lava tube, I had to rely on both my Heat Shield Formation as well as pushing the excess fire qi away with my affinities.

When I reached the end of the tenth corridor, I was drenched in sweat and exhausted. It had taken me several hours to reach this point. I was behind the pace I had wanted to set, but I still had to take a moment in the peace at the end of a stage to collapse to the ground and rest.

As I did, essence flooded into my body, and I felt something snap. Fire energy welled up within me.

I looked at the dense fire qi further down the corridor and waved my hand. I was able to control it effortlessly. My fire affinity had improved to low five-star.

When Instructor Yuan was calculating the time it would take me to get enough essence for a mid five-star affinity, she made one important mistake. She considered it my ‘secondary’ affinity and based her numbers on earth being my ‘primary.’ While I had indeed spent the last few years focused on earth and formations, it didn’t compare to my centuries with fire and alchemy.

While I had avoided alchemy in the academy to both fit in and not be railroaded down that path, I didn’t have such concerns within the Trial. The instructor’s comments after my first visit convinced me that few people knew what happened inside. Those that would know were concerning because they would be people with both martial and political power, but I wanted them to know more about my capabilities. It might open more doors.

In the eleventh stage, herbs of every element started to appear. There was also a crude rock outcropping at the entrance to each stage that could serve as a rudimentary alchemy cauldron.

These Trial stages were puzzles with countless answers, some intended, some not. If a person were weak in one area, they would be able to solve the stage through other means.

My knowledge of Master-level alchemy was not perfect. The System had given clear evidence of how much more I had to learn. However, I knew far more than the designers of this Trial had anticipated.

I still didn’t want to expend my personal qi until I had to, but such a thing was unnecessary anyway. There was a bonfire of qi around me, and with my new and improved fire affinity, it was easy to control it enough to concoct a few slapdash pills. Their efficacy wasn’t anything impressive, but they were cleansed of impurities, so they were good enough.

Relying only on various hastily made concoctions, I was able to easily rise from the eleventh to the twenty-sixth stage in a little over twelve hours. I wasn’t sure exactly how much time I had left, but it was between four and five hours.

At the twenty-sixth stage, the size of the lava tube expanded. The atmospheric fire qi intensified, and it was excited into a state where it was putting off overwhelming levels of heat.

Even just doing simple alchemy at the beginning of the stage was difficult because the excessive environmental qi wanted to corrupt anything I tried to create. I had to modify a Qi Gathering Formation to form its normal qi barrier, but instead of pulling energy from outside and making the qi inside denser, it pulled qi from inside and expelled it out.

This let me work, and I concocted every pill I expected to need through to the thirtieth stage.

Instead of being able to just run through these tunnels, I was beset by large wolves that looked like hellhounds and had to defend myself. I couldn’t easily trap them, so I was finally forced to use my earth qi to fight them. I wasn’t worried about finishing them off, though. I only spent as much energy as needed to knock them aside so that I could continue rushing further down the corridor.

When I reached the end of stage thirty, I had no desire or time to continue further. I just slumped to the ground to rest as the final minutes of my timer ticked away.

Essence filled me, and for the second time that day, I felt a snap as fire welled up within my body and my affinity reached mid five-star.

When it did, a voice echoed out from every wall of the lava tube.

“You have reached the maximum potential of the Master-level Trial of the Fire Peak. You may continue forward to test yourself, but you will receive no more benefits from this Trial. As you have passed the thirtieth stage on your first attempt, you will be rewarded based upon the manner in which you did so.”

A small dark iron alchemy cauldron appeared in front of me. It was elegantly designed with several flowing images of mythical beasts on every surface. At a glance, I could see that they were composed of several miniature formations, but I couldn’t easily work out their purpose.

As I examined it, the voice spoke up once more.

“This is a restricted item. You are not allowed to remove it from the lands of the Nine Rivers Sect. If you do so, you will be killed.” The voice paused briefly to let the message sink in before continuing. “Seek out new challenges at the other peaks to test yourself.”

I wanted to take the cauldron and hide it away in my soul space so that no one would see it, but doing so would have been a grave mistake if I was being watched. I picked it up and carried it out of the Trial openly.

Outside, Shi YuLong was waiting for me.

“Why do you always take so long?” he asked in an annoyed tone. “I was out of there after only a few hours. How the hell can you spend so long inside when you can’t even cultivate? You need to learn to admit defeat and just leave early like I did.”

As he talked, I noticed the left eye of the elder guarding the Trial’s entrance twitch in annoyance, but he didn’t say anything.

YuLong seemed oblivious to the cauldron I was holding, so I slipped it into my storage bag without comment. After that, we returned to the Academy.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 138 – Life 66, Age 21, Martial Master 3

During my debriefing, the quick boost to my fire affinity seemed to only anger Instructor Yuan, and she once more called for me to change my cultivation technique. I again demurred. I wanted to see if I was right about it raising my affinity permanently.

After she gave up on trying to convince me to change my technique, she wanted me to talk through what I experienced inside the Trial. I knew this was her main job as our instructor, but I wanted to avoid talking about my alchemy ability, so I glossed over almost everything. Frustrated by my lack of cooperation, she angrily sent me away.

Once the meeting was over, I met with my classmates once more to discuss our experiences.

YuLong was sitting with a hangdog expression on his face. “The Fire Peak is hell. I was able to get through the first levels easily with Fang’s formations, but after that, there were things made out of pure fire. How am I supposed to smash something made out of fire!? I used the trap formations to get by the first few, but after that, I couldn’t do anything.”

I patted him on the shoulder to console him. “I’ll think about what I can do for you. I might be able to make something that will let you deal with those creatures better next time.”

Zhuge Yan shook his head. “Don’t bother. The Trial changes each time you go in. At least, the Dark Peak Trial changes. Use what you learned to think of new strategies, but don’t focus too much on creating solutions for only what you saw this time.”

I nodded in agreement and then turned to LiTing and JiaQi. “You two went to grab some treasures, right? Get anything good?”

JiaQi’s face broke out into a grin, and she placed a large egg on the table.

“Not sure what she is, but she was my reward for clearing ten stages. Hopefully she grows up fast enough to help me with the Trials, but even if not, she’ll still be a strong beast in the future.”

YuLong cocked his head to the side. “How do you know it’s a she?”

JiaQi blinked. “Because I’m a girl.”

I had nothing to say to that, so I turned to LiTing.

“Get anything good?”

Her face was anxious, but she took out her trophy.

It was a hammer.

It wasn’t a war hammer. It was a smith’s hammer.

YuLong grinned approvingly. “That will help you in the Earth Trial.”

“Just make sure no one sees it,” said Yan. “You should use it to your advantage but try to hide it from everyone other than the Trial’s elder. I don't think you could sneak it past him.”

I looked at LiTing’s worried face and decided to come clean about my spoils as well. I place the alchemy cauldron on the table.

“LiTing, can you take a look at this? I got it from the Fire Peak Trial.”

They were all surprised, but JiaQi spoke first. “Your fire affinity was already five-star? Why are you cultivating earth?”

“No… I… I passed the thirtieth stage. This was my reward.”

YuLong slapped me on the back of the head.

“Why didn’t you say anything when I was moaning about how hard it was? Now I look like an idiot.”

I started to worry, but I could see that he was just having fun.

After studying the cauldron, LiTing spoke in a calm, measured voice. “This is a Rank 3 refined cauldron. I don’t know how good the formations are, you would know more about them than me, but they could be up to Rank 4. You should hide it. Pill Lords will kill for a cauldron like this. Even Kings might get jealous.”

“Thank you, I understand.”

If the sect was giving out treasures like this to Masters, they couldn’t be too rare there, but I well knew that Rulers in the outside world didn’t have access to such things. I pretended to place the cauldron into my storage bag, but I instead moved a large volume of gold and pill bottles into my bag from my storage space and placed the cauldron securely into the space in my soul.

After meeting with my classmates, I went to my room for a bit of privacy. There was something I was hoping to find out.

“System, how much would it cost to make my current fire affinity permanent?”

Processing… The cost of knowing this cost is 10 million credits.

That seemed strange… I had been told the cost of knowledge was based on the effect it would have on the flow of karma, or something like that.

I was already relatively certain I would be making this affinity permanent. I would need to buy it at some point anyway, and there was no reason to waste a discount if one was available. The only reason I might not do so was if there was no discount at all.

Was the System telling me there was no discount? That didn’t seem right. Was the cost only there because of my uncertainty? This also seemed questionable.

10 million was little enough that I was willing to splurge to see what the System was up to.

“Purchase the knowledge of the cost.”

Purchase confirmed. 1,896,831,805 credits remaining.

Cost of permanent mid five-star affinity is 325,056,129 credits.

The cost should have been 350 million, and the value of a temporary affinity would have been 35 million. So, it wasn’t a perfect conversion of the temporary affinity into a discount. A 25 million credit discount wasn’t much, especially when I just squandered 10 million of it, but I would take it.

The only slightly confusing thing was that it wasn’t an even 25 million. Why was there an extra 50 thousand tacked onto the price?

I shook my head and dismissed questions I couldn’t answer. Well, questions I didn’t want to pay to answer.

“System, make my fire affinity permanent.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 325,056,147 credits. 1,571,775,658 credits remaining.

I felt a shift in my body, but I didn’t pay much attention to it because I was distracted by the message about my purchase. Why did the cost increase?

“System, why did the cost increase?”

Unable to calculate the cost of the answer at this time.

This made me curse a bit, but there was nothing I could do about it. Likely, the answer was tied up in the secret of how essence affected the body to raise affinities.

I was potentially raising my earth affinity permanently, so it seemed like essence and affinities could somehow affect the soul. That was the only way I could think of to make affinities permanent. I could only guess that this purchase was discounted because it was taking free essence from my body and shoving it into my soul.

For some reason, when my cultivation technique was developed, it was made in such a way that it pulled the essence from the environment and pushed it into my soul instead of my body. For me, this resulted in its effects remaining after a reset, but for regular people, it seemed to only increase the amount of essence they needed to improve their affinities.

Possibly, this technique was designed like this because it was the only way to draw in environmental essence without it being purified first. It was also possible that drawing essence into the soul to raise affinities had some additional effect that I didn’t know about, making this method more desirable. It was even possible that the Earthly Dao had specifically seeded these techniques for me, or someone like me, to take advantage of.

I just didn’t have enough knowledge about how it all worked, and since the System refused to answer any questions on the topic, I would have to leave it for the future.

Putting the matter of essence and affinities to the side, I took out my new cauldron and studied it.

In energy vision, I could see that the thing was brimming with power, but I could only guess what it was all for. While I understood a few snippets of the formations, and even more looked somewhat familiar, they were so compressed and distorted that I couldn’t be sure. I would need to experiment to get a better understanding of what I was looking at.

After placing it back into my storage space, I tried to center myself. I had a lot of work to do, and that list seemed to only keep growing.

As our group focused on gaining the strength and knowledge to progress further in the Nine Rivers Sect’s Trials, time passed quickly.

During our third expedition, I chose to go back to the Earth Peak Trial but failed out on stage sixteen. The formations I was creating helped, but if I wanted to have any chance at locking in a permanent increase to my earth affinity through the Trial, I would have to do better.

The Earth Peak Trial should have been easier since I was able to cultivate to restore my energy inside, but that didn’t help too much in the end. The problem was the time limit. Cultivating to restore my energy was fine and all, but it ate up way too much time. Since I had to defeat enemies in this Trial, every level chewed through a good portion of my energy.

In my debriefing, Instructor Yuan didn’t even bring up my cultivation technique. She just talked me through the problems I had and tried to point me toward potential solutions. As she pointed out, and I already knew, my biggest problem was the rate at which I was burning through my energy. I could either try to use less of it or try to regenerate it faster.

I had kept my alchemy secret from my group, and I believed it was for good reason. But if I wanted to give myself, and them, the best chance of moving forward that I could, I needed to be more open about what I could do. We needed Qi Restoration Pills.

When signing up for this term’s classes, I had overpaid by quite a bit, and it was time to put the money that had been ‘credited to my account’ to use. A week after our third Trial attempt, I went into the city and used that credit to purchase a large quantity of herbs. After bringing them back to my room, I concocted a multitude of useful pills with my new cauldron.

I tried to use this time to figure out what the purpose of having a refined cauldron was and what the formations all did, but I wasn’t too impressed. The cauldron seemed to improve my ability to control energy and make it more efficient, but such things were completely unnecessary for me at this level. I would have to wait until higher ranks to see if the cauldron gave me any real benefits or not.

Considering Instructor Yuan’s previous words about it being good that we didn’t have pills to cultivate, I didn’t provide the group with any Meridian Builder Pills. Instead, I focused on making pills that would help us train at a higher intensity for longer, mainly those focused on healing and recovery. I also created a bevy of pills and formations that might be useful during our next Trial.

When I presented everything to the group, everyone, except Yan, was in shock.

“I guess that explains why you got a cauldron,” grumbled JiaQi.

“I did the best I could to think through several scenarios. Helping you all ‘cut’ better in the Metal Peak Trial was a little beyond me, but these should be sufficient for the other four central peaks.”

I held up a fist-sized stone with an alchemical glue on one side. Developing a glue that would stick to damn near any surface had taken far more time than creating the formation had. I didn’t know how to concoct a liquid or if it was even possible with this world’s alchemy, so I ended up grinding up a pill and mixing it with a natural resin.

“This is a shaped charge. I have them for all five basic elements. They are preloaded with qi, so you just have to push in a little more and they will go off. Use a wood charge on a rock monster. It should be an instant kill.”

“You know,” said YuLong, looking at the table full of items. “This feels like cheating. Isn’t the Trial supposed to be testing our abilities? Not sure that’s going to happen if we take all this stuff with us.”

Zhuge Yan smirked. “No. This is what they want. It isn’t a test of our ability to cultivate or fight. It is a test of our ability to progress and grow as cultivators. Do you think being friends with someone who is both an Alchemy Master and a Formation Master will give you a better chance to grow as a cultivator?”

He gave me a look of chagrin. “Just being in a class with Fang gives us an advantage both now and in the future. This is the outcome they expect. We are just using our classmate’s abilities to advance as far as we can.”

JiaQi looked at him. “So… it’s just about luck? Anyone placed in a class with the most talented student gets a free ride. And they want this outcome?”

Yan nodded. “Luck is a valuable commodity for a cultivator, but it’s more than just that. We aren’t here randomly. Both Grandmasters Ning and Yuan selected us to be in this class. This is also a test of their foresight in assembling such a group. Admittedly, I doubt they expected a single person to provide both pills and formations, but I am confident we are not the only class that has unique advantages in the Trials.”

The others were stunned at these words, so Yan continued. “I’m sure there is a ceiling to the amount of help we can get from Fang. Maybe they will only allow this in the Master Trials, but for now at least, this is what they are looking for.”

Those words resolved everyone’s doubts. Allowing us to move forward together with confidence.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 139 – Life 66, Age 22, Martial Master 5

Before my fourth Trial attempt, Yan made a suggestion. Unlike Instructor Yuan, he didn’t encourage me to give up cultivating essence, but he wanted me to get a safety net so that I didn’t have to worry if I failed to raise my earth affinity to mid five-star. His solution was for me to challenge the Wood Peak Trial.

None of us knew what the Wood Peak Trial would entail, so I had to prepare carefully.

Using both my Rank 2 token and one I borrowed from JiaQi, I entered the wood libraries and grabbed all of their techniques. I also took tokens donated by LiTing and Yan to enter the metal libraries.

To round things out, YuLong gave me two tokens to use on the water libraries. I didn’t need anything from there myself, but I wanted to try to use a water-based formation to help him with the Fire Peak Trial. Because of the qi situation in the Trials, the formations would have to be charged before entering. This meant he would only be able to use them a limited number of times, but some help was better than none.

At this point, I was feeling the limits of my ability to learn and develop new formations quickly enough. Master Qin was my ‘formations teacher,’ but all he did was show up once a month, give me a few suggestions, and then leave me to figure everything out on my own. To deal with this situation, I purchased an enhancement to my formation comprehension to give me the boost I needed.

Purchase confirmed. Cost 49.5 million credits. Credits remaining 1,522,275,658.

Over the course of five months, I created everything I thought I might need in a wood-based environment.

Wood qi would be available in abundance, so I had a lot of freedom to work on any formations that used it. Since wood was weak to metal, I also wanted to use metal-based formations, but because those would have to be ones that I could precharge, my options there were a bit more limited.

Ultimately, what stopped me from preparing too many formations was their size. We couldn’t bring storage bags with us, so everything would have to be carried in a regular backpack. As a cultivator, I could haul around a heavy load, but if my backpack was too large for the Trial’s entrance, I would have to leave it behind.

While I was limited in the number of formation stones I could take with me, I had far more freedom to carry around a large number of pills. I stocked up on plenty of incendiary fire pills and metal-based herbicides.

Inside the Trial, I was faced with various plant monsters to slay, trees to climb, and bramble patches to force my way through. I was able to use the pills I prepared to brute force my way through most situations, and when I faced tough opponents, I used metal qi shaped charge formations to destroy them.

There were a few places where this ‘salt the earth’ strategy failed, such as an area where the intended solution seemed to be controlling a tree limb to create a bridge, but I was able to use a combination of the formation stones I had prepared to force my way through the early obstacles.

My first trip through the Wood Peak Trial saw me reach stage 16. I took notes on what additional formations would be needed to go further more smoothly, and when I returned six months later, I completed stage 20. That gave me enough essence to reach mid five-star in my wood affinity. However, unlike in the Fire Peak Trial, I wasn’t given any extra reward for my performance.

As soon as my affinity broke through, I went ahead and made it permanent. I didn’t want the discount from raising my affinity to fade away.

Purchase confirmed. Cost 335,210,414 credits. Credits remaining 1,187,065,244.

Unfortunately, it seemed like I had lost a great deal of the potential discount because of the six-month delay after my aborted first run.

During the time I was preparing for the Wood Peak Trial, the date of Lin LiTing’s death in the previous timeline passed without fanfare. We had a competition against another class close to the date it was supposed to happen, but I didn’t see the boy who had killed her with them. My presence and how I had altered events must have been enough to avoid that tragedy.

I knew that her death hadn’t simply been an accident during sparring. She had been assassinated, and the reason had to be related to her profession. In the last loop, I had not been there to provide pills or formations, so the group must have broken down and decided to use her weaponry.

It was a little odd that Zhuge Yan allowed that, but in truth, I didn’t even know if this group had stuck together after I left. A few of them might have had too much trouble paying for the elite classes and dropped down to the regular ones. Either way, it did tell me that the source of LiTing’s problem was that she revealed her profession to the wrong person in the Academy. It wasn’t something that had followed her from home.

I planned to leave again at the end of this term, and new problems would likely emerge after I did so. I would be extremely focused on rushing my cultivation after I left, so it would be hard to keep an eye on things here, but I needed to find a way to do so.

Using all the resources available to me, I was able to push through to the thirtieth stage on my third trip to the Earth Peak Trial. On my fourth attempt, I was able to reach the thirty-fifth stage. This allowed me to gain enough essence to break through to low five-star. The process of breaking through felt slightly… deeper than it had when I broke through with fire, but the difference didn’t seem important. I registered on the testing orb as a normal person with a low five-star earth affinity.

I took this opportunity to see if my supposition about my affinities was correct. I doubted I would be charged for the information this time since if the System did want to charge me, it wouldn’t matter. I would be told for free the next time I died anyway. Knowing early might change the importance I placed on cultivating essence for the rest of this life. However, if cultivating it was doing something other than giving me permanent affinities, I would only be more interested in doing so, not less.

“System, how much to permanently increase my earth affinity to low five-star?”

Cost 0 credits.

I might have put myself through hell in the Earth Peak Trials to get there, but I had saved myself 100 million credits. Even if it was a small amount for me these days, saving anything was nice. It also pointed me in the direction I would need to walk if I wanted to push my affinities to the very limits of this world.

With my speculation confirmed, I could have switched to absorbing the essence normally at this point, but I decided to try my best to grab another free permanent affinity boost since I had to participate in these Trials several more times anyway.

In the following three attempts, I reached the thirty-fifth stage, then the fortieth stage, and on my final Trial as a first-term Master, I was able to reach the fiftieth stage. Even pushing so far, I was unable to accumulate the essence needed to break through to mid five-star.

After reaching the end of the fiftieth stage, I was exhausted. I had run out of formations and pills, and I didn’t have any time left on the clock. As the final seconds were ticking down, a voice echoed from the walls of the Trial, much like it had at the end of the Fire Peak Trial.

“Why haven’t you switched to just absorbing it? You've consumed enough essence to take a normal person to the peak of five-star. You’re just wasting it at this point.”

This comment made me laugh. I couldn’t tell it the truth, but I could tell it a truth. “I don’t know. I should have given up on this long ago. I just couldn’t let go of the feeling that this was what I needed to do.”

There was a long pause after my words. Likely, this was from the person I was talking to cursing at me.

“When you join the sect, are you going to choose the Earth Peak?”

This was something I’d been thinking about, so I had my answer ready.

“Yes, I want to study more about formations. I want to learn more about spatial bags and… areas like this.” I waved my hand around at the Trial.

“Fine. I will accept that you have passed the Master-level version of the Earth Peak Trial. Just remember what you said.”

As I was about to respond, a tide of essence entered the cavern and tried to drown me. I cultivated it as quickly as I could, not wanting to let any of it go to waste.

When the last drop of essence was gone, I felt a deep snap and knew my earth affinity had advanced to mid five-star.

I bowed to the empty air before departing the Trial.

Outside, I saw LiTing waiting for me.

“How did it go?”

I gave a weak smile and responded laconically. “My affinity broke through.”

She wanted to congratulate me, but I wasn’t in the mood. Yes, I had achieved my goal, but it wasn’t entirely through my own efforts. It was hard to feel too excited about just being given the affinity.

“Don’t worry,” LiTing said, sensing my mood. “This is only the beginning. There’s still a long way to go from here. We’ll get plenty of more chances against these things in the future.”

When we returned to school, Instructor Yuan gathered us together.

“With the final Trial over, we only have a few weeks left until the end of the term. You should disperse your meridians and begin cultivating the Rank 2 technique that you wish to use moving forward.”

She looked around at us, giving me a bit of a side-eye. “Even though some of you have tried to fail, you have all been able to accomplish your requirements for staying in this class next term. You may do so if you wish, but you first need to understand what it will involve. There will be no more Trials. If you are assigned to teach a class, you won’t participate in any more martial contests either. The second term is focused on training you to teach Disciples. Other than that, there will only be lessons on soul cultivation.”

She paused for us to consider this before continuing.

“As far as the Nine Rivers Sect is concerned, these are lessons that are only required for those who wish to walk the path of a Sovereign. Having a good understanding of how to guide others is valuable for Rulers, but the sect has paths all the way through to Emperor that you can walk without this knowledge. It is only if you wish to challenge for a position as a Sovereign that it is essential.”

“What if we don’t continue?” asked JiaQi. “What would we do instead? And how will it hurt the others?”

The instructors smiled at the last question. “This is your choice alone. It won’t negatively impact anyone else. If you choose not to continue in these lessons, you have a few options. You could take the regular classes for Martial Grandmasters, you could leave the school for a time, or you could try to enter the sect directly. Right now, you should all be capable of passing the Exam as outer sect disciples.”

I knew what I was going to do, but I was worried about what would happen to my classmates when I left.

“Take the night to think about it. This is an important decision, so you shouldn’t rush it. You might want to talk it over together.”

With that, she left the room to give us time to think.

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Chapter 140 – Life 66, Age 25, Martial Master Peak

After Instructor Yuan left, my classmates looked like they were getting ready to settle down for a long group conversation about what we would all be doing next. I wasn’t prepared for that, so I had to stop it before it began.

“Let’s all take a couple of hours to think about what the instructor said. It might be best to think about our plans and goals on our own first.”

This caught most of them off guard, but Yan was there to quickly agree.

“Yes, we should all take some time alone first. Think about if you really want to walk the path to become a Sovereign. You should all already know that it is impossible to become one on this continent. If you want to become a Sovereign, you will have to leave, and after you do, you will almost certainly never be allowed to return.”

He looked at us gravely to make sure his words sunk in.

“This isn’t the choice you have to make now. Right now, you are just deciding if you want to continue down that path. But make no mistake, becoming a Sovereign through the Nine Rivers Sect means abandoning your home, your clan, and your family forever. If that’s not what you want, think about what you do want and how you want to achieve it.”

Before anyone responded, Yan stood and left. Then, we all separated to think about our decisions.

I hurried back to my room to make a quick purchase.

“System, change my secondary reset point to this moment.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 26,266,240. 1,160,799,004 credits remaining.

With a new reset point locked down, I had significantly more freedom to act. So, I left my room to visit Zhuge Yan.

When Yan opened his door, he didn’t seem overly surprised to see me.

“What are you planning?”

Instead of letting him take the lead, I gestured to the small sitting area inside his room, silently asking for permission to enter.

He opened the door wider, welcoming me inside. Once we were seated across from each other, I took out several pill bottles from my storage space and put them on the small table beside us.

“I’m leaving the Academy.” I looked him in the eye to show that this was a fact beyond question. “I need to start advancing my cultivation as quickly as I can. To do that I’m going to need karmic energy. I’m hoping to use these pills to trade for it.”

He picked one up and carefully examined the pill inside. He might not be able to accurately appraise the various pills, but at a minimum, he would be able to tell that they were all Rank 4.

“And you’re offering this trade to me?”

I chuckled slightly, knowing his likely answer. “I’m hoping to contact Grandmaster Ning for the bulk of this transaction. I believe I can get enough energy from him for the ascensions to Lord and King. I would like to make true ascensions at each level of the Lord realm, though, so I’ll need more energy than I can easily get from him. I was hoping to make a deal with you for this extra Lord-level energy.”

He looked intently at the pills, considering my offer.

“I haven’t talked with any of you about the situation with my family, but you need to know that my position isn’t very good. They were entirely against me joining the sect, and they are absolutely furious that I would even consider attempting to walk the Sovereign path. They’ve cut off nearly all my resources. If Ning ChenKun hadn’t offered me a place in his retinue, I wouldn’t have even been able to enter the Academy.”

He tried to mask it, but I heard a deep sadness in his voice.

“I’m only telling you this so that you can understand the position I’m in.” He paused for several seconds before continuing. “I can get you a lordship, but it won’t be anything great. Building up enough energy to ascend to Peak Lord would take at least a decade. From your urgency, I’m guessing this won’t meet your needs.”

I sighed. It was an option. I didn’t have to rush that much.

Seeing my expression, Yan decided to give me other options.

“You should consider talking to YuLong. His father is only a King, but if you can provide him with enough resources, he can get you a decent lordship. The only problem with this is the Ning Clan. You can’t get the extra energy from them because they want something from you, right? If YuLong’s father helped you avoid that pressure, it could be seen as slapping the face of the Ning Clan. It’s an option if you’re desperate, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

I laughed wryly. “So, if they help me, even unknowingly, they could be targeted by a Sovereign force. I can’t do that to YuLong.”

Yan nodded.

“If you want to advance as a true Lord as quickly as you possibly can, you only have one option. I can’t say what it will do to your deal with the Ning Clan, but if you are successful, that deal won’t be so important.”

For a second, I was confused, but I quickly caught on.

“The sect?”

“Yes. Without the next ten years of classes, joining as an inner or core disciple will be difficult, but with your skills, you should be at least a top outer sect disciple. If you have access to a large volume of quality Rank 4 pills, earning enough karmic energy for Peak Lord will be simple. Unless you can get your hands on Rank 5 pills, buying King-level energy in the sect might be difficult, but it should be possible.”

“So, join the sect to reach peak lord, then make a deal with the Nings?”

He shook his head. “No. Once you join the sect, you are usually a member for the rest of your life, and members are not allowed to cultivate karmic energy from outside. You can live outside the sect, but you will always be a member and will have to follow their rules. The only way to leave is by taking a position in one of the Sovereign forces. You would have to join the Ning Clan, not just make a deal with them.”

“That’s… an option.”

“Think it over carefully. You will always be limited in how far you can go as a member of another clan. Even if you join them, you are not of their blood. Even if you marry into the clan, your descendants will still be looked down upon by the main family.”

That… wasn’t a concern.

“Thanks, Yan. I’ll think about what you said.”

I reached into my storage bag and pulled out an empty notebook. I placed it on the side table and rested my hand on it.

“I have another favor to ask of you. Over the next several years, can you take some notes for me? Anything you think is important, please, write it down. If there’s anything you learn that you wished you had known ahead of time, or something that would have been valuable to know ahead of time, write it down for me.”

He cocked his head to the side, trying to understand my purpose. “How long?”

I thought about it. How long did I want to spend before I did a reset? My goal had been ten years, but I blew through that last time in an effort to reach Martial King. I was already five years into this life, and I didn’t know how much longer I would need to spend to get the most out of it, but I doubted it would be overly quick.

Keeping to the original deadline wouldn’t be possible, but spending a total of fifteen years on this life wouldn’t be so bad.

I clenched a fist.

“Ten years. If you can get the notebook back to me in ten years, it should be okay.”

He nodded cautiously. “Alright. In return, can you give me some pills? I’m not worried about advancing while in the Academy, but once I enter the sect…”

I smiled and passed him a storage bag.

“This should have everything you need. Use some of it to pay for everyone’s education here. I’m sure the Grandmaster courses are going to be expensive. Anything else you can keep or hand out to the others as you see fit.”

I considered just vanishing like I had last time, but instead, I met with my classmates one last time.

We all returned to the table and sat down together. The only difference from a few hours earlier was that JiaQi was holding a small, young deer in her arms.

She seemed a bit sad as she looked at us. “I’ve decided to leave the Academy. I want to give LuLu a chance to live outside as she grows up. I’ll come back for the first term as a Grandmaster, but I’ll skip next term. I know I’m not going to be a Sovereign anyway.”

LuLu was the young deer she was holding. After years of looking after the egg she had gotten in the Water Peak Trial, she was finally rewarded with LuLu. A deer hatching from an egg made zero sense to me, but I was apparently the only one confused by it. According to JiaQi, all demon beasts hatched from eggs.

YuLong was the next to announce his decision. “I’m going home too. I know my limits. I’ve tried to learn to make talismans, but I have no talent for it. I only know how to fight. The best I can do is join someone else’s retinue. I need to talk with my father about my future before making any further decisions.”

LiTing looked nervous as she spoke. “I am going to take the regular Grandmaster courses. I wasn’t given enough funds for anything else.”

Yan put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve been provided with enough to cover everyone’s costs. You should take the second term of the elite Master course with me.”

I raised an eyebrow at his wording but didn’t interject to tell her I was the one paying. If Yan wanted to take credit here, well, I would just consider it part of the cost of getting his help.

LiTing looked conflicted, but she eventually agreed to his offer.

With everyone else’s plans out in the open, I was the only one left.

“I’m leaving the Academy. I plan to quickly cultivate to Grandmaster and enter the sect. I plan to advance as fast as I can once I’m there and scout the place out.”

Everyone except Yan was confused by my choice.

“But… why?” JiaQi had a baffled look on her face. “Of all of us, you have the best chance to be successful here. Isn’t rushing to join now… wasteful?”

“There are reasons… I need to hurry. There’s a lot to learn here, but I can probably get everything I need in the sect. It’s just a different kind of challenge.”

YuLong gave me a thumbs up. “Good luck. Takes courage to make the jump like this.”

JiaQi hit him on the arm.

“Don’t encourage him.” Then, she turned back to me. “You need to think about this. If you rush now, you might get stuck at low Lord. You need a solid foundation in the Warrior Tier before you become a Ruler if you want to keep advancing.”

“Thank you, JiaQi. I know there will be problems, but this is what I need to do. When you join the sect, let me know. I might already be a King by then. I’ll have to look out for my juniors.”

She seemed to want to argue with me, but Yan stepped in to stop it.

“Everyone has to walk their own path, JiaQi. Fang has his reasons, even if he can’t share them. All we can do is support each other whenever possible.”

She smiled resignedly and gave up on trying to convince me to change my mind.

Her concern made me decide to add something extra to my plans.

“We’re all going our separate ways, but we’ll always be classmates. Let’s try to keep in touch. We should send each other letters about anything important or troubling that happens in our lives. Even if we can’t help, it’s good to share your worries with others.”

While the others gave me a faint smile, Yan narrowed his eyes. I doubted he suspected the truth, but there was no doubt in my mind that he suspected something.

Chapter 141 – Life 66, Age 25, Martial Master Peak

Before taking the test to join the sect, I wanted to set myself up for as much success as possible in a short timeframe. So, after leaving the Academy, I did not rush to take the Exam. I rented an apartment and began preparing my cultivation base.

For the past few years, I had been switching between the Profound-Rank techniques that Instructor Yuan had provided me. This let me test out a few different ideas for meridian construction, and I got a better sense of how they helped qi flow through the energy body.

In the Academy libraries, I had gotten a few Earth-Rank techniques that took these ideas to another level, and I wanted to try them out. I hadn’t done so before because I felt they would need the proper Rank 1 techniques to work at full efficiency, and I didn’t want to undo my Rank 1 cultivation until I finished permanently improving my earth affinity.

Outside the walls of the Academy and in a disposable timeline, I had a new limitation to worry about. I could not allow myself to cultivate essence. If my earth affinity suddenly jumped up several stages when I reverted to my reset point, people would begin to ask questions that I didn’t want to answer.

So, as soon as I was alone in my apartment, I began working toward building a brand-new foundation.

The first thing I did was create both a Rank 1 and a Rank 2 Qi Gathering Formation with filters for earth qi embedded into them. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t create a completely pure cultivation environment like in the Trials. Without completely purging the area of energy first and establishing a qi barrier that could completely prevent other energies from entering, there would always be some amount of impurities in the air that I would need to be careful of. However, since the earth qi inside such a formation dominated everything else, it would be much faster and easier to cultivate in it than in the more general formations.

Once my preparations were complete, I began dispersing my meridians. Once that was accomplished, I took a Qi Expulsion pill to finish off destroying my cultivation base and return to Martial Disciple 1.

At age 25, qi stagnation would begin to set in if I remained as a Martial Disciple for too long. The general estimate was that I would have a grace period of one year before natural aging would begin to take effect on both my physical and energy bodies. This didn’t give me too much time to waste, but it was more than enough.

I decided to cultivate the Writ of Steady Stone. It was a Peak-Earth technique with the mental effect of making one more deliberate in their actions and less prone to acting rashly. Taken to an extreme, this seemed like something that would lead to indecisiveness and a cultivator who was unwilling to do anything at all. It wasn’t my favorite effect, but I chose it because I saw a connection between the mental effect and the meridian design.

The Rank 2 manual for the technique focused heavily on variable meridian sizes to adjust flow rates. As an example, the meridians entering the arms were like thick tree trunks. Their diameter was constant throughout the arms and created wide channels for a large volume of qi to circulate through the arms at a steady pace.

What made the technique special, though, was that it had branch meridians at key points, such as the fingers and elbow. These branches were small tubes that created secondary pathways for qi to flow down and later rejoin the main trunk.

Under normal circumstances, qi would only flow through the trunk at a slow pace. But when one decided to act, they could divert all of their energy through the small branches instead. This constriction of the meridian size, as well as the pressure built up by the large volume of qi behind it, allowed for explosive releases of energy.

This was exactly the kind of technique I needed to shatter some rock monsters.

I entered the Rank 1 formation and began cultivating the first stage of the technique. Unlike other techniques I had used, this one recommended cultivating the feet first and then slowly moving upwards. This would give the body a firm foundation and connection to the earth below.

Since I would be rushing through the Disciple and Master levels, I didn’t think this would make too much of a difference, but I still followed its advice.

The Writ of Steady Earth used just as many acupoints as the Writ of True Earth had, but they were placed differently and only focused on cultivating qi. I thought that this would mean I would gather energy at a much quicker rate, but that wasn’t completely true. It started at a faster rate, but after I reached about 50% of my maximum capacity, the qi from various different acupoints started fighting each other. This caused my cultivation speed to slow, but the advantage was that it greatly improved the density and power of the energy in my body.

Using a formation and over a dozen pills, I reached Peak Disciple in four months. Then, I spent another two years carefully cultivating through the Master levels. I didn’t have the Rank 3 technique for Steady Earth, so I had to use the one for True Earth. I wasn’t happy about this, since I could foresee the denser qi from the Rank 1 technique needing a special dantian to handle it, but I had to work with what was available. After I joined the sect, I could look for a copy of Rank 3 Steady Earth.

With six more months until the next sect Entrance Exam, I raised my cultivation to Grandmaster 3. I could have gone faster, but I didn’t want to have to deal with clogged meridians this time.

The day before the exam, I carefully examined myself. Three years had been more than I wanted to spend before entering the sect. I could only hope it would all be worth it.

The Nine Rivers Sect Entrance Exam was held once a year, and it drew people from all around the continent to South Gate City.

Previously, whenever the Exam approached, I did my best to stay indoors. I was not a fan of large crowds, especially not large crowds of cultivators. However, even though I didn’t go out much, it was still clear to me that cultivators who came here for the Nine Rivers Sect were much better behaved than the young Disciples who competed to join the Twin Mountains Sect had been since I had never heard any loud arguments or fights at any point while I was in the city.

This was no doubt partly due to the sect’s robust law enforcement arm that could and would keep people in check, but it was also because the people who could aspire to join the Nine Rivers Sect were higher-quality cultivators. Not only were they generally more mature, but they also tended to have a firm hold on the mental influences of their techniques.

The Entrance Exam was open for two weeks, and one could get in line to take the test at any point during that time. The line on the first day was long, so I decided to wait until later in the week, but as the days passed and the line only grew, I knew waiting had been the wrong choice.

On the fourth day, I hurried up and joined the queue.

Standing in line, moving forward only a few steps an hour, was annoying. I considered cultivating to pass the time, but that would risk drawing in impurities that would need to be expelled later, causing me to lose more than I gained.

After a full day of standing in line, I didn’t care much about the impurities anymore and needed to cultivate to give myself something to do and not go insane. However, I didn’t grow my cultivation base. I sent all of the energy to my spatial fire seed to grow my storage space. If I were lucky, this would burn away any impurities that accidentally slipped through.

As I stood in line, slowly cultivating away and thinking about ideas for the future, time crept by. I saw looks of impatience and annoyance on many faces, but no one was willing to cause a scene. Even if they were unhappy, they were all willing to show respect to the sect.

That was, of course, until the fifth day. I was near the very front of the line when one of the sharpest, most ear-piercing voices I had ever heard sounded out from the building where the Exam was taking place.

“You dare!? Do you know who my father is!? I am the crown prince of the Empire of the Eternal Sun! My uncle is an elder of this sect! You dare say I’ve been rejected. I’ll have your head!”

A moment passed where nothing could be heard, then the voice cried out again.

“You dare!? Wait till my uncle hears about this he’ll—”

I heard the sounds of scuffling coming from inside.

“What do you think you are doing!? Get your hands off me you brute!”

An elegant young man wearing a peacock robe appeared in the building's entrance. He was floating nearly half a meter in the air.

A second later, a burly, simple-looking man in a plain brown robe became visible behind him. He was holding the peacock up by the scruff of his neck.

“If you don’t put me down this instant, I’ll kill you! How dare you!”

The burly man kept a hold of him and hauled him off somewhere out of sight. The peacock’s fate was unknown, but everyone in the crowd just shook their heads.

I didn’t see any traces of ridicule on their faces. Everyone seemed to share the same sentiments. Fear and sorrow. They had all seen this kind of scene before.

I began to understand the people around me a little better. These weren’t young men looking to prove themselves. Nearly every one of them was between 40 and 60 years old. They knew. They knew the risks of cultivating. All of them had likely seen its effects on their friends and family, and they knew that even if they took every precaution, they might only be a single step away from such a fate themselves.

While watching the scene had been a little depressing, I was glad that everyone was prepared and ready to properly handle mad cultivators, both sect and new recruits alike.

A few more hours passed, and I was finally able to enter the exam building.

While the outside had been grand and imposing, with a red colonnade, a jade peaked roof, and gold ornamentations, the interior of the building was extremely subdued, with a simple wooden floor and tan plaster walls. There were no decorations or ostentations in the room.

Several scribes sat at a long table to my left, and a door leading deeper into the building was to my right. Across from me was a dark oval portal that looked like it led into the deepest abyss. It was the entrance to another Trial. Two smartly dressed guards in blue combat gear stood on either side of it.

One of the scribes addressed me while looking down at his papers.

“Name?”

“Su Fang.”

“Age?”

“28.”

“Blessing?”

I had thought about this and decided to simply repeat what I had told the Academy. “It has a few nuances, but it enhances my general cultivation comprehension.”

The scribe noted this down and then looked up at me, waiting for me to continue, but I held my silence. When he was certain I would say no more, he finished marking down a few extra notes and then pointed to an affinity testing orb.

I proceeded as normal, and he tapped it to resolve the images of my current affinities. I noticed that the three symbols representing fire, earth, and wood had changed colors and dimmed, but otherwise, it was the same picture as last time.

The scribe squinted when he saw the static caused by my additional affinities, but he didn’t ask any questions about it. After writing down a few notes, he put down his brush and gestured to the Trial portal. “Enter.”

I approached the portal and tried to look inside, but all I saw was blackness.

I took a deep breath, mustering my courage.

I picked up a foot and stepped through into an unknown Trial.

I stepped into a room with a wooden floor and tan plaster walls.

To my right, a group of scribes was doing paperwork.

“You have qualified as either a Grade 1 inner sect disciple of the Fire Peak or a Grade 2 outer sect disciple of the Earth Peak. Which do you choose?”

I looked around, confused. Why was I here? What happened?

I was just about to—

The scribe cleared his throat loudly. “Fire Peak or Earth Peak, which one?”

Chapter 142 – Life 66, Age 28, Martial Grandmaster 3

Everything was happening too suddenly. I stepped into the Trial, but I immediately appeared back outside the Trial. What was going on? Was this the Trial? Was it some strange recreation of the world outside?

“Fire. Or. Earth.” The scribe enunciated each word, bringing my focus onto the topic at hand.

Whether I was still inside the Trial or not, I had to move forward and make a decision.

Fire or earth. I had thought about this decision a few times over the years. Which would be best? What did I want to accomplish in this life?

I needed a way to advance quickly as a Martial King. That meant having access to both Rank 5 formations and pills, so both peaks could help me progress in that regard. Pills had the advantage of speed, but formations required fewer resources. Overall, I considered both options somewhat balanced for helping me advance.

There was also the promise I had made to the person in charge of the Earth Peak Trial to consider. I told him I would be joining the Earth Peak. It was a consideration, but not one I put too much emphasis on. This was a disposable timeline, so if he smashed me to pieces for breaking my promise, it would only give me more information about the sect and its people.

More important was the reason I had given him for wanting to join the peak. I wanted to learn more about how spatial bags and the Trials were constructed. Learning to turn my storage space into something greater was far more important than the extra credits I might earn from joining the Fire Peak.

The scribe was getting impatient, so I needed to give him my answer.

“Earth Peak…”

The scribe snorted, seeming unhappy at my choice. He took out a small jade from under the counter and placed it on a formation plate. After channeling some energy into the formation, it lit up and the character for ‘outer’ appeared on the token. Then, he slid it toward me.

“Place a drop of blood on it.”

When I didn’t move fast enough for his liking, he sent out a quick burst of qi that sliced open the back of my hand. He then used his water affinity to move a drop of my blood onto the token and shoved it into my hand.

Without wasting another moment, the scribe touched something on his desk which created a loud buzzer sound. A young man in plain brown robes quickly entered.

“Earth Peak, Grade 2 outer.”

“Yes, deacon.” The young man bowed and then looked at me while gesturing toward the far wall. “This way.”

I was hesitant about following him. I couldn’t be sure if I was still in the Trial or not. Was following him the right move? Was I supposed to do something else? Uncertain, I took halting steps in his direction.

As I walked, he gave me a look of compassion. “The effect will fade. You’ve heard that no one knows what the exam to become a sect disciple is, right? Now you know why. The memories of it are wiped from your mind. You aren’t allowed to mention that part to people who haven’t been through the Trial yet, by the way.”

I rubbed my temples, trying to clear the fog from my mind. The reality of the situation was starting to set in. This was the real world, not a Trial. Could I be certain? No. But it felt real, for all that was worth.

I considered spending credits on something that would help me confirm this but decided against it. This was real enough, and I would treat it as such. If I was wrong, I could act differently during the next loop.

My guide chuckled as he watched my facial expressions shift. “Looks like you’re good now. Though, that might change again soon.”

He opened a large double door and showed me the room beyond. It was a simple antechamber with an open doorway leading outside.

I raised my eyebrow at the buildup for such a simple room, but when I stepped outside, I understood.

A mountain larger than any other I had ever seen appeared before me, its peak hidden by a layer of clouds. At the base of the mountain was a large city surrounded by a thick stone wall. A path led from where I was standing into the city, and another left from the city to spiral up the mountain. Other sizable cities seemed to have been built into the sides of the mountain, but they were too far away for me to make out any details.

My guide walked a bit in front of me, caught my attention, and waved his hands at the enormous mountain in a wide gesture of welcome. “Welcome to Dragon Peak, the heart of the Nine Rivers Sect.”

I blinked. “Oh…”

That doorway was one of the other stone arches on the hill we had always used to visit the sect for the Trials. A quick glance around confirmed this when I saw the Academy’s portal nearby.

The young man’s eyes dropped at this.

“That’s not the normal reaction. Most people’s jaws drop in amazement.”

His antics made me chuckle a bit. “Sorry, I was a student at the Yellow Orchid Academy. I’ve visited a few times already.”

“Really? An Academy student? But you’re only a Grade 2 outer disciple. Were you in one of the weak classes? How did you get to come here then?”

The excitement returned to the boy as he bombarded me with questions. I tried to ignore most of them as we continued walking forward. Once we got to the city gates, he stopped me and tried to talk in an officious tone.

“This is the City of Mortals. It is where all new disciples begin. Mortal City has very strict rules. No fighting, no stealing, no abusing people in any way. It is a safe zone for new disciples to adjust to the sect.”

He looked around a bit before continuing in a more relaxed manner. “It’s where I live. Most of us here are mortals who do basic jobs around the sect that cultivators don’t want to do. Just so you know, most of the people here are related to high-ranking members of the sect, so even if they’re just mortals, don’t try to push your weight around with them too much, okay?”

I nodded in agreement, having no wish to do such things anyway.

As we walked through the city, I looked at the mountain looming over us.

“What can you tell me about Dragon Peak? I’ve heard that to become a Sovereign, I need to climb to the top of it.”

He smiled a wide grin. “Well, this city is a safe zone, right? Once you step outside the northern gate, Dragon Peak itself has only one rule. You must advance. You are not allowed to walk down the peak. Once you leave Mortal City, you must keep walking up the path until you reach Yellow City.”

His voice began to show a hint of fear.

“Even if you get stuck on the path for years, you are not allowed to return here. If you need something, like food or water, you have to find it on the mountain or take it from others. You are trapped on the path until you complete it. Once you reach the next city, you are not allowed to descend to Mortal City, you can only continue upwards.”

His face now openly showed a fear of the place. “After you leave Mortal City, that is the only rule. If you create an enemy in the sect, they can’t do anything to you while you’re here, but once you begin ascending the mountain, they can do whatever they want.”

“Won’t that lead to a lot of death?” I was confused about why the sect would want this.

“Yes. Do not go up the mountain until you are ready. For many people, that means never. This place is designed for the Chosen, to push the best of the best to their limit. If they reach the peak, they will gain an opportunity to advance to Sovereign. If they die, they are discarded. As for the normal disciples? They’re just stepping stones on the Chosen’s path. Only a lucky few will be taken in as true parts of a future Sovereign’s retinue and ascend behind them.”

He let me think about his words for a few moments before continuing. “As an outer sect disciple, if you truly want to advance, your best chance is to become a subordinate of a core disciple who is a member of a Chosen’s retinue, though you’ll probably have to advance to inner disciple before that happens. However, I don’t recommend this. It is better to live a safe life here than throw your life away climbing the mountain.”

Leaving the topic of the peak behind, he returned to introducing me to the city.

“Dragon Peak is the center of the sect and is the gathering point for all its members. If you visit a designated economic zone, you’ll find stores for anything a cultivator requires. A few are run by the sect, but most are managed by other disciples. You can purchase a permit to set up a shop and sell anything you wish. If you don’t wish to manage the store yourself, there are countless people in the city you can hire to run it for you. You’ll be surprised by the variety of items and services available here, but the quality is limited. For better quality, you must ascend the mountain.”

He continued walking down the main boulevard of the city without stopping. He pointed to a few shops along the way, talking about what they sold. A lot of them were restaurants, but there was a good mix of stores selling wares with carpenters, smiths, and other trades all mixed together.

“These are all mortal goods, right? Where are the stores for cultivators?”

“Oh, yeah. Like I said, they are limited to special zones. Most of this city is for mortals to live and work, so it’s better if there’s one place you can go for all your needs instead of searching through all the normal clothing stores to find one aimed at cultivators.”

I could agree with him, but that didn’t tell me where to find them. “And they are located…”

“Well, you’ve been here before, right? Biggest zone is right next to the Plaza. You can get everything you need there. I hear it’s a bit more expensive than the smaller ones around the city, but they have everything you could want there.”

“Are they just normal stores? I can use gold in them?”

“No, no. Not at all. Gold is generally worthless to cultivators here. It can only be used in the mortal stores. You might find someone who wants to send money back to their family that’ll accept gold as payment, but it’s rare. Spirit stones are accepted almost everywhere since they can be used for cultivation, but that’s only for expensive things. Mostly, people use contribution points.”

I had to deal with contribution points in the Twin Mountains Sect and considered them little better than a company scrip used to avoid paying people real money for their work. It was a currency that could only be used within the sect and was worthless anywhere else.

“The sect stores only accept points, so it’s the only type of money that has real value to the disciples here.”

We eventually arrived at the Gateway Plaza where there were portals to each of the different peaks. My guide gave me a brief introduction, covering details that I was already familiar with, and then led me through the arch near the southeastern corner of the inner pentagon.

I stepped through and returned once more to the ever-familiar Earth Peak. A place of rocky, barren soil at the base of a large stone mountain.

“This is the Earth Peak. It’s accessible from the Plazas in every city, and only Earth Peak disciples are allowed to come here. Each peak has slightly different rules, but the one constant is that no outsiders are allowed. If you want to meet with someone from another mountain, it must be done on Dragon Peak or outside the sect. Mortal servants from the cities are allowed limited access for sect business, such as right now, but that does not extend to your personal business matters.”

He took me to the administration building in the small town near the portal.

“This is where you register as a new disciple of the peak. They will get you set up and let you know what you need to do from here. I’m not allowed inside and must return to guide others. Good luck. Welcome to the Nine Rivers Sect.”

Chapter 143 – Life 66, Age 28, Martial Grandmaster 3

When I entered the administration building, I thought I might see a line of cultivators slowly getting introduced to the sect. The line at the Entrance Exam had been moving slowly, and only a fraction of the people who passed would be assigned to Earth Peak, but I still expected to have to wait. Introducing new cultivators to the sect takes time, right?

There was only one person inside the building when I entered. It was someone I had seen several times over my last five years at the Academy. The lazy outer sect disciple that I was assured would be the next person promoted to the inner sect. He had his feet up on the counter, was reclined back in his chair, and was staring at the ceiling.

I walked up to the desk and stood in front of him, but he didn’t even look at me.

“Hello.” I tapped on the desk to get his attention.

Letting out a long, exasperated sigh, he looked at me. “What? I’m busy preparing to take the Exam to advance to the inner sect. Don’t disturb me.”

“I’m a new disciple. I need to be introduced to the sect.”

He rolled his eyes. “Badge.”

I held up the jade token I’d been given. He grabbed it and threw it onto a small formation plate to the side of the counter.

When he saw the result, he snorted. Then, he reached under the counter, pulled out a book, and threw it at me along with my token.

“There you go. Introduction to the sect. You can leave.”

I picked up the book and quickly looked at it. It had a lot of information about the sect, but I didn’t even know where I could sit down and read through it, let alone where I would find a room to sleep for the night.

I tried to remain patient. “Sorry, but could you please introduce the sect to me? Tell me about a few things. At least tell me where my room is?”

He let out another long, exaggerated sigh and touched a formation plate on the counter. “Wait here.”

Then, he went back to ignoring me.

I stood awkwardly in the room, waiting for something to happen. Several minutes later, the door was pushed open by an older man in his late seventies.

“Senior brother, how can I be of assistance?”

The guy behind the counter waved at me. “Introduce him to the sect.”

The older man bowed. “Of course, senior brother.”

Then, he looked at me, noticed my jade token, and bowed. “Please, follow me.”

After leading me outside, he turned to me with a smile. “What would you like to see?”

“Right, first, what should I call you? My name is Su Fang.”

He gave another slight bow. “I am Mao SongQiao, an ungraded servant disciple. You can call me Junior Brother Mao.”

“Okay, Junior Brother Mao, I need a place to live.”

“Certainly.” He led me to one of the other buildings in the small village. “This is where you can lease a cultivation cave. The cheapest, those in the foothills, cost 5 contribution points a day. The closer to the mountain, or the higher up the mountain, the more expensive it gets. This is because the qi is denser so it’s a much better cultivation environment.”

Mao SongQiao showed me around the little village and explained the general outline to me. Overall, it reminded me a lot of the Twin Mountains Sect. There was a store to buy certain items from the peak directly, a place to rent a cultivation cave, and a library for techniques.

Everything had to be paid for in contribution points. He showed me the Assignment Hall, where I could register for missions that would reward points, but I could also buy them at 500 points per spirit stone. Considering that the sect sold spirit stones for 1000 points each, this wasn’t a great deal.

From Mao, I learned that while there were traders on Dragon Peak who would exchange points for spirit stones at a better rate, this tended to upset the elders if one relied on it too much. The reasoning was explained away as not contributing to the sect, but it seemed more likely that the elders were sour about not getting their cut.

As a Grade 2 outer disciple, I started with 500 points, but instead of renting a cave at the expense of these precious points, Brother Mao led me to a place on Dragon Peak where I could rent a room for gold. The environment wasn’t the best, but it let me hold onto my more valuable resources.

I had ideas for how I might be able to exploit the sect, but they would take time, and I needed someone to help me understand things while I was getting started.

“Junior Brother Mao. How much do you get paid for your services as a guide?”

His shoulders drooped slightly. “It’s one point a day. Better than most work I could be doing, but it only lasts for these two weeks. After that, I’ll probably have to go back to mining stones for the formation masters.”

“Mining stones? They don’t have mortals do that kind of work?”

“They can, but it takes them a long time, and what they produce isn’t very high quality. Rank 3 and above formations need sturdy stones, and cultivators are better at cutting them cleanly into shape.”

“I see. And how much does that pay?”

“Two points a day, but it’s hard labor.”

“Okay then, would you like to work for me? I need someone who knows the sect, and you’ve been here a good while. I can’t pay you points, but I can give you one spirit stone a month. Will that work?”

Mao’s demeanor instantly changed. “Of course, boss. I’m glad to be working for you. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

I wasn’t a fan of the instant flattery, but I let it slide. He would do as a subordinate for now. I had no idea how trustworthy he was, but at least he knew about the sect. That was all I needed for the moment.

My goal was simply to climb as high as I could as quickly as I could. That meant I needed a steady source of karmic energy.

“Brother Mao, how do sect disciples earn karmic energy to ascend through the Ruler tier?”

“You buy it from the sect with contribution points.”

“Wait… what? You can just buy it? Why isn’t everyone a Lord then? Why aren’t you?”

A look of chagrin crossed his face. “No, let me explain. You can only buy karmic energy starting in Yellow City, higher up the mountain. There, you can only buy enough to break through to Martial Lord. If you want to use it to break through the stages of the Lord Realm, you have to reach Profound City. In Profound City you can buy as much Lord-level energy as you want and energy to break through to King.”

As he talked, he tried to point to cities hidden on Dragon Peak. “Further King-level energy, and energy to break through to Emperor, can only be bought in Earth City. If you want to break through with karmic energy as an Emperor, you need to reach Heaven City.”

“So, climb the peak and I can buy as much as I need?”

“Yes, but the number of contribution points needed is incredible. Even if you reach Yellow City, it will be hard to afford Lord-level energy as an outer sect disciple. As a servant disciple, it’s impossible.”

“What do you mean? Why does that matter?”

“Your position and grade determine the types of missions you can sign up for. As an ungraded servant, I can only do basic missions that barely pay enough points to let me afford a few lessons a month. As an outer sect disciple, you will have more options, but they are still somewhat limited.”

“I see… but I can rent a store and sell things to earn points, right?”

He nodded. “Yes, but how much do you have that people will buy? You can try to sell formations to people, but there are a lot of formation specialists in the sect, and all of them are trying to do the same. If you were an inner sect disciple, you might be able to make something of high enough quality that people would buy it, but as an outer sect, most people don’t have the skills needed to compete.”

“It doesn’t matter that I’m an outer sect disciple, though, right? It just matters how good my wares are.”

“True. But if you could produce something of high quality, you wouldn’t be in the outer sect.”

I smiled. “Don’t worry about that. Just find me a storefront I can rent and sell pills from. Preferably, one close to an herbalist. If I can rent it with gold, that would be best, but spirit stones would also be acceptable.”

“Pills? You’re an alchemist?”

“Don’t worry about that for now. Go find a storefront. Meet me back here when you’re done.” Mao was turning to leave when I caught him. “Also, where can I buy Rank 3 cultivation techniques from the sect?”

The Scripture Pavilion that Mao sent me to was a disappointment. Instead of getting to browse their books, I could only tell the attendant which one I needed. They retrieved it for me from a back room. I would need to look at getting a job in one of these libraries if I wanted to plunder them.

Fortunately, they did have a copy of the Rank 3 Writ of Steady Earth. It cost me all 500 of the contribution points I started with, but I considered it a fair trade. I didn’t plan to be very short of points in the near future.

Once back in my apartment, I began to slowly and carefully disperse my Grandmaster cultivation so that I could restart with the proper technique.

An hour into the process, I was interrupted by Brother Mao who had found a building I could rent in Mortal City. It wasn’t near the Gateway Plaza, but it was affordable and was located near a few independent herb sellers from the Wood Peak.

I gave him five spirit stones to settle the rental agreement and purchase a variety of herbs for me. When I did, his eyes went wide at the sight of them. I sensed greed from him when he saw the stones, but that was natural. It didn’t mean he planned anything untoward. There was a risk he would take the stones and run off with them, but handing him that much money at once was a good test of whether or not I could trust him further in the future. Better to know now than after I had him running a shop for me.

Before opening my new storefront, I wanted to fix my cultivation. It took me nearly a week to completely disperse my Grandmaster cultivation. Then, I spent another three weeks rising back up to Grandmaster 1 with the Steady Earth technique.

With my cultivation base restored, I went to the store to look it over with Brother Mao.

It was a small, cramped affair with only a wooden counter and stool inside. Mao assured me this was the normal setup for a store in the sect. Only the large merchant organizations were willing to openly display things of great value. Everyone else kept the valuable items in a storage ring and only left a book out describing the items available.

I went to the shop’s backroom, took my fancy cauldron out of my storage space, and began making every Rank 3 pill I could think of. While I did this, Mao was busy going to the nearby herb shops and funneling me a constant supply of all the necessary ingredients.

In a sect focused on completing assigned missions, where almost every other outer sect disciple was engaged in constant combat, I had become a merchant. It was an unusual choice, but it was the one that I thought would work best for me.

Chapter 144 – Life 66, Age 28, Martial Grandmaster 1

Setting up shop in a remote corner of Mortal City had been nice and simple. The only downside was the severe lack of customers.

I had rented a location in an area that was known for herbalists. While the location was to my benefit in procuring ingredients, few people who came to this area were in search of pills. Instead, most were alchemists looking to make their own pills.

However, the lack of sales didn’t bother me. With the help of the high-quality herbs available, I was able to make Rank 3 pills with efficacies of around 125%. Once I figured out how one of the formations on my cauldron worked, letting me draw in environmental energy and infuse it into a pill before it solidified, I was able to increase that to over 130% standard efficacy.

Once word of the quality of my pills was known, I was confident that many cultivators would seek me out. Until then, I wasn’t worried about the slow pace of things. Both Brother Mao and I needed time to improve.

For Mao, that meant taking the generous stipend I was providing him and paying for lessons in several subjects. Servant disciples weren’t allowed to purchase karmic energy, so his goal was to improve his combat and formation abilities high enough that he would qualify as an outer sect disciple. As an ungraded servant disciple, he had a long way to go, but that was a problem that money could easily solve.

For me, there were a few short-term goals I wanted to accomplish. First was quickly reaching Peak Grandmaster. While I was exploring and learning about the sect, I had to keep in mind that I was ultimately trying to rush for credits.

My second goal was to gain additional formation skills and knowledge. While I wouldn’t mind having a tutor share their insights on the topic, my primary concern was finding books I could store in my mental library and keep with me. In the end, my main limitation as a formation specialist was a lack of knowledge of inscriptions. An instructor could help me understand how to use inscriptions more fluidly and effectively, but paying for instruction without having a solid grasp of inscriptions first would be a waste of time and money.

The final short-term goal I set for myself was to find more ways to make contribution points. I didn’t want to have to set up a pill stall every life going forward just to earn karmic energy.

With these goals in mind, I gave Brother Mao a storage bag bulging with various Rank 3 pills, left him to manage the shop, and headed back to the Earth Peak.

My first stop was the Mission Hall. Unlike the Twin Mountains Sect where missions were posted on a simple bulletin board, the Nine Rivers Sect’s Mission Hall was far more advanced.

When I entered the Hall, I noticed a dozen or so wall partitions running from the entryway up to the counter at the far end of the building. Each partition had an illusion formation that projected the various missions available to sect members of all different ranks and cultivation levels.

Different partitions served different ranks, so I first had to move to an area near the left wall where the Grandmaster-level outer sect disciple missions were posted. Once I found the right spot, I studied all of the available missions closely.

I was surprised to find that nearly all of them were battle missions. Each post had a city and the name of its Lord. The requests were to fight against an invading army or to invade another city. The only other missions available were menial tasks like the stone carving one Mao had mentioned earlier.

I looked at the missions available to inner sect disciples and found that while battle missions were still available, they had more options related to constructing formations. Some of these were to create Qi Gathering Formations for disciples on other peaks, but most of them were for building formations in one random city or another.

I had no interest in fighting anyone’s battles, and the menial tasks paid extremely poorly, so I left the Mission Hall with nothing but disappointment.

The lack of missions I could accomplish via alchemy was troublesome, and my formation skills weren’t going to be high enough to complete any missions unless I improved dramatically. While I wanted to improve, I would have to rely on my store to generate contribution points for me for the foreseeable future.

Instead of worrying about this, I moved on to the peak’s Scripture Hall. While Dragon Peak housed the cultivation techniques, Earth Peak housed most of the formation-related techniques and knowledge. Earth Peak also had a wider array of martial techniques available, but those could wait for later.

An older deacon in the King realm was in charge of the Pavilion and was responsible for retrieving and copying purchased manuals. I winced when I saw this since it meant that I would have a hard time rummaging through their books, but it was still something worth looking into at a later date.

I quickly scanned through a reference book that listed everything available to outer sect disciples. It was disappointing, but I found a few books on basic and intermediate Rank 3 formations. I had to trade in 3 spirit stones for enough contribution points to buy both of them, but I considered that a more than fair price.

Besides simple information books, there were also manuals for techniques to help when creating formations. I considered purchasing a few of them, but I didn’t know which would be worth the cost. I had learned that in alchemy, there were a few techniques that were nearly mandatory to be a decent alchemist, such as ones to improve pill efficacy, but there were many that were only useful to low-skilled practitioners.

I needed a teacher to guide me in such purchasing decisions.

With this in mind, I returned to the Mission Hall and submitted my own mission. I needed a formations teacher. After reviewing the costs associated with the different levels and ranks of teachers, I decided on requesting a Lord-level inner sect teacher. This wasn’t too much more than hiring a Grandmaster-level core disciple would have been, and I hoped they would be able to share additional knowledge.

Two dozen spirit stones poorer, I left the peak and returned to my store.

Considering that my position in the sect was at least partially determined by my aptitude as a formation specialist, I needed to improve quickly if I wanted to advance. My level of formation comprehension was already good for a Grandmaster, but since my skill with formations was the main thing holding me back, I wanted to push my comprehension even further.

“System, increase my formation comprehension to a total of 500 million credits.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 450 million credits. 710,799,004 credits remaining.

I spent the next several days studying the formation books I had purchased. The knowledge flowed into me like a steady stream and previously obtuse ideas were easy to understand. Where before I was simply copying down a set inscription, I was now beginning to understand its underlying meaning.

During my tutoring session, I asked my teacher to focus on discussing important techniques I needed to learn, when to use them, and why to use them. After he covered everything he could think of on the topic, I then demonstrated creating a Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formation, and he offered ideas on how it could be improved.

Lastly, since he was a Formation Lord, I asked him to teach me what he could about a Rank 4 Qi Gathering Formations since I wanted to construct one for myself in the future. He acceded to my request but added some important advice.

“When you make such a formation for people in the future, always turn up the qi flow to slightly above what the materials can handle. This will cause the stone to slowly wear away over time. If you don’t, your formations will last for years, and you’ll lose all your customers. It’s better to advertise your formations as ‘more powerful’ and just say that the limited lifespan is an unfortunate side effect.”

This was simple planned obsolescence at its finest. Never make something that will last when you can charge more for something that needs to be frequently replaced.

Taking the tutor’s advice to heart, I went and traded a good portion of my remaining spirit stones for the techniques he had told me about.

With all of the purchases I had been making recently, my number of spirit stones was quickly depleting. While I had only used up about 10% of my reserves, I didn’t want to rely so heavily on my stored wealth. I needed my shop to start making a solid profit so that I could rely on that instead.

Two years passed quickly as I carefully cultivated the Steady Earth technique to the peak of the Grandmaster Realm.

My main focus was on raising my cultivation level, but I spent the downtime after compressing my qi to study formations. With my boosted comprehension, I was confident I knew everything in the manuals for outer sect disciples. If I wanted to learn more, I would need to advance to either the inner sect or Martial Lord.

I knew that combat skills were highly valued in the sect. Nothing made that clearer than the multitude of missions focused on fighting battles from random towns, so I needed to improve my combat ability, but I just didn’t have time. Raising my formation skills to an acceptable level took all the free time I had.

I could only hope it was enough.

Two weeks before the year’s Entrance Exam for outsiders, sect disciples were allowed to enter the Exam’s Trial to try and raise their position within the sect. This opportunity came at a steep cost in contribution points, but if one was successfully promoted, those points were refunded.

My shop’s business had steadily increased over the years, and I was not short of points for Grandmaster-level purchases. So, knowing that being an inner sect disciple could open a few more doors, I decided to attempt the sect’s Exam once more.

But before I did so, I needed to make an important purchase.

“System, how much to prevent the Trial from affecting my mind or wiping my memories?”

Protection from Trial Formation. Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

That wasn’t good. If I couldn’t even get a cost, that meant the mind-wiping formation was at a very high level. I was pretty sure that it was only affecting my short-term memory, which wasn’t too much of a problem, but I needed to try and take precautions.

“System, when I leave the Trial, I want my mental state to revert to exactly how it was before I entered, removing any changes that occur while inside.”

Mental Reversion. Cost 1 million credits.

That wasn’t bad. It was unfortunate that I would have no idea what mental effects I would be under, if any, but the cost of that knowledge was beyond what I could afford.

I could try one thing though…

“System, how much to restore my memories from my first time in the Trial?”

Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

I figured as much, but it was worth asking. Setting up a situation where the System would instantly restore my memories was likewise impossible.

“Purchase the scheduled mental reversion so that when I leave the Trial, I am restored to my previous state.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 million credits. 709,799,004 credits remaining.

With protections in place, I left Mortal City and headed to the Exam. With the prohibitive cost of entry, there was no need to wait for a slot, and I got to enter the Trial immediately.

I stepped into the dark portal, and seemingly an instant later, I stepped out of it.

The scribe at the counter gave me a bored look and spoke in a monotone voice.

“Promotion to ungraded inner sect disciple confirmed. Congratulations. Hand me your jade.”

I did so, and it was replaced with a new token made for an inner sect disciple.

With a smile on my face, I returned to my shop.

When I entered, I was greeted with a wide, flattering smile from Brother Mao. He was standing next to a somewhat obese man in richly embroidered robes.

“Senior Brother Su, welcome back. May I introduce you to Senior Brother Pang? He is from the PangBo Merchant Association. He is here with an excellent offer for us.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 145 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Grandmaster Peak

I looked at the two men in my shop warily. Something felt wrong about the situation.

“Senior Brother Pang.” I bowed my head slightly. “How may I help you today?”

He smiled ingratiatingly.

“Please, we are entering into a business relationship. Sect matters can be put to the side for now. Just call me Manager Pang.”

“Alright, Manager Pang, how may I help you?”

His assertion that we were entering into a relationship bothered me, but I was willing to refer to him however he pleased.

“Alchemist Su, Brother Mao here has brought us a sample of your pills. They are fantastic. We are only upset we didn’t hear about you sooner. We have scouts looking for promising disciples on the Fire Peak, but who would have thought to look for such a skilled alchemist on the Earth Peak?”

He gave a hearty laugh at this, but my eyes narrowed on Mao. He took my pills to this PangBo Association? Why?

“Manager Pang, I appreciate your compliment, but maybe you could explain your offer?”

“Of course, of course.” He spoke quickly and maintained a cheerful tone. “Our appraisers were impressed by your excellent work. When Brother Mao brought us samples, we were ashamed that you had been left to languish in this remote area of the city. From now on, you just need to pass your pills to us. We’ll sell them for you at a premium location right next to the Gateway Plaza.”

I tapped my fingers together in thought. This wasn’t a terrible idea. Running my own store was working, but if they wanted to handle all the grunt work for me and take a cut of the profits, I could agree to that.

However, there was something I needed to know before we took this discussion any further.

“Brother Mao, Manager Pang says you took samples to them? Please, tell me, why?”

Mao chuckled. “Brother Su, don’t look so serious. Running this store is a lot of effort, right? We need to focus on ascending to Yellow City. If Manager Pang and his associates handle distributing our pills, then we can focus on more important things.”

His words bothered me. ‘Our pills.’ ‘We can focus.’ Before, he said that Manager Pang had an excellent offer for ‘us.’ Brother Mao had helped me run the shop for a couple of years now, and I was grateful for his help, but this seemed to be taking things too far. Beyond just the words he said, I felt the greed in his voice.

I looked at Manager Pang. “What is your offer?”

“90-10. Work with us, give us your pills, and when we sell them, you will get 90% of the purchase price. We will only keep 10.”

That… was not what I was expecting. I had to reevaluate the situation. I had been feeling like that was a hostile takeover, but those margins were better than I could get anywhere else. Looking at Mao, I began to think they were suspiciously high.

“Manager Pang, that is a very generous offer. If I work with you, though, what work will there be for Brother Mao? He spends his days tending the shop. Will he be receiving any compensation from this deal?”

Mao waved his hands. “Brother Su, please, don’t worry about me. I only care about taking care of you.”

I didn’t respond to him and just looked at Manager Pang. I could tell that the manager knew what I was thinking, but he wasn’t willing to address it directly.

“Do not worry, Alchemist Su, we will take good care of Junior Brother Mao. He has brought the two of us together, so he deserves to be rewarded for that. We plan to train him as a guard for our stores in Yellow City.”

Something was off about what he said. Something was off about all of this, but I didn’t have enough context to understand what was happening. This was a trap of some kind. I was certain of it. I just needed to decide how I wanted to react.

The only loophole I found in his words was that my compensation would be based on the ‘purchase price,’ so he could theoretically sell them to allies at below market value. As long as there wasn’t an oath between us, though, I could just back out of the deal later if he tried to pull something like that. What would be the point?

If I turned Manager Pang down, he couldn’t do much to me here, but he could easily send someone to attack me when I left to ascend the mountain. If I agreed to his offer, I would be placing my neck in a noose. I was certain I’d be in an unpleasant situation of some kind, but I would gain knowledge about this potential danger for future lives.

I bow slightly. “Very well, Manager Pang, I accept your proposal. I will conduct my business through your association in the future. I look forward to our mutual success.”

He cupped his fists in a martial salute. “Happy cooperation.”

Arranging things through the PangBo Merchant Association was incredibly swift and easy. Manager Pang gave me a location to deliver my pills and assured me that as long as they were Perfect Rank 3 pills of at least 100% efficacy, the association would directly pay me 90% of their market value. If they were able to sell the pills at a premium, I would receive additional compensation during my next drop-off.

While he said that I could deliver as many pills of any type I desired, I made sure to enquire about which ones would be the most desirable or if they had any particular requests for the type of pills they received. I was going to take advantage of this situation to run up my contribution point total as high as possible, and there was no reason to offend my benefactors by giving them pills that wouldn’t sell.

Selling pills in this manner, my contribution point count climbed quickly. I used these funds to take a few lessons from Rank 4 formation specialists and combat instructors, but my need for contribution points was limited.

I couldn’t buy karmic energy in Mortal City, and while contribution points could purchase a slot in the Earth Peak Trial, only contribution points directly earned from completing missions were valid for such a purchase. Unable to permanently increase my affinities and lacking Grandmaster-level combat experience, I didn’t bother wasting my time traveling to random towns to complete missions.

After a few months of this routine, I felt that my foundation as a Grandmaster was firming up, so I began planning my ascent to Yellow City. While I couldn’t get much information about what the journey involved, it was clear that the trek was dangerous in some way.

The sect had set up a variety of challenges for anyone wishing to ascend. With my limited Grandmaster-level combat training, I wasn’t in the best position to fight someone in a fair duel, so I stocked up on plenty of formations and pills that could help me pull off a sneak attack.

Everything was going smoothly, but that was when I received an unexpected visitor.

After leaving Earth Peak, I was returning to my workshop when someone walked in front of me and blocked my path. This was unusual in Mortal City. The rules were very strict, and no one would easily break them by starting an unprovoked fight.

I looked at the face of the person who stopped me, and it took me several moments to process it.

“Yan? Is that you?”

The Zhuge Yan before me looked haggard and weary. In the past, there was a sharpness about his appearance that made me think he was always calculating something. Now, all I saw was an air of sorrow and grief. His clothing was crumpled and stained. The ponytail that held his long hair in place was frayed and hairs were sticking out at odd angles. His once meticulous appearance had degraded to the point that he looked like a vagabond who had been wandering the woods for weeks without rest.

“Su Fang.” He snorted and gave me a look bordering on disgust. “So, you do remember us after all this time.”

“What? Yan, of course I do. What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

These questions only seemed to anger him. “What’s going on? So, you remember us, but you haven’t thought to take even a moment to collect the letters we’ve sent you over the years. It was your idea to keep in touch in the first place, but have you ever considered doing so?”

That… was fair. Once I separated from the group, I became focused on only my own improvement again. What happened during this false timeline didn’t matter much to me. The letters were just a way to see if I could help them the next time around. I didn’t think about actually staying in contact. Mentally, I no longer considered these versions of my classmates to be ‘real.’

“Sorry.” I dropped my eyes in shame. “I should have stayed in touch. What’s… what’s been going on with everyone?”

Yan gave me a long stare before breaking it with a sigh of despair. He seemed to want to collapse to the ground. Realizing that the middle of the street wasn’t the best place for this conversation, I led him to a small tea house for a private discussion.

After the attendant poured our tea and left, we just sat there, staring at our glasses. Eventually, Yan broke the silence.

“It’s probably a good thing that you ignored us. I… I’m just mad. Not at you. Just at… everything. I wanted you to help, but there was nothing you could have done.”

“Yan, please, tell me what happened.”

He picked up his cup and took a long sip.

“LiTing is dead. Officially, she died tragically in an accident during a duel at the Academy, but it was an assassination. YuLong’s family has been slaughtered, and those few that remain alive have been exiled from their empire. Instead of killing JiaQi directly, they're hunting her for sport. She’s been on the run in the wilderness for years now. Her deer LuLu was killed.”

I sat stunned. LiTing dying… I had been prepared for that after the last time. The others though? What had gone so wrong?

“It was my family. Once the others left the protection of the Academy, my family crushed them. I can’t be sure about LiTing, but I think they were also responsible for that. If they found out she was a talented refiner, they would have done everything they could to prevent her from being able to support me. You might have been spared because you were holed up here, but you could have just been overlooked since we didn’t contact each other.”

“Why?” It was the only word I could manage.

“They wanted to force me to leave the Academy and return home. Becoming a Sovereign through the sect would…” He trailed off not wanting to say more.

“Yan, please, help me understand. I might be able to help, but only if I know.”

He looked at his now empty cup as he calculated the worth of my words.

“There are rules about what people outside the clans can know. If I break my oath and tell you more than what is allowed, I will be punished by the Heavens, but I will tell you what I can. The Zhuge Clan is a minor branch of the Zhu Clan on the Central Continent. The most talented disciples from the Zhuge are raised up and brought into the Zhu Clan as low-level subordinates. We lack any freedom to control our future.”

His voice was tinged with bitterness.

“I wanted to break that cycle of subservience. By becoming a Sovereign through the sect instead of the Zhu Clan, I might be allowed to forge an independent force under the protection of the Saint. I was doing this for the Zhuge Clan as a whole, but our patriarch is beholden to the Zhu Clan. He will not attack me directly, but he will do everything he can to force me to return. Only the protection of the Academy, the sect, and the Ning Clan can hold him back.”

“That…” I tried to respond, but what could I say? “That is difficult. I don’t know if I can help with something on that level.”

He chuckled mirthlessly. Then, he took a thick book out of a storage bag. “Here. This is what you wanted. I don’t know what good it will do you, but I knew it was important.”

He slid the book to me. I took a quick look and saw it was a record of notable events for the past several years.

Yan stood up and walked toward the exit.

“Don’t try to contact me again. I’m returning to the Zhuge Clan. Don’t do anything that will alert them.”

“Yan…”

He didn’t look back at me as he vanished into the crowded street.

The meeting with Yan lit a fire in me. I needed to bring this timeline to a close. That meant I needed to hurry faster.

I contacted the PangBo Merchant Association and told them of my plans to ascend to Yellow City. When I arrived at the city’s northern gate, Mao and a man I didn’t recognize were waiting for me.

“Brother Su!” Mao hugged my shoulder and spoke with a bright tone. “This is Brother Wen. He is a powerful fighter from the Association. Senior Brother Pang personally chose him to escort us up the mountain.”

I nodded toward the unknown man, but he paid me little attention.

“Well then, let’s go.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 146 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Grandmaster Peak

As we walked out of Mortal City, the feeling that I got from Brother Wen was one of indifference. He didn’t feel like a guard that was sent to safeguard my life. He felt like someone who wouldn’t care if I lived or died.

On the other hand, Mao just seemed excited, like the day he had been waiting his whole life for had finally arrived.

This combination left me unnerved, but that was fine. If they decided to attack me for some reason, I was prepared. I didn’t know how strong Wen was, but I believed I could hold my own. And anyway, if I couldn’t, it just meant returning to try and fix everyone’s problems earlier than I expected.

The walk to the base of Dragon Peak was calm and relaxing. It had been a long time since I had been outside in nature, and even though I was wary of my travel companions, I still took the time to enjoy the walk.

Near the mountain, the terrain became somewhat hilly, but the entire area was a wide-open grassland. I could see scattered temperate forests on the mountain itself, but out here, a few miles away, there were only rolling fields of green grass.

While we didn’t rush, we did maintain a steady pace along the dirt road leading to the mountain’s base. Having left the city, we were no longer under the protection of the sect, and anyone could strike at us at any time. I wasn’t too worried since I doubted many would hang around this close to the city walls, but with the threat of the unknown lurking behind the surrounding hills and the danger of being betrayed by my companions, I didn’t allow myself to relax too much.

About half an hour after leaving the city, we came upon a three-way fork in the road. There was a trail marker explaining things, but Wen didn’t even look at it. He immediately took the rightmost path and urged us forward.

I didn’t stop to study the marker closely, but I did see that the paths were labeled the ‘Path of Body,’ the ‘Path of Mind,’ and the ‘Path of Soul.’ Wen guided us down the Path of Soul.

If the Association had been studying me, they would have seen my combat training, limited though it was. They also knew that I was proficient in both alchemy and formations. Were we going down this path because it was seen as my weakness? I had never cultivated my soul, but at this point, it had to be strong enough to withstand a test intended for some run-of-the-mill Grandmaster.

While I had my guesses as to his motive, I wanted to sate my curiosity.

“Brother Wen, why did you choose this path?”

He grunted at me. “It’s the easiest.”

That didn’t sound true at all, but I let it slide.

We continued walking along the trail until we reached a point where two stone plinths slightly taller than the top of my head stood on either side of the trail. They formed a type of gateway to the area beyond. Wen spoke up to explain the situation.

“Once we pass that line, the test will begin. You will feel a heavy pressure on your soul that will make it difficult to continue walking. There are several of these markers along the trail. Each time we pass one, the pressure will increase. That’s all we have to do on this path, just bear with a little pressure. After about a day, we should arrive in Yellow City.”

I doubted it would be so easy, but I decided not to question his claim directly. Instead, I wanted to know more about a few other details.

“What if we go around the markers instead of following the trail?”

“Won’t work. There’s a shield that stops you. That shield will also prevent you from going back after you pass through the markers. You can go off the trail to forage for food and water, but if you want to leave the path completely, the only way is forward, through the next set of markers.”

“Do we need to worry about being attacked?”

I noticed Wen’s hand twitch at this question, but it was only an involuntary reflex.

“Maybe. There are no beasts to attack us on this path, but cultivators who don’t feel they can proceed past the next checkpoint will wait to let their souls grow under the pressure from the path. They may decide to attack, so we should be careful.”

Finally, I asked the question that truly interested me. “How do you know all this? I tried to research the path to Yellow City a few times, but I could never get any solid information about it. I was convinced the sect was suppressing people from talking about it. How were you able to learn so much?”

He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again without saying anything. After a bit more thinking, he grunted. “There are benefits to working for a large organization instead of being a rogue cultivator.”

I thought about asking more, but Wen stopped me.

“Let’s move.”

He did not put action to his words though. He waited for Mao and me to pass through the markers first. Deciding to follow his strategy, I looked at Mao, suggesting that he go first.

Mao just laughed and walked forward.

When he passed the barrier, it was like a massive weight slammed down on him. He fell to his knees groaning in pain. I paid close attention to his behavior and mannerisms, trying to understand how the soul pressure was making him act.

A few moments later, he shakily stood and nodded for me to follow.

When I passed the markers, I immediately fell to my knees and let out a moan, doing my best to mimic Mao’s reaction. I felt a slight pressure in my head like I was about to have a headache, but nothing that would cause me to behave anywhere closer to as dramatically as Mao had acted.

Still, I did my best to mimic his reaction and shakily stood. Then, I looked at Wen who smoothly followed us and showed no reaction to the path’s effects.

We continued down the path at a slightly slower pace. Under the path’s pressure, Mao couldn’t keep walking at the same speed he had previously, and I slowed down to match him. After two hours of slowly plodding along, we found the second set of marker stones. Wen stopped us before we could cross them. He reached into his storage bag and pulled out two pills, handing one to each of us.

“Take these, they’ll temporarily strengthen your soul, making it easier to continue forward. If you cross first, you might get knocked unconscious.”

Mao grabbed a pill and swallowed it without a thought. Within seconds, a grin returned to his face.

“That’s some great stuff. Wish you had given it to us earlier.”

He nearly danced past the markers and only showed a slight wince at the increased pressure on the other side.

I studied the pill in my hand, trying to analyze it. I was completely unfamiliar with its ingredients. It had an odd combination of wind and thunder energies mixed with a small amount of light and dark. I had no idea what this pill was or how it worked.

I considered upgrading my pill analysis ability, but this wasn’t the time. I could worry about studying it later. With Wen staring at me, I needed to hurry and consume it.

I raised it to my lips, and the moment right before I released it into my mouth, I shoved it into my storage space and replaced it with a basic Rank 3 healing pill that was a similar shade of dark green.

Judging by Mao’s reaction, the pill clearly had an effect on the soul, and there was no way I was going to consume such a thing without understanding exactly what it did first.

When the pill entered my mouth, the tension in Wen’s shoulders relaxed.

With my soul definitely strengthened from the pill, I crossed the marker line and showed the same slight wince that Mao had. Wen followed after us and again showed no reaction to the increased pressure.

At the third set of marker stones, this same pantomime repeated itself. I was given a pill, I studied it, pocketed it in my storage space, and ate a healing pill.

At the fourth set of markers, I didn’t bother studying the pill anymore. I just quickly ‘consumed’ it.

While the soul pressure was beginning to build, and I was starting to feel it, I was thankfully not hindered by it in any way. This let me continue my show of easy compliance up until we reached the fifth set of marker stones.

As we approached, I noticed a tension settle over Wen’s shoulders once more.

He handed me a pill, and I quickly ‘swallowed’ it for him to see. Then, passed through the marker stones once more.

As Wen passed through the stones, he let out a hearty chuckle.

“Damn, you alchemists are so annoying. Do you know that? Suspicious of anything you’re given, but once you’re convinced you know what it is, you swallow it down without question.”

I raised my eyebrow as he continued to rant.

“I got in a lot of trouble with the boss over you. Letting a skilled alchemist slip through the cracks. He wasn’t too happy about that. Not at all. Not my fault you’re an idiot who went to the Earth Peak for some damn reason. Can’t believe I’m forced to ascend because of you. Should have been able to just shove that damn pill down your throat on the Fire Peak like normal. At least I got a promotion out of it, so I’ll have to thank you.”

He gave me a mock bow to conclude his little soliloquy.

I had no idea what he thought was going on. Those pills must have had some additional effect, but without spending time studying them, I had no clue what it could be.

“Care to explain?” He was being nice and forthcoming about his plans, so I was willing to let him just tell me anything I needed to know.

Mao started laughing. “Master Wen, let me, please. This fool has no idea what’s going to happen to him.”

Wen gestured magnanimously to Brother Mao who gave me a mocking glare.

“You think I’m some idiot. Someone willing to be your pet slave for a pittance while you sell mountains of pills, right?” He laughed crazily. “That’s why I contacted Master Pang. He doesn’t like alchies ruining his business. Now, you are going to be nothing but his slave, and I will be rewarded handsomely for helping capture you.”

His words made it sound like he was burning with resentment and anger, but all I sensed from the man was naked greed. I had known Mao was a bit greedy, but I didn’t expect it to push him this far. I would need to be more sensitive to this in the future.

I turned to Wen.

“Are you serious? You’re going to reward him for this? That seems like a strange business decision.”

Mao laughed. “What do you know about business? You—”

His words immediately cut off as Wen flicked his hand and an invisible blade of wind slashed out at Mao. Completely unprepared, Mao could only gape in horror as the blade sliced through his neck.

I nodded at the scene then looked back to Wen.

“That makes more sense. I’m confused though. How, exactly, am I your slave now? I mean, I get that you can attack me. You might even be able to easily kill me, but how does that make me a slave?”

Wen grinned. “Not familiar with wind cultivators, I see. Not a surprise. The civilized regions don’t appreciate us too much. The Nine Rivers Sect is one of the few places on this damn continent where we can freely practice our craft.”

I cocked my head to the side. I remembered thinking about the profession connected to wind cultivators in the past, but I had never heard anything about it. Even in the Yellow Orchid Academy, they had wind techniques, but there wasn’t a library dedicated to its elusive profession.

“And what craft is that?”

Wen, believing I was completely under his control, was more than happy to monologue.

He reached into his storage bag and pulled something out. It took me a long moment to understand what I was looking at.

“A centipede?”

“A gu worm. This is a soul gu. After it enters your body, it crawls its way into your very soul. As a Gu Grandmaster, it is under my complete control. If you don’t follow my commands, it will release a potent toxin that will cause you unbearable agony until you comply.”

“I see. So, this insect, this ‘gu,’ is under your control. You tell it to hurt me, and it does?”

Wen smirked in confirmation.

“And… you want me to put that thing inside my body… I don’t think I will do that.”

“Don’t worry, that’s already been taken care of. You were kind enough to not only willingly consume several Soul Numbing Pills, but you also swallowed the egg of a soul gu. Your assistance is no longer required.”

“I see. Well, that is unfortunate.”

My calm reaction was beginning to make Wen slightly nervous. I needed to act.

I reached into my storage space and made several potent exploding formations appear directly in my right hand. I charged and threw them at Wen in a single fluid motion.

He was surprised, but not completely.

He was a trained Grandmaster combatant, and I had no experience fighting against someone with his element. I needed to take him out before he could respond. I couldn’t allow him to do anything that would affect my soul.

Following up the formations, I took out half a dozen Rank 4 exploding pills and threw them.

Then, I pulled out a shielding formation to protect myself from the blast.

A firestorm erupted only a few meters in front of me. When it cleared, I saw Wen lying on the ground.

He might have been dead, but I wasn’t willing to take any chances.

I threw out a formation that had a Rank 3 metal attack technique inscribed into it.

Metal qi burst out and stabbed Wen in the heart.

Now confident of my opponent’s death, I quickly looked for his storage bag, but it was destroyed in the bombardment.

I didn’t want to stick around in case anyone else was nearby, so I ran off the path and into the forests that comprised the area past the fifth set of marker stones.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 147 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Once I was a good distance away from the site of the battle, I hid in the woods as well as I could manage. I needed a moment to catch my breath and figure out what to do next.

Wen’s talk about gu had me worried. I had zero understanding of what such insects might be capable of, and if inadvertently ingesting such things could cause severe soul damage, I would have to be far more careful in the future.

I reached into my storage space and pulled out all of the pills that he had given me. Looking at the last one, I noticed that it was slightly different, but without knowing more about what I was looking at, there was no way I would be able to understand it as anything but a Low-Purity pill. Using energy vision, all I could see was a tight bundle of what looked like wind-based toxins bound up in its core. If I saw this without knowing what it was, I would be suspicious, but there was nothing that suggested it was an insect egg.

Learning how a normal alchemist might identify pills that had been tampered with in such a way would be a valuable skill, but this was too urgent of a problem to push off until a later date.

“System, how much to raise my pill analysis ability high enough to analyze these pills?”

Cost 50 million credits.

I debated whether that price was worth it. The appraisal ability I bought in the past only gave a pill’s name and efficacy. It didn’t list its effects. It might be better to try and find a cheaper, more direct way to handle this situation. Still, the cost was well within my means, and I didn’t have any better ideas that were both effective and affordable, so I decided to go ahead and buy it.

Purchase confirmed. Cost 50 million credits. 659,799,004 credits remaining.

I returned my focus to the pills and analyzed them.

Mid-Purity Rank 3 Soul Numbing Pill, 73% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 8,000 gold.

Staring at the pill, I wasn’t sure what to be more offended by, the fact that they tried to enslave me with these things, or that they wanted to use such low-quality pills to do it. Mid-Purity was one thing, but only 73% efficacy?

I turned my attention to the pill that contained the gu egg.

Low-Purity Rank 3 Soul Numbing Pill (tainted), 19% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 390,000 gold.

The analysis didn’t tell me anything about the insect inside or what it would do, but at least I could use it to know if there was a problem with any pills in the future. I considered buying a more detailed analysis ability, but the cost was too much. I wasn’t willing to spend hundreds of millions of credits on such a thing at the moment.

I returned the normal Soul Numbing Pills to my storage space. I would never consume them myself, but I might find some way to use them in the future. If nothing else, I could study them to try to understand their recipe.

As for the pill with the egg inside, I crushed it into a fine powder. It might be somewhat valuable, and I doubted that the gu egg would be able to harm me while locked away in my storage space and trapped within a pill, but I wasn’t going to take any chances with something like that.

With my evaluation of the pills complete, I needed to start looking toward the future. Wen was dead, and entering Yellow City without him would only cause me trouble. There was little I could do to change the information connected to my jade identity badge, so if the Association had a way to somehow track those, I would be in trouble no matter what. However, there was something I could do to give myself a little bit of protection.

“System, change my outward appearance to make me look like Chen WuJing from the Blue Wind Pavilion.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 100,000 credits. 659,699,004 credits remaining.

I felt the bones and skin of my face twist as they shifted. My height dropped a few centimeters, and my waistline expanded. Without a mirror, I wouldn’t be able to see how accurate the System's alteration was, but I could feel that significant changes had taken place.

I pulled a small knife out of my storage bag and hacked at my hair. I usually kept it long in the fashion of most of the locals, but people who followed a martial path tended to keep their hair quite short. I wrapped the blade in a wisp of qi to make the cutting easier, and I did my best to style my hair to look like a regular martial cultivator.

Since my first life in this world, I had nearly always grown a small, tight beard. I didn’t have the skill needed to shave it clean using only a knife, but I trimmed it down as close to my face as I could manage.

Finally, I took a pale blue outfit out of my storage bag and changed into it. It was designed for martial cultivators and had leather straps around the forearms and shins to keep the cloth tight against the skin.

I hadn’t been able to get any information about what the path to Yellow City would involve, but I had been convinced the trip would involve some kind of betrayal by my traveling companions. So, before I left Mortal City, I had made a few purchases of such items to prepare for different eventualities.

My change of dress might not have fooled anyone, but with the comprehensive changes to my face and skeletal structure, there was no chance anyone would recognize me. The identity attached to the jade badge was a problem, and I asked the System for a solution, but there was nothing within my price range.

Prepared as I could be, I returned to the path toward Yellow City.

The fifth section was the final part of the Path of Soul.

Unlike the previous areas, the pressure in the fifth section was not constant. The closer I got to the exit of the path, the more it increased.

I was able to walk through this entire section without too much difficulty, but as I did, I wondered if staying in such a place would be an effective way to train my soul. Performing complex tasks such as alchemy under the pressure of the path would definitely be a strain.

Two things stopped me from testing this. First, I wasn’t at all sure if it was a good idea. I had no understanding of how to improve a soul, so randomly trying things out was not on my to-do list. Second, I wasn’t willing to spend time here. I could study soul cultivation back at the Academy. For the moment, I was content to press forward.

However, even though I was personally against the idea, I did spot several people cultivating by the side of the path. They were those who had reached their limits and needed to strengthen themselves if they wanted to proceed any further.

Because of what Wen had said, I was worried they might try to attack me, but as I passed by, no one so much as moved a finger. I considered this as I walked and came to a realization. There was no way such people would try to attack me. It would be completely foolish. I was able to waltz right past them while they were under immense strain just to stay conscious. If they tried to attack, it would be a death sentence.

On other paths, I might need to be more careful, but on the Path of Soul, anyone who had the ability to attack me also had the ability to complete the path, so I had no reason to be overly afraid.

After the sixth and final set of marker stones, I exited the path, and the pressure on my soul disappeared.

Only a short distance away, a rather small city with tall yellow walls was built into the mountainside.

Straightening myself and remembering my new WuJing persona, I calmly walked toward Yellow City.

My understanding of Yellow City was shallow, but I wasn’t willing to spend any time understanding it better. The one thing that I did know was that the PangBo Merchant Association had a large presence here, and I didn’t want to risk being around them any more than I had to.

As soon as I entered the city, I found a servant disciple on the weaker end of Grandmaster and asked him where to find the sect-run stores. Following his guidance, I quickly made my way to the place where I could purchase karmic energy.

The place I had been directed to was a large temple-like structure in the middle of the city. It was a bit too high-profile for my liking, but I didn’t let that stop me. I walked in and saw an elderly man in orange robes kneeling and burning incense before an altar.

I didn’t want to disturb him, so I waited anxiously for him to finish, tapping my finger against the side of my leg the entire time. As soon as he stood, I approached.

“Excuse me, elder. Is this where I can purchase karmic energy?”

He stood silently and inspected me for a long while before responding.

“Yes.”

That less-than-helpful response made me somewhat annoyed. I was on edge from being so close to the Association’s base of operation, and this guy’s terse response wasn’t helping the situation.

To prevent myself from snapping, I stepped back, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I needed to center myself. Yes, I was in a hurry, and yes, if the Association knew I was here after killing Wen, I would only have moments left to live. They might even have a way to permanently kill me. However, for the moment, I was safe.

A few long, deep breaths later, I opened my eyes to look at the elder again. I was grateful that he had waited patiently while I got my emotions under control.

“Apologies, elder, I have been under a bit of strain recently.”

I gave him a deep bow which he returned with a slight dip of his head.

“If possible, I would like to purchase karmic energy sufficient to advance to Martial Lord. Could you help me with this?”

His face softened a bit as I spoke.

“Hand me your identity jade.”

I did so, and he studied it.

“An impressive amount of contribution points for one so young. Especially one who has yet to complete any missions.” He tapped the jade badge a few times. “We don’t like that, you know? It’s better to complete the missions to better understand your role in the sect. But since it seems you earned your points through your own ability instead of selling family treasures, we can let it slide for now.”

That… How much information were they recording about me? I could understand them knowing that I didn’t complete any missions, but recording that I had earned my points through alchemy was slightly concerning. Not because of that information specifically, but because if it was recorded, then other things I didn’t know about would be recorded as well.

The elder handed my badge back to me.

“I will allow you to advance to Lord, but before you advance to King, you must travel to Profound City and complete a total of at least one hundred missions for the sect. After every ten you complete, you will be allowed access to an allotment of enough karmic energy to advance to the next stage of the Lord realm. Is that understood?”

I bowed once more. “Yes, elder.”

He tapped his wrist, and a small wave of energy entered my dantian. The feeling was nowhere near as powerful as when the Ning Clan’s servant had done something similar.

“Thank you, elder. I understand the need for missions. However, my ability with formations is somewhat lacking. Would it be possible for me to gain access to alchemy missions even though I am a member of the Earth Peak?”

He closed his eyes in thought.

“It is unusual, but special dispensation has been granted for such a thing in the past. I will pass along your request. Take the Path of Mind on your way to Profound City. When you arrive there, you will have your answer.”

“Thank you, elder.”

Knowing that it was time, I bowed and left.

Once outside, I rented a cheap room and used the Water Groom technique to advance to Lord. I considered looking for other cultivation techniques in the city, but I didn’t want to spend the time that buying and studying a new technique would require. I had no wish to stay so near where the PangBo Association would be looking for me any longer than I had to. This technique had served me well in the past, so I saw no need to replace it for the moment. When I reached Profound City, I could look for new techniques to use in my next life.

I didn’t have a Rank 4 formation to boost my advancement, but I did have a Rank 3 formation and several Rank 4 pills. In less than a week, I stepped into the Martial Lord realm once more.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 148 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Lord 1

My time in Yellow City proceeded smoothly, and I didn’t encounter any of the problems that I had expected. Based on the description of there being no rules on Dragon Peak, I had thought that there might be rampant theft and murder everywhere. However, reality did not comport with these expectations.

From what little I saw of it, Yellow City seemed like it was just a smaller version of Mortal City. In retrospect, this shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise. If there were unbridled chaos, people wouldn’t have any opportunity to learn or grow. The reality was that the lack of sect rules simply led to local powers establishing their own authority over territories within the city.

This information could be useful for any future lives that I would be spending within the Nine Rivers Sect, but it didn’t change my plans for the rest of this one. Even if the city was safer than I had imagined, I wasn’t willing to stick around for any surprises from the PangBo Merchants. Besides, I would have to reach Profound City before I could continue advancing anyway.

Walking the path to the next city might be dangerous for the unprepared, but I much preferred the uncertain dangers of the path to being within the reach of people who could infect my soul with demonic insects. So, the day after I advanced to Martial Lord, I left Yellow City through the eastern gate and began heading further up the mountain.

This path was similar to the one that I had used to leave Mortal City. The main difference was that I was climbing the mountain instead of merely heading toward its base.

After several minutes of walking, I reached a fork in the road that led to three different tests, just like last time. The Path of Soul continued around the mountain, remaining at the same elevation. The Path of Body was a steep climb up the mountain. The Path of Mind led to a cave opening a few dozen meters away.

I was told to take the Path of Mind, but I wanted to check something before I did.

I followed the Path of Soul and found the marker stones that signified its entrance. I approached the stones and tried to pass an arm through the opening. A barrier appeared and blocked my hand before it could cross the test’s threshold.

The Nine Rivers Sect had shown multiple times that they valued diversity in a cultivator’s abilities. This barrier demonstrated that sentiment yet again. While one was able to advance to Yellow City with only a single area of expertise, if they wanted to reach Profound City, they would need to be proficient in at least two different disciplines. To proceed to Earth City, they would almost certainly need to be masters of all three. The only lingering question was what tests existed after that point.

Gaining this insight was valuable, but it wasn’t what I had come for. I returned to the fork and headed down the Path of Mind.

I entered the cave opening and walked carefully through the tunnel beyond.

The passageway appeared to be a natural opening created by water seeping through the mountain over several millennia. The stones had a dampness about them that indicated an ongoing process of erosion. However, there was an artificiality about everything. The passage was too flat. It didn’t slope in any direction like a normal cave would. If this place had ever been natural, then it had been carefully modified by cultivators from the sect to better suit their needs.

This first tunnel was not very long. It ended in an atrium with eight stone arches. Beyond each arch, tunnels continued into the mountain and curved out of sight. Across the top of each arch was a label for each of the different professions I had become familiar with such as alchemist, refiner, and illusionist. I spent a long moment staring at the archway labeled ‘Gu Keeper.’ That was not a path I had any desire to explore.

I naturally walked towards the arch for alchemists, but only a few steps away, I halted in my tracks. I felt a twinge from my spatial affinity. Staring deep into the arch, I understood what it was trying to tell me. This wasn’t a simple passage into the mountain. It was a portal to somewhere else.

Knowing that walking through the arch would teleport me somewhere didn’t change what I needed to do, so I stepped through confidently. However, as I walked, I mentally noted that this wasn’t simply a tunnel into the mountain. I might not even be on Dragon Peak anymore. I wasn’t sure what I could do with that knowledge, but it was something to keep in mind.

The next cavern I entered was a large square room hewn out of the surrounding stone. Across from me was a closed wooden doorway. To my right was an alchemy workbench that held a small cauldron and several herbs. To my left was another stone arch.

Before investigating the workbench, I wanted to examine the archway.

Again, my spatial affinity indicated that this was a portal to somewhere else. Beyond the opening was an immense cavern that was overgrown with vegetation. Through this passage, I could hear countless insects and other animals that lived in the subterranean jungle as well as the sounds of running water in the distance. I could also hear what sounded like the chaos of a battle hidden within the dense foliage.

I turned back to the workbench to try to understand what I was supposed to do. A scrap of paper laid out my mission succinctly.

Create one Rank 4 Basic Healing Pill and place it on the formation stone to be graded. If it is of sufficient quality, the path to the next test will open. You have three chances. If you fail, you must enter the holding area for 48 hours before trying again.

The herbs on the workbench were precisely three sets of the ingredients needed to concoct such a pill. This was a simple task, so I picked up the first set of herbs and moved to the cauldron to begin my work.

As I did, a voice sounded through the passage to the holding area.

“Hey guys, look, we got some fresh meat!”

I whipped around and looked out the stone archway and into the cavern beyond. Standing near the opening was a large, well-built man wearing combat robes and holding a long spear. Along the shaft of the weapon, I saw specks of blood that he had failed to properly clean off.

The man stared at me with an evil chuckle and a smirk on his face. Moments later, four more men in similar attire walked out from behind the foliage.

One of the newcomers laughed and turned to his companions.

“Well, look what we have here. He looks like little more than a child. Must be a bit touched in the head to attempt a test meant for Lords at his age. We should do the honorable thing and help him on his way.”

He gave me an unfriendly look. “What do you say, boy, come on out here and we’ll take good care of you.”

That last statement had been a mistake. He gave me too much information. He needed me to go out there which should mean they couldn’t come in here. I took a formation stone out of my bag and placed it next to the archway just to be cautious. Since it was only a Rank 3 formation, it wouldn’t do much to stop a Lord, but it would give me a moment’s warning if they moved to attack. Once it was set up, I turned back to the workbench.

The process of making a Basic Healing Pill was simple enough, so as I worked, I kept an ear out for anything my new ‘friends’ might be doing.

They spent a few moments taunting me, but when they saw that it wasn’t having any effect, they stopped. Unfortunately, instead of giving up, they were just getting started.

One of the men pulled out a formation and put it right next to the opening to my room. When he activated it, it let out an intense, high-pitched sound that was nearly enough to make my ears bleed. This burst of sound then repeated at irregular intervals.

Still, the pill was simple enough to make, and even though I had been surprised at first and let my concentration slip, I maintained a solid lock on everything. After roughly a half hour of work, the pill was complete.

I picked it up out of the cauldron and placed it on the formation stone to be graded. The formation lit up with a faint light, and the wooden door leading to the next test opened. I had planned to take the extra two sets of ingredients with me, but as I moved to grab them, they vanished. It seemed like I would need to pocket any spoils before I had my pill graded.

As I moved to the wooden doorway, the men who had been pestering me shouted.

“See you soon!”

When I passed through the tunnel and entered another similar stone room, I groaned as taunting laughter echoed out of the arch to my left. I began to fully grasp the intent behind the ‘Path of Mind.’ It wasn’t simply a test of one’s skills. It was a test of skill while under pressure from idiots intent on robbing and killing.

The second test was to make a slightly harder pill with only a single set of ingredients provided. It wasn’t clear what quality of pill would be considered good enough for a pass, but I couldn’t allow myself to slip up even once. It had only taken me a single glance to know that there was no way I would survive in the ‘holding area’ for 48 hours against that group of bandits.

I once more set up a barrier formation in front of the stone archway, took a deep breath, and mentally blocked out everything around me as I got to work.

The next three tests were all similar. One set of herbs and one pill I had to make. After I made it, the door to the next area would open. Once I passed the third test, my ‘friends’ outside gave up on taunting me personally and simply relied on their sound formation to provide a distraction.

When I arrived at the sixth test, things changed slightly. Instead of a set of herbs prepared and waiting for me on the workbench, there were two large chests stuffed with various ingredients.

The instructions told me what I needed to make, but I would have to personally sort through the multitude of herbs to find exactly what I needed.

This change would mean a sharp rise in difficulty for a normal alchemist. Not only would they have to already know the pill’s recipe, but they would also have to be able to identify the correct herbs from within an assortment of similar-looking ingredients. However, this wasn’t enough to cause me any problems. My Rank 4 alchemy knowledge was solid enough that I was able to quickly find what I needed and make the pill.

Before I turned it in, I turned to the bounty of extra ingredients remaining in the two chests. I picked up one of the herbs and stuffed it into my storage space then looked around to see if this caused any problems. When nothing lit up and no buzzer sounded, I felt I was free to continue plundering.

As I reached to swipe a few more handfuls, I froze. I had noticed that the first herb had never appeared in my storage space.

I carefully picked up a second one and tried to place it inside. The herb disappeared from my hand, but it did not appear in my storage space.

I didn’t believe for a second that the sect had a way to prevent me from putting things into the space or stealing things from within it. My storage space was supposed to be shielded from the Heavenly Dao. There was no way the sect had an automated system in place that was more powerful than the Heavenly Dao.

I stared at the box of herbs and looked closely at them using energy vision. The more I stared, the more I began to notice a faint sheen covering everything. It wasn’t just on the herbs. It was on the chest, the workbench, and even the walls. Everything looked normal. It just had a faint tinge of something overlaying it.

“An illusion?”

That would explain why the herbs couldn’t enter my storage space. They didn’t really exist. I tested this by placing a few of them into a normal storage bag. They went in and came out without any problem.

“A normal person might waste time trying to steal everything in here, but the moment they leave, it all disappears because it never existed in the first place.”

As I muttered my thoughts aloud, the idiots outside laughed and taunted me even more. I didn’t pay attention to what they said, so I didn’t know if they had already known this or not, but I didn’t care.

I turned to the formation plate and placed the pill I had made atop it. It lit up, and I proceeded to the next test.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 149 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Lord 1

The final few caves in the Path of Mind increased in difficulty slightly, but there was nothing too challenging. As long as one knew the recipes and could correctly identify the necessary herbs among those that had been provided, most trained alchemists wouldn’t have any problems walking this path.

While there were many difficult-to-make Rank 4 pills, they all required strong will-locks, powerful spirit flames, and a mixture of high affinities. As this test was intentionally designed so that it was possible to complete as a Martial Lord 1, no such pill was required.

Instead, the challenge mostly came from the environment. With bandits ready to attack if one made the slightest error and only a single opportunity for success, the mental pressure of the test would be intense for those not confident in their abilities.

For me, the test was as simple as walking. I had made these low-level Rank 4 pills more times than I could count. Even after getting distracted by the idiots in the holding area a few times, my lock on the ingredients never faltered.

Once I completed the tenth and final pill, I expected to leave the cave system and appear near Profound City. To my surprise, the stone arch instead led to a small sitting room where an older man in orange robes was waiting for me.

I quickly checked in energy vision and noted that everything, including the man, was an illusion. Even so, I needed to be careful with how I acted here.

The old man gestured to a seat across from him.

I gave a slight bow and sat down. I stayed quiet and let him direct the flow of the conversation.

“Earth Peak Disciple Su Fang. You have requested to be allowed access to alchemy missions. This has caused a few… difficulties.”

The man steepled his fingers and clenched his jaw slightly.

“Moments after your peak elders received this request, your master appeared and exhorted them to accept it. Of course, due to his station, the elders were no longer in a position to make such a decision. That was when the Master of the Earth Peak had to get involved.”

My eyes widened in fear. My ‘master.’ Who was my master? Someone from the Ning or Zhuge clans? Possible because of my connections with their scions, but that didn’t make much sense… The only possibility that seemed even plausible was… Emperor Li.

Why did he get involved? What did he want?

I needed to go back to the beginning and just pay the damn teleportation cost to come to the Nine Rivers Sect and avoid any complications caused by using that coin of his.

The only thing that stopped me from doing so was the thought of my classmates. If I returned to the beginning, anything I was building with them would vanish. This thought struck me as foolish and sentimental. My time with them would disappear eventually no matter what. Still… I wanted to let it last as long as I could.

Unwilling to pursue that train of thought, I put my existential crisis on hold and returned my attention to the elder who had been patiently watching my deliberations. He cleared his throat and resumed.

“Peak Master Shen decided that you have shown both an interest and a talent in formations. As you are a member of his peak, he is adamant that you must not be allowed to advance based solely on your talent in alchemy. After a lengthy discussion, he and your master came to an agreement. Of the ten missions you are required to complete for each step of advancement, five will be related to alchemy. The other five must either by formation or combat missions.”

That was… good news? It would help but…

The elder continued.

“As you have advanced to Lord and are now entering Profound City, your position in the inner sect must be re-evaluated. Your performance on the Path of Mind has demonstrated sufficient ability in alchemy. However, as you are a member of the Earth Peak and have not demonstrated any ability in Rank 4 formations, you will be demoted to the outer sect. If you wish to reclaim a place in the inner sect, you must prove yourself in the Exam.”

Before I could react, the elder whipped out a hand, pulled my identity jade from where it had been hanging on my waistband, and replaced it with one for the outer sect. I wanted to look carefully at the new badge which didn’t have the sheen of an illusion covering it, but the elder didn’t allow me to do so.

“By order of Peak Master Shen, you are to report to Earth Peak directly upon your arrival in Profound City.” He breathed out heavily and gave me a stern look. “Finally, on behalf of the elders, I must tell you this. We do not appreciate being placed in this kind of position. In the future, do not involve your master in sect affairs. Is that understood?”

I gave a half bow from my seated position. “Yes, elder.”

With a final glare, the elder disappeared along with everything in the room, including the chair I had been sitting in. Unable to react in time, I crashed to the floor.

After the elder disappeared, I continued down the cave until I reached the exit. Stepping out of its opening, I found myself on a bluff overlooking Profound City.

The city was over twice as large as Yellow City and had tall black walls surrounding it. Peak Grandmasters ready to ascend to Lord would venture to Yellow City, but they would only stay there until they had enough confidence to continue further up the mountain. Profound City, on the other hand, had everything from low-level Lords to those who had already advanced to King and were preparing themselves for the road ahead.

To be fair, the number of cultivators who could reach this point was only a fraction of those who began the journey in Mortal City, but many of those who came here would end up staying here for the rest of their lives.

Still, the size of the city wasn’t just a reflection of the number of cultivators living here. Numerous mortals also called the city home. As descendants of Lords and Kings, they had the privilege of living in the city until they started cultivating. Given that they were born with no affinities, that would only happen if someone decided to bestow them with essence.

The path forward was clear and open, so I had no difficulty making my way to the city gate. There were only a few pedestrians walking the streets, and I did my best to avoid catching anyone’s eye. I was one of the weakest cultivators in the area, and if someone decided to attack me, there would be nothing I could do.

I hurried to the center of the city where I found the Gateway Plaza. Following the elder’s directions, I stepped through and returned to the Earth Peak.

When I arrived, I looked around at my surroundings and found that I had come through the same arch that had previously led to Mortal City. Somehow, this single arch detected where a traveler was supposed to go and sent them to the appropriate place. The arch had to be reading the information from the jade identity badges, but I didn’t see any formations that could have accomplished this.

Dismissing these thoughts, I turned and headed toward the small village that served disciples of the peak. As I did, a man who looked to be a couple of decades older than me approached.

“Su Fang?”

I nodded.

“I’m Tie Yang. I’ve accepted the mission to assist you in improving your skills with formations and entering the inner sect. Please come with me.”

Did the elders and the peak master arrange this? That wasn’t great. I wouldn’t be able to stay under the radar here at all if I had gotten so much of their attention. I would have just done the damn combat missions if I had known asking about alchemy would have led to this.

“Thank you, senior brother.” I gave the older man a slight bow. As I did, I quickly analyzed him. He was a high-level Martial Lord, and the badge at his waist indicated he was an inner sect disciple. So, not someone who completely outclassed me. He was closer to a peer.

Tie Yang led me to the Mission Hall.

“When you are ready to do your alchemy missions, you can speak to a receptionist. They will assign you one directly. Today, however, we are going to be doing a formation mission.”

We walked to the area of the hall where the missions for Lords were posted.

“Senior Tie, when I looked in the past, I was unable to find any formation-related missions open to outer sect disciples.”

He gestured to a different section of the room.

“You were a Grandmaster, so you were looking for outer sect missions over there. Those are mostly going to be combat missions. You might find the occasional one to teach a servant disciple or create a Qi Gathering Formation for a Grandmaster of another peak, but you can’t expect much else. The people hiring us are typically all Lords and above. For them, the difference in cost between an inner and outer sect Grandmaster is meaningless, so they usually just default to sending their formation missions to inner sect disciples. Doing so doesn’t always result in higher quality work, but it usually does.”

He pointed to the nearby boards.

“As a Lord, you’ll find more options available for outer sect members. Being a city lord earns a decent amount of contribution points, but purchasing the services of any Formation Lord is expensive, and many are unwilling to pay a premium to hire someone from the inner sect.”

He took me to another section of the room.

“This is where we’re looking for something today. These are missions that require a team to accomplish.” He placed his identity badge on top of one of the missions, accepting it. “This mission is to build a defensive formation around Black Sun City. It calls for a team of five outer sect disciples led by someone from the inner sect. I was told that you’re new to grand formations, so this time, I’ll have someone on my regular team show you the ropes. Just follow along with him and you’ll learn what you need to learn.”

Tie Yang led me back through the portal to Profound City. Once there, we followed the road back to the gate I entered from and found four outer sect Lords waiting for us. Tie Yang introduced me to the group and then headed out the gate.

I considered speaking up at this point since, as I understood it, the one rule of Dragon Peak was that you couldn’t go back down the mountain, but these guys knew what they were doing, so I simply followed behind.

The moment Tie Yang and the others stepped through the gate, they vanished, and my space affinity indicated some form of teleportation at work. When I followed, the moment I stepped through the gate, the mountain around me was replaced with the area outside of the gate to Mortal City.

The others acted like nothing had happened. They were used to this, so I did my best to blend in.

On the hill where the portal to the Academy and the Exam site were located, Tie Yang pointed out three other arches.

“These go to the North, East, and West Empires. Sometimes, the Emperors in charge like to change their names, but just remember them as North, East, and West. Black Sun City is in the Green Hill Kingdom of the West Empire. Just follow me.”

The portal to the West Empire took us to a plaza with several more arches. We walked through the one to Green Hill, and then from there, took another portal to Black Sun City.

When we arrived, Tie Yang gave me a pensive look. “You might already know this but seems like the portal network is new to you, so I’ll give you the rules. Only sect members are allowed to pass through. Anyone else will be killed by the formations on the gateways. You are only allowed to use the portals for assigned missions. You cannot use them for vacations, and you definitely cannot use them as a way to assault a city. If you are found to have done so, you will probably be killed by one of the elders.”

I nodded in understanding.

“Alright, well, we have to set up a new city defense formation. For now, just follow Lu and do what he tells you. He knows what to do.”

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Chapter 150 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Lord 1

The time I spent with Tie Yang’s group was all about learning to be a participant in the creation of grand formations. He didn’t teach me their underlying principles since that was beyond the scope of his mission. His goal wasn’t to teach me how and why grand formations worked. It was to teach me how to be a participant in their creation.

A grand formation was capable of covering an entire city. To accomplish this, instead of using a single formation stone, grand formations consisted of a series of formation nodes scattered throughout and around the area they were designed to affect.

As the group leader, Tie Yang was responsible for designing the overall structure of the formation and adjusting it to fit the unique geography of each city. After he developed a blueprint, he then assigned us outer disciples specific tasks without explaining all of the intricacies of the formation as a whole.

As a member of his team, I only needed to go to marked points in the city and create a formation node following the instructions I was given. Each node was composed of at least 10 different inscriptions. This meant that each individual node was usually more complex than most of the complete formations I had created in the past. Despite their complexity, these outer nodes were incapable of functioning on their own. They only worked when connected to a control node that was placed in the Lord’s compound in the center of the city.

At first, learning all of the new inscriptions and how to place them properly was a bit of a challenge. However, thanks to my boosted formation comprehension, I was able to function as an independent team member by the time we were setting up our third formation together.

With some ability to assist with grand formations, I had a method for completing the missions required for my advancement. Sadly, as I was working under the direction of an inner sect disciple, I didn’t receive full credit for missions.

Originally, I had been told I needed to complete five formation-related missions before I would be allowed to purchase a portion of karmic energy. Working under Tie Yang, I would need to complete at least twenty of these team missions for every stage of advancement. This delayed me, but my progression was only a matter of time. As long as I could complete missions, I would be able to advance.

As soon as he decided that I had a solid handle on the basic knowledge I needed to meet my requirements for advancing, Tie Yang moved on to the second condition of his mission. He needed to help me gain a solid enough grasp on general Rank 4 formation knowledge so that I could re-enter the inner sect as a Martial Lord.

To do this, I needed a high level of proficiency with at least one sub-class of Rank 4 formations. When I told him how I had specialized in disposable formations in the Academy, he was extremely dismissive.

According to him, disposable formations might provide me with an advantage in the Trials where there were limitations on what items I could take with me, but they were worthless for earning contribution points. People’s first option for such things would always be talismans, and if that were not possible, they would purchase pills. Disposable formations were generally considered a last resort, so there would rarely be any missions concerning them.

That being the case, he began teaching me a variety of what he considered the most important formations to master. These included the Rank 4 Qi Gathering Formation, a basic shielding formation, and a combination healing-rejuvenation formation. According to Yang, these were the most frequently requested formations for one’s personal use.

Crafting Rank 4 formations was somewhat strange. Like Rank 4 pills, a Lord’s spatial lock was an integral part of the process. Where Rank 1 to 3 formations used hard stones like granite and marble, the stones used for Rank 4 formations were closer to the consistency of chalk. For higher-level formations, the minerals were more like sand.

While carving the formations, I had to maintain a will-lock on the entire stone so that it wouldn’t crumble to pieces while I worked. If I faltered for even a moment, it was possible for all of my work to instantly turn to dust.

Once the entire formation was in place, I could then infuse the stone with earth qi, solidifying it in place. While these stones were incredibly brittle and couldn’t withstand any physical punishment, once empowered, their qi resistance was more than enough to survive excessive qi contained within a Rank 4 formation.

During one of our sessions, I asked Tie Yang an important question that had started to bother me.

“How are formations graded? Pills are graded on their purity and efficacy. Is there any system like this in place for formations?”

It took him a great deal of thought to decide how to respond.

“A pill’s purity has a defined maximum limit that it can be measured against. It is possible to create a completely pure, or Perfect, pill. With efficacy, alchemists have established a standard value for each pill type, so a pill’s efficacy can be graded against this known value. Formations are significantly more complex. It is not so easy to appraise their quality.”

He took two large stone blocks out of his storage bag. They were squares with a length and width of one meter and were about ten centimeters thick. These were standard formation plates used for Rank 3 formations. One was partially covered in the initial inscriptions for a Qi Gathering Formation. The other was completely blank.

Tie Yang took the blank formation plate and started quickly inscribing it with the same design as the partially finished stone. Instead of spending the hours that it would normally require, he completed the entire formation in only twenty minutes.

When he was finished, he gestured at both plates.

“Look at these two examples. What are the differences between them?”

I didn’t have to look too closely to notice problems.

“The pattern of the one you just made has several errors in its design. Not all of the lines are placed exactly where they should be.”

“Yes, there is a standard layout for the Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formation. One way to grade someone’s work is by looking at how closely they matched their inscriptions to this standard design.”

He didn’t continue and only looked at me, so I turned my attention back to the formations.

“With the formation you just created, the inner walls of the inscriptions are a bit rough. Also, with the half-finished formation, beyond just smoothing the walls, it looks like you spent time strengthening them.”

He nodded. “The quality of a formation is not only based on accuracy but also on the amount of care you spend when carving out the inscriptions. Smoothing the walls allows qi to flow easily, making a formation more powerful. By hardening the walls, you can either increase the amount of qi the formation can contain or simply increase its durability while keeping the power level constant.”

Again, he stopped talking and looked for me to point out more differences. After several minutes of study, I shook my head, unsure of what more to say. As I couldn’t provide any more insights, he continued his lecture.

“When you create a formation, you have to be conscious of the inclusions within a stone’s structure. You are no doubt familiar with this based on your work with explosive formations.”

He pointed to a few spots on both stones where deep inclusions existed beneath the surface.

“What novices try to do is to take the standard layout for the formation they wish to create and position it within the stone such that it avoids these inclusions. More seasoned professionals will attempt to manipulate the stone to mend these areas so they can be used without worry. The most advanced artisans will adapt a formation’s design to accommodate such imperfections. This leads to the best formation specialists creating unique designs every time so that their work always best suits their materials.”

He showed me where he had tried to make such modifications in his formation design to better accommodate the stone he had been working with.

“That is why I am still practicing with Rank 3 formations. There are still countless ways I can improve my work. And with all these variables, it’s hard to appraise a formation and give it an easily understandable rating. I can look at two formations and know which one is smoother, but saying that it’s 92% smooth doesn’t make too much sense.”

I looked at the formations on the table. “But there has to be some way of comparing the quality of two different formations, right?”

“Yes. It just isn’t easy. With everything taken into account, the two most meaningful variables are the total qi throughput of the formation and the efficiency at which it uses that energy. Most standard formations have an expected maximum sustainable qi rating, and you can compare formations based on how well they meet or exceed that mark. As there is a clear limit of 100% efficiency, this can also be measured when comparing formations.”

He shook his head and sighed.

“It can be done, but this way of rating formations is difficult. Even Formation Emperors would find it hard to correctly evaluate such things. Therefore, we formation specialists usually have to simply rely on our reputations as our mark of quality. If you get a reputation for making solid, reliable formations, people will want to hire you.”

I wanted to be able to judge my progress in formations. It wasn’t enough for me to say that I was making a better formation than I had the previous year. I wanted a way to quantify that growth. If such a thing was too hard for regular formation specialists to do, I would have to look at purchasing an ability to do so from the System.

Over the next several years, I met with Tie Yang once a week. He pointed out where I could improve, and when he was satisfied with what I produced, he provided me with new inscriptions to master. With his help, my skills with formations quickly grew, and I was able to complete ever more difficult formation-related missions.

When I had extra time away from lessons, I went to the Mission Hall and picked up my alchemy-related missions. Unlike normal, I didn’t get to choose which one I wanted to do. The receptionist just gave me a list of pills and a spatial bag with the required ingredients. After I finished an order, I just had to bring everything back to the receptionist.

These missions were odd. They weren’t for the normal pills that I would expect to be in high demand. Instead, they were somewhat rare pills, and the order of the missions had a clear, deliberate difficulty curve to them. This reminded me all too much of last time when the Ning Clan had me produce pills for them.

This once again made me want to travel back to the beginning and start over, but I continued to hesitate. It was clear that Emperor Li was involved in things, but he didn’t seem to be antagonistic toward me. The situation might still be salvageable.

So instead of freaking out, I simply did the missions I was assigned and collected my contribution points. This earned me more than enough points to pay for my advancements in the Lord realm, and over the course of five years, I climbed all the way to Peak Lord. Then, I began saving up the points needed to purchase the energy for breaking through to Martial King.

As my mission count was no longer a bottleneck, I researched several merchant companies that did business in Profound City. I found one that had a good reputation for not trying to enslave their suppliers and came to an agreement with them. After that, I was able to offload hundreds of Rank 4 pills and rapidly accrued the points I needed.

Beyond just paying for karmic energy, I also needed points for a special purchase that I had my eye on.

In Profound City, the sect ran a Treasure Pavilion where a number of valuable items could be purchased with contribution points. There were quality refined weapons, rare herbs, and eggs of powerful beasts. These treasures would draw the eye of countless cultivators both in the sect and outside of it.

I did purchase an assortment of seeds for some of the rarer herb varieties, but weapons and beast eggs didn’t hold much appeal to me. They had their uses, but the most important combat I expected to face in the near future was in the Trials. If I was still a member of an established group, if my classmates were still with me, I would be able to use items they crafted, but I wasn’t allowed to bring in anything I simply purchased. So, since I wouldn’t be able to use these weapons in the Trials, they held little appeal.

Instead, the part of the Treasure Pavilion that captured my attention was their small collection of spirit fire seeds.

I was somewhat shocked that they would sell such a thing, but the restrictions on them helped me understand. A cultivator was only allowed to purchase one seed, and it could not be taken out of sect territories, though this did include the three empires directly under the sect’s control. Additionally, when the owner died, the seed would revert to the property of the sect. If someone tried to lay claim to it, they would face the wrath of the Nine Rivers Sect.

These restrictions, the prohibitive cost, and the fact that they were only seeds of Yellow-Rank spirit fires which were not very useful to Ruler Tier crafters meant that they had remained on the shelf and available for me to purchase.

After careful consideration, I decided to buy the seed of the Flowing Metal Spirit Fire, a dual-element water and metal spirit fire. If I combined it with a triple-element wood-fire-earth cultivation technique, I could have easy access to energies from all five of the basic elements.

Of course, I didn’t absorb the seed immediately. I left it in its jade box and stowed it securely in my storage space for the future.

With my goals for the Lord realm complete, I was ready to advance to Martial King. After purchasing the necessary karmic energy, I rented a cultivation cave on the Earth Peak and secluded myself. Thanks to the abundant qi available on the peak and a cave that possessed a Rank 5 formation, I was able to smoothly complete my breakthrough.

As I was examining my new cultivation level, the door of my cave opened unexpectedly, and an elderly man walked inside.

“So, you are the disciple I’ve heard so much about. It seems that it’s time we had a little chat.”

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Chapter 151 – Life 66, Age 36, Martial King 1

I sat on the ground in my cultivation cave. Emperor Li stood above me.

My first instinct was to pull out a poison pill and swallow it as quickly as possible. I was uncertain how he felt about me in this life, but his anger at the end of the last one had been palpable. If his feelings remained the same, there was little I could do in the face of his overwhelming power other than attempt to die.

However, something stopped me. I didn’t consider Emperor Li my enemy. I still remembered him as a kindly old man. He might be mad at me for impersonating his disciple, but I didn’t think he was a terrible person.

Working behind the scenes, he had involved himself in my life on several occasions over the past few years. In all that time, he never did anything to hurt me. He only pushed me to further improve my alchemy ability through the missions I was given from the sect.

The main reason I was afraid of him was the angry and belligerent manner in which he confronted me at the end of my last life. But then, after my death was certain, he appeared more sorrowful than anything else.

Yes, I was in a dangerous situation. However, my experience last time showed me that I had a way to escape from him as long as he wasn’t prepared for it. I could take this opportunity to hear him out.

Emperor Li looked at me with an impassive expression. My ability to read people had been slowly increasing over the years, and I was starting to have a good understanding of people’s moods, but Li appeared to be carved from emotionless stone as he spoke.

“Show them to me.”

It took me a moment to understand what he wanted, and when I did, I didn’t want to give it to him. It had caused me countless problems, but it had also opened a few doors that might have otherwise remained forever closed. Without it, making that deal with the Ning Clan would have been far more difficult.

However, I had come to learn the problems that relying on the thing could cause. If I never saw it again, it wouldn’t be too much of a loss.

I reached into my storage space and pulled out the token that he had given me back in the Eight Flower Kingdom. As I held it in my hand, it vanished and appeared in Li’s. When it did, I felt the faintest twitch from my space affinity.

Li spent over five minutes silently scrutinizing the coin. When he finally spoke, it was in that same stony tone.

“Interesting.” He looked at me. “Is that all?”

“There… There was also a flame and a book. I… lost the flame and the book was… destroyed.”

“I see. Your blessing must be quite… interesting. With hardly any practice, you have learned Rank 4 alchemy to such a degree that three-hundred-year-old monsters would be jealous of you. You were also provided with such… rare items. And of course, we can’t forget about your ability to learn formations at a speed that would rival those blessed with such a talent.

As he studied me, I couldn’t see even a trace of approval or disapproval in his expression.

“He must have invested quite a bit in you. Giving you so many advantages couldn’t have been cheap or easy. What I can’t understand is why he placed someone like you here. It doesn’t—”

Li had been half speaking to himself when his words were abruptly cut off. For the first time, I saw a trace of real, deep-seated emotion cross his face. It was annoyance bordering on rage.

He grunted faintly but loud enough for me to hear. “It doesn’t matter. I just have to figure out how to handle the mess that’s been placed before me.”

He threw his token at me, and it impacted my chest hard enough to leave an indent.

“As you bear my mark, I am oathbound to treat you as my disciple. Even if it was not my choice…” He grunted once more. “As such, I—”

He paused and his face took on a look of deep deliberation. Again, that same look of annoyance appeared in his demeanor.

“As such, there are only two things I will teach you.”

He took a thick tome out of a storage bag and threw it at me.

“That will guide you on Rank 5 alchemy. It contains all of the insights I have gathered over the years, as you should already be aware.”

I stared at the new volume, and as I did, I had the urge to make an awkward request.

“Can I have a copy of the one for Rank 4 alchemy? It was destroyed and…”

Suddenly, another book came flying at me. When I looked at Emperor Li, I expected to see a look of disgust, but he had reverted back to that same stony demeanor.

“The other thing I must give you is an important piece of advice. You can choose to follow it or not.”

He exhaled in a futile attempt to expel his pent-up emotions.

“Be careful, be damn careful of information blessings. Never trust them. If your blessing gives you information, it will always be true, but it won’t always be the truth you think it is. He always seems to have some way to twist the information to his own design. If your blessing tells you that you should give someone a pill, there is no question. You should do it without question. Your blessing cannot lie to you about that. However, do not trust any implications you draw from being told to do so. If you do, you will find yourself as little more than his puppet.”

“What—”

“No, that is all I will tell you for now. As I said, you should always trust what your blessing tells you.”

Not waiting for my response, Li turned and headed to the door. He didn’t open it. He just kept walking. A crack to the outside world appeared, and he stepped through. A moment later, it vanished, and I was left alone in my cave.

Emperor Li had simply popped in, thrown me a few books, and left. All I could be certain of was that his blessing, and the Earthly Dao, had played some part in this meeting.

My debt to the old man was only growing. He had never asked me for anything. He had only ever freely given me powerful items and knowledge, and he had never said I owed him anything, but I still knew. My debt to him was becoming immense. I could only pray that I would be able to repay it when it came due.

My meeting with Emperor Li left me with a lot to think about over the coming years, but it didn’t change what I needed to do in the present.

There was no way I was going to reach Earth City in this life. To do so would mean completing the Test of Body as a Martial King, and my combat training was limited to the Master realm. That meant I would not have any further access to King-level karmic energy, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to get my hands on Emperor-level energy. Instead, I would have to be satisfied with simply pushing to the peak of the King realm.

I wanted to dedicate time to learning Rank 5 alchemy, but I wasn’t willing to do so in this life. It had already lasted fifteen years, five more than my desired ten. Learning Rank 5 alchemy would take decades, and that was assuming my comprehension level was even high enough to do so.

Opening the book Li had given me, I searched near the beginning for the simplest pill that could help me cultivate. The best I found was a simplified version of the Rank 5 Qi Replenishing Pill. It wouldn’t do too much, but it was more than a Rank 4 Gathering Pill would do, and since I only needed a single earth-attributed herb to concoct it, the recipe was simple enough for me to try and make.

Concocting Rank 5 pills was not too different from what I had to do in Rank 4. The only thing that set the two Ranks apart was the addition of the expanded capabilities that being a Martial King granted.

As the book explained, beyond simply locking down an area of space, Kings were able to shift it slightly. In general, this didn’t have too many applications in something like combat because of the limited strength that even a high-level King would be able to exert in such a manner. However, when working on something the size of an alchemical pill, this shifting of will-locks became a crucial tool.

Like with Rank 4 alchemy, the use of will-locks was simply a way to compensate for lacking affinities. If one’s affinities were high enough, they would be able to easily shift large areas of medicinal energy without resorting to such tricks, but that would require something beyond even peak 5-star.

As a Martial King 1, manipulating herbs in such a way was extremely difficult. My space affinity provided me with a small boost, but it was limited. This reaffirmed my desire to enhance this affinity further, but that would have to wait until I was in a position where I no longer had to worry about any problems that might be caused by the spatial seed in my soul.

Several attempts at making the simplified Rank 5 pill led to me burning through nearly all the contribution points I had saved up over the years. Even though the required ingredient was cheap for a Rank 5 herb, the cost was still at the level of a Rank 5 item.

Upon successfully concocting the pill for the first time, I immediately went out and sold it to buy more herbs. Using the profits from the sale of the first few I made, I was able to amass a small handful of pills. These pills were not Perfect, but they were good enough for someone nearing their limits and unable to get anything better.

Once I accumulated enough points, I rented a Rank 5 cultivation cave on the Earth Peak and secluded myself. With the help of formation and pills, I was able to break through to Martial King 2.

During this time, I was afraid that Emperor Li or the Master of the Earth Peak would show up and demand that I stop cultivating. As I had learned, breaking through without using karmic energy caused serious permanent damage to one’s foundation. If they truly saw me as an important disciple, they might not be willing to let me do so.

This would’ve been fine if they were also willing to provide me with the karmic energy I needed to break through correctly. But since I was certain they wouldn’t be willing to do so, I didn’t want anyone stopping me.

For whatever reason, no one appeared to question my activities, and my breakthrough to King 2 started a snowball effect where my improved cultivation level facilitated my production of better pills at a faster rate.

As years passed and my cultivation grew, I got to the point where I wanted to start taking a few breaks and have a little fun. This ‘fun’ was, of course, experimenting with Rank 5 alchemy.

With my increasing power as a Martial King, I was able to control the medicinal energy that existed within Rank 5 herbs much more easily. I used this expanded ability to begin working through the study course that Li had laid out in his book on Rank 5 alchemy. It was exactly like what he had done with Rank 4 alchemy, starting with the simplest pills and slowly adding complications once each pill was fully understood.

I didn’t make it too far into his list over this brief period of time, but even with my ‘formal’ education limited, I wanted to push to make a far more difficult pill.

Basic Replenishment Pills had an effect on cultivation, but they paled in comparison to proper Qi Gathering Pills. After searching through the book carefully, I found a recipe for a simplified three-ingredient version of the Qi Gathering Pill.

Creating this pill for the first time cost me more time and contribution points than I had believed possible, but when I was finally successful, I felt that it had all been worth it. Even this simplified pill was an order of magnitude more effective than the basic Replenishment Pill. As a result, using this more expensive, more powerful pill led to an overall reduction in the monetary cost of advancing my cultivation. As a bonus, it also had a higher profit margin when sold.

Even with the assistance of these improved pills and the high-level formations available in cultivation caves on the Earth Peak, I still needed over a decade to reach Peak King.

When I did, I was satisfied.

There were a few loose ends that I wanted to tie up before my reset, but with my cultivation level at the limit of its potential for this life, I was nearly ready to move on.

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

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Chapter 152 – Life 66, Age 47, Martial King Peak

As I was reviewing what I needed to get done before the end of my life, I realized something. Tie Yang must be furious with me. I had ruined the mission he spent so much time and effort on.

When I became a Martial Lord, I had been demoted to the outer sect because my skills with formations were lacking. Tie Yang had diligently trained me so that I could rejoin the inner sect, but I got so lost in everything else that I forgot to do so.

With my ascension to not only King but Peak King, I wouldn’t be surprised if my lack of relevant skills had resulted in my demotion to servant disciple. No one had come to inform me of such a change, but they didn’t tell me about my demotion to the outer sect until I was about to enter Profound City. If such a demotion wouldn’t occur until I entered Earth City, then it was nothing I needed to worry about, but I felt sorry for ruining Tie Yang’s mission.

I might not be able to do very well in a King-level Exam, but taking it was still an opportunity to try to gain more insights into what the sect was looking for. This time, I could try to record information in my journal so that even if I didn’t remember anything, I still had a record of it.

However, as I was preparing to head to the Exam site, my plan was shattered by a harsh reality.

“System, how much to create a mental reversion point for the moment right before I enter the sect’s Exam Trial?”

Cost 10 billion credits.

I still didn’t know if such a purchase was necessary, but I didn’t want to take any chances with something that I knew affected my mind, so I had to give up on attempting the Exam again in this life.

This didn’t bother me overly much. The value of any information I could gain from the Exam was dubious at best. I already had a general idea of what the sect was looking for, and knowing exactly how they tested for it could only be marginally helpful.

Putting this mystery to the side, I turned my attention to other preparations I needed to make.

For quite some time, I had been wanting to learn more about spatial bags. It had been one of my primary considerations when choosing to join the Earth Peak, and I needed to take advantage of my situation to finally learn something.

Back in the Academy, Instructor Yuan had promised to provide me with a tutor capable of teaching me about them. However, that never materialized.

After entering the sect, I had wanted to study this topic, but the timing was never right. It seemed like I always had something else to do.

Here at the end, I had a plethora of contribution points and a higher cultivation level than ever before. If I was going to learn about spatial bags, there was no better time to do so.

After considering all of my options, I paid a hefty price for a private lesson from an inner sect Formation King. This might have been overkill for what I needed, but I wanted the most reliable source of information I could get.

Repeating what I had been told previously, she informed me that spatial bags were relatively straightforward to make. The only real difficulties came in properly designing the formation stones that maintained them. I noted down the information about the formation designs for later study, but they weren’t too important to me, so I shifted the focus of the lesson.

“What could cause items to lose their energy when placed inside a spatial bag? For example, a spirit stone losing all its power and crumbling to dust.”

She snorted in amusement. “Yeah, that can happen. The problem is with your formation stone. You created a barrier to keep the space stable and make sure everything stays inside, right? Well, you have to make it so qi and other types of energy can pass through. If you don’t, you end up with a massive space devoid of energy. This energy vacuum will rip the power out of anything you put inside to reach an equilibrium.”

She handed me a bag and pointed out these features. “See, this creates an opening in the barrier to let the inside of the bag maintain the same qi density as the outside environment. Spirit stones are like rocks of solidified energy, right? Well, you see, their physical shell is able to contain their energy under normal environmental pressure, but if you put it in an energy vacuum, the shell breaks apart and releases the energy. For something with a weaker shell, like a pill, this happens naturally even under normal conditions, which is why they need to be sealed in jade bottles.”

This was going to be a problem. I could try to have the System make the storage space energy-permeable, but I wanted to keep its insides hidden from the Earthly Dao. I didn’t know if it was possible to do both.

Looking at things another way, if I kept the space as it was and found a way to pump the insides full of energy, I could make an environment that was extremely energy-dense. This ‘feature’ didn’t have to be a negative.

I moved on to another question.

“What about growing the space? We just need to pump energy into the spatial flame, and it grows, but if I want to make an extremely large space, is there any trick to grow it faster?”

She raised an eyebrow at this. “How large a bag do you want to make? As a King positioned inside a Rank 5 Qi Gathering Formation, you should be able to grow one to an immense size with just a day or two’s work. Do you really need a trick for this?”

“I…” What should I say? “I’m just interested in what would be possible.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Are you thinking about creating a new Trial? I don’t know everything involved, but I do know that a King can’t make such a thing. To answer the question, you just have to set up a modified Qi Gathering Formation that sends its energy directly into the spirit fire. It’s tricky to get everything working right, but that’s what you got to do. However, you should know that this isn’t the difficulty when creating a Trial. The formation stones involved are insane, and I have no idea how to even begin creating those gateway arches.”

That… that gave me a terrible idea for the future. I wouldn’t and couldn’t do anything about it for the time being… but in the future…

She touched on a few more subtleties about actual spatial bags. I noted it all down but didn’t pay too much attention. I had the information I needed.

After my lesson, I performed what was starting to become an end-of-life ritual. I secluded myself for a month and pumped all the energy I gathered into my spatial fire seed to expand my storage space. Using the Rank 5 pills and a suitable formation, the space grew at an incredible rate, and when I was done, it had a radius of nearly two meters and a volume of slightly over 30 cubic meters.

I tried to figure out an easy way to increase the energy density inside the space, but I didn’t have much luck. One idea I had was to place a jade box inside a Qi Gathering Formation where there would be dense environmental energy. Then, I could seal it, transfer the box into my storage space, and open it, letting out the trapped energy.

This seemed like it should have worked, but the results were underwhelming. The amount of energy that was successfully transferred in each move was minuscule. I had a few ideas for why that might be, but I didn’t want to spend time on the problem at the moment. I had other things to do, and this was a low priority.

However, there was another idea I could try that was rather low effort. It may just be a way to set fire to my contribution points, but it also might lead to interesting results.

I converted a large fraction of my accumulated wealth into spirit stones and proceeded to crush them inside my storage space. This released all of the energy they contained into the surrounding environment. The process made me feel like I was using a platinum-plated teaspoon to fill a bucket with liquid gold, but I could sense the ambient energy density increase by a significant amount.

I would have to experiment more to see if this change had any meaningful impact on my ability to store things in the space openly, but that could be done later. For the moment, I would just keep storing everything in jade boxes. That being the case, I stopped worrying about filling the space with energy and turned to filling it with materials.

With a significant amount of extra room for storage, I completely restocked my gold, spirit stones, and Rank 1 to 4 pills. While my space wasn’t infinite, I had more than enough room to store enough wealth to fund a kingdom, and I had every type of pill I could foresee needing, from cultivation pills to poison pills.

I kept a few Rank 5 pills for possible personal use, but since they were low-quality, I didn’t care too much about them. I could potentially sell them for a bit of profit, but doing so would be problematic until I was a Martial King. If I sold them any earlier than that, it would signal that they had been given to me by my benefactor, and that would cause uncomfortable questions about why he would give me junk pills.

After that, I stowed away several odds and ends, especially those useful in formations.

I considered contracting someone to make me a Rank 5 Qi Gathering Formation plate, but I learned such things weren’t practical. Rank 5 formations were only usable in areas of high qi concentration such as the Earth Peak. In other places, they wouldn’t be any better than a Rank 4 one. In the near term, it wouldn’t be of any use, and in the long term, I would be able to make my own.

My next stop was the sect’s Scripture Pavilion. I used nearly every contribution point I had left to purchase a variety of Rank 4 and 5 cultivation techniques. I also threw in a few formation, alchemy, and martial techniques that seemed valuable.

The final cost of everything was, quite frankly, absurd, and the deacon in charge of the pavilion gave me the stink eye as he processed my purchases.

“You know these will vanish in a month and you aren’t allowed to give them to anyone else, right?”

I nodded and motioned for him to continue. The sect had the same rules as the Academy when it came to sharing knowledge. Unfortunately for them, these rules weren’t designed with someone like me in mind.

With dozens of manuals to read through, I needed a little help to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes transcribing it.

“System, improve my mental library and perfect reading abilities to Rank 5.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 99 million credits. 560,699,004 credits remaining.

I wanted to improve my touch reading to make things faster, but looking at my credit count, I knew that wouldn’t be happening. I had to save the rest for later. Instead, I spent several days reading through each of the manuals. I didn’t have to be too careful because the ‘perfect reading’ ability ensured pristine copies were always sent to my mental library, but it still took time.

With that task complete, everything I needed to take care of in the sect was finished, so I left for South Gate City to handle my final two errands.

As I was not on a sect mission or taking the Exam, I couldn’t use the sect’s portals, so traveling to South Gate City was a bit of a chore.

While I had short-distance movement techniques, I didn’t have any that would allow me to cover large distances quickly. As a Martial King, I could directly empower myself with qi to run faster and longer than an average person, but my physical shell was still only mortal. I would be able to make the trip quicker, but my speed would still be quite limited.

This small problem was solved by a stable on the outskirts of Mortal City. Using the small amount of contribution points I had kept in reserve, I rented a beast tamer-raised Rank 4 Wind Horse. It wasn’t a portal, but it wasn’t too much worse.

When I arrived at South Gate, I stabled the horse and went to the Blue Wind Pavilion where I was greeted by a cheerful attendant.

“How may I help you today, sir?”

“Yes, I had arranged to have several letters delivered here. A fair bit of time has passed since then, but I’m hoping that they are still available.”

“Of course, sir. We are very familiar with the habits of cultivators entering seclusion. There will be an extra storage fee attached, but rest assured, they have not been discarded.”

After taking my name, the attendant retrieved several dozen letters that had been sent to me over the years. There were letters from LiTing and YuLong up to the point of their deaths, and there were a few from JiaQi from up to a year or two after the time I had met with Yan.

There was nothing from Zhuge Yan himself. Not from before our meeting nor after.

I placed all of the letters into my storage bag without opening any of them. I didn’t know how I wanted to deal with them yet, and I felt it might be better to leave them in their pristine, unopened state since simply touching them copied their contents to my mental library.

Letters in hand, I rented a room at an inn on the outskirts of the city to deal with my final task.

Based on past experiences, I had been extremely worried about playing around with spirit fire seeds unless I was prepared to die. Now, at the end of my life and with the cultivation level of a Peak King who should be able to contain them properly, I was ready to give it a try.

In my storage space, I had a large jade box that I had prepared for just this moment. With a small exertion of will, I sent the spatial seed out of my soul and directly into that box. The transfer went incredibly smoothly and didn’t cause any problems.

This proved to me that I would be able to transfer fire seeds out of my soul without issue in the future.

With the seed safely stowed away, I felt more confident.

“System, increase my space affinity to mid eight-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 500 million credits. 60,699,004 credits remaining.

I felt a twinge in my soul where the storage space was located, but not the sharp pain from the last time I did this. Whether because I already had a basic affinity or because the seed wasn’t there to exacerbate the effects, the increase in my affinity did not cause me to lose consciousness.

Once I was sure everything was fine, I began tests on absorbing different fire seeds into my soul.

First, I tried using the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire. It had somewhat recovered since I first put it in my storage space, but I hadn’t fed it any more spirit stones after stabilizing it.

When it entered my soul, it didn’t create the blast of energy I had become accustomed to. Instead, it began trying to suck up any energy it could from the environment. Considering the test a success, I quickly stored it back in its jade box before it could recover too much.

Next, I pulled out the seed of the Flowing Metal Spirit Fire that I had bought from the sect and placed it into my soul. This time, my soul was rocked by an explosion of energy. The firestorm was intense enough to crack open my soul, but I was able to easily seal it up with strategically placed will-locks. After running a few tests on the fire, I stored it away once more as well.

Finally, I took out the seed of the Expanding Realms Spirit Fire. When it touched my soul, there was an explosive release of energy far more intense than that caused by the Flowing Metal seed. The cracks in my soul that had barely begun to heal were violently ripped open, and it took everything I could manage to keep the spirit fire from escaping and burning my body to cinders.

I only managed to contain it because the burst of energy was not quite as intense as it had been when Du XiongMing had first shoved it into my soul.

These tests confirmed that moving a seed out of my soul wouldn’t be a problem, and I could do so with any seed at any time. Moving a depleted seed into my soul would likewise not cause any problems. However, if I tried to move an energized seed in, I needed to be a Martial Lord, and if it was a Profound-Rank seed, Peak King was a minimum requirement.

I considered swapping to one of my Yellow-Rank seeds since I couldn’t casually use the spatial fire, but I decided against it. Yellow-Rank flames were becoming underpowered for my needs. They might be useful early on, but I could just stockpile pills for those levels. I might as well keep the spatial flame in my soul to slowly, passively expand my storage space.

After making that decision, I sighed. I had expected to die when playing around with the fire seeds. Not having done so, I needed to find a different way to bring this life to a close.

I returned to Dragon Peak and made my way to the path to Earth City. At the crossroads, I didn’t hesitate. I walked straight toward the Test of Body.

The path led up a steep incline and into a dense jungle environment. I carefully monitored my surroundings, expecting a demon beast to jump out of the foliage and attack me.

I wasn’t careful enough.

I was prepared for wild beasts, but I was not prepared for the five cultivators who walked out from behind the trees and surrounded me.

Their leader gave me an evil grin.

“Hand over all your possessions and we’ll leave you with an intact corpse.”

I was debating whether to try and fight them or simply suicide when the man to his left started shouting.

“Po, hey Po! Look at him! Do you know who that is? It’s that guy the elder’s been after.”

The grin on Po’s face widened. “Oh ho. I didn’t think we would capture such a prize. People’ve been waiting for you to come out here for years, and we’re the lucky ones to finally catch you. I’ll have to thank you for that.”

He gave me a mock salute.

“I don’t know where you got the balls to murder a descendant of an elder of the Wind Peak, but we’ll have to teach you a lesson or we’ll lose all respect. You might’ve been protected in the city, but they can’t save you here. Still, you should be happy. This means you get to survive.”

When I registered his statement about the Wind Peak, I no longer hesitated. I couldn’t afford any mistakes when dealing with them.

I quickly reached into my storage space and pulled a poison pill directly into my mouth.

My heart was beating rapidly in fear, but my enemies had only just started to react when I got the message I was waiting for.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial King Peak — 10 billion credits awarded.

Total Credits: 10,060,699,004

Affinities

Mid Five-Star – Earth, Wood, Fire

Peak Six-Star – Water, Metal

Peak Seven-Star – Wind, Lightning, Light, Dark

Peak Eight-Star – Karmic Energy

Mid Eight-Star – Space

Mental Library (Updated)

Capacity – Rank 5

Perfect Transcription – Rank 5

Touch Reading – Rank 4

Comprehension Boosts (Updated)

Professions:

Formations – 500,000,000 credits

Skills (Updated)

Pill Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive)

Affinities

Mid Five-Star – Earth, Wood, Fire

Peak Six-Star – Water, Metal

Peak Seven-Star – Wind, Lightning, Light, Dark

Peak Eight-Star – Karmic Energy

Mid Eight-Star – Space

Resistances

Mental Effects (Cultivation Techniques) – 25,000,000 credits

Mental Library

Capacity – Rank 5

Journal – Rank 3

Perfect Transcription – Rank 5

Touch Reading – Rank 4

Comprehension Boosts

Cultivation:

Cultivation Techniques – 520,000 credits

Qi Control – 20,000 credits

Nurturing Disciples – 500,000 credits

Professions:

Alchemy – 520,011 credits

Formations – 500,000,000 credits

Herbalism – 20,000 credits

Martial – 10,000,000 credits

Social:

Reading Emotions (True) – 25,000,000 credits

Skills

Enhanced Soul Growth – 20,000 credits

Pill Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive)

Technique Appraisal – Rank 3 (Earth)

Language (Western Han)

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Chapter 153 – Life 67, Age 25, Martial Master Peak

When I awoke in my apartment in the Academy, I instantly started scanning my soul for any possible signs that it had somehow been infected. After my first thorough search, I didn’t find anything, but I didn’t let that stop me and proceeded to check twice more. Still not satisfied, I had to ask the System.

“System, is my soul infected by any gu?”

Cost 100,000 credits.

“Purchase!”

Purchase confirmed. 10,060,599,004 Credits remaining.

No.

That finally let me breathe a sigh of relief. It might have been a bit of paranoia on my part, but I was terrified of the possibilities, especially in my now weakened state. The second half of the Master-level classes was supposed to focus on soul cultivation, right? I needed to use that as an opportunity to look into soul defenses.

As I sat in my room alone, I worried about what might have happened if I had been even a second slower in swallowing that pill. Would that have given my attackers time to infect me? How long would it take? Wen had needed me to swallow a pill, but did these people? They were Martial Kings, so they should have more powerful methods.

I needed to learn more about gu and what they could do. They were a serious potential danger.

The thought made me shiver. Until a few years ago, I had never even heard of such a thing. Now, they came out of nowhere and were a serious threat. How many other hidden dangers lurked in the world that might be able to end me? How many times had I unknowingly courted actual, true, final death?

I had been worried about trusting anyone with the secret of my resets because of a fear that it might lead to them soul-killing me or somehow permanently enslaving me. Now, I was facing the very real possibility of that happening without telling anyone.

I needed to talk to someone I could trust who knew about the world and the dangers it possessed. I needed someone to help me prepare for such dangers before I had to face them. I needed someone intelligent enough to understand the value of my resets and might have new ideas on how to take better advantage of them. As long as I kept the true power and mechanics of my System hidden, I could afford to tell someone about just the resets.

There was something else I had to consider as well: Time.

I may have an unlimited amount of time available to me, but I couldn’t do everything that I needed to do all at once. Originally, I had made a 100-year plan. Ten resets that lasted ten years each. While I always kept this plan in mind to help push myself forward, I had completely blown through these time limits.

The first life started things smoothly enough, and I was able to end it on time. However, the second life lasted nearly 20 years, and the third was nearly 30. I wasn’t exactly sure how long it had been in total, but I estimated I had burned through nearly 55 years already.

I had to return to the Wastes to settle things, but I still didn’t have the tools I needed to do that. Going with the original 100-year limit, I had 45 left. After those 45 years, I would allow myself to finish any active projects and settle the life I was in the middle of without regrets, but after that, I would force myself to leave and return to my beginnings in the Wastes.

That would mean leaving the Academy and everyone I had come to know here. I had been safeguarding my classmates’ memories in this ‘true’ timeline, but once I left, they would forget everything. It would be as if it never happened for them, and anything I did to help them would vanish.

I wanted a way to prevent that. I needed a way to prevent that. I had to keep Yan, LiTing, JiaQi, and YuLong real.

If I wanted to accomplish everything I needed to do, I couldn’t do it on my own. Learning all of the skills and knowledge I would need to protect myself from hidden dangers, solving the problem with Yan’s family, finding a way to permanently settle my debts in the Wastes, and discovering a way to have real relationships with people through an endless time loop. With unlimited time, I could accomplish all of this, but in only 45 years? No, I needed help.

These considerations were what brought me to Zhuge Yan’s door.

Yan was far more capable than I was when developing strategies and tactics. I could only hope that his insights into the value of my situation would prevent him from betraying my trust.

When Yan opened his door, he didn’t seem overly surprised to see me.

“What are you planning?”

Instead of letting him take the lead, I gestured to the small sitting area inside his room, silently asking for permission to enter.

After sitting down, I remained quiet as I tried to decide what I wanted to say. It was Yan who broke the silence.

“Fang? What’s going on?”

I looked him in the eyes and mustered my resolve.

“I need your help.”

I reached into my storage space and brought out the journal he had given me in Mortal City. I placed it on the table and then set my hand firmly upon it.

“I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that I’m lying about my blessing.”

He carefully nodded. “It seems that way, but the school has ways to detect if you aren’t telling the truth. From what I know, you’ve never failed such checks.”

“Yes… well, what I reported was just a small corner of the blessing I was granted. The core of it is far more complicated.”

Suddenly realizing a potential problem, I began subvocalizing.

“System, how much to place a barrier around Yan and me for the remainder of this conversation so that nothing we say can be overheard by anyone who might attempt to listen in?”

Barrier capable of preventing anyone who may choose to listen to this conversation from doing so. Cost 275 million credits.

With that price, who was that barrier designed to protect us from? If such high-level cultivators were trying to listen in, I definitely needed to stop that from happening.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 9,785,599,004 credits remaining.

Our surroundings became slightly blurry. Yan raised an eyebrow at this but didn’t speak.

“Just a little protection from eavesdroppers.” I smiled weakly at him. “Anyway, regarding my blessing… It is a form of time reversion. When I die, I can return to specific points in the past.”

A look of suspicion crossed Yan’s face, but he didn’t interrupt.

“I just completed one of these reversions. At this point, I don’t think I can handle things by myself anymore. I need your help.”

I tapped on the book.

“Last time I was in this room, I asked you to take notes about what would happen over the next few years. I can’t fix everything myself. I also want to push my cultivation further and faster than I would normally be able to. I want to work with you to try and accomplish this.”

“You are saying that you can live hundreds of years, die, and then return to the past like it never happened. When you do so, you bring back all your memories and abilities with you as well as at least one book. Is that right?”

I nodded.

I could see the gears begin to turn in his mind.

“And I’m assuming, if you cultivate essence instead of just absorbing it, you will bring enhanced affinities with you to the past as well. Is that about right?”

A sheepish expression crossed my face. “Ye… Yes.”

Yan sat in silent contemplation for several minutes. As he did, I could see a war of contractions flow through his being. He had feelings of excitement, happiness, desperation, and fear all mixed up in a war for dominance. Finally, he looked at me and spoke in a grave tone.

“You set up protections so no one could hear us?”

I nodded.

“Fine. I need some proof of your claim. I consider you a friend, but there are limits. I’m willing to risk my own life on a crazy gamble, but trusting this ability of yours would mean far more than just that. I need to know for certain that what you are saying is true before I risk pulling my family into this. I also need to know about a possible limitation. If I die and then you die, you will revert to the past and I will be alive again, correct?”

I nodded once more.

“Then tell me what I am thinking about.”

Understanding his purpose, I subvocalized once more.

“System, set up a secondary reset point for this moment in time.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 52,532,480 credits. 9,733,066,524 credits remaining.

“I’ve established the reversion point. After I die, I will know everything you tell me.”

Yan drew in a deep breath. A look of fear and desperation I had never seen in him before appeared in his eyes.

“Oolong tea.”

“Alright, I’ll see you soon.”

I started to prepare for another reset, but Yan stopped me.

“This continent is controlled by the Nine Rivers Saint. Beneath him are the three clans led by Martial Ancestors. The Sovereigns on this continent are all outer elders of these clans who only care about accruing enough credit with their clans to be allowed to return to the Central Continent. They are here to absorb the most promising cultivators into their Bloodline. That is what is above the Ruler Tier. The Bloodline Tier. Sovereign, Spirit, Ancestor. At that level, one must steal the future potential from people of their own Bloodline. That’s what it means to cultivate karmic energy, to steal karmic potential from people. The clans harvest cultivators from this continent and use a ceremony to induct them into their bloodlines to fuel their advancement. The only exception is Ning ZeKun. He—”

Yan spoke in a rush, trying to get everything out at once, but he was too slow.

A lightning bolt crashed down, tore through the roof of the building, and struck Yan with the full fury of the Heavens.

He was obliterated, body and soul.

I wanted to freeze in terror, but I knew I couldn’t let myself do so. That strike would draw others here soon.

As fast as I could, I reached into my storage space, pulled out a poison pill, and swallowed it.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Master Peak. 20,000 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 9,733,086,524

My body was shaking in fear. What had I just seen? The power contained in that lightning bolt… It was… too much.

I opened my eyes and saw Yan sitting in front of me.

I could barely speak.

“Oo… Oolong tea.”

My eyes unfocused as I stared ahead.

“What was that? You said—”

Yan raised a hand and cut me off. “Stop. I am not allowed to discuss certain topics.”

He leaned over and pulled his old journal from my unresisting fingers. I sat there trying to cope with everything as he quickly skimmed through the book and picked out a few important details.

“Fang, this is going to take time for me to go through. What can you tell me about what happens?”

“Right… right… I don’t know much. I was in the sect… You just said that your family targeted JiaQi and YuLong after they left the Academy. LiTing was assassinated during a duel in the school.”

His eyes flashed with anger. “So, we all need to stay in the Academy and away from questionable ‘duels’ then.”

“Not just that. We need to stay in the same class. I can provide resources so that LiTing never has to display her talent. Also… I might have some level of protection from another source.”

I took out Emperor Li’s token.

“You are working with Elder Li?”

“It’s… complicated. You could say that I’m his disciple, but he might not know it.”

Yan’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t trust him. Now that you know… Your situation might give you some protection, but never let him learn about it. He is far too dangerous.”

I nodded in agreement. I didn’t understand enough about Emperor Li and his motives to tell him anything. I would accept his teachings and return my gratitude tenfold, but I wouldn’t dare risk trusting him with the secrets of my rebirths.

I brought the topic back around to the present.

“We need to go meet with the others. What are we going to do? What should we tell them?”

“They need to know. Not everything, but they need to know some of it.” Yan was adamant. “Their help will be invaluable. LiTing and JiaQi will be especially valuable if they can advance their professions far enough, and if YuLong can continue improving his martial skills, he could be a powerful shield against our enemies.”

I needed to ask a question, but I had to do so in a circumspect way.

“Yan… is there a way to cultivate through Ruler Tier without using karmic energy? Can someone advance to Lord and… beyond… without it?”

He breathed out slowly. “None that I am aware of. From everything I’ve learned, Lords required it to advance.”

“Then, what are we trying to do here? If that’s the only way forward, we’re going to have to walk the same path as everyone else. Is this… Is what we do going to accomplish anything?”

He looked at me and answered carefully.

“Survival. I didn’t leave my clan and come here to change what is. I did it for my own future and survival. I don’t know if there is any bright future to be had through the Academy or the sect. There might not be, but I do know there wasn’t one for me if I had stayed in my clan. If we can do well enough to attract the personal attention of the Saint, maybe…”

He trailed off, unable to say any more.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 154 – Life 68, Age 25, Martial Master Peak

Yan and I arrived together at the meeting with the rest of our classmates. We were both agitated as we sat, and seeing this, JiaQi decided to break the ice.

“I’ve decided to leave the Academy,” she said while holding her small deer. “I want to give LuLu a chance to live outside as she grows up. I’ll come back for the first term as a Grandmaster, but I’ll skip next term. I know I’m not going to be a Sovereign anyway.”

I continued to hesitate, so YuLong announced his decision. “I’m going home too. I know my limits. I’ve tried to learn to make talismans, but I have no talent for it. I only know how to fight. The best I can do is join someone else’s retinue. I need to talk with my father about my future before making any decisions.”

LiTing was nervous as she spoke. “I am going to take the regular Grandmaster courses. I wasn’t given enough funds for anything else.”

I looked at Yan. He signaled for me to speak.

“We all need to stay in the Academy. I know you all have your own paths to follow, but we all need to remain in our classes.”

I reached into my storage space and pulled out all the letters they sent me last time. After sorting the pile into three stacks, I slid each stack to the person who wrote them.

“These were provided to me by a powerful cultivator. They are letters from a phantom future. I don’t know what they say, but they should contain hints about what will happen if you leave the Academy.”

This was the story Yan and I had created. If anyone was testing the truth of our words from hiding, it would all check out. I considered using another shield for this conversation, but neither of us liked the idea. It might draw too much attention, some things were better off not shared, and personally, I didn’t want to spend the credits it would take.

“Fang…” JiaQi looked at me with a worried expression.

“Please, trust me. Everyone needs to stay in the Academy, and we need to all stay in the same class. I can pay for everything. Don’t worry about that. My backer will make sure there are no issues.”

If Emperor Li was going to act as some cheap master in the shadows, I would use his shadow as best as I could to keep us as safe as possible.

Yan added his thoughts to back me up.

“I’ve read part of what Fang gave me. I agree that everyone needs to stay here. The information he provided has made me aware of dangers that our position in the Academy is protecting us from.” He looked at YuLong. “Remaining here is also protecting our families.”

No one was overly happy about the scant information Yan and I were willing to tell them, but they all agreed to read the letters.

When we met back up the next day, no one wanted to talk about what they had read, but they all agreed to stay in the Academy. JiaQi and LiTing weren’t exactly happy about the situation, but they accepted it well enough. YuLong, however, seemed especially torn up about being unable to return home.

It wasn’t something I was overly comfortable doing, but I knew I had to try and help him. After our meeting broke apart, I pulled YuLong off to the side for a private discussion.

“Hey, are you okay?”

His face twisted through a few emotions before he finally shook his head helplessly.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” He put on a fake smile and snorted a small laugh. “Just means I get to practice some more, right?”

He turned to leave, but I put a hand on his shoulder. He froze at my touch.

“YuLong… I’m sorry… I just… I know this situation is hard, but we’ll get through it. We just have to keep walking forward.”

He didn’t turn around to face me. He just spoke into the empty air in front of him.

“I didn’t come here for myself. I didn’t come to the Academy to improve my own strength or cultivation. I came here to help my family, you know? We might be connected to an imperial clan, but we’re just an unimportant branch family. I thought… I thought that I could come here, do well, and improve the lives of my brothers and sisters.”

His voice started to choke up. “Now, because of who I was put in a class with, they are all destined to die, and the only way I might be able to save their lives is by never seeing them again. So, no. No, I am not okay.”

“YuLong… I…”

I didn’t know what to tell him to reassure him. I couldn’t tell him everything. It was too dangerous, but I had to tell him something.

“YuLong, we’ll get through this. If you trust what you’ve read, you can trust me when I tell you this. While you won’t be able to see your family again for a long time, decades, possibly longer, you will see them again. You will be able to improve their lives beyond anything you’ve ever dreamt possible. Your future… your family’s future… will be limitless.”

He didn’t speak. He only silently nodded his head and pulled away from me to return to his room. I could only hope I had said enough.

Return to classes was difficult for everyone, but it was something that needed to be done. We had to set our focus on doing our best at the Academy so that we would be able to excel in the sect and be able to avoid the schemes of powerful clans.

However, our first task in forging our way forward was to take several steps backward. Everyone had used suboptimal techniques when creating their meridians, so we needed to spend several weeks dispersing them and creating new ones.

Instructor Yuan passed along a technique to make the process of meridian dispersal much easier than what I had done in the past, and she ordered us to use it as we cultivated our true techniques through the Master realm. If we noticed even a hint of a problem with a meridian, we were to use the technique to disperse and reform it.

Aside from just making the process easier, it also allowed us to capture a portion of the dispersed qi and apply it to the new meridians we were forming. By using this technique, I was able to completely disperse my old meridians and form two new ones by the end of the term.

Now that I had returned to the school timeline, the 'real' timeline, I returned to using the Writ of True Earth so that I would be able to cultivate essence again in the future.

On the last day of class, we all left together to register for another five years of classes. After paying another 14 spirit stones for everyone’s tuition, I was ushered into a private room to have my affinities examined.

“Three mid five-stars… and that static has grown slightly.”

She looked at me, but I didn’t provide a response. Next time, I might need to purchase something to hide certain affinities.

“Your results are disappointing. With so many opportunities, it was hoped that you would advance more broadly.” She spoke in a clipped, harsh tone. “While there may be mitigating circumstances, they do not change your results.”

She retrieved a ledger from the storage bag and made a few notes.

“Your instructor will be informed of our decision about your future training.”

That was a solid dismissal, but I had to ask something before I left.

“Will we still be punished if we raise our affinities outside the Trials now that the term has ended?”

“No. If you have the means to do so, it is allowed as you will not be allowed to enter any Trials during this term. However, you should be aware that depending upon your results, if you wish to return as a Grandmaster, you may be allowed inside them as part of your coursework at that time. The number of opportunities you are granted, if you are granted any at all, will be determined by your performance during this term. Take that into consideration if you decide to improve your affinities in other ways.”

I thanked her for the advice and departed, ready to return to class.

Instructor Yuan stood before us to explain how we would spend our next five years.

“Your most important task during this term is taking Disciples under your tutelage. As you were taught as Disciples, so will you teach others. The Disciple course is four years. I will spend this first year teaching you how to teach. Then, you will spend the next four putting these lessons into practice.”

She looked at Yan. “You will be responsible for a class of five Disciples of your choosing.”

She looked at JiaQi, YuLong, and LiTing. “You three will each be assigned a Disciple and become their personal trainers.”

She turned to me. “You get a choice. You can either be a personal trainer, or you can be assigned to teach a class of my choosing.”

“Is there a reason I should pick one over the other?”

“You will find teaching a class of Disciples far more rewarding in both experience and credit with the Academy. However, it will be far more challenging. Especially for you.”

Was that a threat or a dig at my potential teaching skills? Both?

After only a slight pause, I knew what I wanted. There was no reason to take the easy path here.

“I’ll take the full class.”

Instructor Yuan smirked at my decision but didn’t comment further.

The next day, LiTing, JiaQi, and YuLong were sent to study under separate teachers while Yan and I were to be trained by Instructor Yuan personally. Once class started, it was clear she intended to maintain her approach of only explaining what we were supposed to do after first letting us fail.

“Your Disciples will all be from wealthy or powerful families. While they will have never cultivated before, they will be familiar with the basics. Think back to what you knew when you first entered the Academy. Your students will all know as much or more than you did.”

This prepared speech was… questionable. My own history was one thing, and it was fair that she didn’t know it, but the person beside me was Zhuge Yan…

“That’s one of the reasons we take the approach that we do. Your Disciples will be young and brash. Most will think they know everything you want to teach them already, so your first task is to show them how much they have left to learn.”

She motioned for me to stand and walk to the front of the room. As I did, she moved to take the seat I had vacated.

“This is the first day of class. Teach us.”

I blinked. What was I supposed to do?

During the classes, I had felt that both Instructors Sun and Yuan could have done a better job in explaining certain things, but I was willing to follow their examples. At least, I was willing to follow them until I had a firmer idea of how to try and improve upon them.

So, what should I do? She said to show the students how I could help them. How was I supposed to do that? I could try and demonstrate my prowess in some way, but if the students were from cultivation families with Lords and Kings, there wasn’t much I could do that would shock them.

I tried to think back to my first lessons under Master Sun. He had forced us to cultivate an awful technique under conditions that led to drawing in mountains of impurities. Was I supposed to do that? But… I came to class a month late. What happened before that?

The first lesson had to be about creating qi filters, right? So… The student would need a cultivation technique. I took a quick check around the front of the room and found a storage bag that had been placed out of sight. Inside were several manuals, including five Low-Yellow cultivation techniques.

I handed one of these low-level manuals to both Yan and Instructor Yuan.

“Cultivate this.”

Instructor Yuan showed Yan what he should do. She created a false qi filter and vortex above her palm to simulate a Disciple trying to cultivate the technique. These false filters were nonfunctional and only served as a prop for the lesson.

I looked at Instructor Yuan’s faulty creation and frowned. How should I correct her?

“You will pull in a significant amount of impurities with this. You need to fix it.”

Instructor Yuan fumbled around, making a poor show of fixing her mistakes. What was I supposed to do here? I didn’t know an easy way to explain what she was doing wrong. The only thing I could think to do was repeat the same tactic I’d used in the past. It might not be what Yuan wanted, but it was the only plan I could come up with.

After a bit of hesitation, I looked at Instructor Yuan.

“One moment, please. I need to make a slight change.”

She nodded graciously.

At this point, the spirit flame in my body was the wood-based one I had used to complete the Earth Trial. Using my spatial bag as cover, I pulled an empty jade box out of my storage space, forced the wood flame out of my body, and stowed it in the box.

Returning this box to my storage space, I then retrieved a fire-based flame and absorbed it.

With this complete, I returned to Instructor Yuan’s ‘lesson,’ and she resumed her fumbling with the filter.

Using the spirit fire, I created a ghostly apparition and overlaid the correct form on top of what she was doing.

“It should look like this.”

She adjusted her qi to align it with my example.

“Here and here still need adjustments.” I pointed to the problem areas.

She quickly fixed them and began ‘cultivating’ properly.

I backed off and waited for her judgment silently, but she just continued acting out her role for several more minutes.

When it was clear to her that I would say nothing else, she stood, gestured for me to retake my seat, and moved back in front of us.

“That was an interesting technique to clarify the problems with the qi filter. Lord Ning mentioned something like this previously and wished for you to attempt to use it in your classes. I believe it may work.”

She turned to Yan. “What can he improve?”

He looked at me. “Don’t talk about impurities at this point. There isn't any value in it. Just tell them what they are doing wrong without the why. Adding in talk of impurities can muddy the explanation of what they are doing wrong and how to fix it.”

Instructor Yuan nodded. “I agree partially. Such details may benefit some students, but if you want to bring it up, you need to make it meaningful. Don’t just say ‘impurities.’ If you want to talk about them, talk about them. If you don’t, then don’t mention them.”

She kept her focus on me. “What else could you improve?”

“I’m not sure… You corrected the filter quickly and would have been cultivating well. I don’t know what more could have been done.”

“What did I tell you? Show the students how much they have left to learn. You didn’t do this at all. You had me make a few minor alterations and were satisfied with the result.”

I didn’t understand. “Because it was correct. Wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was. That is the problem. Cultivating correctly so easily doesn’t teach them the lessons they need. They need to cultivate poorly. The worse they do, the better. Don’t start them with Low-Yellow techniques. If they already have a Peak-Earth technique, make them use it. If not, provide the ones in that bag you found. Then you can use your little trick. Even with its help, they will still fail without sufficient practice. Being able to clearly see what they are doing wrong and not be able to fix it will be far more helpful at this stage.”

She looked at Yan. “What was his biggest mistake?”

He turned to me. “She said to teach ‘us.’ You didn’t teach me.”

My jaw dropped slightly at that. Yan hadn’t tried to do the false cultivation even after the instructor showed him how. Why would I…

Instructor Yuan gave Yan a look of approval and then looked at me to explain.

“Try to involve the whole class. I am focused on your actions right now, but I have been making an effort to include Zhuge Yan during the process. This will be difficult, especially when there are large differences in abilities between your students. However, as you will both be teaching a full class of Disciples, it is a skill you must work to improve.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 155 – Life 68, Age 25, Martial Master 1

While the morning class about teaching was helpful, it was the afternoon class that I had been looking forward to with both anticipation and dread: Soul Cultivation.

I needed a stronger soul. I needed a way to defend my soul. The strength of my soul was the only strength that I could bring back with me, so I needed it to be as powerful as possible. However, if soul cultivation caused a shift in my personality akin to that of qi cultivation, I didn’t want to risk it.

The potential pitfalls associated with cultivating my soul were very real, but I couldn’t continue just ignoring the problem.

At the appointed time, all five of us arrived in the classroom together for a short lecture from Instructor Yuan.

“The soul is one of the most important aspects of what it means to be a cultivator. Outside the walls of this Academy, people have strange and misguided notions of what it means to cultivate the soul and how to go about it. Their information comes third or fourth hand from failed students, and most of the important details have been lost.”

She looked at each of us to ensure we were paying attention. “The Yellow Orchid Academy has the best information on soul cultivation from the brightest minds of the Central Continent, but it’s only available to a select few. You haven’t been taught anything about soul cultivation until now because we first needed to ensure that you are both capable and mature enough to make the right decisions.”

She took out four cultivation manuals and set them down in front of us.

“These are considered the best soul cultivation techniques in the world. They are freely available on the Central Continent, but their distribution has been intentionally limited on Nine Rivers to prevent them from causing more harm than good. Those who are blessed with the ability to evaluate such things say that they can be considered Peak-Yellow techniques. This may seem low, but no one has been able to develop anything better, and many have tried.”

She picked up one of the manuals and showed it to us. Then, she set it down and arranged all four so that everyone could see them.

“Using these techniques, you will pull qi from the environment, through your acupoints, and into your soul. This will cause your souls to expand and strengthen themselves. These four techniques achieve this in slightly different ways, but the basic principles are all the same. Draw qi into your soul, use it to force your soul to grow, then expel it. With a solid qi cultivation technique and a Peak-Yellow soul cultivation technique, all of the energy you use to grow your soul will be drawn out when you are not actively cultivating so that your soul remains in a pristine state.”

Wait… But that… Did that mean I had been worrying about nothing all this time? If a Peak-Yellow technique left nothing behind to affect me and only expanded my soul, it should be safe to cultivate, right? I had to ask.

“Does that mean that soul cultivation techniques don’t have mental effects like qi cultivation techniques do? They won’t change who you are?”

“Cultivating your soul will change who you are, but the way it does so is far more complex than the simple mental effects of qi cultivation. When cultivated with a Peak-Yellow technique, your soul will grow. You can imagine your soul as a garden. When you expand your soul, you are adding plots of land for new plants to grow.”

Not having a prop prepared, Instructor Yuan tried to gesture with her hands to demonstrate.

“These new ‘plots’ will be completely empty with nothing growing in them. That is to say, the new areas of your soul will lack any kind of identity. Practicing a cultivation technique only expands the garden. It doesn’t plant any seeds. However, depending on the technique you chose, the ‘soil’ of these new plots will vary, and different seeds grow better in different soil. Meaning that when your cultivation technique expands your soul, while it doesn’t give the new parts of your soul an identity, your choice of technique will make your soul more receptive to certain ideas.”

“But… what if you grow your soul without cultivating? I’ve heard that performing alchemy, for example, can grow your soul through the exertion of will.”

She nodded. “Anytime you grow your soul, the new bits must be given an identity. If you grow it through alchemy, being an alchemist will become more core to your identity. If you spend a year cultivating in isolation, being a person who cultivates in isolation will become a core part of you.”

That worried me. Had I been spiraling down a path without recognizing it? When I started in South Gate City, I had wanted to focus on formations, but everything kept coming back to alchemy. Was this part of the reason? Had I grown my soul so much with alchemy as my focus that it had become a core part of who I was?

Instructor Yuan didn’t wait for me to solve my inner turmoil. She simply continued her lecture.

“Rapidly expanding your soul through cultivation is dangerous. If you aren’t careful with the identity you feed your growing soul, you will quickly lose yourself in a way that outwardly resembles the madness imposed by qi cultivation. To combat this, the scholars of the Central Continent have developed four different paths for one to walk when cultivating their soul. These paths combine a rich, well-studied philosophical framework with a specially designed cultivation technique. These four paths have been developed over millennia and are valued for their reliable, consistent results.”

She picked up one of the manuals that had been sitting in front of us.

“The first path is that of Traditionalism. The ideals of the Traditionalists are benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness. They care deeply about filial piety and order. A prince should be a prince. A minister should be a minister. A father should be a father. A son should be a son. By upholding the virtues of a Traditionalist, one will live in harmony with the laws of Heaven.”

She moved on to the second manual.

“A path that has similar moral goals but approaches them in a very different way is Universalism. To cultivate as a Universalist is to accept that all beings are equal and worthy of the same universal love. One should have the same love for both a stranger and their child. Unlike the Traditionalists, Universalists do not value ritual. They value living by a constant moral guide. By following this moral guide, they aim to maximize the utility of all members of a society.”

She lifted the third book to show us.

“Next is the path of Legalism. The Legalist believes that all humans are inherently selfish and will always care only about their own wealth and power. As such, it is impossible to expect morality from anyone. Instead, they work to create systems whereby when people work to benefit themselves, they benefit their Ruler. For example, the rules and responsibilities of ministers should be constructed so that the ministers have ways to enrich themselves, but when they do so, the ultimate result is one that further empowers their Ruler. Legalists believe there should be clear rules for advancement and clear, impersonal laws and regulations.”

She moved to the final book.

“Last is the path I follow. The path of Daoism. Daoists believe that any attempts to improve the world will only make it worse. Therefore, one must strive to limit their interference with mortal affairs. Daoist Rulers might be seen as aloof as they will rarely if ever involve themselves in the activities of their domain. Mortals should handle mortal affairs. Cultivators should handle cultivator affairs. A Daoist Ruler will only be involved in situations concerning other Rulers. It is a path of separating yourself from the mundane and embracing what it means to be a cultivator.”

She placed this book back down and gestured widely to all four.

“There are powerful factions on the Central Continent that center their societies around each of these paths. You may choose freely without worrying about any of them being inferior to another. Also, while these cultivation techniques are designed to work best with their intended path, you may choose to mix a technique with a different path if you so wish. Daoist flowers would grow best in Daoist soil, but if you cultivate the Legalist technique, they can still grow with enough effort. You may use these techniques to develop your own way forward. While these four paths are the best that we know of, they are not necessarily the best paths possible.”

It seemed like the instructor’s lecture was nearly finished, so I had to take the opportunity to ask about one of my concerns.

“What if we change our minds in the future? Is there a way to undo soul cultivation like there is for qi cultivation?”

“There is no simple pill that can return your soul to its previous state. Once your soul grows, it will never return to the way it was before. However, with time and effort, you can work to change who you are. Returning to the analogy, if you work hard enough, it is possible to cut down everything in your garden and use it as fertilizer to grow something new. But if you do that, you might find that weeds from the plants you removed will still sprout every now and again.”

With everyone in thought and not asking any more questions, Instructor Yuan brought the class to a close.

“You now have access to the soul cultivation library. You will not need tokens to enter. You are free to visit and read any books you desire. I suggest spending a significant amount of time there before making any decisions.”

Once the instructor left, the five of us remained in the room in deep thought. I looked at Yan to see if he had anything to add.

“Can you tell us anything more?”

He struggled a bit in trying to decide how to phrase what he wanted to say.

“From what I know, everything the instructor said is correct. The only thing I can tell you is that the most powerful clans on this continent all follow a combination of the Daoist and Legalist paths. The leaders are Daoists, and they encourage those under them to follow Legalism. Morality is not their concern. Those in charge care only about everyone following their rules and promoting the advancement of their clan.”

That seemed to fit, but… “Why wouldn’t they force everyone in the Academy, everyone on the continent, to follow the Legalist path? That would make everyone more compliant and more willing to follow the rules they create.”

Yan struggled to find the right words to explain things within the limits of the oaths that bound him.

“They… cannot. It would be… counterproductive. To achieve one’s full potential, they must follow a path of their own choosing.”

Knowing I had been pushing things, I backed off and changed the topic to avoid any fatal mistakes.

“Do you have any recommendations?” I looked at the others. “Does anyone?”

YuLong spoke up. “My family views filial piety as the most important virtue and are extremely loyal to the main branch. They have never spoken much about it, but I believe they must be following the Traditionalist path. Even when the main branch degrades them, they still hold firm in their support since that is what is proper.”

Yan shook his head. “We should all go to the library and read the teachings available there. We need to make our own choices without being influenced by each other. This choice will change who you are as a person. It isn’t one anyone else can make for you.”

I needed Yan’s opinion, but I couldn’t ask about certain topics openly. I looked nervously at the other three, worried about saying too much, and hoping that the letters I had given them were enough of an explanation.

I focused on Yan.

“With everything you learned from the information I gave you, is this something you think I should do? We can passively grow our souls over time. Cultivating them and permanently changing ourselves like this… Is it a good idea?”

He looked at me in understanding.

“Who you are is always changing. Cultivating your soul allows you to choose who you will become. If you don’t do this, that choice will be made by chance and circumstance. It will be out of your control. As Yuan said, the path you take will be difficult to change, but it can be done. It isn’t truly permanent. Even if it were, with enough growth, if you choose a path now and change it later, the portion of your soul that follows this choice will only be a small part of who you eventually become. To me, growing my soul without guidance is far more dangerous.”

I understood what he was saying, and I could see evidence of it when I reviewed my own history. I couldn’t say I was always happy with the direction my life had taken. This might be something I needed to do.

Still, it wasn’t a decision that could be rushed. I would study in the library. If needed, I could check the System to see if I could learn more from it. Emperor Li’s warning made me cautious of that, but it was one of only two sources of information I had access to. The information in the library was curated by the people who ran the Academy. The information from the System was potentially curated by the Earthly Dao.

Neither source could be fully trusted when it came to altering my soul. I could only hope that by combining them, I would be able to put together an acceptable path forward.

Chapter 156 – Life 68, Age 25, Martial Master 1

Over the following weeks, while I spent my mornings in classes learning how to teach Disciples, most of my time was spent in the soul cultivation library.

The Academy’s technique library contained several small rooms, and its contents were carefully partitioned so that someone who was granted access to Rank 1 martial fire techniques could only view those specific techniques. If one wanted to look at a different Rank, technique type, or element, they would need to pay separately for access to each different room.

In contrast, the soul cultivation library was a large, open building with dozens of bookshelves, tables where students could study, and small private reading rooms. Every soul cultivation technique the school offered and all the related philosophical texts were available freely to anyone taking the right courses.

From what I could tell, four classes other than ours were studying soul cultivation. This led to the library being busy, but there were more than enough books to go around. There were at least a hundred different volumes for each of the four paths Instructor Yuan had introduced us to.

While my classmates and I all studied at the same table, we silently agreed not to comment on the books anyone else read. This was to prevent us from influencing the path that others would choose to walk.

As for myself, while I was in the Nine Rivers Sect, I took the Test of Soul as a Grandmaster and was able to pass with ease. This was clear evidence that my soul was far stronger than it needed to be for the moment, so I could and would take as much time as I needed before making any decision about how to proceed.

Even after copying every available text on soul cultivation into my mental library, I remained in the Academy’s library to show any watchers how seriously I was taking this decision. If I had returned to my room and used my mental library to peruse these books in private, any spies would have certainly misunderstood my actions. Without knowing who may be watching or why they were doing so, I had to be careful with the narrative I crafted for them.

The four paths that the school advocated were all interesting in their own unique way. The more I read, the more I came to understand the underlying principles of these different philosophies and how they would guide a cultivator’s actions.

I felt as if these different paths had some connection to the different tiers of cultivation. The Daoist ideal of separating oneself from the mortal world in the pursuit of cultivation and enlightenment seemed to mesh well with the Warrior Tier. The Legalist notions of everything benefiting those in charge fit with the Ruler Tier. The Traditionalist concepts of ritual and filial piety could easily be connected to the Bloodline Tier. I had no notion of what was above Bloodline, but the name ‘Saint’ had implications that could connect it to the Universalists.

If Instructor Yuan’s comment about powerful forces of the Central Continent following each of the different paths was to be believed, it was unlikely that these philosophies were rigidly tied to specific levels of cultivation. Instead, I felt like the philosophers who developed these different paths were forming them around superficial understandings of what the different levels of cultivation involved.

In truth, such musings were unimportant. They were little more than a distraction I was using to avoid making a decision.

Even though I had read a large number of the treatises on soul cultivation available, I still didn’t know what I should do. I couldn’t just rely on the information the Academy provided me. I needed objective information.

Before I could deal with choosing a path, I needed to settle the issue of what soul cultivation technique I would use. I had the four provided by the Academy, but I was worried that they might contain hidden dangers that would poison my soul. I needed a technique I could trust.

“System, using the Academy’s techniques as a baseline, how powerful of a soul cultivation technique can I purchase for one billion credits? I want one without any hidden risks or dangers to my body, mind, or soul. I want the information I am given to clearly state how the technique will affect me and give clear warnings of any dangers the technique may hold for myself or others.”

Processing… Low-Pr— Processing… An external entity has discounted the price. Peak-Profound Mortal soul cultivation technique Path through the Silent Night. Cost 1 billion credits.

Note: You will repay this debt.

Maybe that message should have made me afraid, but instead, it reassured me. Fear came from the unknown. I had been afraid the Earthly Dao would take a hidden hand in whatever the System gave me. Doing so openly removed this source of fear and made it something I could plan around.

This was a technique chosen by the Earthly Dao. That meant there was a definite purpose behind its selection. However, if Emperor Li was correct, I could also be certain that it contained no hidden dangers because of the specifics of my request.

If I had to choose between a technique provided by the Earthly Dao and one provided by the Academy, I would choose the former every time. The Earthly Dao seemed to have some greater purpose for me while the ultimate purpose of the Academy was to prepare me as a feast for vultures.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 8,733,086,524 credits remaining.

I was a little worried when I didn’t feel any knowledge enter my mind. When I had upgraded techniques in the past, all the relevant information had been directly shoved into my brain, and I had an innate understanding of it. This time, that didn’t happen. Instead, a thin book appeared in my mental library.

Opening this new book, I found easily understandable diagrams for channeling energy through my soul to grow and strengthen it. Following these diagrams were several pages about the design and intent behind this technique. These passages were all written in poetry and contained meaning beyond what I was able to understand. The first line was:

‘Light falls to the foot of my bed. I lift my head and gaze at the moon.’

I could cultivate the technique using only the diagrams, but without understanding these passages, there would be unknown risks.

Fortunately, I had asked for things to be ‘clearly stated,’ and poems were anything but ‘clear.’ At the end of the book, written in a completely different hand that looked more like it was printed by a machine, several paragraphs provided details about what this cultivation technique did and how it did it. This gave me all the information I would need so that I would not have to rely on deciphering the original text of the technique.

In short, it grew the soul while maintaining a core that was connected to a person’s ’original self.’ This core would remain like an egg in its shell in the center of the soul. The core could change and grow naturally, but it would not be affected by the cultivation technique or the new areas of the soul created through the use of the technique.

To use Instructor Yuan’s analogy, I would build a wall around the garden of who I was. As I cultivated this technique, fields would grow outside of this wall, and they would be sowed with the ideas and philosophies I fed them, but those outer fields would have no impact on my inner secluded garden.

This was a technique for a nostalgic person who cared more about who they were in the past than who they would become in the future.

If I ever chose to cultivate a different soul technique, the wall this technique placed on my core identity would be destroyed, and I would never be able to rebuild it. However, until that time, who I was would be protected.

This protection would even extend to defending me against external influences. After cultivating this technique, if I were to be infected by a soul gu, it would be able to harm the outer layers of my soul, but it would not be able to penetrate the protected core.

As for drawbacks, while I would maintain a core ‘garden,’ the outer fields would still affect me. My personality would still shift to fall in line with the philosophies I studied as I cultivated. The protections around my core would make razing the outer fields to plant new ideas more difficult, but it also made it so such a transformation was much safer as it wouldn’t affect my core ‘self.’

I was still worried about cultivating my soul, but the Earthly Dao had handed me everything I could have wanted from such a technique. At this point, the risks were mitigated to such an extent that I felt I had to move forward with it.

I just had to decide which ‘path’ I wanted to follow. This cultivation technique could create new fields in my soul, but I needed to be careful what I planted in them.

Knowing that this would be the most important decision I had ever made, I committed myself to paying an appropriate cost. I wanted the best information I could get, but the wider I cast my net, the worse my results would be. I wanted to ask the System for information on the best possible paths for soul cultivation, but that was far beyond what I could afford. I had to settle for information about what was in front of me.

“System, I wish to purchase information about the four paths of soul cultivation advocated by the Academy. I want reference materials about them that are not available on this continent. If possible, I want information not available in this world. I want the best I can get for one billion credits.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 billion credits. 7,733,086,524 credits remaining.

Four books appeared in my mental library. There were the Analects, the Mozi, the Book of Lord Shang, and the Dao De Jing. These books were not of this world. They were completely foreign and free of influence from the powers of this world.

While I was not completely happy with any of my options, I could use these new texts to chart a temporary path forward. Only after growing and learning more could I hope to develop a path that was truly my own.

By the end of the first year of the term, I had risen to Martial Master 5 and gained a solid understanding of how Instructor Yuan felt I should teach my future students.

When I was in Eight Flower, I had purchased a comprehension boost to my teaching skills, and during this year, I had considered boosting it further to gain a better understanding of teaching techniques. However, I didn’t feel that my comprehension was limiting me. Instead, the material and knowledge of teaching I was provided was what limited my improvement.

This continent didn’t have anything resembling the educational framework I knew of in my first life. There were no peer-reviewed papers, and no one did clinical research on teaching methodologies. Everything was based on tradition and what a teacher personally decided would work. I wanted to purchase teaching skills from a world, or at least a continent, that had a deeper educational tradition, but such a thing was beyond my means.

If there were philosophers researching soul cultivation on the Central Continent, they might also have researchers for teaching methods. If I ever got there, I would have to see what I could discover.

All that said, Instructor Yuan did consider both Yan and me ready for the beginning of our classes, so we spent all our free time in the library studying soul cultivation.

I had spent a lot of time and energy reading about the different philosophies discussed in these books and had come to a conclusion on which path I would walk.

The Legalist path was eliminated quickly. I had no desire to study and craft laws, and I certainly didn’t want to feel bound by the laws created by the people of this world. While I could see many potential advantages to advocating this path, it was a terrible fit for me.

The Traditionalist path could be eliminated for similar reasons. The focus on filial piety killed it for me before I even began to consider it as an option. There was no way I was going to cultivate a path of being pious toward the Su Clan.

My main choice was between the Daoist and Universalist paths. The first was the path of separating myself from the world. The second was a path of universal love and working to better the world around me.

Being in an eternal time loop, I had naturally begun to separate myself from the world. It was sometimes hard to think that anything mattered other than my own advancement. Walking the path of a Daoist would only amplify these feelings to a point where I would begin treating everything as a tool to use for my own benefit.

This made me realize why the Earthly Dao had been so generous in giving me a technique that I felt I had no choice but to use. It wanted me to walk the path of the Universalist. It would see it as a way to encourage me to help the world, and helping the world meant helping the Earthly Dao.

Emperor Li’s words about not trusting the implications I drew from the information I received echoed through my mind, but this conclusion rang true to me. It might not be the only reason I was given that technique, but it had to be a large part of it.

Sitting at a table in the library with my classmates, we all looked at each other.

Yan was the first to speak. “Has everyone made their decisions?”

We had all agreed not to influence each other’s choices, but we did want to help each other develop and learn more once those choices were made.

We all nodded.

YuLong grinned. “Daoist. I’m not willing to follow people who stole my chance at an affinity.”

JiaQi smirked. “Daoist. I feel about the same way.”

LiTing dipped her head. “Daoist.”

Yan looked at me, but I motioned for him to go first. “Daoist. It will help me gain the strength I need.”

Being the odd one out, I smiled ruefully. “Universalist. It’s the correct path for me at this time.”

Chapter 157 – Life 68, Age 26, Martial Master 5

The day before I was to begin teaching my class of Disciples, I went to Instructor Yuan’s office to get a list of the students who would be in my class. Typically, I would’ve had such a list several days earlier to assist me in making preparations, but because I was not the one in charge of selecting my students, it was delayed.

The instructor’s room was laid out exactly how Grandmaster Ning’s had been, and Instructor Yuan sat behind a wooden desk with two chairs in front of it. After I sat down in one of them, she took out a piece of paper and slid it to me.

“These will be your students. I’ve specially chosen them for you, and I’ll be interested to see what you’re able to do with them.”

Looking at the list, I saw that all of them had well-rounded affinities, but they were all low. No one had any affinity above mid six-star. The only saving grace was that none of their basic affinities were below peak seven-star. In a way, this wasn’t too different from the affinities I had come in with. The biggest difference was their lack of secondary affinities. Only one boy had meaningful secondary affinities, low six-star for wind and lightning. Overall, this was a bit below what I expected from students in the elite classes.

Typically, elite Disciples would have at least one affinity at mid five-star or above. This meant that my students would be at a severe disadvantage in both qi control and cultivation speed. This could be addressed during their first term as Martial Masters, but they would have to make it that far first.

When I looked at their blessings, the students seemed equally mediocre. All their blessings were designed for scholars. One boy had a blessing that improved his calligraphy while one of the girls had one to help her with mathematics. None of them had a blessing that would directly help them with cultivation or any of the cultivation-related professions.

I looked at Instructor Yuan. I was confused by her selection. She might have done this just to spite me, but if I performed poorly, it would reflect poorly on her as well.

“These are the Disciples you chose for me? Can you tell me why?”

I could sense annoyance and a bit of exasperation coming from her.

“I made this selection in coordination with Lord Ning. He believes this is the best group of Disciples to give you. While they all qualified for the elite courses, no Master would normally choose them, so they would be forced into the regular courses.”

She sighed as she looked at me.

“Neither Lord Ning nor I believe that you will follow the normal routine while teaching. This could be good or bad. We don’t know. However, Lord Ning wishes to see what you can accomplish if given free rein, and you will have far more freedom than normal while teaching this group of students. If you fail, the Academy won’t be happy, but you won’t have ruined anyone important. However, if you succeed with these students, it will be seen as a major victory. Either way, if you want unfettered freedom to teach as you wish, these are the perfect students for you.”

Understanding her reasons, I gave the instructor a deep bow. “Thank you for your consideration.”

After accepting my bow, she placed a white jade token on the desk.

“This will allow you access to all the Rank 1 library rooms. You may use it to select techniques to use in class or to study the techniques your students are using, but you will only be allowed copies of the texts you plan to use in class.”

She looked at me seriously.

“Be careful with how you use this. The primary reason the Academy limits a student’s access to techniques is so that they choose the ones they practice carefully and are not overwhelmed by trying to master too many skills at once. I recommend against directly providing them with a core fighting technique or a permanent cultivation technique. They should earn these as your class did. However, as I said before, you are free to do as you wish with this class.”

Before heading to the library, I needed to make a plan for how I would teach my students. Freedom to access and copy any Rank 1 technique I wanted was a massive boon, and I would definitely abuse it, but how could I use this access to best help my students?

The beginnings of a plan came to mind, and I spent several hours fleshing it out.

When I arrived at the library, it was already late in the day. I went to every room possible and copied all the manuals into my mental library, including the Academy’s Rank 1 techniques for things such as talismans and illusions. These profession-related techniques wouldn’t have too much value without the appropriate training or qi, but I wouldn’t hesitate to take them when they were offered to me like this.

In each of the cultivation technique rooms, I picked out a dozen different techniques to be copied. When I finally left, I had a storage bag bulging with techniques, half a dozen Rank 1 library tokens, and a librarian cursing at me.

When I entered the classroom for the first time, my students were already waiting for me. There were two boys and three girls. Each of them was only 16 years old.

As I made my way to the front of the classroom, I examined each student with energy vision and saw that none of them had begun trying to cultivate. Before I could begin my lesson plan, I needed to get some qi into them.

I gave them the most authentic smile that I could. “My name is Su Fang. I will be your teacher for this term.”

I reached into my storage bag, took out Low-Yellow cultivation techniques for each of the nine elements, and placed them in front of the class.

“Before you can begin cultivating, you need a technique. Decide which element you want to use and take the appropriate technique.” I gestured to the manuals available. “Do not worry about this being a permanent choice. You will be able to change your decision in the future.”

No one rushed to be the first to choose a technique. They all looked at each other awkwardly, trying to figure out how to respond. While I had expected at least one person to quickly come up and choose a technique, I had considered this possibility as well.

After half a minute of no one moving, I stacked the techniques together, picked them up, and presented them directly to one of the students at random.

“Choose a technique.”

The girl before me hesitated but eventually took one of the books I was holding out to her. After that, I approached each of the students and forced them to choose one of the remaining technique manuals.

“These are basic Low–Yellow techniques. Cultivate them to the best of your ability and try to break through to Martial Disciple 2 as quickly as possible.”

With techniques in hand, they each took a position on a cultivation mat and began studying their manuals. While three of the students appeared slightly apathetic and sullen, one of the boys gave me the feeling of an interested scholar and one of the girls had an air of fatalistic determination about her.

I had designed this task based on Instructor Yuan having told us that all our students would be knowledgeable about the basics of cultivation and somewhat arrogant. I wanted to see what they could accomplish without guidance.

While Instructor Yuan had said that my only job in the first lesson was to prove to the students that they needed my help, after thinking through a few ideas, I felt that I could also use this lesson as an opportunity to better understand them, how much they already knew, and how much they would be able to accomplish by themselves.

Only the determined girl was able to successfully cultivate the Low-Yellow technique well enough that she would be able to advance within a reasonable amount of time. To help speed up the process, I activated a Qi Gathering Formation. With the addition of this extra energy, everyone started making visible progress.

An hour into the lesson, I called a halt to their cultivation. There was no point in having them spend any more time than necessary poorly cultivating this technique.

“Stop. Out of all of you, only Jin ZiHan has even a chance of reaching Martial Disciple 2 anytime soon. Fortunately, you have all gathered enough energy that we can proceed to the next task.”

I walked closer to them so that they could all easily see what I was doing. I held up my right hand and created a false qi filter using my spirit fire. None of them would have developed qi vision yet, but they could see the spirit fire and sense their own energy.

“This is what I want you all to do. Use your qi and create a facsimile of the filter in your technique manual. Instead of creating it in your body, make it hover above your palm. This is slightly harder than creating a regular filter for cultivation, but everyone’s affinities are more than high enough to do this.”

It took them a significant amount of time, but one by one they were able to form the basic shapes needed.

Once they all had a rough copy of their filters floating above their palm, I used my spirit fire to create examples of the proper filters and overlaid them onto the students’ creations. I wanted to give clear indications of where their filters were correct and where they had problems. I couldn’t easily change the color of my fire, so I had the areas where the student’s filters were correct glow brighter. Once the entire filter was correct, my spirit fire overlay would glow brightly in recognition.

Where Instructor Yuan would have shown dominance by placing the students in a position to fail, I would do so by demonstrating my own depth of knowledge and understanding.

It took them several more minutes to slowly adjust their filters to perfectly align them with the fiery example I provided. They were all inexperienced and had very poor control of their qi, but their affinities were all at least peak seven-star. Even without any prior practice, it was only a matter of an hour before everyone had a correct filter floating in front of them.

As they worked, I didn’t notice any of the brashness that Instructor Yuan had warned us about. Likely, this was because they had already been humbled by their relatively poor affinities and mediocre blessings. For many, including my past self, a peak seven-star affinity would have seemed like an unattainable dream, but these kids were judging themselves against peers with five-star affinities. Their ‘lacking abilities’ meant they nearly weren’t allowed to enroll in this course, and that humbled them more than I ever could.

I took five stacks of techniques out of my storage bag and put them where everyone could see them.

“You have all perfected the filter in the Low-Yellow technique. Now, we will see how far you can push yourselves.”

I pointed to the top techniques on each of the stacks.

“These techniques are Mid-Yellow.” I pointed to the second book on each stack. “These are High-Yellow. As you go down each stack, they continue getting progressively more difficult. At the very bottom is a Peak-Earth technique. Find the stack for the affinity you have been cultivating. Go down it one book at a time and create a perfect copy of the qi filter for each technique. The first person to successfully form the Peak-Earth filter will be granted a token to select a Rank 1 technique from the library.”

This exercise was less about them being about to form a proper qi filter and more about them learning better qi control. Moving their energy into the right place and keeping it there while working on the rest of the filter was a difficult skill to master. Profound and Earth techniques didn’t necessarily have more complicated filters than Yellow techniques did, but I had specifically chosen these techniques in order to create a noticeable, steady difficulty curve. The filters for the Peak-Earth techniques all looked like nothing more than a bundle of knotted and tangled yarn.

As the students practiced and made their ways ever further down their stacks of books, the time they spent on each technique increased.

Whenever one of them picked up a new book, I would provide them with a fiery example of what they were supposed to accomplish. All they had to do was match their qi to the sample filter I provided. Still, none of them got very far on that first day. It wasn’t until the end of the first week that Jin ZiHan was able to create the first Peak-Earth filter and claim the library token for herself.

With this initial goal accomplished, I instructed her to choose a new element to begin working on. For this second element, I did not provide a fiery guide for her. I only gave her a signal after the entire filter was correct to indicate that she was allowed to continue on to the next technique. In the first exercise, she had demonstrated sufficient qi control to create an Earth-Rank filter, this one would teach her to translate a drawing from a book into a correct three-dimensional filter.

These exercises were far from how Instructor Yuan had taught us to approach teaching our students to create perfect qi filters. However, to me, this felt right, and it seemed like it was effective. Her method was more about breaking the students down before building them back up. These students didn’t need to be broken down.

Instead, by using this process, I let them see what they could do and how I could help them. It also allowed me to better understand their current capabilities and where each of them would need my help.

Once each student was comfortable with making all of the filters for their first element, I switched them to a different one as I had with Jin ZiHan. I wanted everyone to have a broad understanding of forming different qi filters. If they were destined to be scholars in the future, this knowledge would be beneficial.

While Jin ZiHan was the quickest, the slowest to progress through the lessons was Leng JunWei. His approach was slow and methodical. He started with the lightning techniques, and when he moved on to the wind techniques, he carefully recorded differences between them and the previous lightning techniques into a notebook.

Close to a month into the class, I repeated the same lesson that Instructor Sun had given my class for managing acupoints and cultivation madness. Using a Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formation, I had them cultivate to Peak Disciple under conditions that guaranteed that they would absorb a significant number of impurities.

From there, we continued with various lessons on cultivation, professions, and martial combat. None of my students had any real gifts to help them succeed in any of these fields, but they all responded well to my lessons and were willing to give it their all.

At the end of the first year, they had their first martial competition, and I could only hope that the dedication they had shown would be enough.

Chapter 158 – Life 68, Age 27, Martial Master 7

In their first martial competition, my students were pitted against Yan’s students.

Yan’s class was somewhat unique among those that I had seen. Usually, a Master would choose students with matching blessings and complementary affinities when possible. For example, Grandmaster Ning and Master Sun had chosen our class to all have comprehension blessings, and one of the classes we fought against only had students with elemental incarnation blessings.

In contrast, Yan had chosen students with wildly different blessings. One student could create an earth incarnation in the form of a large stone golem, another had a blessing that improved her stamina, and a third had one related to herbalism.

It took me a while to understand why he would choose such an odd mixture of students, but when I saw him writing in a notebook after class one day, I understood. He wasn’t focusing on having the best class possible. He was studying how these different blessings could be used. His plan wasn’t too dissimilar to things I had done in the past. He was giving up short-term gains for information that would be valuable in the long term.

Still, when I compared his class to mine, his had a clear advantage. Two members of his team had blessings that none of my students were able to match. Those two could easily defeat anyone my class had to offer. However, if the students paired off to fight in just the right combination, my class did have a small chance to eke out a victory.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t provide them with any advice. They had to decide their strategy by themselves.

In the end, it was close, but my class made two fatal mistakes.

The first was allowing Leng JunWei to fight first. He had been cultivating lightning qi and was working to develop his calligraphy talent in a way that would help him as a talisman artist. He was the second-best fighter in my class. Against him, Yan’s class sent their weakest fighter. Leng JunWei won, but it was a strategic defeat as my class had wasted a valuable asset.

The other mistake was saving Jin ZiHan for last. She was forced to fight against Yan’s most ferocious student, Cai XiaoYu, a girl blessed with seemingly endless stamina.

Jin ZiHan had dedicated herself to her studies and was making excellent progress. Her innate comprehension of both cultivation and fighting would have made anyone jealous. However, when faced with an opponent with bottomless reserves of stamina and who had trained relentlessly to be able to cultivate while fighting to give herself an endless supply of qi, Jin ZiHan had no chance.

It wasn’t just that the girl had more stamina when fighting. Her stamina blessing also meant that she could train longer and harder than anyone else. While Jin ZiHan might have a better innate talent for fighting, the girl she fought had trained relentlessly and was far superior. Jin ZiHan gave it her best effort, but the result was a foregone conclusion.

After saying goodbye to Yan, I gathered my team and led them back to our classroom.

As I stood in front of them, I became worried about their mental states. Losing their first competition would have been hard on them. I had hoped for them to get a win that would buoy their confidence, but a loss might have been for the best.

“Sorry, we failed you, teacher.” Leng JunWei bowed to me.

I looked at him carefully. “Did you not learn anything from the fight, then?”

“I—” He stammered while trying to respond.

I looked at each of my students one by one.

“This was only your first test. There will be many more to come. There were two fighters in the team you faced that I knew you would be unable to defeat as you are now. If you won, it would have only been luck. Winning the competition wasn’t the goal. Learning from it was. In the future, you will need to face teams where every single member is as strong as those two. Accept your defeat today as a lesson and use it to push yourselves forward.”

I reached into my storage bag, took out five library tokens, and tossed one to each of my students.

“Go to the library and find a new technique. Starting next week, you will begin cultivating your true cultivation techniques. While you are allowed to use those tokens as you wish, I highly recommend that each of you consider picking up a two- or three-element cultivation technique. That would be the best way to put your affinities to use. If you already have a cultivation technique you’re happy with, you can look at martial techniques available.”

I tossed everyone a pill to disperse their current cultivation.

“You do not need to rush your cultivation, but try to ascend to Martial Disciple 2 as soon as possible. That will allow us to move forward with your combat training.”

As the term wore on, I followed Instructor Sun’s method of fading into the background and only visiting my class once a week to give advice. They needed to learn to rely on themselves and their classmates.

Instead, I spent almost all my time improving my soul.

I had chosen to walk the path of the Universalist, but I wasn’t going to confine myself to a narrow path presented by the academy. Using the books I had purchased from the System as a baseline, I began studying all four paths anew. As I did, I cultivated the Path through the Silent Night technique.

I did this to create a second layer of defense. My core ‘self’ was in the center of my soul. Around it, a small fence was in its earliest stages of construction, and outside this fence, I sowed fields focused on a desire to understand all the varied paths of the world. In the future, I would try to move my desire to learn alchemy out of my core area and into these fields.

In a narrow strip of land at the edge of my soul fields, I was beginning to grow a garden focused on my chosen path. I had said it was Universalism, but it wasn’t the Universalism of this world. I would follow the Mohist path from the Mozi, one of the books I received from the System. The knowledge and philosophies of this world would only be used as supplements.

During my class’s second martial competition, they faced off against a team that was ill-suited to martial combat. The members of this team were more skilled in herbalism than martial combat. Once they advanced in their professions, they would possess deadly trump cards in the form of toxic plants and powders, but at this stage, they lacked any such advantages.

With my class’s dedication and focus on advancing their skills, they were able to easily win. I was happy for them. They needed this victory to boost their confidence, but I couldn’t help a twinge in my soul as I looked at the other class leaving dejectedly.

What had that other class learned in this fight? What did they gain from it? They learned that their martial skills were not good enough to be competitive, but they would have already known that. Had this just been an exercise in humiliation for them?

This feeling came from the newly budding areas of my soul. It was encouraging me to look at things from a Mohist perspective. I should care about all the students in the school, not just my own. I could have ignored this feeling, but I wanted to see where it would lead me.

Caring about the other students didn’t mean having my students throw fights, far from it. My class should always do their best. If they won, they won. If they lost, they lost. The victories and defeats weren’t what was important. Learning was. So, from this point of view, the problem wasn’t that the other class had lost. The problem was that they didn’t appear to have learned anything from their defeat.

I had always felt that the Academy was set up under a Legalist framework. There were clear rewards for succeeding in the martial competitions and Trials, and there were equally clear punishments for failure on a given task. No one had ever questioned the hows and whys of the ways I accomplished the tasks I was assigned. They only cared that it got done.

This could easily be seen at the end of my Martial Disciple term. They wanted us to advance through Martial Master as quickly as possible. When doling out rewards, the school didn’t care how that happened, only that it did.

However, I was coming to learn that a lot of rewards were handed out at the sole discretion of the instructor. So, while the school may be built upon a Legalist framework, could I build my class upon a Mohist one? What would that look like?

When we returned to the classroom, I looked at my students carefully. I decided not to praise their combat performance. They had won, but they hadn’t performed exceptionally. Their opponents had just been weak.

“What did you learn today?”

The question confused them, and no one had a good answer. They had been trying to win, not learn.

“From now on, you will have an opportunity to gain two library tokens during each martial competition. The first is for learning something new during your fight. The second is for your opponent learning something new during the fight.”

I looked at each of them with a soft smile. “You need to learn to fight. In the outside world, when you fight, all that matters is your survival. But this is a school. While you are here, your most important task is learning. Take risks. Try to be innovative. If you lose, it doesn’t matter. It is far better to lose while learning something new than to win and learn nothing.”

This sudden change caused a bit of confusion, but these students were blessed to be scholars. They were built for study and learning.

This desire to alter the approach my class was taking during the martial competitions was partly spurred on by the small Mohist garden at the edge of my soul, but the areas built under the influence of all four paths and a desire for understanding had been a much larger influence. I wanted to see what would happen if I changed the rules.

Even then, these new influences were like subtle whispers. They encouraged me to look at the world differently, but the protections on my soul meant they could be easily ignored if I so desired. I needed to be careful to ensure it stayed that way, but so far, I had been impressed by the effects of my cultivation technique.

As the years passed, my students won some fights and lost some fights. After every match, they became stronger.

Jin ZiHan was the real standout. She cultivated a water-wood-fire technique. This choice was slightly odd since her highest affinity was with metal, but she didn’t feel a need to explain it to me. Perhaps she just didn't want people to think she was a refiner. In the profession classes, she studied both herbalism and alchemy. I considered stepping in to personally teach her alchemy, but the instructor provided by the school was decent enough that I didn’t feel the need.

Leng JunWei was cultivating a wind-lightning technique and was quickly developing a powerful ability with talismans. His calligraphy blessing didn’t help him with this directly, so it took him time to learn, but if he continued his studies, he would be a powerful cultivator one day.

The others did their best, but they didn’t have the natural advantages of these two and slowly fell behind.

After their last martial competition as Disciples, I laid out their final assessment. They had two weeks to advance as far as they could in the Martial Master realm. They could use any strategy they wished, but they could only use tools and items created by someone in the class.

While I hadn’t been allowed to tell them about the test beforehand, I had arranged things to give them a fair shot.

Using the understanding I had gained from Emperor Li’s alchemy books, I had developed a simplified version of a Rank 2 Qi Gathering Pill that most Disciples with the right affinities should be able to concoct. This didn’t have all the strength of a true Rank 2 pill, and it certainly didn’t have the advantages of a Meridian Builder Pill, but it was better than nothing.

After Jin ZiHan made a suitably profound advancement during one of the competitions, I had rewarded her with a portion of spirit fire for the Cold Mountain Fire and this pill recipe. I had also subtly encouraged her to learn to make Perfect pills to relieve hunger and the need for sleep.

Another student in the class had learned to make a decent quality Rank 1 Qi Gathering Formation, and with Jin ZiHan’s pills, they had more advantages in the final test than most students at the Academy did.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have anyone with a blessing related to cultivation techniques. They spent so long working on building decent meridians that they didn’t make too much progress by the end of their two weeks.

Jin ZiHan had reached Martial Master 4, Leng JunWei had reached Martial Master 3, and the others had only barely reached Martial Master 1.

To Instructor Yuan, this was a solid success, and she was happy about the overall results of my class, but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. There had to have been a way to push them further.

It was too late for regrets in this life, but I would see what I could do better in the future.

Chapter 159 – Life 68, Age 30, Martial Master Peak

While Yan and I were busy teaching entire classes the basics of cultivation, LiTing, JiaQi, and YuLong were hard at work in one one-on-one training sessions. They were teaching students refining, beast taming, and talismans just as Master Tan had taught me formations.

This meant that LiTing had to reveal her profession to her assigned students as she taught them. This worried me, as it could possibly lead to her being targeted by rival factions or the Zhuge Clan, but there wasn’t much we could do other than hope nothing went wrong.

Another problem was the way we were all being evaluated by the Academy this term. Yan and I were evaluated solely based on how well our classes performed, but things were more complicated for the other three. They would only partially be graded on students’ abilities. The larger part of their scores would come from the results of a series of duels they each had to fight throughout the term.

While I wasn’t worried about YuLong’s or JiaQi’s performances in these fights, these duels would be incredibly dangerous for LiTing. If the wrong person learned she was a refiner, they might find a way to assassinate her.

We convinced her to follow a basic strategy. If she could win quickly and easily, she would do so, but if she was in any danger at all, she would forfeit immediately. This wasn’t an ideal situation, but this was a matter of life and death.

From a purely utilitarian aspect, her death could have been useful. We could have learned from it and adjusted things to avoid it the next time around. However, even though Yan and I both knew that death was somewhat transient, we still didn’t want to throw her life away. I could justify this by saying that we could learn more with her alive than dead, but the simple fact was that we just didn’t want to see her die.

LiTing throwing most of her fights early may have saved her life, but it tanked her performance. This would cause problems with her evaluation at the end of the term, but we would find a way to make things work out for the best.

When our second term as Masters came to an end, Instructor Yuan gathered us all in our villa.

“Chai JiaQi, Lin LiTing, Shi YuLong, Zhuge Yan, Su Fang. These last ten years have sometimes been challenging, but I want to congratulate you and thank you all for the work you have put in. As you are about to ascend to Grandmaster, your next step will be to join the Nine Rivers Sect. I will extend an invitation on behalf of Lord Ning. If any of you wish to join his faction within the sect, you will be welcome.”

I looked at Yan and the others and tried to intuit what they were thinking. No one jumped to accept the offer immediately. We could afford to sit on it for a little while.

“Zhuge Yan, three of your Disciples have been accepted into the elite Master courses. Su Fang, two of your Disciples have qualified. As such, as long as either of you become a grade 3 inner sect disciple, you will be allowed to rejoin the Academy as a Grandmaster-level instructor in charge of a Master cohort.”

She gave us a smile before turning to two of our classmates.

“Shi YuLong and Chai JiaQi, you two have shown enough skills to be allowed to join the elite Grandmaster course for martial training. Zhuge Yan and Su Fang may also join this course if they wish to improve their combat skills. If you choose to enter this course, you will receive rewards and treatment commensurate with your results during this past term.”

Again, she smiled at them and then turned to Lin LiTing. This time, she didn’t appear quite as happy.

“Lin LiTing, your performance during the ranking duels was not sufficient to earn a place in the elite classes for Grandmasters. You may continue in the normal classes if you wish, or you may seek your fortune within the sect.”

She looked at each of us carefully before speaking once more.

“There are dangers in the sect, but it is also the best place to go if you wish to continue to learn and grow. I hope to see you all there in the future.”

After a brief pause, my classmates and I all stood. We gave a deep bow to Grandmaster Yuan.

After the Grandmaster departed, my friends and I sat around a table to decide how we should proceed. Yan took the lead and directed the conversation.

“We have the option to enter the elite classes, but I’m worried about what will happen to LiTing if she can’t join us. Anything the school can provide, the sect can provide as well. It will be more difficult, but we can still learn and advance there. I suggest we leave the school behind and join the sect together.”

None of us liked the idea of leaving LiTing to fend for herself, so no one objected. Staying in the Academy for martial training would have had its benefits, but I doubted it would be much different from what I could find in the sect. Trainers, opponents to fight, and Trials to conquer were all present there. The only difference was that the sect wouldn’t have the safety net the Academy did.

Yan looked at me.

“Su Fang, do you know any information that can help us prepare?”

I felt the most important thing for them to know was information about ascending Dragon Peak. While the fellow who tried to enslave me last time had known a fair bit before we left Mortal City, information about the paths was not freely available, and the sect might have measures in place to control the flow of that information.

I was worried about telling them everything, but I needed to say enough for them to be able to prepare properly.

“We all need to learn to fight as Grandmasters. We need to gain all the experience and skills that would be expected of Peak Grandmaster fighters as soon as possible.”

I looked at Shi YuLong. “I would recommend you focus on mastering the skills of a Rank 3 talisman artist. I know you’ve said your skills are lacking, but mastering the craft to the peak of Rank 3 immediately would be for the best.”

I looked at JiaQi. “I’m not sure how your soul cultivation compares to your beast-taming abilities, but whichever is weaker, or whichever you care least about, you should raise it to the limits of what one could expect from a Grandmaster as soon as you can.”

I turned to Yan. “What do you think about Lord Ning’s offer? Should we accept it? I know there are dangerous factions inside the sect, but I’m not sure what he will be able to do for us. If he’s only a Lord, he won’t be much of a deterrent against the stronger factions. It might be better to look at working with a stronger faction as independents.”

The PangBo Association had soured me on the idea of joining someone else’s faction. Simply working as an independent alchemist and selling to a group that didn’t feel the need to directly control me had worked much better. Ideally, we would form our own faction and not be dependent on any unstable elements, but this wasn’t the right time. We didn’t yet have the knowledge, skills, or connections necessary to do so.

Yan began tapping his fingers together in thought.

“To be successful in the sect, we are going to need to work with others. It is impossible to reach the peak while working alone. Working together with a strong group or faction is vital if we want to be among the best.”

Yan thought for a while before answering. As he did, he flipped to several pages in the notebook I had given him from his last life.

He looked at me. “The… information you provided me is limited in this regard. It has a few simple notes about the larger factions in Mortal City, but little beyond that. Do you know anything else? Do you know anything about Ning ChenKun’s faction?”

I shook my head. “No, I— I haven’t heard anything about it. I know a little about the factions in Profound City, but barely more than which ones are somewhat reliable trading partners.”

After flipping through his notebook a bit more, Yan made his decision.

“I suggest we join Ning ChenKun’s faction then. He is someone I consider generally trustworthy. He won’t betray us without a strong reason, and he should have resources we can exploit to grow stronger more quickly. He may only be a Lord right now, but his grandfather has a long reach, and few would provoke him easily. The canopy of his tall tree should provide us protection from the storms of the sect.”

I didn’t know if this was the right choice, but I was willing to back Yan’s decision.

After our small meeting ended, we went to find Grandmaster Yuan to arrange things.

We only had a month before the sect’s Entrance Exam, and getting our entire class to Grandmaster in such a short timeframe would have been difficult.

JiaQi had only recently received a copy of her Rank 3 cultivation technique as a departing gift from the Academy. She was going to need to study for a while before she was ready to advance.

The others weren’t in too much better of a position. They had already been studying their techniques for a few months, but advancing to Grandmaster for the first time was difficult, and it wasn’t something that should be rushed.

While I wouldn’t have had any trouble entering the sect alone, I wanted to wait for everyone else and see what we could do as a group. So, to avoid needing to rush, we rented a suite of rooms next to the Blue Wind Pavilion and spent a year cultivating, carefully refining our foundations.

This was somewhat risky since the Zhuge Clan could have taken this opportunity to attack us, but the city was under the protection of the sect. Also, our location next to the Pavilion hopefully added weight to whatever importance Emperor Li’s protection might have.

Whatever the case, we were not harassed during our stay and were able to quietly advance.

With the help of Rank 3 formations and pills, it only took me a short few weeks to ascend to Grandmaster. At this point, the others were still studying the specifics of their cultivation techniques and working out what they needed to do to create their dantians, so I patiently cleansed all of my capillary meridians of uncompressed qi.

Six months later, I advanced to Grandmaster 2, and six months after that, I advanced to Grandmaster 3.

During this same time, my classmates all advanced to Grandmaster 1. They still had a way to go before they would be able to move on to Grandmaster 2, so with the Exam soon approaching, they decided to simply consolidate their current cultivation bases and prepare for the trial ahead of them.

We could have waited until we all advanced to Peak Grandmaster before entering the sect, but I convinced them it was better to enter now so that we could start learning to fight as Grandmasters.

After the start of the Entrance Exam, we had to wait in line for a couple of days before reaching the front of the queue and being tested by the Exam Trial. As I approached the portal, I subvocalized a purchase.

“System, establish a mental reversion point. After I leave the trial, I want my mind to revert to how it was the moment I entered.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 million credits. 7,732,086,524 credits remaining.

I still had no idea if this was necessary or not. Possibly, even likely, nothing would happen to my mind inside the Exam. However, there was no reason to take such a risk just to save a few credits.

After receiving the signal from the scribe in charge, I walked to the portal and stepped inside. As I did, I focused my mind on remembering to take notes in my mental journal while I was inside.

Seemingly only an instant later, I stepped out and looked at the world around me.

To my right, a group of scribes was doing paperwork.

“You have qualified as a Grade 3 inner sect disciple for either the Fire Peak or the Earth Peak. Which do you choose?”

I did my best impression of a lost and confused young man.

The scribe cleared his throat loudly. “Fire Peak or Earth Peak, which one?”

Chapter 160 – Life 68, Age 31, Martial Grandmaster 3

Fire or Earth. I had considered this choice several times over the past year.

There were good reasons to go with the Fire Peak. It would give me an easier way to sell pills, it would provide me with access to the sect’s alchemy knowledge, and it would allow me to learn more about a new location.

However, these reasons weren’t very compelling. I had learned enough about formations that I no longer needed to rely on only selling pills. I also didn’t need the alchemy knowledge the peak possessed. I had Emperor Li’s books, and if my guess was right, he would show up again once I was ready to begin learning Rank 6 alchemy. Learning about a new peak might be interesting, but it was a hollow reason to make such an important decision.

Instead, joining the Earth Peak would allow me access to formation knowledge I didn’t have, and I would have access to the Earth Peak Trial to cultivate earth essence and permanently raise my affinity.

The factor that made my choice for me, though, was the PangBo Merchant Association. They had a presence on the Fire Peak and regularly enslaved alchemists who went there. I would need to repay my ‘debt’ to them and Brother Wen at some point, but for now, they were best avoided.

In truth, I didn’t feel the need to be too frightened of this small merchant group. Wen had made it sound like they were enslaving all the sect’s alchemists, but that seemed more than a little far-fetched at this point. I doubted the Master of the Fire Peak would allow someone connected to the Wind Peak to be so brazen. Likely, the merchants flew under the radar by only focusing on the weaker alchemists, and my position as an inner sect disciple should provide some level of protection against their schemes.

Still, without a clear reason to join the Fire Peak, there was no reason to take such a risk.

I looked at the scribe. “Earth Peak.”

I heard a buzzer, and a young servant came in to lead me away.

He led me to the Earth Peak just as a similar boy had done in my previous life. As we walked, he seemed slightly sad that I showed no reaction to anything around me and didn’t ask him any questions about the sect.

When I entered the administration building, I saw the same lazy disciple that greeted me the last time. I walked up to the desk and stood in front of him, but he didn’t even look at me.

“Hello.” I tapped on the desk to get his attention.

Letting out a long, exasperated sigh, he looked at me. “What? I’m busy preparing to take the Exam to advance to the inner sect. Don’t disturb me.”

“I’m a new disciple. I need to be introduced to the sect.”

He rolled his eyes. “Badge.”

I held up the jade token I’d been given. He grabbed it and threw it onto a small formation plate to the side of the counter. When he saw the result, his eyes widened in shock, and a grin appeared on his face.

“Senior Brother Su, welcome to the Nine Rivers Sect. I am so glad you have joined us on the Earth Peak.”

He reached over and tapped a buzzer, summoning a servant disciple. When a young woman entered the building, he looked at her hurriedly.

“Go tell Senior Brother Wang that a new Grade 3 inner sect disciple has joined the peak. He needs to pass this information on to Lord Hao immediately.”

The servant bowed and disappeared. Watching this open plotting almost made me want to laugh, but I just snorted and turned to leave. I didn’t need to be introduced to the sect, and placing my jade on that formation had been enough to record my presence here.

“Senior Brother Su, please wait one moment. Let me introduce you to Senior Brother Hao, Lord Hao. He is a formidable core disciple who is sure to advance to Sovereign in the future. Joining his retinue will guarantee your advancement in the quickest time possible. Look at me. I started as a lowly Grade 1 outer sect disciple, and I’m already on the brink of joining the inner sect.”

I tilted my head towards the over-eager young man, but I had no desire to accept his entreaties.

“I have already pledged to join another Lord’s retinue. Apologies.”

Before he could try to persuade me any further, I made haste to leave the building. The longer I stayed there, the more I would risk placing myself in a situation where I had to reject him more forcefully. That would only cause problems.

As everyone was destined for a different peak based on their chosen professions, our small group had been split apart for the time being. They would all need time to learn about their place in the sect, so I had a little time on my hands before I needed to meet back up with them.

To make the best use of this time, I headed to the Mission Hall to see what new options I would have as an inner sect disciple.

I first took a look at the missions available for servant and outer sect disciples. If I needed to, I could still accept one of these, so I wanted a solid understanding of what was available.

As I had seen in my last life, the servant disciple missions were all ones that didn’t require an overly impressive skill set. They mainly involved physical labor that was beyond the limits of what a mortal was capable of without specialized tools. There were a few combat missions available, but they all had rather low payouts for dangerous missions.

Looking at the missions available to outer sect disciples, I saw that, as expected, they were nearly all the combat missions that had been posted by the Lords of various cities, and the locations of these missions were all somewhere in the three empires accessible by the portals outside of Mortal City. Through the use of the portal network, these missions wouldn’t require nearly as much travel time as I had feared when I first saw them.

Aside from the poster, location, and type of mission, these postings also had a section for actions that would result in the number of contribution points awarded being reduced. For the most part, this involved killing other sect members. While some posters didn’t care, others assessed anywhere from a 20% to 100% contribution point reduction if the person who accepted the mission killed another member of the sect.

These point reductions were a mechanism that had developed from the sect’s lack of official rules about killing. If one were to slay someone during a mission, there would not be any official reprimand. However, friends and family of the slain cultivator might head to the city for retribution. So, any city lord who wanted to avoid such an eventuality would do everything in their power to prevent deaths from being linked back to them. These mission penalties were just one of the strategies they employed.

After scanning the combat missions, I came to feel that it would be good if I had a solid map of the three empires. It would be good to know which cities neighbored which. Additionally, an almanac with the key details about each city, kingdom, and empire would be valuable. Creating something like that on my own was outside my current skill set, so I would need to see if Yan could handle it.

I needed to get more information about the combat missions so that we would be able to sign up for some to train ourselves, but I put it to the side for the time being. We weren’t even close to ready for that yet.

After walking to the next section, I looked at the missions available to me as an inner sect disciple. There were more combat missions here, but instead of individual tasks, they required a team of between five to ten people. There were also the missions that I had been looking for, formation missions.

In my last life, Tie Yang had explained a bit about these missions to me. I hadn’t needed to put that information into practice yet, but I had a basic understanding of how things worked.

Formation missions were divided into four types: Open, Certified, Graded, and Special Request.

Open missions could be accepted by anyone with the proper rank in the sect. For example, an open mission for inner sect disciples could be taken by anyone in the inner sect or above. When a formation was turned in to complete this type of mission, as long as it functioned properly, it had to be accepted, even if it was poorly made.

These missions weren’t common. Usually, anyone who would consider making such a request would just buy the formation from one of the shops in the city instead of posting a mission. So, these missions were mostly used by people trying to get a good deal from outer sect or servant disciples whose skills were undervalued.

For inner sect disciples, most of the missions were in the ‘certified’ category. The missions required one to be certified on the specific formation requested. To be certified for Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formations, for instance, I would need to go to the Missions Hall, make the formation, and then have it evaluated by a deacon. If the formation I made was of sufficient quality, I would then be allowed to accept ‘certified’ missions for Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formations in the future.

However, posting a mission as ‘certified’ didn’t guarantee that the final result would meet the quality standards of the Mission Hall. It only guaranteed that the person who accepted the mission was capable of meeting those standards. It was safer than an open mission, but there was still risk.

This was where ‘graded’ missions came in. With a graded mission, the person who posted the mission could make specific requests about the strength and durability of their desired formation. An elder of the Mission Hall would then ensure that the final formation met or exceeded these demands.

The downside was that this added a significant cost to the request since an elder’s time was valuable. If the formation were approved, the requestor would need to pay for the elder’s time and services. If the formation were rejected, the formation specialist who created it would need to pay. This meant that these missions were generally only offered to core disciples, and even if inner sect disciples were allowed to sign up for one, few would take the risk of accepting it.

To get around these costs, one could use the final mission type, ‘special request.’ With this, a requester can specify exactly who is allowed to accept a mission. The final product of such a mission wouldn’t be graded, but if a person had a strong reputation for delivering quality work, this is a way to get a well-made formation with only a slight markup over the cost of a certified mission.

At the moment, I could only accept open missions because I had not yet been certified for any formations. Since I had some time before I was supposed to meet up with my classmates, I considered trying to earn a few of these certifications, but I could do that later. I wanted to have a better understanding of the quality of my formations first.

Once I had a solid grasp of the missions available, I left the hall and took the portal back to Mortal City. I rented a small room near where I planned to meet the others and settled in for a bit to take care of some things.

First, I wanted to deal with the problem of trying to improve my formation abilities. I needed to be certified, but without a clear understanding of how good or bad my formations were, that might be a problem. I could learn to assess formations like a normal formation specialist, but I had something better in mind.

“System, I want an analysis ability for formations up to Rank 3. I want it to give me a breakdown of all of a formation’s key statistics, such as durability and power, in a way that will make it easy to compare two different formations.”

Cost 100 million credits.

It was quite a bit more than my pill analysis ability had been, but I was asking for more from it. Hopefully, I could use this ability to learn to make such judgments myself so that I didn’t need it at higher Ranks.

“Purchase.”

Purchase Confirmed. 7,632,086,524 credits remaining.

With that taken care of, I could be more confident when accepting formation-related missions in the future.

So, I turned my attention to the information I had been putting off. I opened my mental journal and found what I had written while inside the Exam Trial.

Large crowd. Pretty girls, few clothes. Angry men yelling.

Martial arts tournament. Fight until defeated.

Formation test. Cannot hide ability. Compelled to do best.

Pill—

Write this down so that you have a record of it. Carrying information out of the Exam in any way is prohibited. If you try to do so again, you will be punished. This is your first and only warning.

A spike of fear shot through me as I read these words, but I quickly calmed myself. It might be impossible to try anything again in this life, but I could make another attempt next time around. I just needed to practice taking notes without it being so obvious.

Reviewing what I had written, I got a few hints at what was happening inside the Trial. The first line suggested to me that they were using a few different techniques to probe for any hint of cultivation madness. If someone reacted strongly to the taunts or the scantily clad women, they would quickly be rejected. The other lines only gave me a rough outline of what I already knew about them testing our abilities.

Hopefully, I would be able to learn more in the future.

Chapter 161 – Life 68, Age 31, Martial Grandmaster 3

After I met up with Yan and the others, we spent some time looking for apartments in Mortal City. We wanted a good setup near the Gateway Plaza where everyone could live close to each other and provide support if there was ever any trouble. Because of the sect rules, there wasn’t much to worry about while living in Mortal City, but we still needed to be careful.

After renting out a large, well-furnished suite, we settled in and began planning our next moves.

I looked around at my classmates. “How did everyone do on the Entrance Exam?”

Yan was the first to respond. “Grade 1 inner for the Dark Peak.”

JiaQi was next, followed by LiTing.

“Ungraded inner for the Water Peak.”

“Same, but for the Metal Peak.”

YuLong looked a bit embarrassed. “Grade 2 outer on the Lightning Peak. It’s going to be hard to do much better with my talisman abilities.”

“I’m Grade 3 inner on the Earth Peak.” I looked at YuLong meaningfully. “You need to improve. Before we worry about ascending the mountain and advancing to Lord, you need to improve.”

He nodded half-heartedly. “I know. It’s just… difficult. When I try to read the Rank 3 books, the information is… fuzzy. My teacher at the Academy said this was because I needed a better foundation with low-level talismans, but that hasn’t seemed to help."

I didn’t know what awaited us further up Dragon Peak, but I wanted YuLong up there with us. I doubted he would be able to complete the Test of Mind as a Lord, and doing so as a King would be nearly impossible for him, so if he was going to go with us all the way to Earth City, he had to be able to complete it as a Grandmaster.

To do so, he only needed to reach the peak of Rank 3 in talismans… I could help with that… If I did, would he retain it for future loops?

“System, I want to permanently boost Shi YuLong’s talisman comprehension by 10 credits.”

Processing… Unable to purchase such permanent enhancements with credits.

I stared at the message and wanted to curse, but it wouldn’t do any good. Maybe it was for the best. In future lives, an unknown talent for talismans wouldn’t have been that shocking, but it was hard to say what might catch someone’s eye.

I considered my credit reserves and my goals. I wanted to reach Peak Emperor this life, and having someone with strong fighting abilities to back me up would be essential. And also… he had become a friend. I couldn’t just leave him behind.

He only needed to reach the peak of Rank 3, right? It wouldn’t take many credits to make things much easier for him.

I subvocalized to hide what I was going to do.

“System, boost YuLong’s talisman comprehension by 1 million credits.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 million credits. 7,731,086,524 credits remaining.

For a fraction of a percent of my current point total, YuLong would now be able to rush to the peak of Rank 3 talisman artistry. Thinking about it in those terms, I scanned the others…

How much could I reduce the time we needed to idle in this city?

“System, boost JiaQi’s taming comprehension, Yan’s illusion comprehension, Yan’s and LiTing’s combat comprehension, and everyone's cultivation comprehension by 1 million points each.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 8 million credits. 7,723,086,524 credits remaining.

For an insignificant cost, I had hopefully purchased a much swifter path to the peak of the mountain.

I reached into my storage space and pulled out four large piles of spirit stones.

“Take these and spend them as you need to. It would probably be best to exchange them for contribution points so that you don’t draw too much attention, but I’ll leave that to your judgment.”

I looked at Yan. “Try to get in contact with Ning ChenKun. I would like to be able to start selling things through his faction so I don’t have to worry about being targeted by others. After that, getting a map of the empires would be helpful. If you have any ideas for what I need to do, please let me know.”

I looked at JiaQi and YuLong. “We need your fighting skills, but we can’t ascend until you are both Peak Grandmasters and have the profession skills to match. Spend the stones to get the training you need.”

I turned to LiTing. “Don’t worry too much about learning to fight for now. We can work on that later. Try to quietly increase your refining skills. You shouldn’t be as large a target here since refined weapons can be purchased from the sect, but there’s no reason to be reckless.”

Looking from face to face, I continued. “I’m going to be improving my formation skills and then take on some formation-related missions. I want to use them as an excuse to gather information about the cities we may need to go to for combat missions. I’ll also look into what it would take to hire someone for individual and group combat training. If you have any suggestions or other ideas, please, let me know.”

When my orders came to an end, I realized what I had been doing. I had never taken the lead with this group so directly. Usually, we let Yan plan things out since he was the most skilled at devising strategies.

After entering the sect, I had felt more comfortable taking charge. I had decades of experience here, and it was an entirely new experience for my classmates. Still, Yan had been our de facto ‘leader’ for years…

I turned to him. “What do you think?”

He nodded. “I’m probably going to be the weakest link. I don’t have a solid blessing to help me learn any of the core topics, so I’m going to have to spend more time in training. If you need my help, just send me a message. I’ll do my best to advise everyone.”

We talked a bit more but soon broke apart to pursue our individual objectives.

If you can’t measure something, you can’t improve it. This was a simple reality that had been slapping me in the face while I had been trying to improve my formations.

I had practiced making formations for years, but all I had were vague understandings of what was ‘good’ and what was ‘bad.’ With my newly purchased analysis ability, I could begin to put numbers to those vague understandings.

Using a high-quality piece of marble that I had purchased from the sect, I made the best Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formation I could manage. When it was complete, I analyzed it.

Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formation

Base Material: Marble

Base Material Quality: 98% of standard reference

Energy Throughput: 87% of standard reference

Energy Efficiency: 45%, 83% of standard reference

Longevity at normal operating levels: 4 years, 11 months, 99% of standard reference

Smoothness of energy channels: 92% of standard reference

Hardness of energy channels: 97% of standard reference

Energy Turbulence: 73% of standard reference

…

The analysis continued, giving me a detailed breakdown of several measurements. Throughput, efficiency, and longevity were the key numbers that I cared about. Everything else was information that I could use to raise those three primary statistics.

I thought about pulling out a few more marble bricks and trying to improve my statistics, but I stopped myself. The others would need time to train their professions up to an acceptable level. I didn’t need to rush to improve my formations. I could go about things more methodically.

I reached into my storage space, pulled out a granite block, and carved a Rank 1 Qi Gathering Formation into it. After reviewing the results, I grimaced. I had a lot of work to do. Everything needed to be above 100% of the ‘standard reference.’ Nothing else was acceptable.

For the following two years, we all stayed in Mortal City and quietly improved our profession abilities as we cultivated our qi and souls. I methodically raised my cultivation level to Grandmaster 7, and the others all raised theirs to Grandmaster 4.

While working on our souls, we searched for new books to assist us. The sect didn’t advertise them, but I did find a few libraries scattered around Mortal City with philosophical texts related to soul cultivation. If one knew to look for them, they would be able to find these places without much effort, but the ignorant and uninformed wouldn’t be so lucky.

A few new texts were available here, but most of them had appeared in the Academy’s library. The lack of a significant amount of new information was disappointing, but I greedily copied down everything that was available. I could only hope that the libraries would become bigger and better as we ascended the mountain.

After reading, pondering, and absorbing these new texts and numerous others that I had copied from the Academy, my soul felt noticeably stronger. An echo from my thoughts on measuring formations made me think about how that same idea applied to my soul. I needed a way to measure my soul to understand its growth, but I had yet to hear about anything related to this. As such, I didn’t know the specifics of what to ask for from the System, and asking for relevant information was priced out of my reach.

Speaking of formations, with my ability to numerically analyze them, my skills increased at a rapid rate. My comprehension and experience with low-Rank formations had already been more than sufficient. I just hadn’t possessed the necessary information I needed to know how to improve. This new ability fixed that deficiency.

Within a few months, I was able to make any Rank 1 formation with all of its stats above 110% of the standard reference. This typically involved first fixing the formation stone, but that had also become much easier with a solid, numerical grasp of its quality at any given time.

After another few more months, I was able to reach a similar level with Rank 2 formations and moved on to Rank 3. While my foundational knowledge and experience with Rank 3 formations was still slightly lacking, the massive number of points I had spent on formation comprehension more than made up for it. The statistics for my Rank 3 formations weren’t quite as good as they were for Rank 1 and 2, but I was still able to get all the numbers above 100% of the standard reference.

At that point, I started completing formation missions on the Earth Peak.

There were no ‘graded’ missions available, but I easily acquired certifications for nearly every formation requested and began completing missions at a steady pace. Most of these simply involved creating a formation plate and turning it in at the Mission Hall, but a few of them did require visiting other cities.

These missions required the formations to take the local terrain into account during their creation. Mostly, this was for a variety of defensive formations, but sometimes it was as simple as a Lord wanting a formation directly inscribed into a building instead of onto a formation plate to make it harder to steal.

These trips gave me an understanding of several different cities and how their defenses were arranged. While I doubted that I would need to defend or attack these places specifically, the basic arrangements were general enough that the knowledge would be applicable elsewhere.

This also gave me a better appreciation for grand formations, so in my free time, I spent a lot of the contribution points I had earned to purchase lessons on the topic. As I would no doubt be a city lord many times in the future, these lessons were invaluable for keeping my future citizens safe and healthy.

During this time, I also looked into entering the Earth Peak Trial to raise my earth affinity. As I found out, an inner sect disciple was allowed to enter up to twice a year, but they had to pay a high price in contribution points for the privilege. Also, these points had to be earned from missions. Selling spirit stones for points to enter the Trial was not allowed.

With all the formation missions I was completing, I was able to amass enough points to enter the Trial near the end of our second year in the sect. Inside, the first few levels were reminiscent of the first few in the Master-level version of the Trial. However, on the sixth level, the stone golem was out of my league, and I had to quickly retreat before I met an untimely end.

My formation skills were solid, my soul was expanding, and my cultivation base was steadily increasing. As for my classmates, their cultivation levels were lagging behind slightly, but they had all made solid progress on their souls and professions.

It was time for us to begin learning the art of Grandmaster-level combat.

Chapter 162 – Life 68, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 7

“System, upgrade my martial comprehension to a total of one billion credits.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 990 million credits. 6,733,086,524 credits remaining.

This might not be enough to compete with the likes of YuLong and JiaQi, but with a King-level amount of credits boosting me, I was confident that I could quickly learn what I needed to as a Grandmaster.

Unfortunately, we had found that there wasn’t a good way for us to sign up for group combat training in Mortal City, and since we were all from different peaks, we could only sign up for individual lessons with someone who specialized in our specific elements.

The only problem with signing up for such lessons was that they required paying a large number of contribution points. While I could sell my spirit stones and high-level pills to earn some quick points, it was a bit risky to show off my possessions too much. We had found out that Ning ChenKun’s faction had all advanced to at least Yellow City, so there was no one I felt I could trust to handle things discreetly in Mortal City.

Instead, I turned to the Mission Hall for a reliable, safe source of income. I needed to complete dozens of missions to pay for just a single lesson, but my name and my reputation for high-quality formations were starting to spread. This was leading low-level city lords to put in high-paying special requests for my services.

These requests were all for custom formations with unique combinations of effects. Most formation specialists would turn them down instantly because of the complexity involved in designing and creating such unique formations. However, my analysis ability provided me with a bit of a cheat here.

It wouldn’t tell me what I should do or how to do it, but it did tell me if a formation was functional or not. After receiving each of these requests, I quickly iterated through several slapdash formations to find a design that worked properly. Then, I carefully carved a high-quality version of this known-good design into clean slabs of marble.

These requests paid far above what normal missions did, and they helped me accumulate enough points to afford my combat lessons. Once I accrued enough points, I headed to the Mission Hall of the Earth Peak to set something up.

To give myself the best shot at finding someone who knew what they were doing, I submitted a mission request for an inner sect Martial Lord. Hiring a Lord as a teacher was a bit expensive with my current point reserves, but it gave me the option of limiting the mission to only those who completed the Path of Body on their way to Yellow City. These weren’t necessarily the best fighters, they might have even been among the worst, but they were the ones who had proven they knew what it took to pass the test ahead of me.

The receptionist gave me the side-eye when she saw my request, likely because I wasn’t technically supposed to know about the Path of Body yet, but she processed it without comment. The existence of the paths might be a ‘secret’ from people in Mortal City, but it was a poorly guarded one at best.

---------------------------------------------------

I met my trainer at the base of the Earth Peak on a large open field of packed dirt. He was a large muscular man and wore a sleeveless hanfu to show off his arms.

I gave him a deep bow. “Lord Gong, thank you for taking the time to train me.”

He grunted and his face remained impassive.

“Let’s not waste any time on pleasantries. You’re paying to learn how to fight, so that is what we’ll do.”

He folded his arms across his chest and looked down at me.

“You’re lucky that I’m your teacher. Others will try to complicate things, but fighting as an earth cultivator is simple. There are only two things you need to know how to do.”

He slammed his left foot on the ground and a two-meter-tall spike of earth shot up beside him.

“The first is how to create an earth spike. Use your qi to gather the earth within an area and make it burst out. The most important question to keep in mind when using an earth spike is ‘Where is the earth coming from?’ To create the spike, you must pull the earth from somewhere.”

He slammed his right foot, and a large crevasse opened up beside him.

“The other thing you can do is move earth out of the way to create a hole. Use your qi to move the earth somewhere else. The most important thing to keep in mind when creating a hole is ‘Where is the earth going?’ You can’t create a hole without sending it somewhere.”

He unfolded his arms and took a fighting stance.

“That is all combat means as an earth cultivator. Pulling and pushing dirt where you want it to go. In the Scripture Pavilion, you can find countless combat techniques, but in the end, that’s what they all boil down to.”

He slammed a fist into the ground.

Instead of buckling under the weight of his punch, the earth remained firm.

A meter in front of him, the ground cracked open, and a shard of sharp stone shot out at high speed.

“Concentrate the earth into a spike, open the ground, push the spike out. That’s all there is to it. If you begin thinking in terms of pulling and pushing earth, everything becomes a lot simpler, and you can focus on the fight instead of trying to use fancy techniques.”

Lord Gong didn’t seem like the type of person who enjoyed being asked questions, but I needed to learn, so I had to ask.

“Lord Gong, I previously learned a technique that focused on steadying my body and connecting it to the ground. This lets me punch harder without being pushed back from the recoil of the hit. It wasn’t about pushing our pulling earth, but it was an earth qi technique.”

His upper lip twitched in annoyance.

“There are techniques that use earth qi in somewhat different ways, but they are tricks that will only make you overthink things while fighting. I can’t say how this technique of yours works, and I don’t care. If you want to create a similar effect in a simpler way, just expand your qi through the ground and pull a large block of earth toward the soles of your feet.”

I watched in energy vision as he began demonstrating the idea so I could see it clearly.

“This can anchor you. It might not be as good as that technique of yours, but that technique sounds dumb anyway. There might be situations where you want to anchor yourself like that, but it’s not something that’s going to be so frequent you need to memorize a technique for it. Just learn to push and pull earth so you can fight instinctively without relying on such tricks.”

With his short lecture completed, Lord Gong was done talking. For him, there was nothing else to say. All it meant to fight as an earth cultivator was to learn to push and pull the earth instinctively, so there was no need for long speeches.

Moving on from the lecture portion of the lesson, Lord Gong took a stance and began attacking me.

He was relentless. I barely had any time to catch my breath.

Lord Gong burned through a lot of qi during these spars, but since he was a Lord, his reserves were far greater than my own. He used those reserves to spend several hours pummeling me.

At first, this style of training was brutal, but I quickly understood what he was doing. While fighting without set techniques consumed more qi than I was used to, he never spent more than the minimum amount of qi and stamina necessary in any one attack. And even though he was a harsh teacher, his punches were only strong enough to make his point. He wasn’t attacking to injure me.

With my incredibly high comprehension of martial arts and Lord Gong’s simplistic fighting style, my skills rapidly advanced. I didn’t need to learn anything complicated. I only needed to make pulling and pushing the earth more instinctive, and that was something my comprehension boost was incredibly effective at.

After one lesson, I felt that my skills had advanced rapidly, but I wasn’t satisfied. Through special requests, I scheduled three more training sessions, and after the final one, I felt I had nothing more to learn from the Lord.

There was no need for countless lessons. I needed to get in some real practice.

---------------------------------------------------

My classmates still needed more time before they would be ready to begin attempting combat missions with me, and I didn’t want to risk attempting my first one without them, so I shifted my focus to the Earth Peak Trials.

As a Grandmaster, I was allowed to gather enough essence to raise my affinity to peak five-star. Since I would be cultivating it to make my gains permanent, I would need to go deep into the Trial several times to reach this limit. The peak elders might not appreciate me using up the amount of essence this would require, but whoever was in charge of the thing had known what I would be doing when he asked me to join this peak.

Learning Lord Gong’s fighting techniques was only the first step in my preparation. My next step was dealing with my spirit fire.

One of the problems I had in the Master-level trials was running out of qi and needing to waste a significant amount of time cultivating to restore it. I could make better formations more quickly to assist with this now, but it still wasn’t a real solution. I needed to be using less energy, and one of the biggest drains on my qi reserves was pouring it into my spirit fire while fighting.

The Profound-Rank wood-element spirit fire was devastating against Master-level opponents, and I had no doubt that it would be equally effective against Grandmaster-level ones, but it was too qi-hungry. Instead, I needed to use a fire seed. A fire seed would draw in energy from the environment on its own and wouldn’t need me to provide it with all of its power.

I currently had the spatial seed sitting in the core of my soul, slowly working on expanding my storage space. It would be interesting to see how powerful its fire would be if used offensively, but doing so would be a bad idea. I didn’t have a high enough affinity to control it properly, and if the elder in charge of the Trial saw it, he might become greedy.

So, I mentally tugged and moved the seed into a jade box, storing it away.

That left me with two options, the Cold Mountain Fire and the Flowing Metal Fire. Neither was wood-based, which was unfortunate as that would have been the most effective against the stone golems. After examining both seeds, I was unsure if the Flowing Metal seed retained enough energy to burst through my soul and burn me alive, so to be on the safe side, I decided to use the Cold Mountain Fire since I was confident that it wouldn’t be able to harm me.

When moved into my soul, the seed took its place atop my storage space where the spatial seed had recently rested. It shouldn’t have any effect on the space, but at this point, I felt that this was the most natural position to keep it. As expected, it didn’t explode in a burst of pent-up energy. Instead, it began hungrily sucking in all the energy it could from the environment like a starving wolf.

Sitting in a Qi Gathering Formation, I fed the seed as much energy as it needed until it was satisfied and calmed down. Then, I began practicing using it in combat.

I didn’t only need to learn to instinctively push and pull the earth around me. I also needed to be able to instinctively pull flames from the seed and shoot them at my opponents in the form of fiery spears. For normal attacks, I would blast my opponents with beams of Cold Mountain Fire from my soul. With tougher enemies, I would use a needle of the wood-based spirit fire from my body.

I spent several days working to incorporate the different two spirit fires into my attack patterns, but it was impossible to reach the same level of instinctive action that I had gained through combat with Lord Gong. I needed an opponent to temper myself against.

I headed back to the Earth Peak Trial.

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I set up a new wiki to provide information to readers. It's very bare bones at the moment, but I just want to point out that it does now exist. If you feel like contributing to it, I'll thank you in advance.

Undying Immortal System Wiki

Chapter 163 – Life 68, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 7

When I appeared in the Trial, I looked across the cavern at my opponent, a large stone golem. As was common for the first five levels of this Trial, the construct didn’t move to attack me.

Normally at this point, I would begin setting up a few quick Qi Gathering Formations to drain the area of energy and pass the stage without a fight, but this time, I had a different idea in mind. I had learned a lot about fighting recently, and it would be good to use these early levels to hone my skills.

Since the golem wouldn’t take the initiative to attack, I spent several minutes setting up a few safety measures around the room in the event that I felt out of my depth once the fighting started. These included a few Shielding Formations to provide me places to hide and a few Qi Gathering Formations that I could activate if needed to partially drain the energy from the environment and slow the golem down.

Once everything was set up, I studied the golem to figure out the best ways to attack it. As I did, a new idea popped into my head.

I cautiously approached the golem and activated my formation analysis ability.

Unknown Rank Unknown Formation

Rank 3 Mobile Defense Node

Base Material: Marble and Unknown — Base Material Quality: Unknown

Energy Throughput: Unknown

Energy Efficiency: Unknown

Even with all the unknowns, this still told me a couple of things. First, being a ‘Defense Node’ meant that this golem was just a small piece of some larger grand formation. This formation might have originally been designed to create mechanical warriors for city defense applications.

Of more interest to me was how the grand formation was constructed. Since my ability couldn’t identify it, the grand formation had to be above Rank 3. It was likely far, far above Rank 3. However, the golem was successfully identified as a Rank 3 node. This opened up some interesting possibilities for using low-Rank nodes within a high-Rank formation that I hadn’t considered before. I would have to study this more in the future.

This analysis did not, however, provide me with any workable means of subverting the construct’s controls, so I moved on and prepared for my attack.

Once everything was ready, I rushed forward and aimed to fight the stone construct using only my physical strength and unpowered martial abilities. Of course, simply punching a rock with nothing but a bare fist would just leave me with a broken hand, so I sheathed my arms in qi as I attacked, but I didn’t attack with any energy directly.

The moment I began my offensive, the golem started moving. It wasn’t very fast, but if it hit me, I would be in a world of hurt.

I did my best to dart in and attack potential weak points in the thing’s joints, but my hits did little to no damage. Eventually, my luck ran out and I got hit by a glancing blow.

I was knocked back several meters, and the shielding formation that I had strapped around my neck broke apart.

Taking out a new shielding formation from a small satchel and donning it, I considered what to do next. I had wanted to get in some basic martial combat practice, but these things were too dangerous, and I wasn’t yet skilled enough to compete with them.

Deciding to play it safe and move on to more qi-centric practice, I began incorporating Lord Gong’s pushing and pulling into my attacks.

Even though the golem was made from stone, the formations on its body prevented my qi from controlling it directly, so I had to work with the materials lying around the arena.

I tried a few different tactics, including raising the earth beneath one of the golem’s feet to make it trip and trying to shove rock spears into its joints, but none of these ideas had much of an effect. In the end, I was forced to simply bash it to death with stone after stone.

When the thing was finally defeated, I collapsed in exhaustion.

Trying to fight like that had used up a large portion of my qi, and it would take time to recover. Lord Gong’s fighting style might have advantages in simplicity, but not relying on set techniques forced me to use far more energy than I otherwise would have. If there had been weak fleshy bits I could have attacked, things might have been different, but constantly using copious amounts of energy to bash one rock into another rock was far too exhausting.

Still, my reason for coming here wasn’t to go deep into the Trial to gather essence. I was here to train, and since the rock golems were able to absorb so much punishment, they would serve as an excellent punching bag. With the power behind the golems’ attacks, I had to be careful, but once I knew what I was doing, I was able to avoid its strikes and the fight hadn’t been overly dangerous.

For the second stage, I used a spear of wood fire to down one of the golems before it could activate. The moment I did, the other one came alive and started attacking me.

This time, as I danced with the construct, I worked to incorporate flames from the Cold Mountain Fire into my attacks. The earth fire didn’t burn through the thing's body like the wood fire had, but the seed had the advantage of only requiring a minimal amount of my own qi to activate.

By using hit-and-run tactics and quickly burning down enemies with the wood fire when I was overwhelmed, I was able to climb all the way to the twenty-first floor before I had to bow out. If I hadn’t spent so much time practicing and had spent a bit more time trying to quickly take out my opponents, I could have gone further, but that wasn’t important to me. I could come back here again and again to gather as much essence as I needed. Learning to fight was a better use of my time.

As for the rewards from the trip, I received a substantial amount of essence, but I was uncertain how it compared to what I got in the Master-level Trials or how much more I would need to advance my affinities. In any case, I would just keep draining the place until I hit my limit.

After leaving the Trial, I went directly to the Mission Hall and put in a request for a new combat trainer.

Lord Gong’s training had been valuable, and I felt that it had dramatically improved certain aspects of my martial ability, but the biggest drawback of his combat style was the massive amounts of energy it took to use.

In situations like the Test of Body, where the total amount of combat was limited and I had as much time as I needed, this wouldn’t be such a drawback. In battles against other cultivators during a mission, I could see the quick instinctive responses being a valuable tool to have in my arsenal, even if it meant using up more qi than normal.

However, in the Earth Peak Trial, energy efficiency was king. I needed to go as far as possible, and I only had 24 hours to do so. Any time I spent on cultivating was time I wasn’t spending on moving forward. I needed to find a teacher who excelled in energy-efficient combat.

This time, when I created my mission, I specified that the teacher needed to have walked either the Path of Mind or Soul on their way to Yellow City.

Those who had walked the Path of Body had proven themselves as qualified Grandmaster-level combatants, but they were also usually the ones who felt that combat was their weakest area. By requiring my teacher to have walked a different path, either I would get someone who was completely incompetent, or I would get someone confident enough to save the Path of Body until higher up the mountain. I could only hope that the former would not apply for such a mission.

The first two instructors who accepted my mission fell into the incompetent category. They could barely teach me anything, and only 15 minutes into the lesson, I left and went to the Mission Hall to voice my complaints. This only earned me a partial refund of my credits.

After each of these failed trainers, I added extra details to my mission request to try and narrow the pool of prospective teachers. On my third attempt, I finally got a trainer who knew what they were doing.

His focus was on exactly what I needed to learn, qi efficiency. He shared a list of several techniques that I needed to purchase from the Scripture Pavilion. These techniques were designed to have the most impact for the least amount of energy.

After the lesson, I purchased the recommended techniques and studied them carefully. When I was confident I could use them reliably, I set my mind on returning to the Trial.

However, as I was getting ready for my next excursion, Yan came and put a halt to my preparations.

“Everyone’s ready. We can start looking for a combat mission.”

We convened a group meeting in our apartment suite to prepare.

LiTing reached into her storage bag, pulled out four weapons, and handed one to each of us. She had designed them after asking us each for our preferences in weapons.

YuLong was given a massive maul like the one he had won in the Master-level Trial. JiaQi was given a guandao, a long polearm with a large blade suitable for taking down large beasts. As a dark qi cultivator and illusionist, Yan had specialized in attacking from the shadows, so he was given twin daggers that could be used for a quick, deadly strike.

After briefly considering and testing all eighteen types of weapons, I had decided to ask LiTing for a crescent-moon spade. This was a long polearm with a broad, shovel-like blade on one end and a crescent-moon blade on the other. I couldn’t say why, but it just felt right.

LiTing looked at us carefully after handing each of us our chosen weapon.

“Don’t use these unless you have to. They are near the limit of what is normal for Rank 3 weapons, and I focused all my energy into giving them the sharpest edge possible. They will be able to easily slice through anything up to and including Rank 2 refined armor. Even most Rank 3 weapons and armor won’t hold up against them. The tradeoff is that the weapons are fragile. If you attack with all your strength, they may break after a single hit, but that hit will be deadly. Use them only when needed and try not to let anyone alive know that you have them.”

We all nodded solemnly in reply.

Next, I took out several small formation medallions and passed them around.

“These are designed to absorb a single powerful blow to your head or torso. Once you put them on, they will only last one hour before burning out, and if you get hit, they will shatter immediately. Their durability is terrible, but they should provide near absolute protection against a single attack from anyone up to the Lord realm.”

YuLong then handed out several talismans he had made. “These all have a basic lightning blast. It’s not overly powerful, but you should be able to stun someone for a few moments if you throw it at them.”

JiaQi didn’t have anything to hand out, so she just sat and petted LuLu. The deer had been lying down, so I only now realized how large she had grown. When she stood up, her head would be taller than I was. Her combat strength was a mystery to me, but I noticed a couple of pronounced canines protruding from her mouth.

Yan reclaimed everyone’s attention.

“The mission we’re signed up for is straightforward. We are to invade a city and take out a majority of its defensive formations. The more we destroy, the higher our compensation. If we kill any sect members during the process, our compensation will be cut in half. If we kill multiple sect members, it will be revoked entirely. So, no killing. Also, try to avoid inflicting any serious injuries. I’ve researched this city, and we shouldn’t have any problems. Once the city lord is engaged by our employer, we just need to make a lightning strike at the defensive formation. Get in, get out.”

I pulled out a map of a generic city’s defenses and showed it to everyone.

“I won’t know what we’ll be facing until I see the city for myself, but this is the typical setup for this kind of formation. The core will be located in the Lord’s manor in the center of the city, and there will be at least half a dozen nodes scattered throughout the city. Attacking the core will be difficult, but all we need to do is eliminate at least half of the outer nodes.”

I looked at them to get their opinion on a potential way to complete the mission more easily.

“Instead of destroying each node individually, if I’m given access to one for a few minutes, I can try to modify it. If it’s as shoddy as some of the ones I’ve seen, I might be able to create a feedback loop that will destroy the core along with all of the outer nodes. This would leave the city completely defenseless, and we would be able to claim the highest reward possible. I won’t know if I can pull it off until I see the formation, though.”

Yan considered things but couldn’t come to a decision.

“Let’s wait and see what we’re up against. If the plan looks viable after we reach the city, we can try it out.”

I nodded.

JiaQi and YuLong looked excited. Their blessings revolved around fighting, and this was the first time they would get to put them to a real test.

Only LiTing looked pensive, but I wasn’t sure why.

As we were preparing to head out, I ducked into a side room to put one extra safeguard in place just in case everything went horribly wrong.

“System, how much to establish a new secondary reset point.”

Cost 10,291,304,960 credits.

My eyes went wide.

“How? That… that can’t be right.”

A significant number of temporal anomalies have been detected. Cost has been adjusted to compensate.

“What ‘temporal anomalies?’ What does that mean?”

Items not native to this timeline have been detected.

My heart began to beat faster, and my breathing sped up.

Was something going wrong? Was this something I did, or was someone else interfering with the loops somehow?

“System, did those temporal anomalies come from me or another source?”

Calculating… Cost 10,000 credits.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 6,733,076,524 credits remaining.

Temporal anomalies originated from host’s storage space.

From my…

“System, are you talking about the spirit stones I gave my classmates?”

Calculating… Cost 1,000 credits.

I ground my teeth before replying.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 6,733,075,588 credits remaining.

Temporal anomalies are 1,578 spirit stones, 41 gold bars, and miscellaneous papers.

That calmed me a bit. The ‘anomalies’ were of my own making. They were items I had brought into this loop from other timelines. While that had implications for how I could use reset points moving forward, it wasn’t a crisis. I would just have to be more frugal with handing things out from my storage space in the future to prevent this from happening again.

The most important thing was that it meant I wouldn’t be able to set up any more secondary reset points in this life, so dying would mean returning straight to when I first entered South Gate City. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of not relying on a secondary reset point again. It would make the time I had with my classmates more meaningful. I… I could try to be a real friend to them in the little time we had remaining.

I walked out of the small side room and saw everyone waiting for me. I gave them a slight nod, and we headed out.

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Chapter 164 – Life 68, Age 34, Martial Grandmaster 7

To reach our destination, our group had to travel through the portal network to East Empire. From there, we entered Peach Blossom Kingdom and took the portal to Golden Water City. As mercenaries contracted by Golden Water, our task was to raid the neighboring West Brook City and destroy as many of its defensive formations as possible.

However, as both cities were under the control of the Peach Blossom Kingdom, we needed to cause as little collateral damage as possible. Also, we were not supposed to pilfer any ‘souvenirs’ during the mission as the rights of looting and pillaging West Brook rested solely in the hands of the city lord of Golden Water.

In truth, I was conflicted about this kind of mission. I didn’t like the idea of being a mercenary hired to destroy a city’s defenses only for it to be ransacked. While this attack might only represent the loss of a bit of karmic energy to the Rulers in charge, the results could be devastating for the mortals living there.

I looked to the philosophies I had been studying for guidance, but the books I had purchased from the System were impossible to reconcile with this world. The ideas of Mohism preached universal love and abhorred violence between states, but it also had a utilitarian side that might see these ‘games’ between cities as necessary and justifiable in the context of this world and the need for karmic energy.

Reinforcing that utilitarian view, none of the philosophies I had read and integrated from this world condemned this form of pragmatic warfare. Most of them agreed and supported the need for such actions since they would strengthen the Rulers and help them defend against outside threats.

My only source of comfort was the set of rules that everyone involved was expected to abide by. Masters could only fight other Masters, and Grandmasters could only fight other Grandmasters. Once a victor was decided between the Masters, they could move to assist the Grandmasters, but they were not allowed to swoop down on the Disciples.

The only exceptions to these rules were the Lords. If one Lord defeated the other, they could then begin neutralizing the lower-tier cultivators. However, they were not supposed to kill them during this process.

In this world, war was a game to train cultivators and generate karmic energy. People would die, but that wasn’t the objective. The goal was for the Lords to gain karmic energy and the low-level cultivators to gain combat experience.

None of that changed the fact that by taking down a city’s defenses, we would be a party to everything that would happen afterward. I didn’t like the position I was in, but I was willing to do what I needed to do. If I had to attack the city’s populace directly, it would be a different story, but I could destroy a few formations.

After arriving in Golden Water City, my classmates and I slipped out the southern gate and swung around in a wide arc, eventually heading in the direction of West Brook.

Yan had managed to put together a rough map of the area, and it let us stealthily traverse the dense forest that bordered both cities. Our hope was that this would give us sufficient cover during our approach and escape.

As a wood-element demon deer, LuLu was right at home in this forest. We had planned to have YuLong and JiaQi screen our approach so that we didn’t get surprised by any demon beasts hiding in the underbrush, but it was entirely unnecessary. LuLu easily chased them away and claimed their territory as her own.

While the others seemed to be having great fun during our excursion into the wilderness, LiTing looked troubled. She was putting on a brave face, but I could feel a deep sadness within her.

“Are you alright?”

She jumped at my sudden question. “I… Yes…”

What was I supposed to say here?

“If something is bothering you, you can tell us.”

“It’s… I just… I wish we didn’t have to do this. I don’t like the idea of attacking innocents. I know we aren’t, not really. And I know that this is what we’re supposed to do… I just… I wish we didn’t have to.”

Her words struck a chord with me. Even though I had suppressed my unease with this mission by relying on various philosophies, my doubts hadn’t completely vanished. Were we in the wrong?

I looked at the others. They were all committed to this task. YuLong was even enjoying himself as he tromped through the underbrush. No one else had any reservations about what we were doing.

“I’ll… After this, I’ll make sure we only do defensive missions. They might be more difficult, but that’s fine. They’ll give us more practice in real combat. This mission is focused too much on stealth. We just… We need to finish this first.”

She nodded resignedly. “I know.”

I tried to put this conversation behind me, but I resolved to not take down all of the city’s defenses as I had been considering. We would do the minimum job and get out of there. No reason to add on any extra complications or moral dilemmas.

After making our way through the dense forest for over two hours, the trees opened up, and we were able to see the first signs of the fields that lay below the walls of West Brook City.

Remaining behind the tree line, we did our best to scout out what we would be up against. The city was surrounded by thick dull red walls, and using energy vision, I could barely see any of the normal fluctuations that would be caused by a defensive formation. This made my heart drop in my chest.

I looked at my classmates.

“I need a better vantage point. I need a place where I can look down on the city from higher up.”

We circled to the west for a few miles until the forest gave way to rocky foothills. From the top of one of these hills, I got a better look at the challenge ahead of us.

I reached into my storage bag, pulled out a piece of paper, and drew a map to help my classmates better understand the situation.

“Can any of you see the energy flows of the city’s formations from here?”

They all shook their heads.

I sighed. “The walls are made of rhyolite. It might not be the hardest stone around here, but it’s got rather high qi resistance. It’s what’s blocking your view of the formation energy. You will need to get close to the wall to see the nodes clearly.”

I drew a quick diagram to explain.

“The formation nodes aren’t within the city. The city walls are made of a thick layer of earth sandwiched between two layers of rhyolite. The nodes are trapped within the inner layer of earth. This is sending energy through the rhyolite, making it nearly impossible for a Grandmaster-level cultivator to affect the walls with qi directly.”

I rubbed my hands together in thought.

“The good news is that if we can punch through the wall, we won’t have to enter the city to destroy the nodes. The bad news is that we will need a way to punch through a thick, reinforced layer of rhyolite.

I showed them my sketch of the city and marked the rough locations of each formation node.

“These are the locations we need to target.”

Yan looked at the map and thought carefully about our options.

“Who do you think has the ability to destroy these nodes?”

Unfortunately, with the rhyolite being empowered by the formation, we didn’t have many good options.

“If we had as much time as we needed, any of us could eventually break through the wall and destroy a node, but it’s unlikely the city’s defenders will give us that time. Ideally, we would have people with wood-element attacks for this. With my spirit fire, I’ll be able to burn through the wall in less than a minute, but I don’t know if anyone else will be able to do much.”

I looked from LuLu to JiaQi. “Do you think Lulu could do it? She’s a wood-element demon beast, so she should be powerful enough.”

JiaQi shook her head. “LuLu is strong, but she doesn’t have any good way to attack a wall. She can probably break through it faster than I could, but her speed won’t exactly be impressive.”

We needed another option. We would be in far too much danger if I were the only one working on destroying the nodes. While a wood-based spirit fire was best for this task, I did have another option that was nearly as good.

I turned to LiTing. “What is your spirit fire?”

She showed it to me. It was a basic Yellow-Rank metal-based flame.

I reached into my storage space and brought out the Profound-Rank metal spirit fire I had bought in South Gate City a few lives back.

“Replace it with this. It’s Profound-Rank, so it should give you enough strength to burn through the rhyolite. It won’t be as fast as a wood fire, but it’ll be good enough.”

“Fang…” LiTing was shocked, and her emotions became turbulent. “That’s too valuable. I can’t take it.”

I forced the jade box containing the fire into her hands. “Take it. Consider it a gift. The cost isn’t important. You’ll be earning more than enough to pay for something like this in the future.”

LiTing looked like she was going to cry. “Thanks.”

I patted her on the shoulder but didn’t know what else to say, so I looked at Yan.

“LiTing and I should both be able to handle knocking out the formations.”

Yan nodded and picked up my map of the city. He numbered the formation node closest to us ‘1’ and then followed the wall counterclockwise, numbering the nodes from 1 to 8.

“This is what we’re going to do. YuLong and Fang, circle round to the left. Attack node 6, skip the nearest nodes, and then attack node 8. LiTing, JiaQi, LuLu, and I will circle to the right and hit node 4 then 2.”

He drew lines on the map to sketch out the plan.

“They shouldn’t be expecting our first attack, and if we’re quick enough, we can destroy four of the nodes before anyone has a chance to respond. That will disable more than 40% of the formation and is enough to complete our mission. No need to do any more than that. Once these four nodes are destroyed, head back to where we first exited the forest. We’ll meet up there and leave immediately. Our employers can take care of the rest.”

YuLong and I followed the plan and headed out. Since there was nothing to provide cover near the city walls, we expected to be spotted as soon as we approached. So, we focused on speed instead of stealth and used our movement techniques to get us in range of the city as quickly as possible.

After circling a good distance around the city, we found node 6 and immediately attacked. While the impending war meant that the city was on alert, they were not fully prepared for our assault, and we were able to reach the walls before anyone could sound the alarm. I placed my palm on the wall and shot a thin needle of my spirit fire directly into the formation node, destroying it easily.

The sudden loss of the formation’s protection immediately forced all the city’s defenders into action, but we were already gone.

When we arrived at node 8, the city’s defenders were starting to get organized, but they weren’t fast enough. I ran up to the wall, slapped my hand on it, and shot the needle of spirit fire at the formation node. While I could see some benefits in the design and placement of the city’s formation, without a strong observation and monitoring system in place, it was easy to take down by someone with the right tools.

With our part of the plan successfully complete, YuLong and I hurried back to the cover of the forest to meet up with our classmates.

Not long after we entered the woods, YuLong grabbed my shoulder and pulled me to a halt.

“Something's wrong.”

He yanked me to the side as a burst of qi struck the ground where I had just been standing.

Five men walked out of the forest and surrounded the two of us. The man directly in front of us gave me a mocking look.

“You put on a good show. Makes me even happier that the Lord of West Brook pulled back his guards like we told him to. You sure do live up to the title of Formation Grandmaster. It’s too bad that you had to go and insult Lord Hao.”

I looked at the man and blinked in surprise. “Who?”

“The future Chosen you recklessly decided to slander. You hid away well enough that we didn’t have a good opportunity to strike until now, but we’ve been tracking you ever since we first heard about the commotion you caused when you first entered the sect. You were politely asked to join Lord Hao’s faction, and your response was insulting the Lord and attacking one of his servants? Did you think there would be no repercussions for that?”

The man clenched the shaft of his spear to show his anger, but through this facade, I could see that he knew everything he said was nonsense. He wasn’t angry. The emotion I sensed from him was greed.

“You newbies have gotten way too arrogant. In the past, people like you wouldn’t have been allowed to enter the sect, but now, not a year goes by where we aren’t sent to teach proper respect to the new recruits. We’re here to send a message to all you new sect members. There are some people you can’t afford to offend.”

I used energy vision to quickly assess my foes. They were all Peak Grandmasters, and they were all wearing refined armor and holding refined weapons. Fortunately, four of them only had Rank 1 items, and the leader only had Rank 2 items. They would still be difficult to deal with, but their equipment didn’t have the overwhelming lethality of LiTing’s weapons.

As I examined my enemies, I noticed that the woods around us were starting to grow dark.

I looked at YuLong. He nodded.

We leaped backward at the same time and twisted around mid-flight. We needed to take the two people standing behind us by surprise.

I charged at my target and pulled back my fist like I was getting ready to punch him.

With his higher cultivation level and refined equipment, I knew I would have an incredibly tough time doing any damage like this. He must’ve felt the same way since he didn’t bother to defend himself. He only prepared to strike me down after my attack failed.

I swung my right arm wide with a large sweeping blow. Halfway through my swing, I pulled my crescent moon spade into my hand directly from my storage space.

Using the sharpened crescent moon end of the staff like a double-bladed ax, I swung at my opponent with all my strength.

When he saw the weapon appear in my hands, my opponent’s eyes widened in shock, but it was too late. The edge of the crescent moon easily sliced through his armor and cleanly severed his body in half.

As I retracted the staff, I saw that the crescent moon had been mangled beyond recognition. As promised, LiTing’s weapon was deadly, but it lacked any form of durability.

The swift death of my opponent caught his companions off guard, and YuLong exploited his opponent's momentary shock. He whipped his hammer out of his storage bag and struck his enemy with bone-breaking force. His hammer shattered on impact, but his enemy was no more.

Seeing this sudden change in the situation, the other three didn’t wait for us to catch our breath. They charged forward.

With his exceptional fighting ability, YuLong was able to hold off two of them, but he wouldn’t last long. He was the better fighter, but his opponents were simply too powerful.

I needed to help him.

In an attempt to quickly take out the third enemy, I swung the shovel blade end of my staff at his head.

He dodged the strike and punched the flat of the blade, shattering it, exploiting the weapon’s brittle construction.

I flipped the staff back around and tried to use the mangled crescent blade as an impromptu spear. Combining the weapon with blasts of spirit fire, I was able to stay alive, but I was entirely on the defensive.

With a solid strike, my opponent shattered the remains of my staff.

Unarmed and in a deadly, fast-paced situation, I relied solely on the fighting methods I had learned from Lord Gong. I wasn’t worried about efficiency. I needed to take out my enemies.

As we fought, the forest around us kept getting darker. Because of my reliance on energy vision, I didn’t have any trouble fighting in the deepening gloom, but my opponent wasn’t so lucky. With the beneficial low-light situation and by relying on Lord Gong’s methods, I was able to keep my fight at a standstill and even throw out an occasional burst of fire to support YuLong, but I was quickly exhausting my energy.

Once YuLong and I were both on the verge of collapse, our three opponents backed off and put some space between us.

Their leader sneered at me, and I could feel the anger radiating from him.

“You know, at first, we were planning on taking you back to Lord Hao to be a favored slave. You would have lived a nice, long, luxurious life while making formations for him. Now, you’re going to have to die for what you did to my brothers.”

He started channeling a large quantity of qi into some form of deadly attack, but just as he was about to complete his technique, the large blade of a guandao appeared from the shadows and took off his head.

Only a moment later, the man to his left fell with two daggers sticking out of his back, and the man to his right was sent to the ground by the hoof of an angry deer. After he was knocked prone, Lulu stomped on his chest and ripped out his throat, ending our final opponent.

I looked at the others who had just arrived and was about to thank them, but Yan shook his head.

“We need to get out of here.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 165 – Life 68, Age 34, Martial Grandmaster 7

After escaping through the forest and returning safely to Golden River City, our group quickly made its way back to the sect.

As we had killed our ambushers, we wouldn’t be getting any contribution points for the mission, but I still needed to report the details of what happened to the Hall. We could have tried to hide the deaths and just reported a clean completion of the mission, but we would have been punished if we got caught doing so. In any event, there was very little reason not to report the details of the encounter.

We were doing the mission for experience. We didn’t need the contribution points, and Lord Hao would find out about his subordinates' deaths even if we didn’t say anything. It was best to just come clean.

However, visiting the Mission Hall could wait until later. Before that, we needed to figure out how we were going to deal with the mess we found ourselves in. Once we were safely secluded away in our apartment suite, I explained everything I knew about what led up to us being attacked.

Yan looked down at his hands as he rubbed his palms together. “This ‘Lord Hao’ is going to come for us. From what you said, I would guess that he didn’t even know about that attack. His flunkies probably set everything up behind the scenes to get some kind of reward for kidnapping a notable formation specialist. Now, we’ve killed his men. If he lets that stand without challenging us, he’ll lose the support of many of his subordinates.”

Everyone sat quietly as we digested those words. How were we going to handle this?

In one respect, a Lord wasn’t that impressive to me. I had been a Lord enough times now that I didn’t exactly see it as an accomplishment. However, that was not the current me. Right now, I was just a simple Grandmaster, and it seemed like this ‘Lord Hao’ might have a large faction behind him. He might have access to dozens more Lords that he could throw at us.

More worrying was his position as a core disciple. What additional privileges and benefits would that provide someone? When compared to an outer sect disciple, being in the inner sect gave me access to a few more items in the sect stores, opened up some new missions, and let me attempt the Trial twice a year instead of only once. If core just upped those existing benefits slightly, I wouldn’t be too worried, but I didn’t know if that was the extent of it.

I looked at everyone and carefully considered our options.

“No matter what anyone says, if this Lord Hao is throwing his weight around with new recruits, he can’t be overly impressive. We need to get to Profound City as quickly as possible. That will let us ascend to King, and we won’t have to worry about any small Lords. We also need to look into linking up with Ning ChenKun’s faction. They might be able to shield us from this storm.”

This idea seemed to bother Yan.

“Rushing to King isn’t good. There must be a reason why so many Grandmasters and Lords focus on building up factions before advancing. ChenKun spent more than a decade as a Grandmaster in the Academy while trying to build connections with future powerhouses. I don’t know enough about the sect to know why that was important, but having these factions and connections has to be more valuable than we know, and rushing to advance will deprive us of a chance to form them for ourselves.”

He was right. There had to be a deeper reason behind building factions, and I felt it had to be connected to one’s advancement within the sect. With that thought, it didn’t take me long to have a solid idea for why factions might be considered so important.

I grabbed the classmates’ attention.

“Don’t spread this around. The sect stops this information from being shared too openly, but I’ve found that it doesn’t ban talking about it completely.”

I proceeded to tell them about the details of the Paths of Body, Mind, and Soul.

“To reach Earth City, that’s all you need to be able to do. Factions and connections don’t play any role at all in the process, and anyone can become an Emperor by relying on only their own power.”

They all nodded in understanding, so I continued.

“Remember what Instructor Yuan said? ‘Only Sovereigns need to learn to teach. There is a path to even Peak Emperor without such abilities.’ I would guess that the paths from Earth City to Heaven City and from Heaven City to the Summit have something to do with forming factions and training subordinates. That’s why everyone is so focused on it. You don’t need a faction to become a Peak Emperor, but you do need one to become a Sovereign.”

LiTing was the first to respond. “So… where does that leave us? Aren’t we all here to become Sovereigns?”

I looked at her briefly and then turned meaningfully to Yan.

“No. I won’t become a Sovereign. I’ll walk the path to Peak Emperor. At that point, I can function as your support. I already have most of the skills I need to reach Earth City, so I won’t have to rush my way there too much, but I also won’t have to delay more than necessary. The four of you should work on your basic skills. I would suggest joining Ning ChenKun’s faction to learn more about how it functions, but you should also consider starting your own. I’ll provide you with as much support as I can from higher up the mountain. We can set up regular meetings outside the sect to trade items and information.”

Everyone but Yan was surprised by my decision, but JiaQi was the first to voice it.

“Fang, you shouldn’t do that. You probably have a better shot at Sovereign than any of us.”

YuLong just looked confused. “Yeah, man. What are you doing? If anyone should rush up the Ranks, it should be me. I have the least chance of making it to the end, ya know?”

LiTing didn’t speak, she only stared blankly ahead with a pensive expression.

“Thank you, but this is the right call. It’s what I need to do.”

When I learned I was no longer able to make secondary reset points to maintain this timeline, I had thought I might stay with this group until the end, but the situation was too fluid. I was the one who started this mess. Lord Hao would want to come after me. By staying with the group, I would only put everyone in more danger.

I would be heading down a road alone again, and without a secondary reset point to rejoin the group in the future, I didn’t know where that path would take me.

However, before I could begin to feel too lonely, LiTing surprised me.

“I’m going with you. I have no interest in learning how to run a faction, and I won’t be able to help anyone if I have to keep my refining ability hidden. If I’m a Peak Emperor, I can hand out whatever I want to whomever I want, and no Lord will be able to stop me.”

Instinctively, I wanted to reject her. I would be faster on my own. But in the past… she had always died shortly after I left in every timeline. Maybe this would be for the best.

I nodded at her. “Alright, but we’re going to be rushing pretty hard. To avoid Lord Hao as much as possible, after we leave Mortal City, I plan to only make a short stop in Yellow City before heading directly to Profound City, so we will have to do all our preparation before heading out. I have an idea that should work, but there will be risks. Are you sure you want to do this?”

Determination welled up within her. “Yes.”

I smiled. “Alright.”

We talked a bit more about ideas for what the others would do, and Yan decided he would return to the Academy as a Grandmaster teacher since this might give him more insights on what was expected from sect disciples. JiaQi and YuLong would do their best to support Yan from within the sect. After an hour or so, the group broke apart, and we each left to begin working toward our different goals. As we did, I pulled Yan to the side for a brief private chat.

Since it was possible someone might be listening in, I would have to talk around what I wanted to say, but I gave him a look to try and convey the deep importance of my words.

“I need you to help me find something. I need something that can store a person’s memories. Something that will let me copy a person’s memories out and then give them to… someone else.”

Yan snorted in disdain. “I’ve been working on that for years already. Are you just realizing that this is important now?”

“I…”

“Look. I know. You want to keep your secret. It’ll be your choice to give the memories back to us, but there is no way I’m letting them simply disappear. I’ve made sure that everyone is keeping a detailed journal, but I’m still looking for something better.”

“Thanks…”

Because of the events in West Brook City, I was having to abandon my friends. I had wanted to spend a full lifetime with them, but if there was even the possibility of saving their memories, their survival was far more important than fleeting happiness. As long as everyone could live long enough for one of us to find a way to save a person’s memories, while I might have to leave them in this life, I would be able to rejoin them in the next.

This reminded me of my 100-year plan. I only had about 35 years left. After that, I would need to return to the Wastes. I had told myself that I would be allowed to finish out my final life without regrets even after I passed that 100-year mark, but starting a brand-new life too close to the deadline would feel like cheating. If I wanted to spend a full life with my friends before returning to the Wastes, I should try to start a final life in at most 25 years, preferably sooner.

The moment we found a solution to the memory issue, we could start over, and we wouldn’t have to worry about threats from petty tyrants. If everyone’s memories were safe, we could freely fight back against people like Lord Hao without worrying about the consequences. I just had to find a way to save everyone’s memories first.

I broke myself out of this reverie and looked at Yan.

I hadn’t told him about my storage space, but he wasn’t a fool. After all, I had brought his journal and the letters back somehow, so he had to know I could take things back with me during a reset. He just wouldn’t know how much. Giving him any extra information was always a risk, but it was one I was willing to take.

“Also… Can you look for a few things for me? Technique manuals of any kind, seeds for rare or powerful herbs, and most importantly spirit fire seeds. If we can get access to Profound-Rank or better fire seeds, it could be a huge advantage in the future.”

He rubbed his forehead at this request.

“Profound-Rank fire seeds won’t be too difficult to manage. We should have some amount of access to them after advancing further in the sect. Earth-Rank is a different story. A Sovereign might have one, but it’s not something an Emperor can possess. As for Heaven-Rank, I don’t know for certain that such a thing even exists. If it does, it’s on the Central Continent and likely in the hands of a Saint.”

“I understand. These are just items I consider important. If you think of anything else, add it to the list. I should have more than enough room.”

He narrowed his eyes at that. “What about room for something living? What about for people?”

“I… don’t know. I haven’t tested it yet.”

“Alright. Let me work on that. The details of how that works is something you need to know sooner rather than later.”

I nodded. “For now, we need to focus on the climb up the mountain. We don’t need a solution until it’s over.”

I patted him on the back as we departed on our separate journeys through the sect.

The next day, LiTing and I met for a private discussion about how we would move forward from here. I watched her carefully as I began outlining what I planned to do.

“We need to take the Path of Body from Mortal to Yellow City. From there, we’ll take the Path of Soul. I want to leave as soon as we can, so we both need to push hard to reach Peak Grandmaster. Don’t do anything that will hurt your foundation, but don’t worry about taking breaks to adjust to each separate step. As soon as your meridians have adapted to a new stage, start pushing to the next.”

I took out several pill bottles and gave them to her.

“These are the best pills I have for helping with advancing your cultivation. As soon as you are Peak Grandmaster, we can head out.”

“What about my refining skills? If we do this, I won’t have any time to improve them.”

I sighed. “It’s not ideal, but it should be okay. We’ll reach Profound City at Martial Lord 1. We can hole up there as you work to perfect Rank 3 and advance your skills well into Rank 5. That’s what you’ll need to make it to Earth City.”

“What about you? Will you need to work on your formations, or will I just be slowing you down?”

I smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll need to work on my skills a bit, but I plan to spend most of that time working on my affinities. Profound City will allow me to advance to King, and entering the Trial at that level should allow me to upgrade my earth affinity to peak 4-star. That’s my goal, but you’ll probably be ready before I reach it.”

This seemed to comfort her.

“I know we need to hurry, but before I start cultivating, I’m going to spend a little time replacing everyone's weapons to help them stay safe. Do you need me to make you another crescent moon spade?”

I considered the offer. I had fanciful notions about how I could use that weapon to take down rock golems, but the weapon’s fragility and my lack of skill with it made fighting those monsters problematic. My last weapon had been great for a surprise attack, but it wouldn’t work in the Trial.

“Sure, but this time, don’t worry about enhancing its sharpness. You don’t even need to sharpen it. Leave it blunt. Instead, focus everything into durability. I need a weapon that I can slam into rocks countless times without it breaking.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 166 – Life 68, Age 34, Martial Grandmaster 7

When the decision to separate from the rest of the group was made, I was Grandmaster 7 and LiTing was Grandmaster 4, but before leaving Mortal City, we both needed to reach Peak Grandmaster.

We could have tried to rush through Yellow City as quickly as possible in an attempt to evade Lord Hao, but doing so would have been reckless. If we did that and found ourselves in a dangerous position, it would be hard to survive.

Instead, I wanted us to advance as quickly as we could while still maintaining firm foundations. We were safe in Mortal City, and as long as we stayed within the sect, our strongest opponents would only be Peak Grandmasters until we reached Yellow City. With LiTing’s weapons, my formations and pills, and a bit of extra training, we should be able to handle any group at our level that tried coming after us.

No matter how well we prepared, if we had to face down someone with an overpowering martial blessing, we would be in trouble. I just wasn’t too worried about this happening. We wouldn’t be facing the sect’s elites. We would be facing people who had decided to become Hao’s lackeys.

To balance cultivating quickly with cultivating a strong foundation, I gave us two years to prepare before departing the city. For me, this was far more than I needed, but it would be barely enough time for LiTing.

With an overcharged Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formation and sufficient pills, LiTing would have no trouble cultivating quickly enough to meet our deadline, but I was worried about stagnant qi clogging her meridians if she advanced too fast. Before each breakthrough, I met with her and did a full examination of her energy body to ensure that there were no lingering issues. She was a skilled cultivator and could have handled this on her own, but her internal qi vision wasn’t nearly as good as my energy vision, and it was best to be as safe as possible.

During her downtime between advancements, LiTing focused mainly on cultivating her soul. She had wanted to practice refining, but since we were going to be using the Path of Soul on our way to Profound City, she needed to work on soul cultivation now so that she would be ready in time.

As for myself, I smoothly increased my cultivation level once every six months. This gave the qi in my meridians more than enough time to normalize between each advancement.

I didn’t need to spend much time on qi cultivation, so like LiTing, I used most of my free time to further improve my soul. I also completed a large number of formation missions to build up points to enter the Earth Peak Trial. As an inner sect disciple, I could enter twice a year, so that gave me four opportunities to harvest essence before heading up Dragon Peak. I wanted to do my best to maximize the gains from each attempt.

For my first trip into the Trial, I wouldn’t be focused on gaining essence. I only had one goal: learning to use the crescent moon spade more effectively.

LiTing made me a Rank 3 refined spade that was focused entirely on durability. It was designed to withstand as much abuse as possible. However, it would not do much damage to anything. For inflicting damage, it would be no better than a common mortal weapon. It was exactly what I needed.

After she gave it to me, I didn’t jump into the Trial immediately. First, I set up a mission for a weapons master to train me on the proper way to use this unusual weapon. It took a few tries to find a teacher who I felt was competent, and when I did, his first suggestion was to learn to use a simple spear instead. It was good advice, but I was more interested in learning how to properly wield the spade.

I had found that I learned best when studying topics I wanted to learn instead of ones that I was supposed to learn. This might have just been an excuse to ignore good advice and do what I wanted, but I was fine with that.

After a few months of practice, I was ready to attempt the Trial. After I entered, I didn’t try to conquer it. I spent hours fighting against the golem on the first stage while consuming various stamina and qi recovery pills to keep myself energized. My weapon did almost no damage to the construct, and I took this opportunity to practice every different method of attack and defense the weapons master had shown me.

While the shovel end of the staff wasn’t sharp enough to cut the golem in any way, it did prove effective as a tool for moving and repositioning myself. I was able to plant it into the ground, or into cracks on the golem’s body, and leverage myself into more favorable positions.

The wide crescent moon blade was great for catching attacks or shoving at my enemy’s arms and legs. Because of the crescent moon’s inherent structural weakness, the weapons master had sternly advised me against using it as a double-bladed ax as I had in the previous fight. I followed his advice for the moment, but I hoped that LiTing would advance to the point where she would be able to make the outer edge of the crescent moon sharp while also improving the durability of the metal enough that using it in such a way wouldn’t be an issue.

As I neared the edge of exhaustion, I sent out a quick burst of spirit fire to destroy the golem in an instant. After resting and cultivating to restore my strength, I stepped into the second stage and then did a repeat performance.

During this run at the Trial, I didn’t even complete the fifth stage. Completing stages wasn’t the point. The point was that I gained a solid understanding of my weapon and how to use it against my opponents.

After returning to Mortal City, I discussed the fights with LiTing and told her about what I had learned regarding my weapon. I needed the durability that came from her latest design, but I also needed something that could do real damage to a rock monster. A month later, she presented me with a brand-new staff.

Like the last one, all its energy was focused into its durability. The difference was that the metal on both ends was made from a far denser material, and the spade end had been replaced with a large, solid ball. LiTing didn’t yet have the skills needed to make something both durable and sharp, so she had focused on durability and modified the design to put that trait to best use.

This weapon was far heavier than the previous one, and a mortal would find it impossible to even lift. While fighting, I would have to be careful to reinforce my muscles with qi properly. Otherwise, I might lose control of the heavy staff and hurt my friends or allies.

During my next attempt at the Trial, I defeated the thirtieth stage and broke through to a high five-star earth affinity. The attempt after that, I reached the thirty-sixth stage before running out of time.

At the end of two years, both LiTing and I were Peak Grandmasters, and we were nearly ready to head to Yellow City. Before we left, I had just enough time to take one last swing at the Earth Peak Trial.

Soon after I appeared in the Trial, I tried something that had the potential to go either very well or very, very poorly: communicating with the elder in charge.

“Elder, are you there?”

No response.

“Elder, I’d like to make a deal with you.”

No response.

There was no way I was going to get the essence I needed to reach peak five-star during this attempt by just doing the Trial normally. I needed some kind of bonus reward from the elder, and to make that happen, I first needed to get his attention.

In the past, I had been careful about not intentionally damaging the Trial’s arena. Any walls and floor that got destroyed would have to be repaired somehow, and I didn’t want to cause the boss more trouble than necessary. But to get his attention, I would do what I had to do.

Instead of attacking the golem, I began demolishing the arena.

I couldn’t be certain, but I felt these walls had to separate the different stages from one another. I was hoping that there would be some form of alert formation to warn the elder if someone started trying to break them.

The walls were infused with energy, so they could take a beating, but with enough perseverance, I was able to start doing some real damage. I didn’t want to use my wood-based spirit fire because doing so would consume far too much energy, so I instead relied on qi-infused blows from my new staff. After coating the metal ball with my qi, it was able to easily smash through these undefended walls.

A minute after this demolition work began, I tried to reach out once more.

“Elder, are you there?”

No response.

I return to smashing.

A voice echoed out from the surrounding rock.

“Kid, you should know there’s a formation to repair those walls automatically. You aren’t doing any permanent damage.”

Wanting to show my respect but not knowing how best to do so, I turned to the center of the Arena and gave a deep bow.

“Elder, I was just hoping to get your attention. I would like to make a deal with you. This is going to be my last attempt at the Trial as a Grandmaster, and I don’t think I’ll be able to push far enough to obtain a peak five-star affinity. I was hoping we could come to an arrangement.”

The voice didn’t respond.

“I was thinking, you could have the Trial not give me any essence at all, but if I can complete the 50th stage, you could give me enough essence to advance my affinity.”

Again, there was silence.

“You know, like a kind of bet?”

I thought he had gone back to ignoring me, but after a few seconds, he finally responded.

“Kid, dealing with your master has been enough of a headache. I don’t need you coming here and trying to extort extra benefits from me.”

My heart froze a beat at the mention of a ‘master,’ but I did my best to not show any reaction to the comment. “Sorry, elder. I just hoped that there would be a way for me to get the essence I need.”

He grumbled at me. “Stop cultivating the damn stuff and you’d be there already.”

After a brief pause, the voice continued. “Fine. You want a chance to cultivate enough essence to reach the limit? I’ll give you that chance, but you also have to do something for me.”

That made me hesitate. I had come to make a deal, but I didn’t expect whoever this was to actually want something from me. It was one thing for me to offer him something, it was another for him to actively desire something I could give him. Why would someone at that level believe I could give them anything in the first place?

“I’m willing to consider it.”

The voice laughed. “Kowtow three times and call me your master. From now on, you will consider me the equal of old man Li.”

“What? Why?”

“I know what he’s after and I want it just as much as he does. So, take me as your master and promise to treat me the same way that you treat him. After that, I’ll give you your opportunity to get a peak five-star affinity.”

That… wasn’t too bad of a deal… Being his disciple might add another layer of protection against Hao or anyone else I might offend, and treating him the same way I treated Emperor Li just meant ignoring him until he randomly popped up near the end of a life to give me something.

The fact that he not only knew what Emperor Li was ultimately trying to get from me but also wanted the same thing at the same time had me curious. It couldn’t have anything to do with Bloodline karma since I couldn’t join two different bloodlines simultaneously. I tried to think what these two old monsters could possibly be after, but I drew a complete blank.

If they knew about the time loop, I could begin to understand this a little better, but they shouldn’t have any idea about it. Even if one of them did find out about it, would they tell the other one?

I wanted to ask questions, but I felt that admitting my ignorance in this negotiation would be a mistake. In any event, I would rather hear the story from Emperor Li himself rather than hear this guy’s guesses.

Even if I couldn’t or wouldn’t give him what he was looking for, I would still need to do my best to repay the debt I accrued from accepting any gifts, but without an oath, I could do that in a manner of my choosing based on his treatment of me going forward.

So, all I had to do was figure out what he was willing to pay for such ephemeral promises.

“An opportunity? I call you master and promise to give you benefits in the future, and you are only gonna give me an opportunity?”

“I can’t just hand out essence for no reason. There are rules that bind me. I’ll extend your time limit in the Trial to three days and increase the amount of essence you earn on each stage. If you can reach stage 100 before you run out of time, you’ll have earned more than you need.”

It would be tough, but it would be doable if I gave it my all. Still, a bit of essence didn’t mean all that much to me. It would just save me a few credits. If I was going to take a new ‘master,’ I wanted more.

“Are you going to be some cheap master in the shadows like Emperor Li, or are you going to teach me something?”

After a short pause, the voice burst out into a hearty guffaw. “Emperor Li? Fine then. You can call me Emperor Shen. If Emperor Li has been hiding in the shadows, how has he been teaching you?”

Something about the voice’s tone was off, but I didn't have time to think about it.

“He gave me books with his insights on alchemy.”

“Fine. You give the two of us the same treatment, and I’ll give you the same treatment that he does. I’ll go write you some books of my own and send them to you when I’m done.”

Without knowing what Emperor Li or this Emperor Shen would be expecting from me, I couldn’t say if this was a good deal or not. But if he was willing to provide me with what I needed, I would accept it. I would take their knowledge, and if they expected too much from me, I could pay them back what I felt was owed and be done with them.

I scanned the room in front of me. It was empty except for a solitary stone golem.

“How am I supposed to kowtow to a disembodied voice?”

The voice became somewhat playful. “Treat the golem as if it were me. Just kowtow to it and accept me as your master in your heart. We don’t need any elaborate ceremony.”

After taking a deep breath, I got down on my knees and kowtowed to the golem three times.

“All right kid, get to work. You have 100 levels to clear and only three days to do it in. Good luck with that.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 167 – Life 68, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

With 100 stages to complete, I needed to be extremely efficient with my use of both qi and time. I had reason to believe I could complete 50 in one day, but I didn’t believe for a moment that the second 50 would be as easy as the first 50.

My quickest and most stamina-efficient way to take down the Trial’s constructs was by piercing them with a thread of my wood-based spirit fire. My most qi-efficient and least mentally taxing way of taking them down was bashing them apart with the ball end of my staff.

Because the Trial’s environment contained only pure earth qi, I was able to cultivate while moving and fighting without needing to worry about accidentally drawing impurities into my body. To use that to my advantage, I started fights by blasting my enemies with spirit fire until my qi reserves fell under 10%.

Qi Recovery Pills were most effective at these low energy levels, so whenever my qi recovered to more than 10% of its maximum capacity, I sent out a spirit fire to quickly destroy another construct.

While waiting for my qi to recover, I fought against the golems using my staff. It took far longer to destroy them like this, but by switching between spirit fire and physical power, I was able to make swift, constant progress through the initial stages of the Trial. The only minor difficulty was maintaining my qi-empowered muscles at such low energy levels, but I was able to quickly adapt my combat style to account for this handicap.

In half a day, I had advanced all the way to stage 30, setting a pace slightly above what I had expected. Once I reached stage 40, though, things slowed down dramatically. Instead of simply needing to destroy my opponents, new challenges presented themselves.

At first, these changes only concerned the terrain of the arena. For example, on some stages, large pits and high cliff walls separated me from my enemies. However, after stage 60, there were also formations I had to be wary of.

These new impediments were annoying. I was skilled enough with Grandmaster-level formations that they didn’t have a chance to stop me, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that they slowed me, and I couldn’t afford to be slowed down.

At the end of the first day, I had slightly surpassed my goal of stage 50, making it to stage 54. At the end of the second day, I had made it to stage 90. From there, my progress slowed to a crawl as I had to expend nearly all my energy on each stage to deal with the terrain, formations, and dozens of opponents.

The only real challenge for me was time. I had the skills needed to complete anything this Trial wanted to throw at me, but I needed the time to do so. Three days was a tight deadline, but I was able to get it done and reached stage 100 with a few hours to spare.

I expected 100 to be more of the same, an ever-increasing number of enemies and traps littered around an increasingly complex battlefield. To my surprise, I was presented with only a single opponent and an arena that looked suspiciously like the first stage.

When I appeared, the construct didn’t move to attack immediately, so I had time to prepare.

After assessing the battlefield, I was worried. It looked far too similar to the first stage for my liking. I didn’t believe things would be that easy.

I spent time carefully examining everything in the arena, but I only found one important change from previous stages of the Trial. There was qi of multiple elements in the air. All five basic elements were present. Not only would that mean I would need to be more careful when cultivating while fighting, but it also meant that this golem would have some way to make use of these different elements.

I tried to use energy vision to get a sense of what I was up against, but the golem shone with a solid white hue which blocked me from seeing its internals. All I could see were the inscriptions it used to power itself. To my disgust, filters of all five elements were indeed present in those inscriptions.

Instead of taking the risk of fighting an unknown enemy for no reason, I decided to use my tried-and-true method of creating formations to drain the arena and easily disable my opponent.

I moved to a large rock and started to carve a Qi Gathering Formation, but as soon as I did, the golem attacked.

This didn’t surprise me. I had been waiting for it. What did surprise me was that its target wasn’t me. Instead, it attacked and destroyed my half-finished formation. Unlike in previous stages, this thing wasn’t about to let me slowly carve formations around the room.

Since that option was out, I went with plan two. I tapped into my wood-based spirit fire and shot a lance of energy at the creature to destroy it in a single attack.

When my flame was within half a meter of the thing, a red shield formed around it. Instead of striking into the golem, my spirit fire wrapped around this shield.

I tried to pull the fire back, but I was too late. The red shield glowed brighter, and my spirit fire disappeared. It was gone. If I wanted to use a wood-based fire again, I would have to buy a new one.

The red-glowing construct began moving toward me.

If it was going to use my spirit fire to empower itself, I could try to do something similar.

I tapped into the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire and sent a jet of earth-based energy at the construct. I wrapped it around the monster, siphoning energy from the fire shield and into my spirit fire, empowering my attack.

As the red glow faded and my Cold Mountain Fire blazed with energy, I noticed a golden sheen appear around the golem. As quickly as I could, I retracted the fire and sent it back to the seed in my soul. If I empowered a metal shield, I would no longer have a chance in this fight.

With spirit fires unusable and unable to complete formations before they were destroyed, I had to rely on pure martial combat. This golem was far tougher than the ones before it, so punching through its shell would be impossible. However, the seeds of a new tactic had planted themselves in my mind during the past dozen or so stages of dealing with these constructs.

This thing needed energy to move, and the parts of the formations that gathered energy for it were clearly visible on the outside of its body. So, instead of trying to break through its shell and attack its core, I focused on slowly destroying these inscriptions one after another and eroding the golem’s ability to maintain itself.

It was a long fight, but in the end, I was victorious, and earth essence flooded into me. As I cultivated it, I felt a deep snap as my affinity broke through to peak five-star.

Task complete, I bowed deeply toward the center of the room to show respect for my new ‘master’ and then turned to leave. As I did, his voice echoed through the room once more.

“Kid, I’ll give you a piece of advice. The older generation isn’t allowed to interfere in the conflicts of the younger generation. No matter what happens, the older generation cannot directly intervene in the personal disputes of the sect’s disciples. This means I cannot help you settle any grudges, but it also means that if an elder disapproves of you, they cannot attack you directly. They can only train people up and send them after you. Do with this information what you will.”

I bowed once more. “Thank you.”

With the Trial complete, I had finished everything I needed to do in Mortal City. LiTing and I were ready to ascend to Yellow City. Before we left, we had one final meeting with the rest of our classmates.

Yan had already started teaching a class of Masters in the Academy while JiaQi and YuLong had started a small mercenary group that they were using to complete a few combat missions every month. With Lord Hao hanging over our heads, leaving the sect to do missions was dangerous, but the rules of the battlefield provided them with enough protection that they considered it worth the risk.

LiTing and I shared heartfelt goodbyes with everyone, but I also took this moment to have a private chat with Yan.

“Have you found anything that’ll work?”

A look of frustration crossed his face. “I know what we need. It’s called a memory orb. However, I can’t find any for sale, and I have no idea where to look for them. From what I can tell, it’s a type of refined item, so LiTing might be able to make one. Since I haven’t been able to find an orb, I’ve also been searching for a manual with information on how to create one, but I’ve not had any luck with that either. I’m going to have to keep looking.”

There was no question in my mind that I wanted to take their memories back through time with me. I hadn’t yet figured out how, when, or if I would restore them, but I needed to have that option available.

While Yan might be having trouble finding a way to procure these orbs, now that I had the name of what I needed, I no longer had to buy such costly information from the System. I could purchase the item directly.

I rubbed my chin to hide my subvocalizations. “System, how much for a memory orb that I can use to store the memories of one of my classmates and then transfer them back during my next life?”

Cost 500 billion credits.

That number made me groan. Yan gave me a funny look, so I explained.

“Those memory orbs are probably a Rank 6 item. That’s why you’ve had so much trouble finding them. They’re not something that would be available to a lowly Grandmaster.”

He nodded and refrained from asking how I knew that information.

“I’ll look into other options. Since you and LiTing are going to rush up to Emperor, I’ll leave researching the orbs to you.”

“Yan, there’s also something else I want you to investigate… How much do you know about essence cultivation techniques?”

He rolled his fingers in thought. “I know you’ve been cultivating that earth one. I didn’t understand why you bothered, but I’m starting to have a guess. Why?”

The side of my mouth twitched. “I need techniques for the other elements. I only have one for earth. I want one for every element possible. Neither the Academy nor the sect has them in their libraries. Do you think you can help me find them?”

“They probably burned any copies they had to prevent people from wasting essence. I’ll see what I can find out for you, but no promises. Essence techniques are rare, and while they aren’t valued highly here, they are of immense value to most clans outside the sect, so few would be keen on sharing one.”

“I understand. Just let me know if you find out about one. I can worry about the details of acquiring it later.”

With those issues taken care of, Yan and I rejoined the group.

LiTing and I would be racing to Profound City to stay ahead of the news that we had left Mortal City, and we didn’t know how long the journey would take. There was always a risk that we would get stuck on one of the paths for an extended period of time, so we made plans to meet up outside the gates to Mortal City in three months. If that didn’t work out, we would try again once every three months thereafter.

We said our goodbyes, and I patted Yan and YuLong on the back in farewell. I got a bit of a surprise when JiaQi hugged me, but I was able to respond somewhat naturally, even if I was a little stiff.

Before we left, I looked at the three of them.

“Lord Hao is an annoyance, but in truth, he’s just a bug. Our real problem is the Zhuge Clan. If you ever leave the sect’s territories, be careful of them.” I focused on Yan. “You know what they can and will do more than me. Everyone needs to stay safe until our… protections are in place. I don’t want to risk losing anyone before then.”

A look of resolve appeared on Yan’s face. “Don’t worry. I know what to do. The clan would never risk directly offending the sect master, so they will have to play by the same rules everyone else does. Even if we can’t fight back against them, I can keep us alive.”

After one last round of goodbyes, I turned to LiTing.

“Ready?”

A bittersweet smile appeared on her face. “Yes.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 168 – Life 68, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The Path of Body that led to Yellow City looked very different from the one on the way to Earth City. Instead of being a dense jungle, this one was more like a rocky wasteland.

The entrance to the path was a stone arch that made my space affinity tingle, so I couldn’t be sure the path was truly located on the mountain. When we passed through the arch, our surroundings didn’t change, but I felt that we had been teleported.

I carefully surveyed the area for any possible threats. There were a few large boulders that could conceal hidden enemies, but this area was far more open than the version of the path higher up the mountain.

To guard against anyone lying in ambush, LiTing and I left the path and made wide loops around any boulders or depressions in the ground. If there was a place where people could hide, we avoided it. To stop any illusionists from sneaking up on us, I deployed a few defensive formations that would provide us with a thin layer of defense and give us warning of any surprise attacks before they happened.

I also switched on my energy vision to keep a constant eye out for any potential dangers. Leaving it on for extended periods was taxing on my eyes, so I usually didn’t do it, but we were in a dangerous situation. We needed to be as careful as possible. Not only could my energy vision help me detect hidden opponents, but it would also light up dangerous energy-dense projectiles or insects that were too small to notice with normal vision.

Even though we took these precautions, I didn’t expect to be targeted by an ambush. I had no doubt that Lord Hao wanted revenge against us for killing his men, and I had noticed spies checking in on us over the years, but our departure from Mortal City was sudden enough that I didn’t expect him to have anything ready to go. Instead, I was worried more about someone targeting us simply because they felt that we looked like easy targets for a robbery.

As we made our way through the rocky terrain of the Path of Body, we were not attacked by evil cultivators even once. Instead, the two of us were constantly assaulted by hordes of low-level beasts. They only had the strength of mid-level Martial Masters, so they were easy to defeat, but the constant assaults slowed us down.

After the first day of nearly non-stop fighting, I realized that waiting to ambush someone on this path was a fool’s errand. Anyone who tried to hide themselves would quickly be exposed by the hordes of attacking beasts. No matter how well a cultivator tried to hide on this path, the demon beasts would soon find and attack them.

Still, knowing that these animals were not a real threat and that we needed to stay prepared for what lay ahead, LiTing and I refrained from blasting the animals with qi to conserve our energy. We also refrained from using her refined weapons in case anyone was somehow watching us from hiding, no matter how unlikely that seemed under the circumstances. So to fight, we relied on enhancing our bodies with qi and defeating our opponents in unarmed martial combat.

We only needed to walk a few kilometers, but with the need to defend against the constant attacks, this took us well over two hours to complete. The pace we moved at was slow, but there was no helping it.

As we fought wave after wave of enemies, LiTing became increasingly confused. Finally, she had to share what was on her mind.

“Hey Fang, where do you think they got all these beasts for us to fight? We must’ve killed over a hundred of them already. If this is what everyone has to go through, how are there any beasts left?”

I lifted my right foot and then slammed it down hard on the leg of a demon boar. This shattered the dead animal’s bones and caused its skin to tear open in several places. Blood slowly trickled out of the wound, staining the ground red.

“Hmmm. I didn’t expect that to happen.”

LiTing’s jaw dropped in confusion. “What did you do that for?”

I kicked the boar’s body and it rag-dolled away as one might expect of a corpse. I cocked my head to the side when I saw that. The whole setup was very impressive.

“Look at them with qi vision. They aren’t real. This is all an illusion. I thought attacking one of the corpses would cause the illusion to break, but it looks like someone put a lot of effort into making this place feel as real as they could.”

LiTing blinked at me. “Oh, that makes sense.”

She didn’t ask any further questions and just continued down the path. I was slightly taken aback by this reaction, but after only a brief pause, I followed after her.

Eventually, we arrived at the end of the first section of the Path of Body.

Ahead of us, the wide path we had been walking on split apart into five much narrower paths. Each of these narrow paths passed through a different stone archway, and then, on the other side, recombined to form a single wide path once more.

I checked to see if I could walk around the arches, but an invisible barrier blocked me from doing so. If we wanted to keep moving forward, we had to pass through one of these arches.

As I looked at the path ahead, I felt a twinge from my space affinity. Something was mucking about with space around here again. That gave me a fairly good idea of what we were up against.

“I think we have to do the next part on our own. We can try it together, but I don’t think it’s going to work. My guess is that when we walk through one of those arches, we’re going to be teleported somewhere else. Likely, this is the individual portion of our test. If the path so far is anything to go by, I don’t think this first test will be very difficult. This one should just be here to help us understand the rules of the path. Be safe in there, and if you need to, use your real weapon. I would say that the only people who will learn about what happens during the test likely already know what you can do.”

“Right. Thanks, Fang.”

LiTing moved slightly closer to me but then quickly headed off in the direction of one of the gateways, disappearing as she crossed its threshold. I sensed a confusion of emotions coming from her that I was entirely incapable of dealing with at the moment.

Setting myself, I chose my own gateway and entered.

The scenery around me flashed, and the arch disappeared, but the rest of the landscape remained exactly the same. The only real difference was that a large boar as tall as my shoulders appeared in front of me. However, it was only at the level of a Peak Master, so I didn’t even bother testing its strength. I threw out a qi-powered fist and killed it in one hit.

With my enemy dead, the stone arch reappeared, and I walked through. The scenery around me flashed once more. I looked around. Everything had returned to ‘normal,’ and I was on the other side of the original arch.

Only moments later, LiTing appeared from another arch, gave me a brief smile, and started down the road.

The second section of the path had enemies around Grandmaster 1 or 2, and the third section had enemies around Grandmaster 3 to 5. The difficulty of the path was slowly increasing, but I was able to hold my own against this level of opponent without too much effort. The training I had done was showing its worth, and I had no difficulty keeping us both safe as we continued forward along the path.

At this point, LiTing wasn’t having any trouble against the beasts either, and I expected her to be able to defeat up to at least the third checkpoint’s boss monster without much problem, but we were both worried about what would happen at the end of this path. The way things were going, there should be five sections to this path, and at the fifth checkpoint, we would have to fight against a Peak Grandmaster demon beast.

Even with her refined weapons, LiTing would have a difficult time with that, so to prepare, she decided to spend more time fighting against the boss monsters at the earlier checkpoints to practice and prepare for the later ones. So, after I quickly finished off my enemy at the third checkpoint, I found myself waiting outside for LiTing to finish her practice session.

When someone did appear, they did so from the wrong arch. A woman roughly LiTing’s height walked out of the arch farthest from me and carefully looked around at her surroundings. The moment she saw me, I felt excitement well up within her, and she raced off down the path to the next checkpoint.

This worried me, but unless I was willing to kill a total stranger unprovoked, there wasn’t too much I could do about it. If that had been a scout for Lord Hao, I didn’t doubt that she had just raced off to coordinate with others. We would need to be more careful going forward.

If I had to guess, I would say that the most likely place for an ambush would be at the exit of a checkpoint. That would let our attackers target us while we were alone and vulnerable. It was a potentially dangerous situation, but as long as we expected it, we could be prepared.

As we walked toward the fourth checkpoint, I couldn’t detect anyone waiting for us on either side of the stone arch. The arches played with space, though, so that didn’t necessarily mean too much. Once I defeated the checkpoint’s Grandmaster 8 boss, I took a formation stone out of my storage space and looked at it.

This formation was the first precaution that I had put in place against anyone who might be ambushing us. Using formations to create a watch was beyond my abilities, but creating something that would light up after a set time wasn’t too difficult.

After 15 minutes, my formation stone lit up with a bright white light. I placed it back in my storage space for later and approached the arch that served as the checkpoint’s exit.

I took out several small formation stones from my storage bag and threw them through the exit. A few moments later, I walked out carefully and surveyed my surroundings.

Even in energy vision, the only items of note in my surroundings were the five formation stones lying on the ground. After picking them up, I looked back in the direction of the arch and saw that a small white stone remained exactly where I had placed it on the other side of the archway.

Since the arches were moving us through space, I wanted to use that stone to check if we were being returned to the same place we left or if it was a different area that only looked the same. The white stone remaining where I had placed it seemed to confirm that we were simply on the other side of the same arch, but I didn’t fully trust that to be true.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being teleported somewhere completely new after leaving each checkpoint. And if that were true, it meant it was possible for someone to ambush us as we exited a checkpoint even if it didn’t look like anyone was waiting for us when we entered.

I turned to my right just as LiTing stepped out of her own checkpoint. We nodded at each other and then quickly moved off to the side of the path, out of easy view of any spies that might be lurking about.

Walking off the path wasn't a way to avoid our enemies, but it was a way to keep them from knowing exactly when we would arrive at the next checkpoint.

For the fourth checkpoint, I hadn’t considered this too important. I simply didn’t believe that was where we would face an ambush. If Lord Hao was going to send people after us, they wouldn’t know for certain which path we took. The most likely scenario was that they would rush to the end of the shortest path and then wait for us in the area where all three paths converged on the way to Yellow City. That way, all our attackers could gang up on us right as we left the final checkpoint.

The scout who spotted us earlier was no doubt on her way to tell them where we were and when to expect us.

When we approached the final checkpoint, I looked around carefully, but I didn’t see anyone on either side of the archway. It seemed like we wouldn’t need to worry about any ambushes. I didn’t believe that for even a second.

Over the past few hours, I had worked out a plan. After explaining it to LiTing, she didn’t seem overly happy about it, but she agreed to it. I set our formation timers to one hour and we stepped through to face the final boss monster. I could only hope that one hour was enough time for LiTing to defeat her opponent and restore her energy for what came after.

The fight was against a large demon bull, but compared to the golem that I fought at the end of the Earth Peak Trial, it didn’t pose any challenge at all. However, since I had some time to burn, I still spent close to half an hour practicing my fighting skills with the sparring partner I had been provided.

After my opponent was defeated, I sat down to cultivate. Time passed and my formation timer turned a bright blue. That meant I had five minutes left. I could only hope that LiTing had finished her fight, because if she hadn’t, what came next might interfere with it.

“System, change my physical appearance to that of WuJing, and change LiTing’s physical appearance to that of…”

I stumbled. What name should I give? Mei? SuYin? Jiao? These names were quickly considered and rejected. They had too much weight behind them. Another idea brushed my consciousness but drifted away before the thought fully formed. Finally, I said the only name I could bring to mind.

“Change LiTing’s physical appearance to that of Meng LuYao from South Gate City’s Blue Wind Pavilion.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 250,000 credits. 6,732,825,588 credits remaining.

After changing into a new robe, I walked up to the stone arch. Even if I hadn’t seen anyone on the other side, I was sure people were waiting for me. I retrieved a handful of formation stones from my bag and threw them into the arch. Twenty seconds later, I stepped through.

Around me, the entire area was in pandemonium as nearly a dozen cultivators hacked and slashed at the air, injuring each other in the process. I slipped into the crowd unnoticed and did my best to look like I was a random lackey who joined the crew.

The formations I had deployed were from my work with Yan and had various illusions incorporated into them. Ideally, I would’ve had an invisibility formation, but that wasn’t something that could be done easily without an illusionist actively controlling it.

Since I couldn’t be invisible, I needed to be unnoticed. Each of these formations created a copy of my image that fought against anyone within range. They couldn’t do any actual damage, but they were strong enough illusions to make people think otherwise, and with so many cultivators firing indiscriminately at illusions, many people ended up being attacked by their compatriots.

Less than a minute after exiting the checkpoint, I saw a somewhat familiar form appear in the crowd. She was a beautiful middle-aged woman who looked several years older than everyone else present.

I realized the small mistake I had made. Meng LuYao was a mortal, and while age had barely touched us cultivators, she would be nearly two decades older than the girl I remembered from when I first arrived in South Gate City.

Still, I knew it was LiTing, so I sent out a quick flash of energy to catch her attention.

The two of us carefully snuck away from the increasingly bloody battlefield.

In our disguises, we entered Yellow City without causing even a hint of a commotion. However, I knew that if I used my name or identity jade, I would quickly bring the wrath of an angry Lord down upon my head. Even disguised as we were, I was worried that a minor slip-up could cost us our lives, so the two of us hurried to the ‘temple’ and purchased the karmic energy we needed.

After that, we didn’t even wait around long enough to advance to Lord. We immediately exited the city and headed down the road to Profound City. We didn’t rest for even a moment until after we entered the Path of Soul.

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Chapter 169 – Life 68, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After entering the Path of Soul, I didn’t feel even a twinge from the path’s suppressive effects. With the defenses provided by my new cultivation technique, this level of soul pressure was entirely meaningless.

LiTing, on the other hand, was showing a bit of strain. Looking at her, I could see that while she would be able to withstand the pressure of this first section well enough, her current level of soul cultivation wouldn’t be sufficient to complete the entire path.

This needed to be addressed, but I put that to the side for the moment. We weren’t ready to start worrying about walking the path. First, we needed to ascend to Martial Lord. We could deal with soul cultivation after that was done.

To give ourselves a bit of privacy, LiTing and I left the road and headed deep into the forest that blanketed this section of the mountain. With such dense foliage, it would be incredibly easy for us to hide out on the path for as long as we needed. After finding a secluded spot hidden deep in the forest’s undergrowth, we sat down to cultivate and prepare for our breakthroughs.

I had noticed a shift in LiTing’s demeanor ever since we left the Path of Body, and now that we were safe, I had time to ask her about it.

“How are you holding up?”

She ground her teeth slightly at the question. She wasn’t quite angry, but she was certainly irritated.

“Well enough.” She clenched a fist and looked me dead in the eye. “Fang, why am I old?”

I looked at her blankly.

Her nostrils flared.

“You told me you would provide me with a disguise. You said it would be a beautiful young woman. Why. am. I. old?”

I stared for a second before finally answering.

“That… It was difficult… I tried to think of someone to disguise you as, but I couldn’t come up with any good options. So, when I finally thought of a name, I forgot she was a mortal and would have aged. In the end, I think it might’ve been the right choice. This disguise will hide you even better.”

LiTing clenched her fist even tighter and then swung it futilely in the air.

I had a pretty good understanding of the root of her anger. She didn’t want to look old, especially not in front of me. I knew she was frustrated, but I didn’t know what to do about it.

Our relationship had become too complicated over the past couple of years. I had noticed that LiTing had started showing signs of interest in me, but I didn’t feel I was in a position to respond to them. Not only was she a thousand years younger than me, but I also understood the dangers of developing any type of feelings for people that would be reset at the end of a loop.

Our biggest problem was that we didn’t have a defined relationship. To LiTing, we were a young man and woman who had known each other for 20-odd years and had spent the last two in close contact. What was our relationship? I wasn’t sure and neither was she. This anger about the disguise I had chosen for her was just an offshoot of that confusion.

With my lack of responsiveness, she didn’t say anything else. She just whipped a cultivation mat out of her storage bag and plopped down on it.

I closed my eyes and wished I knew what to say.

All in all, this whole thing was a bit of a mess. While I was willing to purchase a disguise for LiTing, I wasn’t willing to tell her any details about what I did or how I did it. The System was my only remaining trump card that was truly secret. It would be obvious to my friends that I had some kind of strange power, but I had to keep the particulars of how it worked as hidden as possible.

The only reason I was willing to use the System on LiTing like this was because she understood the importance of guarding secrets deep within her bones. She wouldn’t ask any uncomfortable questions or probe for more information than I was willing to share.

Watching LiTing silently cultivate with her eyes closed, I took a deep breath. We had to set this drama to the side. There were more important things to focus on.

I took out my own cultivation mat and got to work on my breakthrough.

Having copied several Rank 4 cultivation techniques from the sect’s libraries, I no longer had to rely on the one I had gotten from my time as the Water Groom. I flipped through each of the techniques looking for something good, but none of these techniques had been graded by the sect, and none of them stuck out as particularly powerful, so I had to assume they were also all Yellow-Rank techniques. They were also all elementally neutral, so I only had to worry about choosing one with acceptable mental effects.

After reviewing my options, I chose a technique focused on productivity. With everything I had learned, I would be able to close my acupoints so that the technique wouldn’t have an overly powerful effect on me in my day-to-day life, but when I was working, I could activate it to keep myself on track.

LiTing went with a technique focused on learning. This choice was a result of her feelings of inadequacy. She felt a desperate need to learn fast enough to keep up with me. I knew this wasn’t healthy, but all I knew to do to help was to try and teach her what I could.

LiTing took several weeks to successfully advance. After she did, I spent time explaining will-locks and getting her comfortable using them. I had never learned to fight as a Lord, so I could only guess at how to use them in combat, but I could at least introduce her to the basics.

Once I felt we were ready, we exited seclusion and headed down the path to Profound City.

While I didn’t have any difficulty at all with the meager soul pressure the path was subjecting us to, LiTing was a different story. In the first section, while she was uncomfortable, she was able to withstand the pressure without complaint. However, the deeper we went, the more problems she had.

After reaching the fourth section, we had to stop. With the current strength of LiTing’s soul, if we risked entering the fifth section, there was a chance she would be seriously injured.

My first time through the sect, the PangBo Alliance had wanted me to use Soul Numbing Pills to make the Path of Soul easier. After a bit of research, I learned that this was about the worst possible option. These pills allowed a person to ignore the pressure of the path, but they did so by permanently crippling the soul.

I needed to help LiTing strengthen her soul, not cripple it.

Hunkering down to practice soul cultivation while on the path wasn’t without risk, but from my perspective, it was one of the safest places to do so. Like in Yellow City, if someone decided to attack us, the highest cultivation level we would be up against was Peak Lord. We didn’t need to worry about Profound City’s Kings.

Peak Lords would still be challenging to deal with, but once the effect of the path’s soul pressure was factored in, I felt I would have a distinct advantage against anyone we might come up against. I just had to hope that such an opponent didn’t bring any friends with them.

Still, no matter what, we needed to be careful. There was only one way I knew of to ensure no Lord could get the drop on us.

In the fourth section of the path, we headed deep into the forest until we found a large clearing near the area’s invisible barrier. Using a variety of earth qi techniques, I compacted the soil at the far edge of the clearing until it turned into a hard, ochre-colored stone. I then quickly carved the stone into a herringbone pattern and roughed up its surface to prevent us from slipping.

This kind of qi-fabricated stone wasn’t too durable, but it would serve well enough for a simple floor.

I then proceeded to pull earth from the ground to form two spacious stone cabins. After decorating them with a few items of furniture from my storage bag, the cabins felt habitable, though not exactly homey. The biggest mark against them was their lack of doors. My earth control wasn’t quite up to that task yet, so I could only hang curtains to cover their entrances.

LiTing watched me work with a raised eyebrow but didn’t say anything to stop me. Once her cabin was complete, she went inside to work on cultivating her soul.

Outside, I continued working on our little homestead. I built a high palisade around the buildings with an opening facing toward the path. This wasn’t a defensive wall. Instead, it was there to mark the edge of my defensive formations. If anyone tried to cross that boundary, they would be in for a world of hurt.

While I might not be as good at Rank 4 formations as I was at Rank 4 alchemy, I still had a decent amount of experience with them by this point, and I used everything I knew to make our shelter as impenetrable as possible. With the formations combined with the path’s soul pressure, we were safe from anyone who might try and approach us.

Our small haven was as secure as I could make it, so it was time to focus on improving LiTing’s soul.

I set up a small, covered pavilion in the courtyard between our houses. After carefully arranging a table and chairs, I made some tea. Once everything was ready, I called for LiTing to join me.

When she saw everything I had done to the place, she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Why did you go to so much effort? How long are you expecting us to stay here?”

“I don’t know, but the environment where you cultivate will affect you as you try to grow and improve your soul. If you do so in a wilderness with no shelter, that becomes part of your identity, right? If we’re going to be working on soul cultivation, we need a proper place to do so.”

She frowned and then nodded. “That makes sense.”

I considered giving LiTing a copy of my soul cultivation technique, but that seemed too dangerous. It was far more powerful than any of the techniques available in the Academy, and if others found out about it, it could put both of us in danger.

In any case, LiTing’s cultivation technique wasn’t a problem. Her technique could expand her soul rapidly, but absorbing enough information to fill that new space was time-consuming. If she just sat and cultivated, her technique could quickly grow and strengthen her soul, but doing so would be a mistake. Instead, she needed to fill that space with new understandings as she grew it.

To help her overcome this difficulty, I became her teacher. I hadn’t been studying soul cultivation any longer than she had, but I had a lot more time to devote to studying the different philosophies and had read far more books on the topic than her. I also had an extensive library of texts that I could instantly access to address any questions either of us might have.

As we sat in the pavilion and drank tea, we talked about the different philosophies and asked each other questions about them. After that, we retired to our cabins and thought about our discussions in private as we cycled our soul cultivation techniques. During this time, I also accessed my vast library to gain a deeper understanding of the topics we had covered.

For the next several days, this pattern repeated itself, and I could feel my soul rapidly strengthening even further. Talking with LiTing and sharing my insights with her was improving my soul at an astonishing rate.

After our discussion one day, I left LiTing alone in her cabin and walked out into the forest to think about my place in this world.

LiTing wanted to walk what this world considered to be the path of a Daoist, a person who separated herself from the mundane world around her. This didn’t entirely line up with the Daoist text I had purchased from the System, but it was the path she had chosen.

I had chosen to embrace a blend of philosophies, but my focus was on Universalism and Mohism. Of all the options presented to me, the principles of ‘universal love’ and indiscriminate help were what I felt the deepest connection to.

So far, while I had read books on these topics, I had never put any of these lofty ideals into practice. I had only focused on my own advancement and, to a lesser extent, the advancement of my small network of friends.

As I walked through the forest alone, I felt lost. What did I want? What was I trying to achieve?

If all I was going to do was focus on boosting my own power, I should shed all pretenses and fully embrace my place as a Nine Rivers Daoist. That felt wrong to me… It wasn’t what I wanted, but what should I do?

In my wanderings, I found that I had stumbled upon a clearing where three young men had secluded themselves to work on cultivating their souls. They, like LiTing, had been pushed to their limits by the soul pressure in this section of the path, and they needed to improve before they would be able to go any farther.

When I saw them, my first instinct was to duck away before they noticed me. Even if these three weren’t a threat, they might alert someone who was.

I calmed myself with a reminder that I was in disguise and no one would recognize me. Even if I weren’t and these three wanted to do me harm for some reason, they would pose zero risk to me in their current state.

I examined them in energy vision and couldn’t help but shake my head. They needed to improve their souls, but they were going about it the wrong way. They were simply cycling a basic soul cultivation technique. I couldn’t see inside their souls to know what was going on with them, but I knew that if they continued like this, they would only end up crippled.

I wanted to walk away and refrain from making any new contacts, but something pushed me forward. These young men needed my help, if I was supposed to love everyone equally, I couldn’t just abandon them to their fates.

Mustering my courage, I took a deep breath and stepped into the clearing. When I did, three pairs of eyes shot toward me, and all three men moved to grab a weapon.

I raised both hands in a sign of peace to calm them down. With them eyeing me suspiciously, I took a seat in the grass across from them.

One of the men was silently chosen as the group’s spokesman.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

I considered my answer.

“A teacher. I only want to teach you, and by teaching you, learn from you.”

The men growled and began to move for their weapons once more, so I reached into my storage bag, brought out a kettle, and filled it with water. I then placed it on a formation stone to heat it up.

Once it was near boiling, I took out a tray containing a teapot and four small cups. I placed a few tea leaves into the pot and then poured in the hot water to let it steep.

As I worked, the three men only watched me warily. While they wanted to defend themselves, they could see from my fluid movements that I did not feel the same pressure from the path that they were under. They knew attacking me would be far too dangerous.

Once I judged that the tea was ready, I poured it into the four cups before me and took one as my own. I didn’t offer the other cups to the men, I let my actions do that for me.

I sipped my tea, but the others didn’t move to pick up the other cups.

I drew in a deep breath, smiled, and looked at my companions.

“What path of cultivation do you follow?”

The three men were confused by my actions, but their spokesman was willing to speak.

“I’m a fire cultivator.”

I shook my head slightly. “What path of soul cultivation do you follow?”

The man on the right narrowed his eyes.

“We can’t share our cultivation technique.”

Again, I shook my head. “Not your technique. What is your path?”

They seemed confused by this question.

This made me sigh. On this continent, those who had not taken the elite courses at the Yellow Orchid Academy didn’t learn anything about soul cultivation. The Path of Soul was a dead end for all the unfortunates who had no understanding of how they were supposed to go about strengthening their souls properly.

Quickly sorting through the scrolls in my storage bag, I took out foundational texts for each of the four paths of soul cultivation. I had transcribed these to help LiTing in her studies, but she was already beyond the level of these basic texts.

These were, of course, texts from this world. I hadn’t even shared the books the System had given me with my friends. I wasn’t about to share them with complete strangers.

I placed the four scrolls on the ground in front of the three men.

“Your souls are strong, but they are undisciplined. Continuing down your current path will only lead to ruin. Instead, as you improve your soul, consider the information in these texts. It can help guide you.”

Given the situation, I knew these men couldn’t trust me. Leaving the scrolls and tea set behind, I stood and disappeared into the forest.

This interaction hadn’t accomplished anything except potentially betraying our presence in the forest, but something about it felt right. It felt like I had finally done something to make the world a slightly better place.

I immediately felt an urge to push back against this feeling. I knew that it was coming from my soul cultivation. However, after ensuring the shell of my cultivation technique remained solid, I chose to let the feeling of contentment from helping those three wash over me.

I was supposed to be a Mohist, and I needed to start acting like it. That could change in the future, but I couldn’t live in the future. I needed to live in the moment.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 170 – Life 68, Age 36, Martial Lord 1

For several days after meeting those young men, my life with LiTing alone in the forest continued as normal, and we cultivated our souls while discussing philosophy. Unfortunately, the peace and tranquility of our seclusion was broken when an alarm formation alerted me to the presence of a large group approaching our location.

I went outside to investigate and saw seven people, four men and three women, standing a couple of meters outside the palisade surrounding our cottages.

While remaining well within the protections of our defensive formations, I walked to the opening in the wall to see what this was about.

I recognized three of the men in this group as the three I had tried to teach about soul cultivation. Before I could say anything or ask any questions, all seven gave me a deep bow. As they did, the man who had taken the lead in speaking to me last time assumed the role of the group’s spokesman.

“Please guide us, Teacher.”

My upper lip twitched. What had I gotten myself into?

Yes, I should have expected this, and I did, to a minor extent, but now that the results of my meddling had presented themselves before me, I felt I might have made a huge mistake.

Channeling Emperor Li’s stoic demeanor, I did my best to remain composed. I needed to understand exactly what was going on.

“Who are these others?”

The man grinned, assuming that the question implied I had already accepted the original three as my ‘students.’

“After you left, we read the information you left for us. We were skeptical at first, but as we continued reading, we could feel the effects of the knowledge on our souls. Even though we hadn’t been cultivating to grow our souls at the time, we still felt the pressure of this place ease its grip on us. We knew this was all thanks to your guidance, and we immediately set out to find you.”

He gestured at his new companions. “These are fellow cultivators we met during our search. They also wish to learn from you. Please, Teacher, do not send us away.”

I wanted to rub my forehead or massage my temples, but that would be a sign of weakness. Instead, I resorted to surreptitiously tapping my teeth together as I thought.

I didn’t know what to do here. I needed to help others. I had told myself that. Could I just send them away when they had come asking for help? That felt wrong, but was I willing to risk having seven strangers this close to our sanctuary?

As I was contemplating my decision, LiTing walked out of her cabin and made my decision for me.

“We welcome all who seek enlightenment. However, as the Great Teacher’s first disciple, I ask that you respect his boundaries. Do not attempt to enter within his private enclave. Our lessons will begin tomorrow at daybreak. Any who wish to join us may do so at that time.”

She smiled at them and gave a short bow of her head.

“Meanwhile, I would suggest that you all see to your accommodations in the nearby forest. The path of soul cultivation is not short. It will take time for you to reach your full potential.”

As the group gave LiTing a deep bow, their leader conveyed the group’s respect.

“Thank you, Senior Sister. We will return tomorrow.”

Once everyone had left, I looked at LiTing.

“What was that about? Aren’t you worried about having strangers around while we’re trying to cultivate?”

She giggled. “I’ve seen how much you’ve improved while teaching me. I need that too. I’ll take the lead with these guys. You can sit back and play the ‘Great Teacher.’”

“Alright, but let me arrange a few protections first. These fellows look harmless enough, but you can never be too sure.”

I got where she was coming from, but we still needed to be safe. That group was acting extremely respectfully for now, but that was only because they thought we could ease their way down the Path of the Soul. It was impossible to know what they would do once they learned everything we had to teach them.

She just nodded and patted me on the shoulder.

“Maybe you were right about these disguises. Those people would have never been so courteous to us if we looked too young. I might have to thank this woman you turned me into. Still, you should have at least warned me about it.”

Before I could respond, she turned around and returned to her cottage.

I watched her leave and then turned to look at the small clearing in front of our palisade. LiTing’s offer may have been the correct decision, but as things stood, it put us in far too much danger.

The area in front of the palisade needed a complete redesign. We needed a large, open area where multiple strangers would be able to freely enter and exit while also keeping everyone, most notably LiTing and me, safe.

I stayed up all night working on my project. When LiTing came outside the next morning, her mouth was open in amazement.

“What did you do?”

The small forest clearing that had existed outside of our palisade was no more.

The ground was now entirely covered in gray paving stones. Immediately outside the opening in the wall was a raised dais with two cultivation mats. In front of them, seven beige canvas mats sat on the stone ground. This would provide a forum where our ‘students’ could listen to us discuss soul cultivation.

The beige mats were not proper cultivation mats. I didn’t bring enough proper mats for a large group, and creating new ones required knowledge of woven formations, which I had yet to learn. However, the paving stones were from an outcropping of novaculite I had found in the nearby area. It was good enough to hold Rank 4 formations, so beneath each mat, I carved out a few of the inscriptions to increase everyone’s concentration.

As for protection, I took that very seriously.

The entire area was encased within several powerful Rank 4 defensive formations. Looking in qi vision, one would see small formation nodes placed throughout the paved area to power these defenses.

If one looked closer, they would see that these nodes were fake. A careful examination would show that the real formation nodes were encased in rhyolite to mask their presence. The more visible ones were just a distraction.

However, in truth, all the formations were empowered and controlled from within the palisade. None of the nodes outside the walls had any meaningful effect on our defenses. Out of a bit of paranoia, I had set up two layers of deceptions to alert us of any potential betrayal before it became a problem.

As long as LiTing and I stayed within the palisade walls or on the dais, no mere Lord would be able to do anything to hurt us.

I put a hand on LiTing’s shoulder.

“This will give us a safe place to discuss soul cultivation with anyone who wants to listen. If the people who come here attack each other, the formations will teach them a lesson. If they try to attack one of us, they won’t need to worry about any lessons.”

Shortly after the sun rose, the cultivators returned to our small clearing. As experienced Lords, they weren’t too taken aback by what they saw. An earth cultivator paving an area of stone in a single night wasn’t that impressive after all.

LiTing’s reaction had been more for the formation designs than the physical changes. She had been around me long enough to pick up a bit of basic knowledge about formations, and she had known to closely examine the area in qi vision the moment she saw it. Our guests had no such experience. They only saw a nice, newly paved courtyard.

LiTing and I took our positions on the dais first, and then our visitors sat down on the mats I had laid out before us.

LiTing assumed the role of ‘First Disciple’ under the pretense that she was the first student I had accepted and had spent several years studying my teachings. LiTing controlled the discussion on soul cultivation by doing her best to answer any of the students’ questions and by asking them questions she felt were worth considering.

In my role as ‘Great Teacher,’ I was a silent observer during the bulk of these discussions. As LiTing and the others debated a topic, I listened to everyone’s opinion, and then after they reached an impasse and couldn’t develop the conversation any further, I would offer an authoritative opinion on the subject.

This position was exactly what I needed because while I had spent a great deal of time studying the various philosophies, I was no expert in them. As LiTing and the others discussed various ideas, I frantically flipped through my mental library to pull up relevant passages from the multitude of books I had stored there.

My ‘authoritative opinion’ was rarely my own. Instead, I almost always just provided a rough amalgamation of the views of various ancient philosophers.

At my insistence, LiTing did not directly advise anyone on which path of soul cultivation they should walk. These needed to be open discussions on the nature of the different paths available and the implications that came from walking them.

I hadn’t expected to gain much from my role as an observer, but the position added a whole new dimension to the way I thought about my knowledge and understanding of the ideas that underpinned the four paths.

The first two days of these classes went well, and everyone made solid progress. The third day, I got an unwelcome surprise. Three new people had joined the group. The fourth day, another five joined.

I wasn’t sure how many people this section of the Path of Soul held, but I was worried that we would soon be overrun, so before starting our lesson, I needed to address this issue.

“Welcome everyone. I would like to know, how did you all learn of this place?”

The leader of the original group, Wu SiDa, stood and bowed.

“Teacher, we have been spreading news of your lessons. Many have found themselves stuck in this place for weeks or months. Your lessons can provide them the hope they need to finally advance.”

I clicked my teeth together several times in annoyance while doing my best to hide any outward signs of it. I didn’t want to deal with this, but… isn’t this what it means to help indiscriminately?

I looked at LiTing. She smiled, nodded at me, and then addressed the group.

“If too many people come here, it would harm both them and us. We will limit our lessons to the fifteen gathered here today.”

Wu SiDa looked like he wanted to say something, but LiTing just continued speaking.

“As Teacher has passed down his lessons to me, and I have passed them down to you, you shall pass them down to any others who come here. Form your own enclaves in the surrounding area and teach those who wish to learn from you. You will find the benefits from doing so will exceed your expectations.”

I didn’t outwardly react to LiTing’s speech, but inwardly, I smiled. It was the best solution. We should offer help to everyone, but that didn’t mean we had to do all the work ourselves.

I had expected us to only spend a few months on the Path of Soul. In the end, we stayed there for over a year and a half.

LiTing was ready to advance far earlier than that, but we had both been making such extensive gains in soul strength from this experience that we decided to remain longer than originally planned. While my heart was set on ascending to Emperor as soon as possible, any gains I made in strengthening my soul were permanent, so this was one of the best ways I could spend my time.

The small community we had started with grew to over six dozen members. Compared to a city, this size was nothing, but it was a group of over seventy Lords. Together, we possessed a combined strength that would rival many kingdoms.

To keep everyone fed, an herbalist started a small garden to grow the ingredients needed for Fasting Pills. This wasn’t ideal since Fasting Pills would harm one’s body if relied on for too long, but it was the best solution available to us. Housing was provided by wood and earth cultivators, and water cultivators made sure we had a supply of clean, fresh drinking water.

The setting was idyllic, and I wouldn’t have minded staying there for years, but we had people waiting for us. We had planned to meet with our classmates after only three months. They had to be worried about us at this point, and there was no good way to send them a message. We needed to leave and reconnect with them.

After a final lesson with our original fifteen students, I stood to make an announcement.

“Tomorrow morning, the First Disciple and I will be continuing down the Path of Soul. We have learned much from each other over the past year, and I hope you will continue passing this knowledge down to your fellow cultivators in the future. I wish you all good luck.”

The men and women scrambled to their feet and gave deep bows. Wu SiDa spoke as their representative.

“Teacher, we will go with you. We are ready to move forward as well.”

I smiled at him. “No. The First Disciple and I have our path. You have yours. We will meet again in the future if fate allows it.”

While having several Lords journeying with us would have certain benefits, I wanted to try and keep a low profile in Profound City.

That evening, before the sun even set, LiTing and I vanished from the encampment. I had felt I needed to say goodbye, but I couldn’t risk anything going wrong with our departure. Outside of our protected enclave, we would be vulnerable, and the soul pressure from the path would no longer provide us with any advantages against those we had been teaching.

We quickly passed through the fourth section, and upon entering the fifth, LiTing didn’t even flinch. We easily ran to the end of the path and found the exit. It was another stone arch.

As we approached, I was wary.

“This is going to teleport us somewhere. I don’t know if we’ll be together or not on the other side.”

“Don’t worry, Teacher. We will be able to handle whatever comes.”

With a quick smile, she rushed into the arch and vanished.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 171 – Life 68, Age 38, Martial Lord 1

Stepping through the stone arch caused my surroundings to flash, but it appeared as if I hadn’t moved. The only changes of note were that the stone arch had vanished and there was now a large desk in the middle of the road with an elderly man sitting behind it. A quick check with energy vision confirmed that this was all an illusion, similar to when I was leaving the Path of Mind in my last life.

The old man’s voice was rough and gravelly.

“Su Fang, you have demonstrated an acceptable level of soul cultivation while on the path. Your efforts to showcase your talents by training and managing others have also been noted. However, in the future, please refrain from doing such a thing on the path as it upsets the balance of these assessments.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he didn’t give me a chance to speak.

“While you have also demonstrated an acceptable level of knowledge in formations, you have not shown any level of martial skills in your current realm. As such, your position in the sect will be reduced to ungraded inner sect disciple. Participate in an Exam at your earliest convenience to have your skills properly assessed.”

Without waiting for my reply, both the man and the desk vanished. They were replaced with a solitary stone arch.

After exiting the arch, I found myself at the edge of a forest on a hill overlooking Profound City. LiTing didn’t arrive until several minutes later.

“How did it go?”

She held up a jade token with the symbol for ‘outer’ on it in reply. She seemed disappointed, but not dispirited.

“Oh… sorry about that.”

“It’s fine. The elder said I hadn’t demonstrated any refining or combat ability as a Lord, so ungraded outer sect disciple was the best he could give me. I just need to spend some time improving in those areas. Then, I can take the Exam and move back up to the inner sect when I’m ready. With my talent in martial arts, core disciple might be a stretch, but we’ll see.”

I appreciated her attitude. “Don’t worry. We’ll be holed up in the city for a while, so you’ll have plenty of time to improve. We just need to make sure we stay safe while doing so.”

She smiled, and we headed down the path to Profound City.

As soon as we entered the city gate, a large, muscular man stopped us. His body was covered in scars, and his face held a perpetual scowl.

When I switched on energy vision, I became worried. I had a hard time differentiating between the various minor stages within the Ruler realm, so I couldn’t always tell someone’s exact cultivation level, but the man before me was definitely a high-level King. He could even be a Peak King.

“Su Fang?”

I could have tried to deny it, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good.

I nodded.

He gave a light snort. “An elder instructed me to retrieve you. You are to come with me to meet with the young master. He has been waiting for you for quite some time.”

What kind of pull did Lord Hao have if he could send a Peak King after me? And an elder told him I was arriving? Wasn’t that ‘interfering in the affairs of the younger generation?’

If my cultivation base were higher, if LiTing hadn’t been standing next to me, I might have tried to resist, but under these circumstances, there was nothing I could do.

I took a deep breath.

“Lead the way.”

The man brought us to a spacious compound on the northern edge of the city.

The entire place was dripping with a sense of superiority. Gaudy decorations made of gold and spirit stones were everywhere, and large statues of essence-infused stone lined the path from the compound’s entrance to the doors of the main hall.

Inside, the hall was empty except for a lone man perched atop a high throne.

It was Ning ChenKun.

I exhaled in relief and did a quick check of his cultivation level. He was near the limits of the Lord realm and would soon be ascending to King.

LiTing and I gave slight bows.

“Greetings, Lord Ning.”

Our guide didn’t seem too happy with the level of respect we were showing. He was about to make his displeasure known, but Lord Ning stopped him.

“Leave us. The three of us need to talk in private.”

Our guide bowed and retreated. Once he was gone, Lord Ning motioned to us with one hand.

“Follow me.”

He led us to a small sitting room where a steaming teapot was already waiting for our arrival. After everyone was seated, Lord Ning steepled his hands and studied us.

“You two look quite different from what I remember.”

LiTing snorted and rolled her eyes at that, but she didn’t say anything, unwilling to speak of how I had altered our appearances.

Noting our lack of comment, Lord Ning continued.

“It took you longer to reach this place than I had expected. Did you get stuck on one of the paths?”

I picked up one of the cups and swirled the tea a bit in thought before responding.

“We used the Path of Soul to aid us in our cultivation. We could have passed through faster, but we didn’t want to waste the opportunity the path provided us.”

Lord Ning didn’t look too happy with this response. Likely, this was because he didn’t like the idea of practicing soul cultivation without the proper libraries and environment. However, he was polite enough not to openly question our choices. Instead, he changed the topic.

“What do you plan to do now? In the past, you had indicated a desire to join my faction.”

I had been thinking about this, and while I did want to work with the man, if I weren’t careful, working with his faction could prove to be too much of a distraction. We could help each other, but ultimately, my goals and Lord Ning’s goals were not the same. I didn’t want to be placed into a subservient position where I would need to advance his agenda to the detriment of my own.

“What would joining your faction look like? LiTing and I need safety to improve our skills, but we aren’t looking to be roped into fights against someone else’s enemies.” I paused and sighed. “I know that is a bit hypocritical since I’m asking you to defend us from our enemies, but that is what I’m hoping for. I can provide your faction with any Rank 4 formations and pills you need. LiTing will soon be able to provide you with Rank 4 refined weapons. In return, keep us safe and don’t let anyone know the source of these items.”

Lord Ning rubbed his chin in thought.

“That is possible. As you may have noticed, my deathsworn are more than capable of providing sufficient protection within the city. Even without them, few would dare to cause a ruckus in my territory. My grandfather is not known for being kind to anyone who targets members of his clan.”

Lord Ning took a long sip of tea as he considered what to offer me.

“Let’s be frank with each other. Your master will soon be replaced. No one knows how the new elder of the Li clan will treat you, but they will almost certainly have some enmity toward your old master. So, it is safe to assume they won’t be overly kind to you. If this situation comes to pass, I would have you consider joining the Ning Clan. The Li’s might not like that, but there is nothing they can do about it while we remain on this continent.”

I schooled my reaction to not betray my thoughts. Why was Emperor Li going to be replaced?

“To that end, here is my offer. You may complete missions for your peak as needed since you will need the points to increase your affinity, but anything extra must be sold to my faction. We will pay you 50% of the market rate, but we can provide you with any materials you desire for free. If you wish to complete a combat mission, you must do so through the faction. Finally, before you ascend to Earth City, you will need to coordinate with us.”

This deal was more than good enough. 50% was a bit low, but if Lord Ning could provide me with an endless stream of Rank 5 herbs to practice with, it would be worth the tradeoff. There were only a couple of sticking points.

“What if you can’t provide us with sufficient materials? I will soon be learning Rank 5 alchemy and will need an excessive number of herbs to do so. While I can assure you that the process will be profitable, it might be a large burden on your supply chain.”

Lord Ning smirked at this. “If you burn through countless herbs with nothing to show for it, we will need to reassess the situation, but if you can provide Rank 5 pills, I can provide you with as many herbs as you desire.”

I bowed my head in assent and moved on to the other important detail.

“I have already promised to provide Zhuge Yan with resources as he forms his own faction. I can do so under the same terms that I provide them to you, but I need to hold to my agreement with him.”

Lord Ning waved this off. “Yan will be joining us as a sub-faction. He is one of us, not a competitor. Do not worry about this.”

“Very well. I accept your proposal.”

Relying on his ‘deathsworn,’ Ning ChenKun had claimed several blocks within the city as his personal territory. To keep us safe, or simply to keep an eye on us, he provided LiTing and me with adjoining apartments in a tall building near the center of this territory, and after I made a request, he even sent one of his deathsworn to train me in Lord-level combat.

Ning ChenKun had his own motivations and aspirations, and I didn’t believe for a second that he did anything out of a sense of altruism, but his actions cemented him in my mind as a reliable business partner. I wouldn’t share any secrets with him, but I could work with him.

With the help of the deathsworn, my combat skills quickly improved, and after a month, I felt somewhat confident in my abilities as a Lord-level fighter.

To test myself and to train further, I entered the Earth Peak Trial and faced off against the first stage’s golem. As it was only a construct, it couldn’t use will-locks on me, but in every other aspect, its capabilities were a large step up from what I had been fighting as a Grandmaster.

While I had only entered the Trial to scope it out and spend some time training my combat abilities, I still should have taken more time to prepare.

My biggest mistake was not replacing my wood-based spirit fire. The Yellow-Rank fire seed in my soul was completely ineffective against this creature, and the fire-based spirit fire I had in my body only seemed to make the situation worse. I could have tried to switch the spirit fire out for something more useful, but I doubted even a metal fire would provide the one-hit kills I had grown accustomed to when using the wood fire on Grandmaster-level golems.

My lack of preparation meant that I wouldn’t be able to end fights quickly, but fortunately, a long-drawn-out training session was exactly the kind of practice I needed.

Using LiTing’s Rank 3 staff, I was able to bash the golem’s formations enough that it finally stopped moving. After it was down, I didn’t even consider advancing to the second stage. Without a way to quickly incapacitate one of my opponents, I would be stuck fighting two of those monsters at the same time, and I didn’t yet have the skill level needed to do that.

Before moving deeper into the Trial, I needed to prepare, so I took the gains I had made and left.

My alchemy and formation abilities were far above anything that could be expected from a new Lord, and my soul was stronger than some Kings. After a couple of months of training with Ning ChunKun’s deathsworn, my combat ability also reached an acceptable level, I was nearly ready to attempt the Exam Trial once more.

Before I did so, I first needed to figure out how I would handle the memory-loss issue.

I could just let it go and not worry about it any longer. After all, it didn’t matter too much what happened inside the Exam, and at this point, I had a decent understanding of how to improve my standing in the sect without relying on any illicit knowledge.

Also, after what had happened last time, was it worth poking a sleeping dragon? I would be watched closely, and the result of trying to smuggle out any kind of information could be catastrophic.

I just couldn’t break the feeling that this was an interesting puzzle I needed to solve. I wanted to give finding out more about the Exam one more chance, but I needed to be smart about it.

“System, I want to upgrade my mental journal so that I can write simple messages in it with only a thought. When I do this, I want the process to be completely undetectable by anyone in this world.”

Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

That confused me for a second, but when I understood, I ground my teeth.

“System, same request except I want the process to be undetectable by anyone in the world except for the incarnation of the Earthly Dao.”

Cost 10,000 credits.

“Purchase.” I spat the words out in annoyance.

Purchase confirmed 6,732,815,588 credits remaining.

The ability I gained allowed me to write simple messages in my journal with just a thought, but when I first tried doing this, I found that my body language was problematic. If I stood still and gazed in the distance while thinking of what to write, it would be an obvious tell that I was up to something. So, I spent several days practicing to make sure I could write a message without any outward signs.

To ensure nothing went wrong, I decided to keep things basic. One message upon entering the Trial to confirm that the journal is working. After that, only essential information would be written down. If nothing important happened and there were just the kinds of tests I had seen in the last set of messages, I wouldn’t write anything at all.

Finally, I made what had become a ritual purchase. I still didn’t know if it did anything, but I wasn’t willing to take the risk of not buying it.

“System, I want a mental reversion point at the time I enter the Exam that automatically activates after I leave it."

Purchase confirmed. Cost 100 million credits. 6,632,815,588 credits remaining.

Prepared as I could be, I went to the Exam site and entered the portal. An instant later, I stepped out and turned to look at the scribe.

“Core disciple 1. Congratulations.”

He spoke with the same disinterested voice as always and quickly exchanged my identity jade before shooing me away.

I would have plenty of time to investigate the benefits of my new position later. As soon as I returned to Profound City, I secluded myself in my apartment and opened my journal to see what I had written.

I’m in.

ENDLESS TORTURE!

DON’T REMEMBER!

FORGET!

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 172 – Life 68, Age 38, Martial Lord 1

I stared at the message I had left for myself.

Torture. Were they torturing everyone during the Exam Trials? Was that the true reason we weren’t allowed to remember anything that happened inside? What was the point of it all?

I had to trust that if I had learned the reason for it during the Exam, then I would have at least written something about it. If I didn’t know why it was happening while inside the Trial, what chance did I have of understanding anything after forgetting everything that happened?

Did it matter? I didn’t like the idea of having been tortured, but I had completely forgotten about it. It was like it had never happened. As long as I wasn’t revealing anything important about the nature of my blessing during the process, which again, I think I would have mentioned in my journal, did it matter?

My body was only a shell that was destined to be discarded. I had a hard time caring too much about what happened to it. I was more curious about their reasoning behind these actions. Why would they torture me? If the process were the same for everyone, why were they torturing everyone who went through the Exam? I couldn’t make too much sense of the situation without more information, and the only way I knew to get that was to advance further in the sect.

However, there was one potential hiccup that worried me. I didn’t know that I could do anything about it, and I would almost certainly have to continue down the same path no matter what, but it would be nice to know the dangers I was subjecting myself to.

But how was I supposed to phrase my question?

“System, beyond the normal effects that I should expect, has my soul been altered or marked in any way by the events inside the Exam? I know that the torture described in my journal would have an effect on me, but has my soul been specifically altered or marked in some way beyond what I should reasonably expect from being tortured?”

Cost 1,000 credits.

That was amazingly cheap. It must be the benefits of asking a question that would have no real impact on my future decisions.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 6,632,814,588 credits remaining.

No.

Good. I could move forward with confidence. If they wanted to mutilate my shell and heal it afterward, I would let them, but I would work to figure out what they learned by doing so.

After having spent several months in Profound City, it was finally time to meet back up with JiaQi, YuLong, and Yan.

We could have sent messages through Lord Ning’s faction to arrange something at an earlier date, but we had already arranged these check-ins ahead of time, and there was no pressing reason to change them. Our groups were moving down two different paths, and while we did have some valuable information to exchange, nothing was time-sensitive.

The morning before our meeting, LiTing knocked on my door. When I opened it, she seemed a bit annoyed.

“What’s wrong?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Have you forgotten something?”

I froze as I tried to remember what she could be talking about. We had been training recently, and I had been doing my best to help her improve her martial skills to regain a position as an inner sect disciple, but I didn’t think there was anything important I was supposed to remember.

Was there something else I had forgotten? Did she think I had forgotten about our meeting with the others?

“I don’t think so? What’s going on?”

She raised a hand and dramatically flourished it while gesturing at her body.

“Notice anything wrong?”

“What… No?”

She ground her teeth and wrinkled her nose in annoyance.

“Look, this disguise was fine for the wilderness, and I understand that it helped us deal with the cultivators on the path more easily, but now we are back in a city. Ning ChenKun is protecting us, so we’re safe. We don’t have to hide our identities anymore. And now, we are about to see our friends for the first time in nearly two years. Change. Me. Back.”

“Oh…”

I hadn’t thought about our appearances much over the last two years. Our new forms were serving us well. I could change us back to our original appearances, but what if we needed to meet with our students again in the future?

“What if our students come to the city looking for us? I know we kind of abandoned them, but they will come to the city sooner or later. If I change us back, they won’t recognize us. Do you really want that?”

Her upper lip twitched, but I could see that my words had a deeper impact on her than she wanted to show.

“If it comes to that… Can you return me to this appearance? Maybe make it so that I can swap between the two myself? That way, I can be myself with our friends, but I can be the First Disciple with our students.”

If she wanted to constantly switch between the two forms, and I had to pay for each transformation, the cost of these disguises would quickly balloon out of control.

Thinking about this, I turned away from LiTing and began subvocalizing.

“System, how much to give LiTing the ability to change between her current appearance and her original appearance anytime she wishes.”

The cost of such an ability is not possible to calculate at this time.

I assumed as much, but it was worth checking. What about the second-best option?

“System, how much for a mask that would make LiTing look like her original self whenever it’s worn?”

The cost of such an item is not possible to calculate at this time.

At first, that didn’t seem fair, but then I realized a possible problem with my request.

“How much if it were only guaranteed to work on people up to the level of a Grandmaster?”

Cost 400,000 credits.

That made me realize what I was asking for. A Grandmaster-level illusion mask.

A mask that only worked on Grandmasters wasn’t good enough for LiTing. She would need one that would be good against Kings and Emperors, and that wouldn’t be cheap. With enough credits, I could buy such a thing, but why buy one when I could make one? I would need Yan’s help, but it should be possible to combine formations and illusions to create such a thing without the System’s help.

Trying to make a mask now would have limited benefits, and even if we were successful, I doubted it would do us much good with our current skill levels. It would be better to wait until we were both Emperors. Then, we could look at making a variety of masks that would be able to fool nearly anyone on the continent.

With a suitable mask being too expensive, I didn’t have any way to give LiTing control over her appearance, so I would need to purchase the change every time. If I promised to change her back and forth upon request, how often would she ask for me to do so? I couldn’t risk letting anyone know about the System and how I accrued credits, but if I didn’t tell her something, she wouldn’t understand the importance of the costs involved.

I looked back at LiTing and considered my words carefully.

“I can turn you back to your original appearance for now, and if you wish to be the First Disciple again, I can change you back to this form, but you need to understand, this isn’t something I’m able to do freely. The cost isn’t too great, but it’s one that is… difficult to recoup. I can make the change when you need me to, but please carefully consider if it is truly important.”

She closed her eyes. “I understand. Please, change me back. I won’t make a habit of asking for this.”

I placed a hand on her shoulder. I felt sorry that I had placed her in this position.

“Go back to your room. Once you’re inside, I’ll make it happen.”

She nodded at me and left.

“System, change LiTing back to her normal appearance.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 150,000 credits. 6,632,664,588 credits remaining.

When we arrived at the meeting point, the other three were already there waiting for us.

The moment JiaQi saw LiTing, she ran over and gave her a big hug.

YuLong also seemed happy to see us, but Yan looked apprehensive.

“LiTing.” He spoke slowly to get her attention. “Who is this?”

LiTing gave me an amused frown, snorted at me, and then turned to Yan.

“That’s Fang. He was willing to return me to my original appearance, but he didn’t do the same for himself. Just ignore him.”

Yan looked at me cautiously.

“That’s no illusion.”

“No, it’s not. It’s a physical change. It’s much safer this way. No one is able to detect that this isn’t my true appearance.”

I could tell he didn’t fully trust me, but with LiTing’s assurances, he was willing to move forward with our meeting.

After recapping everything that happened to everyone over recent years, I pulled Yan off to the side for a private discussion.

“Have you had any luck finding any information on the orbs or anything else that would work?”

He was worried about talking to someone who looked like a stranger. I could tell he instinctively wanted to lie, but since I was the one who brought it up first, he was willing to talk.

“No. There are other ways to… record information, and I’ve looked into using them to assist us, but none are as… useful as the orbs.”

He may have been talking around the main point because he didn’t fully trust me in my current form, but that was for the best anyway. If someone were listening in, we didn’t need to be too overt about what we were trying to accomplish.

“Alright. Once LiTing and I reach Emperor, we can look into the orbs further. You all just need to remain safe until then.”

After our meeting, LiTing and I returned to Profound City and settled in to train. Our goals were ambitious, but with the backing of Lord Ning, we had the resources necessary to make them a reality.

Reach Martial King. Advance our profession skills as far as possible into Rank 5. Improve our combat abilities until we were a match against low-level Martial Kings. Advance our affinities to mid four-star. After we advanced to King, we would be able to raise our affinities all the way to peak four-star, but that could wait until after we arrived in Earth City.

We weren’t in too much of a rush, and once I reached Martial King, I would need to learn a lot about both Rank 5 alchemy and formations, so I could allow LiTing to learn and cultivate at her own pace. I didn’t need to rush her to keep up with me.

As for my cultivation base, while I could have looked into purchasing a large amount of karmic energy directly and rushed to Martial King, I wanted to take things a little slower. Among other things, I wanted to take the time to develop a good sense for Lord-level combat at each stage of cultivation.

As a core disciple, I could enter the Trial more frequently, but I decided against doing so since the high contribution point cost of entering could only be paid with points earned from completing missions. Visiting the Trial more than twice a year would have meant I was spending too much time gathering points and too little time training.

I established a six-month regimen. Every six months, I would advance my cultivation base by one stage, attempt the Earth Peak Trial to gather essence, and spend the rest of my time working on my combat and formation skills.

To help me in these pursuits, I went on a shopping trip to find a new wood-based spirit fire. While I was able to purchase a nice Profound-Ranked one, no Earth-Rank flames were available within the sect.

Since a higher-end four-star affinity would likely be the minimum needed to control one, this wasn’t too much of a loss, but I still wished I could have gotten my hands on one. As they would no doubt be energy hogs, I wasn’t too broken up about not having access to them, but it still would have been nice to have the option.

While looking at spirit fires, I also considered buying another fire seed. The ones available in Profound City were only Yellow-Rank, so they weren’t too useful to me anymore, but it was better to have them than not. However, the rule of only being allowed to purchase a single seed stopped me. I wanted to save that opportunity for a more powerful one higher up the mountain.

After a year and a half, I had advanced to Lord 4. My affinity had not yet broken through to low four-star, but it was getting close. One more trip into the Trial should be all that it would take. I considered asking the System about how much it would cost to upgrade the affinity directly as a way of trying to judge my progress, but I refrained from doing so, better to let it be a surprise.

With everything taken care of, I settled into my cultivation cave and began working to raise my level once more.

Time was ticking away, but I didn’t feel the need to rush. I still had another 30 years left in my hundred-year plan, and as long as I reset in 20, I would have plenty of time to feel comfortable living a final life in the sect. I could take as long as needed to achieve the best results possible from this life. Running up the levels and grabbing credits would be nice, but slowly taking my time to learn everything I was supposed to learn was more fulfilling.

And, with LiTing as my constant companion in recent years, the process wasn’t nearly as lonesome as it had been in the past. It wasn’t like we spent much time together. We were both busy doing our own things, but it was nice to have someone who I could talk to and who understood a little of what I was going through.

For me, time had lost a bit of its importance, but others weren’t so fortunate.

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Chapter 173 – Life 68, Age 39, Martial Lord 4

As I was sitting alone in a cultivation cave working on breaking through to Martial Lord 5, I received a visitor who I had hoped to not meet again until I had enough power to defend myself.

An old, emaciated man walked into my cave. He wore robes of a stunning light blue, and a small gold circlet lay upon his brow. However, his ill-fitting clothing hung limply about his decaying frame.

The last time I had seen Emperor Li, his presence had been imposing, and the mere sight of him commanded respect. There was only a difference of a handful of years between that encounter and this one, but he looked like he had aged centuries in that time. With his sunken eyes and sallow cheeks, a passerby might think he was a walking corpse.

Even in his current state, reading his emotions was nearly impossible. His weathered face looked to be carved of granite. As he opened his mouth to speak, I expected to see chips of a stone facade break free from his face.

“I thought he wouldn’t even let me see you.” His gaze felt as if it were boring into my very soul. “Forcing me to wait until now only confirmed my guess, so maybe it all evens out in the end, but he’s still a bastard.”

I didn’t sense any anger in his voice this time. The words, like his body, were hollowed out.

“You should tell your friend to be a little more circumspect in the future. There are far too many eyes on him to be running around like he is. I’m not the only one who has a brain, you know. If you continue on like this, others will also be able to piece everything together, and I don’t think you want that, do you?”

A ball of fear began to form in the pit of my stomach.

“What do you mean?”

Emperor Li smirked.

He reached into his storage bag and pulled out a table, two chairs, and a tea set. After arranging everything in an instant, he took a seat and gestured for me to sit down across from him.

Knowing what this conversation was likely to be about, I was afraid, but I could deal with it. I didn’t want to die yet, but if this conversation went in the wrong direction, I would do what I needed to do. I could only hope that my improved space affinity would make up for my low cultivation base if he tried to will-lock my poison pill again.

After I sat down across from him, Emperor Li gave me a tired, worn-out smile. As he did, I felt that I could almost see the tether that held him in this world. It was a fraying, tattered thing that looked like it would snap at any time.

“Let me tell you a little of my history. Unfortunately, it is already known by a few others on this continent, and that is where your trouble lies, not with me.”

He swirled his tea and his eyes lost focus.

“I was born on the Central Continent to the patriarch of the Li clan. As the patriarch’s first son, my future was expected to be bright, but it would all hang on the blessing I received upon turning sixteen.” A scowl began to appear on his face. “During the ceremony, a voice spoke to me. Few hear the voice of the Dao during their blessing, you know, so I was exceptionally excited. It asked me one simple question. ‘What is your desire?’”

That ball of fear in my belly grew two times larger. I didn’t know what his answer was, but I understood the implications.

“I answered like anyone would. I had the same ‘desire’ that everyone on this dung heap does. Martial Ancestor wasn’t enough for me. Even Martial Saint wasn’t in my eye. I wanted to reach the fabled realm of immortality and ascend to the heavens. Do you know how that bastard responded?”

I silently shook my head, unable to speak.

“Blessing granted.” Li burst out into a wry chuckle. “I was so excited after the ceremony. I thought I would quickly ascend and become an immortal. My blessing started guiding me, telling me the right time to perform important actions, and pushing me ever further down a path that would see me rise far beyond anything my kin could imagine. I followed its instructions religiously. That’s how I ended up here. Stuck in a backwater where reaching Emperor is an impressive feat and Sovereigns are something out of legend. I’ve been trapped here for centuries.”

Li squinted his eyes at me.

“A few already know this story. You should be safe from old Nine as long as you stay on the continent since he only gets involved when people try to leave, but I can’t say for sure about anyone else. I expect the other Sovereigns to just laugh when I die and call me foolish, but you can’t be too sure. Your only real protection after I’m gone will be the sect’s rules. Jiu won’t let anyone mess with this experiment of his.”

Reaching into his storage bag once more, he pulled out three small boxes and a technique manual and placed them down on the table in front of me. Then, he opened the boxes to reveal three white stones.

“You and that girl you’re with have been obvious enough that it would’ve been hard to hide anything from Jin and little Shen, but I needed their help with these anyway, so it’s fine. Just had to let them make one for themselves too. They’re decent enough people, so you should consider bringing them along with you. That’s your choice, of course. After all, I doubt we could force you to do anything. Even if we wanted to enslave you somehow, the bastard would probably stop us before we could even start plotting such a thing.”

I looked at the orbs in front of me. I could put everything together. I knew what these had to be, but I had to ask.

“What are these?”

Emperor Li snorted at my feigned ignorance. “Memory orbs.”

Panic raged through my entire body, but Emperor Li didn’t care.

“My blessing was supposed to allow me to become an immortal. Tomorrow, I am going to die. In all my time living here, my blessing has never even hinted at a time when I would be allowed to leave this godsforsaken continent, and now I am going to die. Do you know what that means?”

I didn’t respond.

“It means either the bastard was lying to me when he gave me my blessing, which I know he cannot do, or it means he is fucking with time, and the only hint I’ve ever gotten for even a possibility of that happening is you.”

His eyes, which had drifted away during the story, focused on me with a near-religious fervor. “Nothing about you adds up. He assigned you to be my disciple, but I was never allowed to so much as see you. And now, here I am, sent to talk to you right before I die. Even with the most powerful blessing I’ve ever read about, you shouldn’t have any way to save me at this point.”

He gave a mirthless chuckle. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure things out. Others will be able to figure it out too, but they have their heads far enough up their asses that it shouldn’t be a problem for now. You just have to be careful when you go to the Central Continent. Everyone should mostly leave you alone until then.”

I took a deep breath to calm myself. He wasn’t attacking me. He wasn’t trying to destroy me. He wanted something from me. He wanted my help?

My fear ebbed, and I looked Emperor Li in the eye. “What do you want?”

He snorted. “Weren’t you listening? My answer hasn’t changed. Immortality.”

I tapped my cup. “I can’t give you immortality. I’m weaker than you. What do you want now?”

He pointed at the three orbs on the table. “I’m just here to deliver those. Me, Jin, and little Shen. You can decide what to do with them. The book has instructions for making more, but they require both a Formation Emperor and an Artifact Emperor to create. You and that girl should be able to manage it eventually. I can’t believe the bastard gave you someone like her.”

I felt a flash of anger at how he described LiTing, but I wasn’t foolish enough to talk back.

He said he only came to deliver these items, but he had made no move to leave. If he was here, I might as well try to get something useful from him, right?

“You want me to help you reach immortality. Fine. I can do my best to make that happen, but it would help if you could give me something to make that happen.”

“I am about to die. I have no need for any of my possessions. As far as I’m concerned, you can have them all. The only question is if that bastard allows it. Ask for what you want, and we will see.”

Li was a Pill Emperor, so that’s where I focused my requests.

The first request was easy. “Your book on Rank 6 alchemy.”

He quickly took out a book and threw it down next to the three memory orbs.

The next request was one that I was interested in pursuing but hadn’t found the time to research further. “Information on using parts from demon beasts in alchemy.”

I wasn’t just interested in the information. I could buy it for a reasonable price from the System. I was far more interested in learning what a scion of a powerful family from the Central Continent would know about the topic.

Li squinted at me. “Which of my books do you have?”

I felt embarrassed. “Ranks 4 and 5.”

He took out three more books and threw them down next to everything else.

Then, he hesitated and took out several more volumes.

“I almost forgot about these. Little Shen made me promise to deliver them to you. The lazy fool refused to do it himself.”

I wanted to grin excitedly as I looked at the large stack of formation and alchemy books, but I schooled my expression. Books were one thing, but I expected him to have a far more valuable item that I would really like to get my hands on.

“The seed of the Three Thousand Flames Spirit Fire.”

Emperor Li burst into laughter. He pulled out a large jade box and opened it up. Then, he forced an inferno out of his chest and into the box. As he placed this box on the table, he gave me a meaningful look.

“When I die, people are going to be looking for that. You should make sure they can’t find it.”

“How… How much danger will I be in? They won’t be able to find it, but will they do something to me or my friends while they’re looking for it?”

“You’re safe in the sect. They have to play by Jiu’s and old Nine’s rules while you’re here. But if any of you leave, even if you’re still in the sect’s empires, they will come for you.”

Before I could say anything else, Emperor Li stood and returned the table and chairs to his storage bag.

“Looks like that’s all you get. Try not to let the bastard force you around too much.”

A crack in reality appeared directly in front of the Emperor. He vanished an instant later.

Li had given me a lot of valuable information, but I didn’t have time to sit and ponder it. I had to move.

He said he was about to die. After that, how long would it take for someone to realize the fire seed was missing? How long would it take for them to target me and the others?

I raced back to Profound City and barreled into Ning ChenKun’s palace. I didn’t know where to look for him, but the commotion I caused brought him to me instantly. The moment I saw him, I began rambling.

“I need to send a message to Yan, JiaQi, and YuLong. There’s no time to waste. They need to return to the sect immediately. They can’t leave. Not even to go on missions.”

Ning ChenKun’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me.

“What is this about?”

I didn’t know how much I could trust the man, but it didn’t matter. He would find out soon enough.

“Emperor Li is dying.”

I could see the puzzle pieces click into place in his mind.

He snapped his fingers and one of his deathsworn appeared in front of us instantly.

ChenKun addressed the deathsworn, but his eyes never left mine.

“Send the message.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 174 – Life 68, Age 39, Martial Lord 4

I was about to lose my largest backing in this world, and if Ning ChenKun had any ulterior motives, this would be the perfect time to put them into action. He had said he wanted me to join the Ning Clan, but how sincere had he been?

More importantly, by the way I was acting, he would be able to guess a few important pieces of information. He might not know about the Earth-Rank fire seed, but once he learned such a valuable item went missing, he wouldn’t have too much difficulty connecting its absence with my request to have everyone hide away in the sect.

I was in a potentially risky situation, but that was nothing unfamiliar to me. As usual, I would simply use it as an opportunity to test my benefactor’s trustworthiness. I could have acted less dramatically and tried to prevent him from knowing for certain that Emperor Li had given me something of such immense value, but that would have risked my friends’ lives at the very moment I had taken a solid step toward preserving their memories.

As Ning ChenKun looked at me, I knew what I needed to do. I could give him some simple information that should satisfy his curiosity for the moment, and I could figure out an actual plan when I had more time to consider my options.

I took out a piece of paper and wrote a quick note.

Yan. I have what we need. Stop looking. You’re being watched by people who know too much.

I folded the paper and handed it over without sealing it.

“Please deliver that to Yan. It’s important.”

He took the letter in one hand and tapped it against his other palm a few times, but he didn’t look at it. We both knew he would look at it later, but not looking at it in front of me showed he was willing to give me a modicum of courtesy.

“We are now beyond protecting you from a minor Lord of an unimportant clan.”

I nodded gravely. “Don’t worry. I will repay my debt to you.”

He stared at me for a long moment before waving a hand in dismissal.

I didn’t feel the same connection to Ning ChenKun that I did with my friends, but for several lives now, he had been someone I had been able to rely on. Not turning on me when he had to know that Emperor Li had given me some kind of treasure raised my estimation of him yet again. I didn’t necessarily trust him enough to take him back with me, but time and again he solidified himself as someone I could work with.

Being unable to leave the sect didn’t change my life much, but for YuLong and JiaQi, things weren’t so simple. They had been spending most of their time completing combat missions, and that would no longer be possible if they couldn’t visit the empires. All I could do was send them supplies to support their training as best as I could. Since I could only visit Profound City or the Earth Peak, I no longer had any way of meeting with them, so I relied on the Ning faction to ferry packages down to them.

Yan had taken my warning seriously, but he remained in the Academy to complete his Grandmaster-level coursework. There was a risk involved in doing so, but as long as the head of the Academy didn’t turn against him, he would be as safe there as he would be in the sect.

LiTing and I had everything we needed to continue progressing, so we simply bulled forward. I wasn’t willing to explain everything to her, but I did my best to make clear how important it was for us to become Formation and Artifact Emperors as soon as possible.

I wanted to rush things, but I knew that would only lead to a weak foundation. With the experience of past lifetimes and the knowledge contained in Emperor Shen’s books, I felt I had good odds of being able to do my part in making memories orbs even if I rushed, but LiTing was a different story. She was learning high-level refining from scratch, and that took time.

I maintained my six-month routine and reached Peak Lord after three more years. As I did so, I spent a significant amount of my time reviewing Emperor Shen’s books on formations and pushed my knowledge of Rank 4 formations much further than I had thought possible.

The notes he had left me showed that Emperor Shen was a true master of formations. Whether from a blessing or natural talent, he not only knew what to do but also knew how to explain it.

I couldn’t help but wonder why such texts weren’t available to everyone in the sect. With these books, the level of formation knowledge here would soar. There were a few possible explanations for this, but none of them were good. They wanted us to master these skills, but they didn’t want to give us the tools to do it. Why?

Even though I didn’t know why this knowledge wasn’t available to everyone, I still had to thank Emperor Shen for giving these books to me. The sect might not have allowed them to be freely available to everyone, but now that I had them, what I chose to do with them in the future was my decision to make. If I started a true faction of my own one day, they could be invaluable for training my subordinates.

In any case, at this point, I believed that my formation and alchemy skills were near the limit of what a Lord was capable of. There was still the pesky issue of the missing alchemy knowledge the System had hinted at, but I had to leave that for the future. A brief perusal of Emperor Li’s books for the lower Ranks only provided more questions, not answers, and I didn’t need to get side-tracked at the moment. I wanted to focus on pushing further in the sect, reaching Formation and Alchemy Emperor, and making those memory orbs.

I had improved my Lord-level combat skills enough that I was able to reach deep into the Earth Peak Trial, and my soul was more than powerful enough for my current stage of advancement. The only thing I was missing to make me feel like I had ‘completed’ the Lord realm was a maxed-out affinity.

A year earlier, my earth affinity had finally broken through to low four-star, and my control of earth qi increased by an order of magnitude. This didn’t matter too much since a peak five-star affinity was more than enough for anything I needed to do as a Lord, but it did provide a few minor benefits.

When fighting golems in the Trial, my improved affinity gave me a much better sense of how my enemy would react. The golems were powered by formations, and everything they did was controlled through the manipulation of earth qi. My higher affinity helped me better sense the flow of qi in the environment which allowed me to partially predict a golem’s actions based on changes in the flow of energy.

It wasn’t a huge advantage, but it was something.

I had wanted to wait to advance to King until after raising my earth affinity to mid four-star, but Emperor Shen wasn’t responding to my requests for essence this time, and with boosting my affinity being the only important task I had left to complete as a Lord, I decided not to delay any longer. I could work on increasing it further after I advanced.

So, at 42 years old, I broke through to Martial King.

The process had become familiar to me by this point, so advancing didn’t make me overly excited, but I was still happy to return to this level once more.

During these three years, Yan, YuLong, and JiaQi moved up to Yellow City via the Path of Mind and were living in a compound controlled by the Ning faction. While Yan still had a few years left in his stint at the Academy and couldn’t advance to Lord until they were over, JiaQi and YuLong had already ascended and were training their skills as Lords. As soon as Yan’s courses ended, they would ascend to Profound City.

According to my original schedule, LiTing and I would have only stayed in Profound City for at most one more year, but since we could no longer meet with our friends outside the sect, we chose to stay until they arrived. This delay meant not advancing to Emperor as quickly as I had hoped, but a couple of more years here wasn’t much of a problem. It made meeting my deadline more difficult, but we needed to have a face-to-face meeting with the three of them.

That gave me plenty of time to work on improving my skills, and as a King, I had several options for where to focus my studies. However, it only took me a moment of consideration to realize that I had to focus on studying Rank 5 formations before doing anything else. As a core disciple, I was allowed to enter the Earth Peak Trial up to four times a year, but paying for even a single trip had become a true ordeal.

Core disciples had ways of earning contribution points that didn’t exist for others, but they all involved traveling outside of the sect and into the ‘Three Empires.’ For example, by serving as the steward of a kingdom, I could earn contribution points based on the amount of karmic energy the domain generated. I was interested in trying this out, but trapped in the sect as I was, it wouldn’t be possible.

My alchemy skills could already earn me a lot of contribution points, and improving them to make better, more potent Rank 5 pills would exponentially increase that amount. However, Trial runs could only be paid for through points earned directly through sect-related activities. So, while I could earn a lot of points through alchemy, they weren’t useful for my current goals.

Since I couldn’t leave the sect, I couldn’t do any combat missions or formation missions that would require me to travel elsewhere, so there were only two types of missions I could complete.

The first were ones for making movable formation plates. With these missions, I just had to craft the formation in private and deliver it to the Mission Hall. However, since common formation plates, even King-level plates, were available in stores on Dragon Peak, the only reason anyone would create a mission for one was because they wanted something special. Either something more powerful than normal or something with unusual effects. Both possibilities required me to be skilled far above most other Formation Kings.

My other option was to accept teaching missions. As a King-level core disciple, I could charge a high rate for lessons, but my students would be expecting to receive a skilled King-level core disciple if they paid such fees. While I felt confident enough to accept such missions for teaching Lords, I was nowhere near skilled enough with Rank 5 formations to teach other Kings.

So, both mission options led me to the same place. I needed to improve my formation skills.

While I studied formations, LiTing advanced her cultivation and improved her refining skills by leaps and bounds. After she advanced to Peak Lord, she gave me a sample of what she could create.

The Rank 4 crescent moon spade she handed me was a true masterwork. Visually, the only difference was that the heavy ball had reverted back to a more standard spade design, but looking in energy vision, I saw that this staff contained far more lines of power than the previous weapons she had created.

“It looks impressive. What can it do?”

She smiled at the compliment. “I’ve gotten a lot better at mixing durability and sharpness. This version won’t have any problems against Rank 4 armor and weapons. It should also be able to tear apart those Rank 4 rock monsters you were fighting, but don’t expect too much damage against the King-level ones. Unarmored human Martial Kings, though? They won’t stand a chance against it. You also shouldn’t have any problems with it breaking unless you’re up against a Rank 5 weapon or something specifically built to destroy artifacts.”

I grinned. “I can’t wait to try it out. How did your skills advance so quickly?”

“I’ve taken a master. She’s been teaching me a lot that isn’t in any of the books. According to Master Jin, I’ll be ready for the Path of Mind well before JiaQi and the others get here, so I won’t slow you down.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Master Jin?”

LiTing nodded. “Yes, she’s the Master of the Metal Peak.”

I smirked but controlled myself to not give too much information away. I now had a solid guess as to who the owner of the third memory orb was.

“Sounds good. When do you plan to advance to King?”

“Tomorrow.”

After a little more small talk, I was expecting LiTing to leave, but instead, she fidgeted awkwardly with a pensive expression.

“Fang… can you turn me back into the First Disciple? I know you said there was a cost to do so… and I want to look like this the next time we meet with JiaQi, but…”

I waved her concerns to the side. “Don’t worry about it. Once or twice isn’t a big issue. But can you tell me why?”

She hesitated. “The… The School of the Great Teacher…”

I blinked. “The what?”

“The School of the Great Teacher. A few months ago, our students were forced to leave the Path of Soul, so they started a school in the city. I’ve been there a few times, but without us guiding them, the school is starting to fracture into different factions. I want to see if I can help stabilize things. You… you should consider going there too. I’m sure they would want to see you.”

I started clicking my teeth together like I had done as the ‘Great Teacher’ when I needed to fidget but didn’t want my students to see. I needed to figure out how to handle this.

“Don’t worry. Go back to your room and I’ll initiate the change.”

LiTing gave me a deep bow. “Thank you, Teacher.”

Moments after she left, I made the purchase.

“System, change LiTing back into the form of Meng LuYao. Make sure her apparent age is consistent with her cultivation level and previous appearance.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 150,000 credits. 6,482,664,588 credits remaining.

That taken care of, I had to decide how to handle this school.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 175 – Life 68, Age 43, Martial King 1

Out in the wilderness with students who knew nothing about soul cultivation, maintaining the appearance of the ‘Great Teacher’ hadn’t been too difficult. I had several libraries worth of books at my fingertips, and I could use them to address any questions or concerns my students raised. This allowed me to maintain a pretense of knowledge and understanding that I didn’t truly possess.

With everyone having come to Profound City, they now had access to nearly all the same books I did. They might not be as quick at searching through them to find relevant passages as I was, and they might not have read as many of them as I had, but little of my knowledge was unique.

I didn’t consider myself some great sage who could pontificate on weighty matters with nothing but my own reasoning. If I wanted to join LiTing at that school and maintain my image as the ‘Great Teacher,’ I needed to rely on knowledge from greater minds than my own.

To do that, I needed to spend credits, but how many credits would I be willing to spend on such an endeavor? The importance of faction building in the sect was crystal clear, and this school was the closest thing I had to a faction. How many credits would maintaining it be worth?

I had already sunk 2 billion credits into soul cultivation in this life, and doing much more than that was questionable. There was still a lot that I needed to buy if I wanted any chance of pushing the limits of Martial Emperor.

So, before doing anything else, I needed to buy everything I considered non-negotiable. I needed to make all the purchases that I had been holding off on because they weren’t yet entirely necessary. Then, once the essentials were taken care of, I would be in a better place to decide how much I could spend on helping me with the school.

“System, increase my alchemy and formation comprehensions to a total of one billion credits each.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,499,479,989 credits. 4,983,184,599 credits remaining.

“Permanently increase my Water and Metal affinities to mid five-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 700 million credits. 4,283,184,599 credits remaining.

I wanted to increase all my basic affinities to peak five-star, but that would have been another 5 billion, so I settled on evening them all out at mid five. On its own, that wouldn’t be enough to let me concoct Perfect Rank 5 pills, but I already had a potential solution to that problem.

“System, permanently increase my space affinity to peak eight-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1.25 billion credits. 3,033,184,599 credits remaining.

“Permanently increase my karmic energy affinity to peak seven-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 160 million. 2,873,184,599 credits remaining.

I considered boosting my karmic affinity one step higher, but at a cost of a billion credits, I didn’t know if it was worth it. I hadn’t seen too much value in karmic energy affinity aside from it letting me work with more powerful forms of karma at lower cultivation levels, so I held off.

Deciding how to best spend my remaining credits was difficult. Where would they have the most effect, and should I save them for later in case I needed them as an Emperor?

I considered the various options and finally came to a decision. My focus was on making the most I could out of this life, and one option held possibilities the others didn’t.

“System, increase my comprehension of cultivation techniques to a total of one billion.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 999,480,000 credits. 1,873,704,599 credits remaining.

I wasn’t willing to improve the rate of my soul growth since it was better to have it grow slower, but two more purchases held potential. I just wasn’t sure how much.

“Broaden my comprehension for ‘nurturing talents’ to a more general teaching comprehension. Then, boost my qi control and this teaching comprehension to a total of 100 million credits each.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 199,480,000 credits. 1,674,224,599 credits remaining.

Since I would be focusing on teaching the disciples of the school, I considered pushing that one even further, but I didn’t think it would do any good. One of the problems I had found with these comprehension boosts was that they were limited by the information available to me. Without more or better knowledge of teaching methodologies, boosting my comprehension any further would have a limited effect. I could try to research such things myself, but that would take time and effort I wasn’t willing to spend at the moment.

After thinking through my previously purchased abilities, I felt satisfied with where they now stood. Improving my library would be nice, but it was in no way essential. I could either store high-Rank books in my storage space or just pick them up again in my next life, so immediate upgrades there weren’t overly important.

Still, it wouldn’t do to spend everything now only to find out I forgot about something essential, so I needed to retain some credits as a contingency.

“System, save one billion credits. Spend the rest on books for my mental library related to the four paths of soul cultivation. They don’t need to be foundational texts. I want a wide variety of knowledge from many diverse sources. None of the books should be ones found in this world. Focus on quantity before quality. I want at least 20 books, but more is better. None should be worth less than 10 million credits.”

Processing… Purchase confirmed. Cost 674,224,599 credits. 1,000,000,000 credits remaining.

43 books appeared in my mental library.

I didn’t need to rush to the school and talk with my former students right away. LiTing was handling things, and she would let me know if she needed my assistance. Instead, I took my time slowly studying my new texts and considering how to improve the situation at the school.

None of the books I received were from this world, and nothing drove that point home more than the fact that none of them mentioned the need for Rulers to generate karmic energy. Assisting Rulers with gathering energy was a core rationale of pretty much every single philosophical text from this world, even those on Universalism.

Most of these new books did have references to cultivation, and many of them hinted at Rulers drawing power from their subjects, but none of them ever used the term ‘karmic energy.’ While I wanted to explore this mystery more deeply, the only reason I had been able to purchase these texts was because there was no actionable information regarding different cultivation systems in them. If there were, then the price would have been far beyond what I could afford.

Setting the topic of cultivation to the side while making a note to look into it more in the future, I focused on studying how I might be able to help the school. LiTing had given me a basic overview of how everything worked, and I wanted to figure out a way to improve it using the new information I had gained.

As I studied these new philosophical texts, I also continued my study of Rank 5 formations.

During this practice, I took out the alchemy cauldron I had been given during the Fire Peak Trial and looked at it with new eyes. With help from LiTing, I had figured out that the main benefit of it being a refined item was simply an increase in the number of formations it could hold. The base metal of the cauldron was good, but it wasn’t good enough to handle such small-scale formations. The thinner the walls between inscribed lines, the stronger the metal had to be, so a refiner had enhanced this aspect of the cauldron.

As for the formations, most of them weren’t anything special. The formations to increase qi power and control were nice, but I didn’t find them overly meaningful. There were only two formations that I found truly noteworthy.

The first was one I had used previously. It could boost a pill’s efficacy by a small amount as it was being condensed. I found notes about this formation in Emperor Shen’s books, but I still didn’t fully grasp the mechanisms involved. I could recreate it by rote, but I didn’t yet have the theoretical framework needed to fully understand it.

The second formation helped an alchemist with low affinities create Perfect pills. It assisted with the subtle manipulation of medicinal energy and, with enough practice, could be used to control it enough so that even an alchemist with low affinities could attack and destroy all of an herb’s toxins without harming its efficacy.

Neither of these formations had any meaningful benefit to me at this point, but I could see why a normal Grandmaster might want a cauldron like this. If a Lord’s affinities were lacking, they would also benefit from its ability to help with Rank 3 and low-level Rank 4 pills, but the formations weren’t powerful enough to help with anything more potent.

I doubted LiTing’s original assessment that a Pill King would care about such a tool. It was possible, but they would have to be someone with both low affinities and an interest in making Rank 3 pills.

Overall, this particular cauldron wasn’t of much use to me. Its formations provided interesting possibilities for future research, but it was unlikely I would learn anything that could help me personally. The reason for this was simple. If I could create a similar cauldron that was powerful enough to help me with Rank 6 pills, I would likely already have the skills and affinities to do alchemy of that level without a cauldron.

Instead, such an item would see its true value when given to a subordinate. As a city lord, or a faction leader, I could give such cauldrons to low-level alchemists, and they would then be able to create higher-quality pills than normal. After all, as the leader, I couldn’t be responsible for making all the pills my faction might require.

If Pill Kings were interested in this cauldron, that would be why. Not for their own use, but so that they could more easily outsource low-level pills.

Over the course of a year, I made great strides in both formations and alchemy, and I felt I was reaching a bottleneck where I needed a higher cultivation level to proceed any further.

In the Earth Peak Trial, I also made excellent progress. Using LiTing’s Rank 4 staff and a Profound-Rank wood-based spirit fire, I was able to deal enough damage to the golems that I could clear dozens of stages in each run.

LiTing had undersold her staff’s power by more than a little bit. With enough force behind it, I was able to make deep gouges in the rock monsters and cripple them after only a few blows. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a huge step up from where I had been before.

Even so, after she advanced to Artifact King, I asked for her to make me a staff with a heavy ball end again. The spade was nice, but against hardened rock, I needed something with a punch.

The Rank 5 staff she gave me was not what I expected. The crescent head was just as it had been before, but the spade end had been replaced with a large teardrop-shaped head that looked somewhat similar to a claw hammer. With the rounded side, I could bash, and with the point of the teardrop, I could pierce.

LiTing warned me that she was only trying out this design and wanted my feedback on how well it functioned, but I had high hopes. The balance was a bit tricky to get used to, but anything I hit with it exploded.

Using this new weapon, I quickly advanced far enough to raise my earth affinity to mid four-star, and I was making solid progress toward increasing it even further.

I didn’t know if Emperor Shen’s mind was as sharp as Yan’s, but by this point, he had to have a solid guess at why I was insistent on cultivating the earth essence instead of just absorbing it like normal. I had hoped this might lead to him being more generous with the stuff, but after taking him as my ‘master,’ he never spoke to me again. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. It seemed we both got what we wanted out of the deal, and he might have decided to leave well enough alone.

Not too long after I finished studying my new books and had gotten a solid sense of how I could improve the school, LiTing came to see me.

“Teacher, I need your help. There’s been some trouble at the school, and I can’t handle it on my own any longer.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“It’s… Hao MuChen.”

I stared blankly. “Who?”

When I showed no reaction, she clarified. “Hao MuChen… Lord Hao?”

That was a name I hadn’t heard in years.

“He’s causing trouble again?”

“He’s been able to pull off a splinter group from our school and is using them to compete with us. He’s looking to destroy our reputation as the premier soul cultivation school in the city.”

“But… Why? Why would he care? Didn’t Ning ChenKun handle things? Why would he return to bothering us after all this time?”

I had known the school was having difficulties, but I hadn’t known they were coming from Lord Hao. I had made it clear to LiTing that I was available to help, but she had wanted to try and take charge of things personally, so I didn’t involve myself in petty politics. I had only looked at the school from a holistic perspective.

This forced LiTing to need to explain what was happening in more detail.

“Since both of us are working for Ning ChenKun, the School of the Great Teacher has been absorbed into his faction. He’s sent people to protect it and has treated it as part of his territory. At first, that helped us, but now Lord Hao is looking to use the school as a front in his war against the Ning faction.”

“War? Why are they at war?”

“Lord Hao and Ning ChenKun have both advanced to King and are preparing to ascend to Earth City. They’re using this war as a competition to score points against each other before that so they can improve their standing in the sect. Our school is just a small part in this much wider conflict.”

I nodded in understanding. “What do you need me to do? Is there going to be a battle?”

She shook her head. “The factions are proving their skills in martial combat elsewhere. We just need to prove ourselves in soul cultivation. The School of the Great Teacher has become a popular destination for anyone who needs to travel the Path of Soul to reach Earth City. Anyone trained by us will feel beholden to us and will defend us if we are ever in danger. This silently increases the strength of the school and the strength of ChenKun’s faction. We need to prove the School of the Great Teacher is superior to whatever training Lord Hao is providing.”

I considered the situation and nodded. Ning ChenKun had been dismissive of Lord Hao’s clan. That should mean they didn’t have access to much information beyond what was available in the Academy and the sect, giving us a massive advantage.

I gave LiTing the most confident look I could muster.

“That… shouldn’t be a problem. I think I can deal with this problem.”

Then, I changed into solid white robes with black trim and allowed my face to take on a poor mimicry of Emperor Li’s granite expression. I became the ‘Great Teacher.’

“Let’s go.”

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Chapter 176 – Life 68, Age 44, Martial King 1

What should I do to assist the School of the Great Teacher? That question had been running through my mind constantly over the past year.

If they were only facing an internal crisis of confidence, I would have considered not intervening. Such crises can lead to a strengthening of resolve and are a potent way to nourish the souls of everyone involved. Interfering in such a development would have only harmed the students I wished to help.

However, this was not an internal crisis. It was an external force doing their best to lead my students astray. Even though I didn’t have the same attachment to the school that LiTing did, I still didn’t appreciate others messing with something I had helped to build.

If the people attacking the school had been well-meaning scholars who simply thought they had a better method of soul cultivation, I would have seriously considered backing off and letting them poach any students interested in following a different path, but these people were not that. These were avaricious vultures who were looking to carve up my school and harm my students to score points in some meaningless competition.

For a time, I kept wanting to revert back to the mindset that I didn’t need to help these people. They would vanish at the end of this loop, and nothing I did here would matter afterward. As long as I got what I needed from them first, their fates weren’t important.

LiTing broke me from that pattern. I was doing everything I could to bring her back with me, and her position in the school was extremely important to her. Too much of her soul’s development was inextricably linked to the school’s development. Allowing the school to be torn apart would have meant LiTing being torn apart.

I had to help, and once I set my mind on that course, I saw new connections. I needed to help my students. Not for LiTing, but for myself, and for them. Yes, from my perspective, they were living ephemeral lives, but ‘universal love’ still applied. Their lives still had meaning.

As my understanding and resolve grew, I knew I had to help, but I still hadn’t answered the original question. What should I do?

I had spent the last year studying the texts I had purchased from the System to try and find an answer to that question. In the end, the answer I came up with might not be what my students were hoping for, but it was the best one I had.

When LiTing and I arrived outside of the School of the Great Teacher, a crowd had already gathered at its gates.

This was Ning ChenKun’s territory, and it was guarded by Peak Kings who spent all their free time practicing martial combat, so no one was willing to be too disrespectful. However, the crowd was making their displeasure with the school known in more peaceful ways. Since these protesters were all hired by Lord Hao, the displeasure wasn’t exactly authentic, but they were decent actors.

Ning ChenKun could have had this crowd forcibly removed, but that would have been an admission of defeat. As LiTing had told me, this was a battle of soul cultivation, not martial prowess.

With the crowd in the way, going in through the main gate would have been difficult. While this group of weak Lords wouldn’t have been able to stop us, forcing our way through would have only made the situation worse. So, LiTing took me in through a more discrete side entrance.

While Lord Hao’s men had to know of this secondary entrance, they did nothing to blockade it. The only people who would enter through this gate were members of the school, not new recruits. Blocking this entrance would have only disrupted the school’s normal operations to the point where the situation would escalate beyond what either side wanted. Both factions were happy with this remaining a civil, scholarly dispute.

Entering the school for the first time, I was nearly blinded by light reflecting from the bright white marble of the buildings. An earth cultivator had spent far too much time crafting and carving an ostentatious facade for what was supposed to be a simple place of learning.

If this were a show of wealth, it would have bothered me, but that wasn’t what this was. As LiTing explained, the school’s students, inspired by our original homestead on the Path of Soul, had spent their own time and energy designing this complex as a show of respect.

While I had been having trouble connecting with the students here, this gesture touched me. It wasn’t respect toward me. It was respect toward something I had created, and that made it all the more meaningful.

As we walked through the halls of the school, everyone we passed bowed deeply to LiTing, and I could only sense deep feelings of admiration and respect from them. Their trust in her was such that they didn’t even question the stranger following her.

She brought me to a conference room where a group of people were in the middle of a heated argument. The moment we stepped in, everyone fell silent.

The room had seventeen chairs, all of which were filled except for the two at the front of the room.

In silence, LiTing and I calmly walked in and sat down. With us there, no one wanted to be the first to speak, so I carefully examined everyone.

I pointed to three people. “I don’t recognize you. Who are you?”

The original spokesman for my students, Wu SiDa, stood and bowed.

“Great Teacher, three of your original students have abandoned us and joined those who wish to see our school destroyed. These three were students of those traitors and have taken over their former teachers’ positions as heads of their classes.”

I studied these three new disciples carefully. As direct disciples of traitors, I would have a hard time trusting these three, but I wouldn’t reject them immediately.

After a bit of contemplation, I nodded and turned to address the entire group.

“I’ve studied the situation the school is in carefully. After considering the options available to us, I have decided that the School of the Great Master must close its doors. We must not enroll any new students.”

Everyone’s mouths dropped in shock, but one of the three newcomers erupted in anger.

“What do you mean!? Who are you to make such a decision? Are you trying to ruin us?”

I raised a hand to quiet him.

“I will explain. After studying the school and how it operates, I have discovered a serious problem. You are all relying on teaching lessons in soul cultivation to earn contribution points so that you can buy the karmic energy needed to push yourselves through the Lord realm and beyond. This is destroying your foundations.”

Being the group’s recognized leader, Wu SiDa was the first to respond.

“Teacher, what do you mean? Are we not supposed to use our lessons to earn points? Countless people need to improve their souls and there are very few places where they can go to learn how to do that. These lessons have been a great boon for us all.”

I looked at him, trying to convey a kind expression.

“I know, but you must understand the truth of matters. Teaching soul cultivation is itself a form of soul cultivation. If you are only teaching to earn a profit, that will become an indelible part of who you are. It will twist your soul into something you won’t be able to recognize.”

I gave everyone the weightiest stare I could manage.

“This is one of the reasons so few are willing to teach soul cultivation. It must be done carefully and deliberately. Otherwise, the teacher will only find their soul corrupted. By closing the school to new students, we can take the time we need to refocus and ensure everyone is walking a proper path.”

The man who had been shouting at me before stood.

“I’ve never even seen you before, and now you think you can close down the school with just a word. This will not stand!”

I gazed at him calmly.

“I am the Great Teacher. This is the School of the Great Teacher. Its gates are now closed. Anyone who cannot accept this is free to leave.”

The man looked at his compatriots, but none of them were willing to meet his eye, not even the other two newcomers.

Turning dramatically and twisting his robes, the man stormed out of the conference room.

I let my eyes roam across the fourteen remaining students. My words had shaken them, but no others were willing to abandon their positions.

“Call a meeting of all the school’s students. I will address everyone.”

When I entered the school’s grand hall, all the students were already waiting for me. I walked to the center of the dais at the front of the room and kneeled on a cultivation mat while nearly a hundred pairs of eyes watched my every move.

“Hello. This is the first time I have met most of you, but I will do my best to guide you all in the coming years. I am the one you call the Great Teacher.”

This caused looks of excitement to appear on many faces, but not all. Most of the people here were low to mid-level Lords who would need a long time before they were prepared to ascend the mountain any further, so they would readily accept anything that may make that wait shorter. The few in the crowd who had already reached King were less inclined to accept any changes that could delay their ascent, especially when it came from an unknown source.

“I have called you all here today to make an important announcement.”

In the middle of my speech, a shout rang out from the back of the hall.

“He’s shutting down the school! He’s destroying the work of all the students and teachers who have spent years building it up!”

Three men walked in through the hall’s entrance. One was the man who had stormed out of the meeting earlier, and another was one of my former students who had abandoned the school.

The third man was someone I didn’t recognize. A quick check showed that he was a Martial King. I felt everyone in the hall tense, and I could only hope that this wouldn’t turn into a battle.

Instead of responding directly, I simply watched and waited as the three men walked through the gathering of the students and stepped onto the dais. They loomed over my kneeling form, but after a quick sneer, they turned as one and looked out across the gathering, and the man I didn’t know addressed the audience.

“I am Hao MuQin, brother of King Hao MuChen. We have been working tirelessly to save everyone who was fooled into coming to this school, and now even its founder has to admit his incompetence. Come with me, and I will take you to the School of True Soul. We will teach you how to cultivate properly.”

The audience was stunned into silence, so I used that moment to add fuel to the fire.

“Anyone who wishes may leave and join them. We will not stop you. However, you should be aware. After today, the school’s gates will be closed. We will no longer accept any new disciples. If you leave, you will not be allowed to return.”

The crowd burst out in murmurs, but the man who had stormed out of the meeting earlier in the day spoke up to silence it.

“I have already resigned from my position as mentor and joined the School of True Soul. I encourage all my disciples, and everyone else who is willing, to follow us out of this pit. This place does not value talented disciples properly and cannot provide you with what skilled cultivators truly deserve. Abandon the darkness and join the light.”

I turned my head to him and gave a slight bow before speaking to the crowd of students.

“That is true. This is a small school, and we do not have room for one as great as he is. If anyone else believes they are too big for this place, I would suggest they leave as well.”

The man’s nostrils flared in anger at my words, but Hao MuQin put a hand on his shoulder to calm him.

“Great Teacher, please do not be so petty. He speaks only the truth.” As I was considering a retort, he turned and addressed the crowd. “I would challenge the Great Teacher to a friendly competition so that we can resolve our differences and show the truth of things.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What do you have in mind?”

“I believe nearly everyone here is a Daoist. We shall each give a dissertation on the nature of the Dao. Our audience can then decide whose words hold more truth in them.”

My response was instantaneous. “The Dao that can be told is not the true Dao.”

He snorted. “So, you refuse to even compete?”

“Such a competition is meaningless and counterproductive. Discussing the Dao takes time and dedication. I refuse to partake in cheap spectacle that will only harm my students’ foundations.”

Hao MuQin grinned. He must have felt that he scored a point against me in that exchange.

“Very well then, a compromise.”

He reached into his storage bag and pulled out two large metal plates with countless inscriptions carved into them. A single glance told me they were Rank 6 formations, but without days, possibly years of study, I wouldn’t have any chance of deciphering them.

“If you refuse to discuss the Dao, then we can compete more directly. These are two simple formations that will generate a suppression field similar to the Path of Soul.” He looked out across the crowd. “At our school, students use these to bolster the speed at which they cultivate their souls.”

I noticed several flickers of interest at these words, especially amongst the Martial Kings.

He then took out two cylinders and placed them onto the plates.

“While the standard suppression field works only off of ambient energy, by filling these cylinders with spirit stones, the effects of the field can be magnified several times. The more spirit stones in the container, the stronger the suppression field. Whoever can withstand the highest pressure will be the victor.” He gave me a dismissive look. “This is a standard form of competition amongst soul cultivators.”

As I had never heard of such a competition, I really wanted to ask where it was a standard form of competition, but I held my tongue. I couldn’t broadcast my weaknesses like that.

Instead, I just nodded. “I accept.”

We both took up positions on a formation plate. Once they were activated, I cocked my head. Even though it was a Rank 6 formation, the effects were rather limited. These plates couldn’t even compete with the final parts of the Path of Soul on the way to Profound City.

Hao MuQin waved a hand, and my former student who had been silently standing behind him the entire time pulled two buckets of spirit stones from a storage bag.

“Let’s start with 50 stones.”

My former student poured them into my cylinder first. The moment he did, the field around me became several times stronger, and I instinctively winced at the increased effect.

Hao MuQin smirked at my pain, and when the stones were poured into his formation’s cylinder, he didn’t show any signs of discomfort.

Before I had fully adjusted to the new pressure I was under, he pounced on my slight disorientation to increase the stakes of our competition.

“Why don’t we make this interesting? My brother would like to meet you. If I defeat you here, you will come with me to have a talk with him.”

I considered the offer and eventually smiled. “Fine. But if I win, these two formation plates belong to me.”

While I had Emperor Shen’s book on Rank 6 formations, a single book couldn’t possibly contain everything, and having two working formations to study could be invaluable, even if their use in soul cultivation was not nearly as beneficial as my opponent claimed.

Hao MuQin gave an amused laugh. “Very good. My brother will award me well for this.”

He turned to my former student. “100 more stones.”

With the addition of the extra spirit stones, the formation’s effects jumped once more, but I was prepared for it this time. While it was powerful, it was nowhere close to my limit.

Looking at my competitor, I raised an eyebrow in surprise. Again, he showed no reaction to the additional suppression.

While I could resist this formation without much trouble, LiTing would have had a hard time even sitting up straight under its pressure. Was Hao MuQin’s soul really that far beyond hers? It was possible, but something about this entire situation seemed suspicious.

I tossed LiTing a storage bag.

“Add 200 more stones to each cylinder.”

As she did so, Hao MuQin only snorted in amusement. I expected him to try and stop her, but he only checked to make sure she did the job properly.

The intense pressure from the added stones nearly made me bow down, but after a minute of adjustment, I returned to normal. My opponent still showed no reaction.

That meant the spirit stones weren’t the problem. Either Hao MuQin had a much stronger soul than I had expected, or the formation plates were somehow rigged.

I used energy vision and stared at the two cylinders. It was difficult to see anything through whatever metal they were made from, and standard qi vision wouldn’t have been able to manage it. However, my energy vision was able to show me just enough that I could figure out what was happening.

My cylinder was empty. All the spirit stones that had been placed inside it had turned to dust and their energy was empowering the formation. Hao MuQin’s cylinder, on the other hand, was more than three-quarters full. None of the stones had been consumed.

I smiled and turned to LiTing.

“Add 500 more to each cylinder.”

Hao MuQin finally reacted.

“What? You can’t be serious. That will cripple you.”

I waved him off. “No need to worry. I’m perfectly fine.”

His right cheek twitched in anger as he tried to find a solution.

“Fine, but she has to add them to yours first. If you can’t withstand the strain, then I win.”

I smiled and motioned to LiTing who stepped forward and poured a small mountain of spirit stones into my cylinder.

The pressure on my soul skyrocketed, and I could barely withstand it. The edges of my soul began to crack and fray, but the shielded core provided a strong support that kept me lucid.

After several minutes, I was able to gather myself.

I turned to my opponent.

“It’s your turn.”

LiTing moved to add the stones to his cylinder, but Hao MuQin looked at my former student.

“Stop her. Don’t let her approach my formation.”

I looked at him with false concern.

“Oh? So, you’re conceding the match?”

He looked like he wanted to spit venom, but he didn’t have a good response. Either he let LiTing add the stones, and everyone saw them overtop his cylinder, or he refused to let them be added and conceded.

With a growl of frustration, he turned to the two who had followed him in.

“Let’s leave this sorry excuse for a school.”

Without looking back, Hao MuQin stood and stormed away.

I looked at the students assembled before me.

“Anyone who wishes may follow him. As I said before, I will not keep you here against your will. However, before you leave, understand that doing so will be permanent.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 177 – Life 68, Age 46, Martial King 1

Even before rejoining the School of the Great Teacher, my martial and formation skills were near the limit of what I could accomplish as a Martial King 1, so during my time there, I shifted my focus more toward alchemy.

When I did, my sizable boost in comprehension showed its effects, and I was able to rapidly absorb the information in Emperor Li’s books. The rate at which I unlocked new knowledge made me feel as if I had previously been working with one hand tied behind my back. However, that time and hard work hadn’t been completely wasted. It allowed me to slowly construct a firm foundation upon which this new information could be built.

The biggest hurdle I had to overcome with Rank 5 alchemy was concocting Perfect pills without peak five-star affinities. This was possible, but only barely. I had to combine my mid five-star affinities, my enhanced qi control from my powerful soul, my space affinity, and my King-level will-locks. Using all these abilities at the same time was mentally exhausting, but it got the job done.

Unfortunately, my limited affinities with the secondary elements limited the pills I was able to concoct. Even with those I could make, too much of my time and energy was spent on removing toxins, so their efficacies were nothing overly incredible, but a Perfect pill was a Perfect pill. If a single pill wasn’t effective enough, then just take a second one.

With my recent purchases of multiple comprehension boosts, it didn’t take long for me to reach the point where I felt that all of my skills were being held back by my continued stay in Profound City and my lack of karmic energy, but I was still unwilling to leave without talking with Yan and the others first. So, I dedicated most of my time to training the school’s students.

At first, I had only planned to guide them in soul cultivation, but I found that too many had already been focusing too heavily on only this one area of development. I couldn’t help everyone with everything, but I could assist the alchemists and formation specialists to begin integrating the studies of their professions into their work with soul and qi cultivation.

Improving one’s soul improves one’s qi control. Improving one’s qi control improves one’s ability to perform alchemy and carve formations. Practicing such skills with focus and dedication can improve one’s soul.

Everything was connected. Maybe it would be better to say that everything could be connected. Improving my soul through alchemy alone wasn’t the right path, but spending all of one’s time alone in a room reading philosophy books wasn’t much better.

Instead of separating off the different skills into distinct, individual silos, I wanted to find a way to steadily improve all of them with a unified, holistic approach. This was only the first spark of an idea, and while all my comprehension bonuses helped, I didn’t have the experience or knowledge needed to completely design such an ambitious educational framework. However, my time at the school gave me valuable insights into how to better train myself and others.

In the time that I wasn’t training others or improving my alchemy, I dedicated myself to pushing my earth affinity to peak four-star. I could enter the Earth Peak Trial a maximum of four times a year, but I needed a large number of points to make that happen, so most of my free time was spent completing missions to earn contribution points.

The more experience I got in the Trial, and the better the weapon LiTing could provide me with, the deeper I was able to push. During my two-year stay at the school, I was able to raise my earth affinity to high four-star, and I made meaningful progress toward pushing it even further.

This slow life as the Great Teacher finally came to an end when Yan and the others arrived in Profound City.

After talking the situation over with LiTing, we decided I needed to make a purchase to set everyone’s minds at ease during our meeting.

“System, temporarily change LiTing’s and my appearance to match what we would naturally look like. After twelve hours, I want our appearances to revert back to their current forms.”

Purchase Confirmed. Cost 450,000 credits. 999,550,000 credits remaining.

I could have stayed in my Chen WuJing guise for our meeting, but Yan’s reaction to it last time had been uncomfortable. This would be the first time we had seen each other in years, and afterward, we wouldn’t be seeing each other again for several more. Arriving as myself was the only thing I could do to make this reunion feel more meaningful.

At my insistence, LiTing and I met Yan, JiaQi, and YuLong near the city’s gate and quietly led them to Ning ChenKun’s section of the city.

We did not speak or make any overt displays of affection during this time. We silently greeted each other and kept a wary eye out for anyone who might try to sneak attack us during our short journey.

Once everyone was inside my apartment, JiaQi made to rush toward LiTing, but I held up a hand to stop her. I gathered everyone in the center of the room and activated a series of Rank 5 formations to guard us against any eavesdroppers.

I had wanted to purchase something from the System to make our meeting more secure, but my formations were solid enough that anyone at the level of Martial King or below wouldn’t be able to listen in without us knowing about it. They wouldn’t do much against an Emperor, but purchasing something to protect us from an Emperor was also beyond what I could get from the System.

Besides just formations, I also looked into other potential ways for us to communicate more securely. These ranged from limited forms of telepathy to books that only the five of us would be able to read. There were possibilities, but the same limitations seemed to hold true for all of them. If they could protect us against an Emperor, they required Emperor-level prices.

After a lot of brainstorming, I only found one truly secure way to tell my friends anything, and that was to do it at the very end of my life. I could pass them vital information, and then they could store the knowledge of it in a memory orb to be reabsorbed during their next life. It would be an incredibly secure method of information transfer, but it wasn’t something that was available to us for the time being. We would just have to be careful with what we said.

Once I was confident we were as protected as I could make us, I opened my hands and smiled.

“Alright, we can talk now. If an Emperor or higher is watching us, I can’t do anything to stop them, but we’re as safe as we’re going to get.”

Instantly, JiaQi rushed and hugged LiTing. “I’ve missed you so much.”

As the two women talked excitedly, I looked at YuLong. He was no longer the excited young man in my memories. Being trapped within the sect had worn on him, and I could sense a feeling of deep frustration.

Because of Yan’s identity, he had been forced to join the sect when he wanted to go home and see his parents. Now, because of me, he was trapped within the walls of the sect and was unable to leave for any reason. To add to that, I hadn’t been willing to explain anything about what was going on.

Yan knew about the time loop, so he was able to plan around it. YuLong didn’t. He had to feel that his one and only life had been destroyed because of his classmates. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how to do so. The only way to fix the situation was to explain everything to YuLong, but doing so now was far too risky. I just hoped that he could hold out until the end.

Mustering a bit of courage, I walked over to YuLong and put an arm around him.

“I’m sorry.”

He silently bowed his head.

There was more I could have said, but I couldn’t say what was needed. I had to hope he would understand. And even if he didn’t, this life would only last a few more years. He just needed to hold out until it was nearly over.

Once the greetings were out of the way, we sat down around a table and began discussing what happened to everyone over the past few years.

I wanted to tell them everything about Emperor Li and my time loops, but I couldn’t. Instead, we simply spent time talking about trivial things, telling each other about what we had been up to and small things that had happened along our journeys.

Since YuLong and JiaQi had been getting restless from being trapped within the sect and not being able to do any combat missions, they had started teaching martial arts lessons. With the help of their blessings, they had both become quite popular as Lord-level trainers. Even if their cultivation levels were lower than others, their raw skills were among the best.

These missions provided them with enough resources to be able to enter the Trials for a bit of extra exercise, and now that they had LiTing’s newest weapons, they would be able to tear the Trials apart.

Since they had only been absorbing essence and not cultivating it, they had long since maxed out their rewards from the Lord-level Trials. However, as it was the only place they could gain real combat experience while stuck in the sect, they kept returning there to hone their skills further.

After YuLong and JiaQi were done with their stories, Yan told us a bit about his classes as a Grandmaster. His story made me somewhat glad I had skipped over those lessons as they sounded like long years of drudgery with few rewards. However, after his first cohort of Masters completed their first term, he retook the sect’s Exam and was promoted to a core disciple.

As a Martial Lord 1 core disciple, he was in an ideal position to become a steward for one of the cities under the sect’s control. Yan believed this to be a crucial step on the path of becoming a chosen disciple, and it was the path both Ning ChenKun and Lord Hao were walking. However, he also made it clear that no one had any true understanding of what qualified someone for the status of ‘chosen.’

Unfortunately, as we were all stuck within the walls of the sect, he couldn’t take advantage of this opportunity. I felt a tinge of bitterness from him, but he had already come to accept that this life was a sacrifice toward something greater. I was beginning to feel he believed that even more than I did.

While he couldn’t become a city lord, he planned to study the position in depth. He wanted to figure out which cities provided the best opportunities for advancement and learn any information that could help him realize those opportunities. He was also consulting with Ning ChenKun and had been offering his advice on different courses of action ChenKun could consider.

His dedication to this topic seemed to confuse the other three, but they knew enough not to ask any deeper questions.

Once our group discussion was winding down, I pulled Yan away for a quick, private discussion. I took out the manual for making memory orbs and showed it to him.

“LiTing and I need to reach Martial Emperor. Then, we can start making these. I’ve tried to read it, but right now, it’s completely incomprehensible to me. I can’t even figure out what materials will be required. I will have to improve both my cultivation and formation skills before I can even begin to decipher it.”

Yan nodded, reached into his storage bag, and pulled out a piece of paper with a list of cities, kingdoms, and empires on it.

“I’ve been looking into the essence cultivation techniques you wanted. I haven’t been able to get my hands on one yet, but these are the locations where I suspect a few of them to exist. I’ll keep digging, but it’s hard to get much solid information on them while trapped here.”

At a quick scan, I noticed a couple of familiar names, including the Brilliant Sun Empire where I acquired my spatial fire seed. According to Yan, one of its powerful noble clans possessed a fire essence cultivation technique. That was a high-priority target, but acquiring it would have to wait until I could travel about more freely.

“Thank you.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “LiTing and I are going to be heading up the mountain. I don’t know when we’re going to be able to see you all next, but I don’t plan to leave Earth City. We’ll wait for you there. If you need anything after we’re gone, just let the faction know. I’ll do what I can to help.”

The day after meeting with our friends, LiTing and I departed Profound City.

We left the city gate as a group of nine. Six of our companions were students from the school who were ready to ascend the mountain, and the last was one of Ning ChenKun’s deathsworn. He was a Peak King who had broken through without using karmic energy. His future advancement would be limited, but he would still be able to advance to a low-level Emperor after reaching Earth City.

Ning ChenKun had already made his way to Earth City earlier in the year, and this guard was someone he had left behind to help protect us. Now that we were advancing, he would be rejoining his master.

LiTing, me, and two of our students walked toward the Path of Mind while everyone else went to the Path of Soul. If the soul path were like those further down the mountain, the five of them would be able to stay safe by looking out for each other. We wouldn’t be so fortunate on the Path of Mind, but as long as no one made any mistakes, we shouldn’t be in any danger.

To give us an added layer of protection, I created a set of primitive communication formations that might allow us to coordinate as we walked the path. When qi was pushed into one of them, the other three would resonate in harmony, causing them all to light up and emit a buzzing sound. In the future, I hoped to be able to develop them further so that we could transmit messages, but the sensitivity required for that would need a Rank 6 formation at least.

The usefulness of such a formation on the path was questionable. I didn’t know if we would be close enough to each other for the formations to work, and I didn’t know if there would be anything in place that could block their signals. Even if everything worked perfectly, if the ‘holding areas’ we were each sent to for failing a test weren’t the same, coordinating would be meaningless.

However, I still handed them out. They might not be useful, but it was worth a try.

I also gave everyone a few other formation stones that I thought might be helpful. Unfortunately, we could only base our preparations on what we had faced on the paths lower down the mountain.

Just like it had been on the way from Yellow City to Profound City, the entrance to the Path of Mind to Earth City was a tunnel. After a short walk, we entered a hub room where a set of eight arches were labeled with each of the different professions.

I looked at each of my companions.

“Remember, if you are forced into the holding area, send a signal with your stone. Let’s try to help each other succeed.”

Everyone, including LiTing, bowed to me. I nodded, and we each set off in a different direction.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 178 – Life 68, Age 46, Martial King 1

I had two options for which set of tests I could take on the Path of Mind, formation specialist or alchemist. As a member of the Earth Peak, I should have taken the formation specialist route as it had been made clear in my last life that walking a path other than the one connected to my peak would negatively impact my position within the sect.

However, I wasn’t overly concerned with my position any longer. I only desired to reach Earth City safely. If doing so meant losing my position as a core disciple, that would be fine.

While I believed my formation and alchemy skills were at about the same level, I didn’t have a solid way to quantify my level of expertise with Rank 5 formations. The ability that let me evaluate formations only worked on those Rank 3 or below. So, while I was confident in my abilities, without hard evidence of my skill level, I was still slightly concerned.

With alchemy, while I didn’t have an evaluation skill from the System, I had gotten good enough at appraising pills without one that I had a decent understanding of how my pills compared with other Pill Kings. While I wasn’t completely happy with the efficacy levels of my Rank 5 pills, they were still far better than what others at my cultivation level were producing. So, if it were possible for a Martial King 1 to complete the Path of Mind as an alchemist, I was confident I would be able to do it.

Additionally, while this path may have some differences from the one to Profound City, I still had a decent idea of what to expect in the test for alchemists. So yes, while I would probably be able to pass the formation specialist tests, I didn’t want to risk the unknown when I was so close to my ultimate goal.

With these considerations in mind, I walked through the arch for alchemists.

Instead of the musty cave from the previous version of the Path of Mind, this tunnel led out onto a clifftop high up on Dragon Peak that overlooked the surrounding landscape.

When I exited the cave to this sight, all I could do was stare in wonder.

While I had been living in Profound City for years, I had never really registered that I was high up on a mountain. Everyone there was trapped behind the city walls, so there were no grand vistas like this to look out on.

Standing on this plateau, I looked out at the world around me. Far below, I saw the distinct outlines of both Mortal and Yellow City. They were tightly contained enclaves with no buildings outside their city walls. All the land around them had been claimed by the wilderness.

This ignited a new drive inside of me. I had contained myself within the walls of various cities for centuries, but I had never spent any time exploring the world or looking into its mysteries. I had become little more than a homebody while this wonderful world awaited me.

As I looked out on the surrounding landscape and these thoughts flashed through my mind, I struggled to pull myself back to the present.

Not now, now wasn’t the time to run off on some crazy quest of exploration. I had responsibilities to my friends to take care of and debts to repay. I could think about exploration in the future.

I worked to rein in my thoughts, but my feet had already started moving. I stepped up to the very edge of the cliff and looked down at the world below me.

A sudden question popped into my mind and escaped my lips before I could stop it.

“Can I use a will-lock to fly?”

Well, not fly, but will-locks lock down space in a given area, right? What if I will-locked my feet in mid-air? Would I be able to hover above the ground? Could I use it as a way to walk on air?

I wanted to pick up a foot and try stepping out off the cliff and into the void. What was the worst that could happen? Death? I probably wouldn’t die. I had never tried it before, but even from such a height, I might still be able to reinforce my body with enough qi to survive the fall.

And even if I couldn’t, death wasn’t such a big deal. I would just come back. I wouldn’t have lost anything important.

No.

My mind rebelled at that thought. I couldn’t die until I had preserved my friends’ memories. What was I doing?

My eyes narrowed, and I stepped back from the cliff with a growl.

This ‘Path of Mind’ had hidden daggers that the previous one didn’t. I knew the sect played mental tricks in the Exam, so I should have been expecting this, but my previous experiences had made me far too complacent.

While I didn’t like my mind being toyed with, it at least confirmed something I had speculated about previously. Soul strength was not sufficient to protect me from mental attacks. I didn’t yet fully understand what the ‘mind’ was, but I knew my thoughts could be affected by both changes to my soul and changes to my ‘energy body’ through the mental effects of cultivation techniques.

As far as I could tell, my ‘mind’ was an amalgamation of the impulses of my soul and those of my body. Even though my soul was becoming extremely overpowered for my level, my body was still a weakness that could be targeted.

I quickly flipped on energy vision and surveyed my surroundings once more.

I couldn’t help but smirk. While the sights around me were impressive, everything I was seeing was an illusion, including the alchemy workbench perched precariously on the edge of the cliff.

Knowing that none of what I was seeing was real, I felt a faint sense of regret, but I was able to return to the job at hand.

Further examining my surroundings, I found the passage to the ‘holding area.’ It was an arch set back into the mountain and led to what looked like the same dense jungle as last time.

Reaching into my storage bag, I took out a formation plate and placed it in front of this arch. This plate would not only stop anyone who might try to pass through, but it would also stop any noises or disturbances from reaching me. This was one of the formations I had prepared for everyone just in case it was needed.

After it was in place, I turned to the alchemy workbench and got to work.

The alchemy tests on this Path of Mind could be considered difficult, but they were no match against the preparations I had made.

During the ninth test, I did meet one stumbling block where I was required to make a pill that I was unfamiliar with, but a quick check of Emperor Li’s book told me everything I needed to know, and I completed it without issue.

Whether because no one else had any problems or because my formation stones simply weren’t working, I never got a signal that anyone needed assistance, so I rapidly completed each task set before me.

After completing the required pill for the tenth test, I sat down and waited an entire day before submitting it. This was our group’s plan. We would all stay on the path for at least three days in case anyone needed assistance.

As I waited, I couldn’t completely resist the mental pull from the exam, and I spent a long time admiring the view the sect had created for me, but I no longer felt the urge to try and fly.

By the end of the third day, no one had signaled a need for help in the holding area, so I turned in my final pill and walked through a stone arch that brought me before one of the sect’s elders.

He gave me an impassive look. I got the feeling that he didn’t want to waste any time on me.

“Disciple Su Fang, you have proven your skills as a King by completing missions for the sect, fighting in your Peak’s Trial, and teaching others about soul cultivation. However, you have failed to complete the necessary requirements for remaining a core disciple. As such, you will be demoted to a grade 3 inner sect disciple.”

Before I could respond, the token at my waist flashed and was replaced with one marking me as a member of the inner sect. Then, the elder vanished and a new stone arch appeared in front of me.

“He didn’t even tell me what ‘requirements’ I didn’t meet.”

I grumbled to myself, but I didn’t mind overmuch. I might have been demoted for not taking the formation tests on the path, but I doubted it.

My bet was that I was demoted because I didn’t become a city lord. That was supposedly a key feature of Lord-level core disciples, and I had skipped over it and stayed within the sect’s walls. I could investigate this more in the future, but the only real loss I suffered was not being allowed to enter the Earth Peak Trial as often.

Shrugging indifferently, I walked through the arch and exited the Path of Mind.

I found myself in a small clearing in the lee of a giant brown wall.

LiTing was already waiting for me, but instead of addressing her directly, I looked around, trying to get a view of the surrounding landscape.

Earth City was high up on the mountain, and the clouds were nearly close enough to touch. After my time in the illusions of the Path of Mind, I wanted to see what the land below us would look like from such a vantage point.

I knew that this desire was an echo from the mental effects of the path, but that didn’t change my desires. I just wanted to get a look at what the world around me really looked like.

To my dismay, all sightlines off the mountain were completely blocked by either the wall or the surrounding trees. I couldn’t help but feel that this was a deliberate move by the sect to make us feel trapped once more.

Hanging my head, I turned to LiTing who had been patiently waiting to the side.

“Sorry about that.”

She let out a soft laugh. “It’s okay. Trust me, I understand.”

After waiting there for another hour, one of our students exited the path and joined us. We then waited another full day, but our final companion never arrived. None of our formation stones had alerted us to any problems, but that didn’t mean much when illusions and teleportations were involved.

We wanted to wait longer, but staying out in the open like this was too dangerous. I had become a skilled fighter, and with LiTing’s weapons, I could take on anyone we might face outside of the walls of Earth City, but doing so would still be a risk.

Our final companion might be trapped or dead. In either case, there was little we could do to help him. If he survived the path, he would be able to make his way to the city and find us, but we couldn’t wait around for him any longer.

I looked at the two with me.

“Let’s go.”

Following a small dirt trail out of the clearing, we circled around the towering brown wall until we came to the entrance to Earth City. There, we found two high-level Martial Emperors waiting for us.

They both gave me a deep bow.

“Su Fang, the master has requested your presence. The others will be escorted to their new dwellings.”

He flashed me a jade as evidence that he was one of Ning ChenKun’s men, so I nodded in agreement.

“Lead the way.”

He turned silently and headed off into the city as I followed closely behind.

We passed through the city quickly, so I didn’t have much time to look around, but I got the sense that the size of Earth City was far beyond the scale of Profound City.

The atmosphere felt far more relaxed than the other cities I had been in. Martial Kings were just relaxing on the street talking with mortals about trivial things. There were few signs of the hard work and training that was a staple of other places in the sect.

The building my guide led me to was far from the ornate monstrosity of the other Ning Clan buildings I had visited. This one was a sleek skyscraper with terraced balconies. Looking at it, an echo in my mind made me want to climb to its top floor to see what the view was like, but I restrained that impulse.

I was brought into a large office where Ning ChenKun was already waiting for me.

After he dismissed my guide, we sat down across from each other for a little chat.

“Su Fang, how much do you know about the path to Heaven City?”

I furrowed my brow. That wasn’t what I had expected this conversation to be about.

“Nothing. I haven’t heard anything about what the paths further up the mountain involve. I’ve only guessed that it has to be something new since we’ve already walked a version of each of the original three.”

Ning ChenKun leaned toward me as he explained.

“The sect has more than three hundred cities and over thirty kingdoms. That means that it has an abundant supply of Lord-level karmic energy and a sufficient amount of King-level energy to allow its disciples rather free access to it. However, it only controls three empires. This makes Emperor-level energy far scarcer.”

He pointed at my new identity jade that marked me as an inner sect disciple.

“With that, you will not be allowed to purchase any. Only core disciples and their inner circles are allowed to advance to Emperor, and only a small fraction of that group is allowed to ascend to Heaven City to purchase more and advance further.”

I drummed my fingers on an armrest while I considered. I didn’t plan to advance to Heaven City in this life, but learning about what it involved was important. I also needed access to Emperor-level energy so that I would be able to break through and learn to craft memory orbs.

“Alright. You have my attention.”

He grinned at me. “Only core disciples are allowed to ascend to Heaven City. They must walk the Path of Leadership. Each person must take five subordinates with them. These subordinates are then allowed to take two attendants each. So, a full group would be a total of sixteen people. I have recognized your skills over the years. I want you to be one of my subordinates.”

My response was instantaneous. “What about my friends?”

ChenKun nodded at me. “I will make the same offer to Yan. I have planned for him to join me from the very beginning. You have been quite the surprise, but your wide skillset makes you an ideal choice. At the moment, I would suggest the other three become yours and Yan’s attendants. Chai JiaQi and Shi YuLong are talented fighters, but they bring little else of value. I am still considering giving Lin LiTing a spot as a subordinate since a blessed refiner could prove valuable, but I cannot make that decision yet. As for my remaining two slots, they will go to others that you don’t yet know.”

This was a problem. I only had about 24 years left in my 100-year plan, and I still wanted to live another life in the sect where I could advance together with my friends. I had wanted to rush up to Emperor and then use false breakthroughs to push myself to the peak of that realm while remaining in Earth City. That would give me the power needed to craft memory orbs in the shortest time possible. Then, I would gather everyone’s memories, and we could return to the start of our time in the sect without having to worry about the Zhuge Clan or any problems associated with Emperor Li’s spirit fire.

By following Ning ChenKun, I would be stuck at Emperor 1 until Yan, YuLong, JiaQi, and possibly others could reach that level as well. It would mean a huge delay… could I afford to wait that long?

I had allowed myself to revise my 100-year plan several times, but I would not allow myself to break it entirely. I needed to return to the Wastes. Still, I had already told myself that I wouldn’t return immediately after 100 years. I would allow myself to finish the life I was living without regrets. I just couldn’t start a new one. Intentionally starting a new life too close to the end of the timer was questionable, but it seemed to be the only path open to me.

I needed the Emperor-level energy Ning ChenKun was offering me. More importantly, He had helped me several times now. Not only had he protected us from Lord Hao, but he was also providing us a safe haven within the sect from those who would seek me out for the Earth-Rank fire seed. I needed to repay him for this. I couldn’t allow myself to throw away the 100-year plan for him, but I could bend it even further for him.

“How long do you think it will take? Yan has only now advanced to Profound City. He will be walking the Path of Soul to get here. That will take time.”

ChenKun narrowed his eyes at my desire for haste but didn’t comment on it directly.

“While his group’s qi cultivation has been delayed, they have not slacked on their soul cultivation. It will take them a few years to prepare, but it shouldn’t be overly long. They will certainly be here before we can possibly be ready to leave. From there, it will be up to them. I can’t say how long it will take Yan to advance to Emperor, but I don’t need him for his illusion or martial abilities. I need his mind. He won’t need to improve anything but his cultivation level after he gets here.”

Closing my eyes, I thought about everything agreeing to this meant.

It was a delay, and it would mean pushing the limits of my self-imposed deadline, but it was also the smartest path forward. I didn’t know anything about the requirements to forge a memory orb. Locking myself into a path that prevented me from making them would have been nothing but folly.

I looked at ChenKun and nodded.

“Alright. I’m in.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 179 – Life 68, Age 46, Martial King 1

A day after we arrived, Ning ChenKun’s deathsworn and two of the students who had been traveling with him joined us in Earth City. The other two who had left Profound City with us had fallen on the Path of Soul. After adding in the one we lost on the Path of Mind, half of our students had failed in their attempt to ascend the mountain.

According to the survivors, this Path of Soul was far deadlier than the two I had walked previously. The way they told it, this path hadn’t been simply a matter of withstanding an ever-increasing amount of soul pressure. They had been assaulted by an endless series of soul attacks, and only the iron-hard will of the deathsworn was able to protect them. Without proper defensive soul techniques, the students had been helpless as they walked the path.

With the protections offered by my soul cultivation technique, I had lowered the priority of learning proper defensive techniques. After listening to their story, I bumped it back up to near the top of my to-do list.

LiTing and I set the three surviving students up with apartments in a small building near ChenKun’s headquarters, but I didn’t have any more time to spend nurturing them. Having arrived in Earth City, I could purchase additional King-level karmic energy, and that meant I needed to return my focus to advancing my cultivation base.

My time as the ‘Great Teacher’ had come to an end for this life. There was too much else I needed to do and too little time to do it.

I resumed the same six-month cycle I had used as a Martial Lord. Every six months, I ascended once, entered the Earth Peak Trial once, and spent the rest of my time earning points to pay for everything. As I was mainly focused on making a profit, my formation and alchemy skills didn’t improve overly much during this time, but my cultivation quickly advanced, and I reached the peak of the King realm. Through my efforts in the Trial, my earth affinity also broke through to peak four-star during this time.

All I needed was a Rank 6 cultivation technique and the karmic energy to use it. After that, I would be able to break through to Martial Emperor.

With Ning ChenKun’s backing, obtaining the necessary karmic energy was time-consuming, but it wasn’t difficult. I just had to earn a sufficient number of contribution points. Since ‘a sufficient number’ was nearly a thousand times as many points as I had needed for King-level energy, it would take time, but Yan and the others wouldn’t arrive in Earth City for several more years, so that was no real rush.

By selling sufficiently high-quality Rank 5 pills and formations, earning contribution points wasn’t a problem. However, during this time, my profession skills had stagnated. Because I was focused only on cultivation and combat skills, I resorted to making only the most consistently profitable items I could, so I hadn’t yet learned to craft the more difficult, higher-level Rank 5 items yet, and without them, I couldn’t make as many points as a Peak King should have been able to.

Now that I no longer had to work on my cultivation, I could begin addressing this deficiency.

That said, even with ChenKun’s backing, I wouldn’t be allowed to purchase the karmic energy I needed without first obtaining a Rank 6 cultivation technique. While ChenKun had his clan’s technique, he wasn’t allowed to share it with outsiders, and no such techniques were available in the sect library. If I wanted one, I could only get it from the Master of the Earth Peak, Emperor Shen.

Getting a face-to-face meeting with my nominal ‘master’ was easier than I expected. After entering the peak’s administration office, the Grandmaster on duty called for an elder who quickly arranged everything.

I thought that this might have been Emperor Shen taking a more direct interest in my activities, but no. As the elder explained, he was required to meet with any new Peak Kings who wished to ascend to Emperor. However, I would have to go to him. He wouldn’t come to me.

At first, I didn’t understand what this entailed, but I soon learned that Emperor Shen isolated himself within the highest cave on the Earth Peak, and walking up there was no short trek. The path up the mountain was full of switchbacks and detours. There were no steps carved into steeper areas, and no channels had been dug through natural outcroppings to allow the path to pass through. Instead, the path would circle halfway around the mountain to avoid an obstacle as simple as a small boulder.

The only reason I could come up with for this circuitous route was that Emperor Shen and the other elders who cultivated higher up the mountain really did not want visitors.

Even still, climbing a mountain wouldn’t have been overly difficult save for the rules that had been imposed on me. As a Peak King supplicant wishing to ascend to Emperor, I wasn’t allowed to use any qi during the climb, and I wasn’t allowed to leave the path for any reason.

After two hours of walking in circles, I was beginning to bristle at these restrictions. In several places, the path circled around the mountain, increased in elevation only slightly, and then circled back. In these places, a single large step would have allowed me to skip more than half an hour of hiking.

To make things worse, while the person who created this path had been loath to be so crass as to carve their way through a boulder to shorten the way forward, they had no compunction about carving an entire cave system that exited lower down the mountain or erecting stone arches to walk over earlier sections of the path.

I wanted to be annoyed, but I calmed myself. I didn’t need to rush. I could take my time.

I breathed deeply of the cool mountain air and an echo from the mental impulses of the Path of Mind made my thoughts drift to the landscape around me.

There wasn’t much to see on the Earth Peak. The mountain was made from what seemed to be a single stone, and no life grew on its slopes. This was a place of pure elemental earth. Even earth-based herbs needed some amount of wood energy to grow, and halfway up the mountain, any such energy was completely absent. This was the only place outside of the Trial that I had been somewhere with such pure energy.

After realizing this, I looked around more and finally noticed what had been staring me in the face. The path up the mountain was a Qi Gathering Formation on an unimaginable scale. The outcroppings and boulders that blocked the path weren’t natural. They had been placed with exacting precision to help direct the flow of energy. This mountain formation was far more complex than anything I had ever seen before.

Instead of focusing on the landscape any further, I allowed my mind to be drawn into studying the formation as I walked through it. In all too short a time, I arrived at the Peak Master’s abode.

The cave didn’t have a door, but it would be improper to enter directly, so I bowed toward the entrance and spoke loudly enough for anyone inside to hear me.

“Emperor Shen, may I enter?”

I remained bowed as was proper, but no one responded.

“Emperor Shen, I seek leave to enter.”

Again, there was no response.

Unwilling to leave without an audience, I straightened my back and stepped inside.

The cave’s tunnel was far longer and more twisted than I had expected. It was possible that instead of ignoring me, Emperor Shen hadn’t been able to hear even a whisper of my shouted entreaty.

After walking through over a kilometer in the tunnel, I reached a large cavern situated in the exact center of the mountain’s peak filled with large stone slabs, multiple suits of heavy metal armor, and inanimate stone constructs like those I had fought against in the Trial.

Carefully making my way through this jumbled mess of a workshop, I spotted a middle-aged man with jet-black hair pacing back and forth on top of a giant stone slab that was over seven meters thick. He was built like a construction worker. He had broad shoulders and large hairy arms. He wore a roughspun tunic and trousers, making him look more like a village peasant than a Martial Emperor.

I bowed to him and spoke loudly so that he could hear me.

“Emperor Shen, I seek an audience.”

His pacing atop the slab continued unabated, but he waved an arm to the side.

“The technique is over there. Just take it and leave.”

My eyes followed the direction he was pointing and found a table covered in dozens of scrolls. Quickly looking through them, I discovered that they were all copies of the same Rank 6 cultivation technique. This treatment of high-Rank techniques shocked me, but I wouldn’t allow myself to get lost in the moment. I quickly picked one up and stuffed it into my storage space.

“Interesting. Very interesting.”

My eyes widened in a bit of fear as I turned around to see the middle-aged man sitting on the edge of the stone slab and staring at me with unknown intent.

“I saw you do that a few times in the Trial, but it’s difficult to see things clearly through the formation. Much easier when you’re in front of me like this.”

I bowed to him once more. “Emperor Shen, I...”

He waved me off. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care about whatever lies you want to tell me, and I doubt you would willingly share the truth of things.”

I straightened and gave him an awkward smile, but he didn’t care.

“You’re here because of our deal, right? You’re right, we have to fix that. I’m glad you came to me instead of making me hunt you down for it. Old man Li gave you the orbs? Those memories are a bit old. Won’t do either of us any good to give me such outdated information, would it? Just come back here before you decide to head up to the Summit and get yourself killed so that I can get you a new one, okay?”

I nodded wordlessly.

“Good. Now, for my part of the deal. That old bastard Li had to go and give you a damned Earth-Rank fire seed. I don’t have anything like that, so how the hell am I supposed to keep to my end of the bargain and treat you equal to how he treats you?”

“I…”

Emperor Shen held up a hand to stop me. “Don’t say it, I don’t want to hear it. I doubt he offered you the seed. That’s not like him. He would have had you make a request, so that’s what I’ll do too. You can ask me for one thing, and if it’s within my power, I’ll give it to you.”

Emperor Shen’s erratic behavior had kept me on my back foot during the conversation, but before I spoke again, I breathed deeply and centered myself. This sharpened my mind, and I was able to look at him with new eyes.

The old fox appeared eccentric, but it was more than half an act.

He would do as promised and give me whatever I requested, but it was on me to make the request worthwhile. What did I need?

“A way to cultivate without using karmic energy or a way to store karmic energy for future use.”

Shen’s eyes flickered in interest.

“The first is impossible, and the second might as well be. The sect and the Sovereign clans have formations that can do what you want, but I’ve never seen them. If I had to guess, I would say that they’re at least Rank 9, far beyond either of us.”

I had known it was a long shot, but it had been worth the attempt. Other than karmic energy, my biggest concern was growing my storage space further. To accomplish my plans, I needed it to be far, far larger than anything I would be able to achieve through my direct efforts. I needed it to grow large enough to hold a garden, a city, or even an entire continent. That wasn’t something I could achieve by just shoving a bit of energy into it at the end of each life.

In the past, when I had asked a Formation King about how to grow a storage bag to a truly immense size, she told me that Qi Gathering Formations were used to channel energy directly into a spatial spirit fire. That was what I needed to do, but setting up a normal formation wouldn’t work. My storage space was located within my soul, so that was where I would need to create such a formation.

“I want information on how to create a Qi Gathering Formation within my soul.”

Emperor Shen burst out into joyous laughter. “I knew it!”

He cycled his qi and used a technique to disappear from his place atop the stone slab. I looked around, but I couldn’t figure out where he had gone. Several minutes later, he reappeared in the same spot he had vanished from and was waving a small scroll.

“You managed to nick old man Du’s fire seed. That’s how you turned your soul into a storage bag, right? He’s the only other person I know of that’s been able to do something like that.”

He tossed me the scroll he was holding.

“That will teach you to carve formations into your soul, but be careful with it. If you mess it up, you’ll have to shred your soul apart to fix it, and that would take quite a while to heal. Centuries, if it’s bad enough. So, don’t start carving up your soul until you’re confident you can do it right. And before you do, go to the sect’s Scripture Pavilion. Not many good soul techniques till you reach Heaven City, but you should still be able to grab yourself a solid visualization technique. That’ll make things much easier. Oh, and don’t be a fool and carve a Rank 5 formation into your soul. At least wait until Rank 6.”

With his speech over, Emperor Shen turned around and waved a hand.

Before I could respond, I was sent flying through the air.

I sped backward through the caverns, down the long, twisted cave, and out into the air over the Earth Peak. Just as I was preparing myself to land like a meteor in the middle of the peak’s small village, a cushion of air appeared to stop my fall.

The village was mostly empty even at the best of times, but the few passersby who were present stared at me.

Standing straight and trying to regain the dignity of a Martial King, I dusted off my robes and walked stiffly to the stone arch to return to Earth City.

Once there, I immediately headed to the Scripture Pavilion to look for a soul visualization technique. Only one was available, so I grabbed it and returned to my room.

I still didn’t trust the sect when it came to doing anything with my soul, so I didn’t want to practice this technique, but it would give me a basis of understanding to make purchasing one that I would be happy with cheaper.

For several centuries now, I had been able to peer into my soul and move things around, though the only things inside to move were my fire seeds. I had always visualized it as a large glowing white humanoid figure with my storage space in the middle of its chest.

As the technique explained, this wasn’t the truth of what my soul looked like, it was only a truth. The ways souls appeared could shift based on one’s perception and intent. A visualization technique allowed one to change the way they looked at their soul so that it was easier to interpret and easier to modify.

The sect’s technique would make it so that I saw my soul as a complex tapestry of various assorted colors with each color having a distinct meaning. Then, another technique could be used to slowly pick out and destroy any ‘threads’ that I was unhappy with, allowing me to craft my soul into the exact shape I wanted.

Overall, it seemed to be a fine enough technique, but I had become attached to the analogy Instructor Yuan had used when describing soul cultivation. I also wanted to make sure the technique I used was free of any hidden dangers.

“System, I want to purchase a soul visualization technique. It should allow me to see my soul as a garden with different flowers marking different concepts and attachments. I want it to integrate well with the cultivation technique I purchased previously, and any effects it would have on me should be stated clearly.”

Peak-Yellow Mortal soul visualization technique Garden of a Hundred Flowers. Cost 100 million credits.

“How much for a similar Low-Profound technique?”

Cost 1 billion credits.

“Alright, purchase the Peak-Yellow version.”

I could always upgrade it once I got more credits, but as I had learned, Low-Profound wasn’t necessarily better than Peak-Yellow. It would be better to upgrade directly to Peak-Profound if possible.

Purchase confirmed. 899,550,000 credits remaining.

The technique manual for the Garden of a Hundred Flowers appeared in my mental library. It would take time to master it, but such preparations were a necessity.

Once I carved a Qi Gathering Formation in my soul, my storage space would be able to expand without me needing to spend any time on it. Even when I died and returned to Martial Disciple 1, it would continue expanding endlessly.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 180 – Life 68, Age 51, Martial King Peak

Even though I now had a better understanding of what I needed to do to make my dreams for my storage space a reality, I had to set that task aside for the moment.

The scroll given to me by Emperor Shen included instructions for both carving a formation into one’s soul and removing such a formation. It clearly stated that upgrading a soul formation would necessitate cutting out chunks of my soul and waiting for it to heal, and that would be a long, painful process. As the Emperor had advised, it would be better to wait and carve the best initial formation possible instead of carving something weak now and upgrading later.

So instead, I focused on earning the necessary contribution points for the karmic energy I needed to ascend to Martial Emperor.

Earning enough contribution points to purchase Emperor-level karmic energy was no small feat. The sect had put several roadblocks in the path of anyone wishing to ascend to that level, and the substantial cost of the energy was yet another one.

My primary means of earning points was through alchemy and formation, but if I wanted to earn the points I needed, my current abilities were rather lacking. Yes, I had reached the limit of what could be expected from a Martial King 1, but that was all. To earn enough contribution points in a reasonable amount of time, I needed to be able to concoct pills worthy of a Peak King.

At the same time, since my goal was to learn to craft memory orbs, which required knowledge of Rank 6 formations, I also had to spend time improving my skills as a formation specialist. If I allowed those skills to languish now, it would take far too long to improve them when I was ready to do so.

The books from Emperors Li and Shen helped me raise my skills far faster than would have otherwise been possible, but it still took time and resources. As I trained up my Rank 5 skills, I had to focus on learning new pills and formations. My priority had to be on stretching myself to learn new skills, not on exploiting the knowledge I already possessed.

This focus caused my contribution point total to slowly decrease. While my activities were usually profitable, the costs associated with experimentation limited how much I was earning. On its own, that would have been fine, but I also had to pay for copies of several reference texts from the Scripture Pavilion.

The Emperors had only given me a single book on Rank 5 of their respective skills. These books focused on training the basics and learning the skills needed to be able to craft anything of said Rank, but they didn’t include much excess information.

For Emperor Li’s alchemy guide, this was mostly sufficient, but Emperor Shen’s formation guide was somewhat lacking. Including countless different inscription diagrams into a single book would have been impossible, so most of the time, he simply referred to other books or scrolls that included the pertinent information.

Whenever I thought about my dwindling bank account, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated, but I had to remember that it was all for a purpose. While it might look like I was losing money on paper, once I could make top-of-the-line Rank 5 pills and formations, I would be able to buy karmic energy for a song.

Thanks to my enhanced comprehension boosts, I was able to reach a passable level in Rank 5 of both professions after only six years. With alchemy in particular, I knew of several areas that needed significant improvements, but I had reached a level of proficiency that I deemed acceptable.

So, to finalize my efforts, I purchased a number of incredibly expensive Rank 5 herbs and turned them into ungodly expensive Rank 5 pills. After selling them, I was able to purchase the karmic energy I needed.

With the energy stowed safely away in my dantian, I secluded myself in my apartment and began the slow process of ascending.

When I first looked at the Rank 6 cultivation technique I was given, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of disgust. It was… pathetic. To ascend to Emperor, I just needed to infuse my core with Emperor-level energy, reinforce it a bit, and then break through like normal.

If the scroll had just said ‘Keep doing what you’ve been doing but use Emperor-level energy,’ I would have learned everything the scroll had to teach me. While I didn’t have a way to evaluate it, and I didn’t want to pay the System to do so for me, I was confident in my assessment that calling it a ‘Low-Yellow cultivation technique’ was being charitable.

This was the most powerful sect on the continent, the sect named after the nominal ruler of the continent. If this sect could only give their inner sect disciples this kind of pathetic Low-Yellow Rank 6 cultivation technique, what did that say about the techniques that Emperors outside of the sect possessed? Sure, the Sovereign clans almost certainly had something better, but I doubted it would be too much more impressive than what the sect had.

Once I had enough points, once I had ascended to Sovereign or Spirit a few times, I would have to try purchasing a better technique from the System.

Putting thoughts of future plans to the side, I focused on cultivating.

I reinforced my core, shoved energy into it, opened a hole in the world, and sent a burst of combined qi and karmic energy to sever the chain that held me back from the Emperor realm.

Once it was complete, my body shuddered with newly unlocked potential. I was a Martial Emperor.

I felt… disappointed. This was a milestone that I had never passed before, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt like just another minor breakthrough. The difference between Martial King and Martial Emperor felt… meaningless.

This feeling wasn’t normal. After a quick bit of soul searching, I discovered that the feeling was emanating from my boosted comprehension of cultivation techniques. It was telling me something. It was letting me know that something was wrong. I wasn’t sure what. I didn’t yet have enough knowledge to understand what had gone wrong with my ascension, but I could tell that something was missing.

This wasn’t a problem with the technique. That is to say, the technique hadn’t been sabotaged or anything. It was something deeper about how I had been cultivating as a Ruler. Something was missing from the process. I could sense that, but I had no idea what it could possibly be.

I knew there was no chance for a proper answer, but I needed to try and figure this out.

“System, I feel there is something wrong with my cultivation technique. Something is missing. How much would it cost to learn about this?”

The cost of this information is not possible to calculate at this time.

That was the expected answer, but as I had learned, ‘not possible’ just meant ‘give me money.’

“What is the price to calculate the cost of the information?”

Processing… Cost 100,000 credits.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 899,450,000 credits remaining.

Calculating… Requested information about cultivation techniques. Cost 1 shard.

Note: Shards are the currency that will be received upon death as an immortal.

“Thank you, System.”

That told me what I needed to know. This problem with the cultivation technique. It wasn’t an Emperor-level problem. It wasn’t even a Saint-level problem. It was an Immortal-level problem. And the cost of only one ‘shard’ told me that it was something that would become blindingly obvious the moment I advanced to that level.

While this problem might be simple for an immortal, it was far beyond what I could concern myself with. I just needed to keep walking forward. The cultivation technique might be flawed, but if it was good enough for the sect, it was good enough for now.

Having advanced to Emperor, my control over will-locks took a huge leap forward, and I was finally able to master a skill I had been working on for several years now.

With only mid five-star affinities in four of the five basic elements, concocting Perfect Rank 5 pills had been impossible. I didn’t have the control necessary to deftly maneuver medicinal energy and target small hidden pockets of pill toxins that existed in nearly every herb.

As a Martial King, I was able to slightly manipulate objects trapped in my will-lock, and I had hoped that my space affinity would be able to enhance this power enough so that I would be able to get around the limitations of my low affinities. I wanted to lock the space that contained an herb’s medicinal energy, shift it, and then attack the pill toxins. However, I didn't have the fine control over space necessary to make this dream a reality.

With my advancement to Emperor, this all changed. My new realm gave me the boost I needed, and I was quickly able to start producing an endless stream of Perfect Rank 5 pills. Their efficacy wasn’t great since the way I was manipulating space had a tendency to break down the medicinal energy’s structure, but a low-efficacy Perfect pill would always be worth far more than a high-efficacy non-Perfect pill.

With this new ability, I was able to quickly race through the final few notes the Emperors had left me on Rank 5 pills and formations.

I wasn’t in the right mindset to completely absorb all the knowledge the books contained since most of it was unnecessary with the new strength I had unlocked. I didn’t need to master refined skills when I could brute force my way through it with my space affinity and the power of an Emperor. While I knew that this wasn’t really true and that careful study would be important to solidify my foundations in Rank 5 alchemy and formations, I couldn’t hold back my desire to delve into new Rank 6 knowledge. I would return to Rank 5 and study its intricacies more in the future, but for the moment, I wanted to learn more advanced skills.

Once I was ready, I opened Emperor Shen’s book and began working through it to master the basic formations I would need to know to be able to call myself a novice Formation Emperor. There was nothing overly complex here. It was mostly about understanding what possibilities an Emperor’s enhanced will-lock opened up.

Crafting the most powerful Rank 6 formations was no longer a matter of carving channels into stone. Instead, a Formation Emperor would typically start with a fine powder and slowly mold it into their desired shape. The giant stone slab that Emperor Shen had been standing on when I met him wasn’t a natural stone that he had carved a formation into. It was a stone that he was meticulously constructing layer by layer.

This meant that creating most Rank 6 formations was a far more involved process than it was in the lower Ranks.

After experimenting with a few basic formations, I cracked open the manual for crafting memory orbs. Most of it was still entirely incomprehensible, but I could at least read the introduction. Most importantly, I learned the materials I would need.

Memory orbs were far simpler in composition than I had expected. They only required a fist-size stone of the purest jade. Of course, a fist-sized stone was only the minimum requirement. Larger stones would be able to hold more memories. If a seven-hundred-year-old Sovereign wanted to store his entire lifetime of memories inside an orb, the stone would need to be the size of a watermelon.

While jade was an incredibly cheap and plentiful material, a memory orb’s jade had to be absolutely pure. Natural jade got its green color from trace impurities in its crystalline matrix, but that wasn’t acceptable for the jade of a memory orb. So, the first step of the process was to reduce a natural jade to powder, sift out the random trace elements, and then carefully reconstitute it into a flawless jadeite crystal.

I didn’t know for certain what the step after that was. I couldn’t read that far into the book, but I had an inkling that it was where LiTing’s refining skill would come into play. I would use my abilities with earth to form the crystal, she would use her refining abilities to do something to it, and then I would finish off the process with a formation. That seemed to be the general outline.

It would still be years before LiTing’s refining skills or my formations skills were advanced enough to craft memory orbs, but I immediately started the preparatory work of constructing a dozen crystals capable of storing a hundred years' worth of memories.

For her part, LiTing was advancing her cultivation slower than I had. She was only taking a single step each year, and she had completely given up on learning to fight. Instead, she was spending nearly all her time on studying refining. She was even more focused than I was on completing this project successfully, and she spent a lot of time with her master, Emperor Jin. I was certain they discussed memory orb creation extensively.

While I had never fully explained things to her, she knew enough to understand the situation clearly. I had given her letters from a past life, I was hell-bent on crafting memory orbs, and on more than one occasion, I had indicated that death wouldn’t be a concern for us after we had them. She was smart enough to put the pieces together after all this time.

We were both working hard, and we were both making progress. Preparing to construct the orbs had taken years, but I felt like I could finally see the finish line.

Thirteen years after LiTing and I arrived in Earth City, Yan, JiaQi, and YuLong joined us. They would need a bit of time to improve their cultivation levels, but it wouldn’t be long before we could continue our journey up the mountain once more.

Before their arrival, I spent the 250,000 credits needed to change LiTing and me back to our natural appearances. I hated spending credits frivolously, but considering the number I would receive at the end of this life, I couldn’t complain too much about splurging a little.

Purchase confirmed. 899,200,000 credits remaining.

As Yan, YuLong, JiaQi, and LuLu approached Earth City, I was surprised to see them accompanied by a young woman I didn’t know. She looked familiar but I wasn’t sure where I had seen her before.

As customary, the moment they entered the city, LiTing and JiaQi ran toward each other and hugged. In the past, I had been worried about any emotional displays when spies might be watching and looking for weaknesses, but that was no longer a major concern. LiTing and I were both Emperors now, and we were being protected by one of ChenKun’s Peak Emperor deathsworn. At this point, we would only be in serious danger if a Sovereign came to threaten us personally.

I walked forward and placed a hand on YuLong’s shoulder.

“I’m glad you made it here. How’re you holding up?”

He breathed deeply and gave me a weak smile. “I’m managing. Yan told us enough that we were able to understand what’s going on. I’m… I don’t know how to feel about it, exactly, but I’m managing.”

I flinched when he said Yan had explained things, but I had to admit… I had given LiTing enough hints that she had already basically figured everything out. If anyone were watching us closely, they would be able to do the same, especially if they knew about Emperor Li’s blessing. No one had stepped out to crush my soul yet, so I could only trust to Li’s words that the Earthly Dao had protections in place to prevent that from happening.

Turning to Yan, I bowed my head slightly and smiled.

“It’s good to see you again. Who’s your companion?”

He placed a hand on the young woman’s back and ushered her forward.

She was short and wiry with a cherubic face. She was wearing a tight-fitting black hanfu with leather straps around her wrists and calves to keep the cloth from rustling as she moved. A quick check showed that she, like the others, was a low-level Martial King.

“This is Cai XiaoYu. You’ve met before. She was one of my students when we were Martial Masters.”

It finally hit me. This was the girl with endless reserves of stamina, making her a fearsome opponent to fight against.

Stepping forward, Cai XiaoYu gave me a deep bow.

“It is a pleasure to see you again, Emperor Su.”

I smiled and bowed slightly in return. “Just call me Su Fang.”

Then, I turned back to Yan. “Are you ready to go? We need to meet with ChenKun. With you all having arrived, it’s time to plan for the journey ahead.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 181 – Life 68, Age 59, Martial Emperor 1

Our meeting with ChenKun was brief and to the point.

He had five spots for subordinates. Two would go to others we didn’t know, one would go to Yan, and one would go to me. He offered the last spot to LiTing, but having thought about it over the past several years, she declined and allowed it to be given to someone else instead.

Yan would take JiaQi and Cai XiaoYu as his two attendants, and I would take LiTing and YuLong.

We would stay in Earth City for five more years to prepare, and then we would head out. I couldn't help but wince at the thought of how this delay would affect my timeline for reaching Peak Emperor, creating memory orbs, and resetting, but for Yan and the others who had just arrived, this schedule was already tight. They would only barely have enough time to ascend to Martial Emperor with solid foundations, and that was with LiTing and me feeding them contribution points.

Once all the details were confirmed, we separated out to prepare.

ChenKun hadn’t been able to tell us much about the path ahead of us, but he did know that it would be important for each of our small groups to be able to operate independently. Each three-person group would be facing their challenges on their own.

He also added on a request that each of our groups be independent. I could concoct pills and create formations for YuLong and LiTing, but he did not want me to give any to Yan’s group. This was supposedly to demonstrate that all five teams were powerful enough to stand on their own without outside assistance.

I didn’t like the idea of having our groups tackle unknown challenges without being as prepared as possible, but the only reason we were climbing the mountain in the first place was to repay our debt to the man. He had provided us with ample protection over the years. We could do this for him in return.

Since Yan’s team was entirely composed of Martial Kings, their primary focus was on cultivating to reach Martial Emperor as soon as possible. Whatever free time they had was spent sparring to improve their fighting skills.

As none of them placed much importance on their profession skills, this wasn’t too much of a surprise. Yan only used his illusions as small aids when fighting, and Cai XiaoYu had never demonstrated a talent in any of the professions. JiaQi had LuLu, but aside from learning what she needed to do to help the deer grow and improve, she had never worried much about improving as a beast tamer.

As for my group, YuLong was in the same position as Yan’s group, so he also spent most of his time cultivating. LiTing and I, however, were different. Our cultivation bases were already at their limit, and our profession skills were well into Rank 6 at this point. While we did need to help the others earn contribution points, we still had a bit of time for other pursuits.

Unfortunately, there was no Emperor-level version of the Earth Peak Trial. This meant that not only could I not improve my earth affinity any further, but I also couldn’t easily practice Emperor-level combat skills.

Usually, Emperors would be able to practice martial skills by taking on various combat missions in the surrounding empires, but even though I had become more powerful than ever before, I was still not willing to leave the protection of the sect for even an instant. This meant that I could only improve my combat skills by sparring with my friends or paying for people on the Earth Peak to fight with me.

So instead, after discussing the situation with LiTing, we came up with a plan that would allow us to practice our profession skills while also preparing us for any dangers we might meet on the path up the mountain. Whenever our friends had time for a spar, we would practice with them, but nearly all our time was spent locked away together in a workshop.

At the end of five years, our group assembled at the gate leading out of Earth City.

We were the most impressive collection of cultivators I had ever seen. Sixteen Martial Emperors. Combined, we had enough power to devastate nearly any organization on the continent outside of the Nine Rivers Sect. Even the Sovereign clans would have to be wary about angering such a force.

At the center of the group was Ning ChenKun. He wore red robes embroidered with golden carp. He stood with the dignity of a man destined to become the world’s next Sovereign.

Behind him were three groups led by two men and one woman. They wore fancy robes in an assortment of bright colors. Based on their designs, I guessed that the nine of them consisted of one person from each element. I was wary of the woman dressed in the robes of a wind cultivator, but she was on our team, so I would do my best to behave.

Yan’s team stood to the right of the others. He, JiaQi, and Cai XiaoYu were all dressed in sleek black robes and looked ready for a fight. Even LuLu looked ferocious. The once cute little brown deer now had a four-meter-long body, shoulders taller than my head, and a mouth that sported a couple of vicious canines. My group had sparred with them several times over the years, and they had won nearly every time.

Of course, in the beginning, the reason for these losses was that LiTing and I were holding back the increased power we had gained from our more advanced cultivation bases. Later, while we no longer had to hold back, we weren’t exactly fighting at full power. Their group was filled with people who gave them natural advantages in fighting and tactics. Our group had… other advantages.

When we arrived, everyone froze and just stared at us. LiTing, YuLong, and I were all wearing robes that looked like they were woven from pure silver. Unlike Yan’s group, we didn’t wear leather straps to keep the cloth tight against our skin. Instead, our robes shifted of their own accord so as to never impede our movements.

Embroidered into these shining silver robes was a chaotic mess of blue lines. From afar, the silvery robes simply appeared to have a blue hue, but up close, it was clear that thin blue threads were woven into every millimeter of the fabric. The threads crisscrossed each other haphazardly, and there was no apparent rhyme or reason to their positioning.

The silver robes were a result of LiTing’s efforts as an Artifact Emperor. She made them to be soft, flexible, and durable. They would shrug off attacks from anything less than a top-of-the-line Rank 5 refined weapon.

Of course, since we were Martial Emperors, defending against attacks at only the King level wasn’t good enough. She could have made us armor capable of withstanding even Rank 6 weaponry, but to do so, she would have had to focus all her energy into improving the armor’s defenses. Instead, she reserved a significant amount of power to make our robes as comfortable as possible and left the high-end defenses in my hand.

The blue lines were my handiwork. Over the past five years, I delved into the art of woven formations. Using lapis lazuli as a base, I created thin blue threads and wove five different sets of intricate formations into each of our robes.

The first two were simple. They were basic cleaning and repair formations that should keep this new armor in pristine condition.

The third was a defensive formation that was strong enough to rebuff at least a few attacks from a Peak Emperor. Of course, having a powerful shield running constantly would have been impossible. Instead, it would usually remain inactive, and the robes would absorb most attacks directly.

The fourth formation was an energy detection formation. When it sensed an incoming attack beyond what the robe’s natural defenses could handle, it would activate the defensive formation. Then, once the threat had passed, it would deactivate the defenses to save the robe’s energy reserves.

The fifth and final formation was crafted to provide us with a last line of defense against what I considered to be our most dangerous foes. Developing this formation had taken me the better part of two years, and I had never been able to test it under real-world conditions, but I had done the best that I could. I hoped that it would never be needed, but I would rather prepare than rely on that slim hope.

As we approached our companions and took in their stares, the three of us smirked with confidence.

ChenKun grinned widely and gave a hearty laugh.

“Excellent. Nothing will be able to stop us.” He looked at each of his five direct subordinates, and we nodded to him one by one.

He turned toward the gate and stared up the mountain with intent.

“Let’s go.”

The path to Heaven City was steep and rocky. At certain places, we were forced to climb near vertical cliff faces, and at other points, we had to jump across large chasms. I tried to use earth techniques to smooth our passage, but I was unable to affect whatever stone this mountain was made from.

The path ended only a couple of meters below the clouds. By merely raising my arm, I was able to trail a hand through the thick fog above us.

A quick check in energy vision showed that these clouds were not natural, but they were not illusions either. They were formed from a swirling mass of water qi held in place by a complex, high-Rank formation.

After studying the clouds for several minutes, I turned my eyes to the end of the path where six stone arches that led into utter darkness stood before us. My space affinity indicated they were teleportation gates, not Trial gates.

The two gates to the left and the two to the right had the word ‘Subordinate’ written across the top of their arches. The center-right gate was labeled ‘Lieutenant,’ and the center-left gate was labeled ‘Leader.’

Ning ChenKun looked at each of us with a grave expression.

“Stay safe in there. We can’t afford to lose anyone.”

We all nodded sharply. We were ready for this.

ChenKun walked to the leader’s gate, and Yan walked to the gate for his lieutenant. I took the gate to Yan’s right, and the other three sorted themselves out among the remaining arches.

After a final glance at LiTing and YuLong, I stepped through.

The three of us appeared in a small clearing that looked to be part of the mountain. The clearing was surrounded by dense fog, and while a small circle around us was clear, we couldn’t see anything past three meters in any direction. It seemed like we had been moved slightly up the mountain and into the cloud bank, but with teleportation involved, it was impossible to be sure.

I looked to my companions to get their input.

“What should we do?”

YuLong squinted as he looked in every direction.

“We’re supposed to go up the mountain, right? That way is up.” He pointed in the direction where the ground sloped upwards. “Seems like the right direction to me.”

I looked at LiTing who shook her head. “I don’t have any better ideas.”

“Alright, that’s what we’ll do then. YuLong, you take the lead. LiTing on the left. Me on the right. And… let’s get our weapons ready.”

YuLong smiled and pulled a massive pudao out of his storage bag. It was a polearm with a thin meter-long blade intended for attacking large demon beasts. Over the past few years, LiTing had made him half a dozen different types of weapons so that he would be prepared for any situation. We didn’t know what kind of opponents we would be facing, so starting with a polearm was a good decision.

My weapon was a Rank 6 crescent moon spade of a traditional design. LiTing had also made me one with the teardrop hammer-pick end instead of the spade, but unless we were fighting rock monsters, I didn’t plan to use it.

LiTing’s weapon was a bladed whip. By controlling it with her metal affinity, she could strike targets from nearly any angle and hit vulnerable spots with deadly accuracy.

Prepared as we could be, we started carefully walking up the mountain.

To no one’s surprise, not long after we started moving, creatures appeared in the mists and lumbered toward us. What was a surprise was that they were, in fact, rock monsters.

I quickly swapped to my other staff, and YuLong switched to a large hammer.

He grinned at our opponents. “Been a long time since I got to fight you boys. Let’s see if you’ve improved.”

With our overpowered arms and armaments, we quickly crushed our opponents, but as soon as they were down, suits of living armor appeared from the mists and attacked us.

Our opponents’ defenses were tough to crack, but with our refined weapons, they didn’t stand a chance.

After walking a gauntlet of fights for ten kilometers, we were blocked from advancing any further when the clouds around us turned more solid than granite.

There was only one path forward, a two-meter-wide opening in the dense wall of clouds, but a powerful shielding formation prevented us from passing through.

After walking forward to examine it, I instantly recognized the formation. It was listed in Shen’s Rank 6 book as an example of a failed experiment. I sent out a wave of qi in a specific pattern, and the shield immediately collapsed.

I looked at my companions. “Let’s be careful. I think this test was arranged by the Master of the Earth Peak. It should get more difficult from here, but I don’t think it’ll be too deadly.”

After passing through the opening, we continued walking, but we didn’t face any more formation constructs. Instead, we were confronted with a variety of traps and barriers. Our ‘opponents,’ if you could call them that, were puddles of liquid metal that seeped out cracks in the ground and attacked us from every direction.

When LiTing saw this, she shouted a warning. “This isn’t the Earth Peak Master, it's Master Jin.”

Traveling this section was more tedious since we had to be wary of surprise attacks, but it wasn’t too difficult. After another ten kilometers, we were stopped by a barrier once more, and LiTing sliced through the woven net of metallic cables, allowing us to pass into the third section.

Before we could enter it, YuLong held up a hand to stop us.

“This… might be bad. Earth Peak then Metal Peak, right? Next is probably for me, the Lightning Peak. The Peak Master isn’t too fond of me since I’m terrible with talismans and don’t cultivate lightning qi. He might… want to make an example of us.”

I smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. We can handle it.”

The moment we stepped through the opening, bolts of lightning began falling from the sky like rain.

We were struck by countless, endless lightning bolts.

The energy they contained was minimal, and we didn’t even feel them as our armor easily absorbed their energy, but the constant flashing lights made it incredibly difficult to see the path forward. Even closing my eyes and relying purely on energy vision, I could barely make sense of the world around me. Lightning qi flooded the entire area.

All we could do was rely on our armor to protect us as we slowly picked our way forward. Few of the strikes contained any real power. They were just disorienting. However, a lightning elemental would occasionally appear and strike with the strength of a high-level emperor. We did our best to protect ourselves from this, but under a constant barrage of lightning, it was difficult to see the attacks coming.

Thankfully, the detection formations on our armor worked properly. Once our shields flared to life, we knew where we were being attacked from, and we could whirl on our enemies to dispatch them with a single swift strike. Wind might’ve been the most powerful element to use against such creatures, but earth worked nearly as well.

In this state, we continued down the path for six kilometers.

That was when I was directly struck by an electric shock as powerful as Rank 6 lightning.

This attack wasn’t targeted at me, so I didn’t have to withstand its full force, but as it traveled through my body, I wanted to scream in agony. Thankfully, it only lasted a second.

This was not an attack that my armor had failed to absorb. It was an attack from my armor.

This was its final defensive formation. A lightning attack.

The moment I felt it activate, I began to panic.

This formation would only be triggered in one circumstance, when it detected a gu trying to invade our bodies. The heavy lightning qi around us had blinded us to the true danger that we were facing.

I put a hand on each of my companion’s shoulders and shouted to be heard over the deafening thunder.

“We need to run. Now!”

Maintaining a grip on their shoulders I hauled them along behind me and used movement techniques to carry us forward as quickly as possible.

We only had four kilometers to go. With proper movement techniques, we could cover that distance in no time at all. We hadn’t done so before because rushing into the unknown was a good way to get killed, but compared to enduring constant gu attacks, rushing was the lesser of two evils.

My armor’s protections activated twice more, and LiTing’s and YuLong’s each activated once.

It seemed like our defenses would hold, but I couldn’t be confident. I hadn’t been able to test them against actual gu before, so I didn’t know how long they would last. At least there was more than enough lightning qi available to keep them powered up.

When the clouds solidified around us, I looked at the way forward and frowned. I expected some kind of lightning shield or possibly a wind-based one. Instead, the barrier appeared to be nothing more than a thin sheet of translucent metal.

LiTing ran a hand across the metal barrier. “This isn’t good. This is… I think this is a Rank 8 metal. Master Jin showed me something like this before. How are we supposed to get through this? Even a Sovereign might not be able to do it.”

I stared at the barrier.

We needed the power of a Sovereign. We might need something even more powerful than a Sovereign. I could only think of one way we might possibly be able to generate that kind of power. I would have to use Emperor Li’s Earth-Rank spirit fire seed.

Was this a test to see if I had it? Was the Master of the Lightning Peak trying to force me to show my hand?

I smirked at the stunt and then motioned to my companions to move away from the barrier.

“I can handle this.”

I reached into my storage space and pulled out the jade box containing my fire-based Profound-Rank spirit fire. After quickly absorbing it into my body, I tried to use it to burn a hole through the metal. However, the Rank 8 material showed zero reaction to my efforts.

I had known that it wouldn’t work, but I wanted to give a show to anyone watching us.

This only seemed to make LiTing more nervous.

“Fang, that’s not going to work. You can’t melt a Rank 8 metal with a Profound-Rank spirit fire.”

Stepping back, I nodded grimly.

Putting on the pantomime had made me chuckle, but I needed to focus on actually getting through this barrier.

As we stood there, I heard the sounds of the gu and lightning strikes slowly approaching us. We had outrun them on our way here, but now they were catching up.

I didn’t believe for a second that we would have been able to ‘outrun’ the attacks if we weren’t supposed to. This was just a way to pressure me to use the fire seed.

I ran a hand across the barrier.

Nothing I had could even scratch this metal, and LiTing’s weapons might shatter if we tried to use them against it. What were we supposed to do?

I looked at YuLong and LiTing. Both of them were starting to panic.

Looking back to the metal. I tried to think.

What was the intended solution? Using the Earth-Rank fire seed. Was that the only way? Would that be enough for this test to be deemed ‘fair’ since we would have a way to complete it?

I needed another solution.

As I stroked the metal, an idea popped into my head. It seemed crazy, but… why not? I had never tried something like it before, but it should work, right?

I placed my palm on the center of the metal plate and pulled on it with my mind, trying to force the metal plate into my storage space.

It felt like I was trying to move the entire mountain. The plate was connected to the surrounding solidified clouds, preventing me from absorbing it alone.

Instinctively, I reached out with my space affinity. I bounded my intent to only the metal plate and pulled once more.

The Rank 8 metal vanished from the opening.

I smiled. I wanted to hug the Master of the Lightning Peak for handing me such a gift.

Grabbing YuLong and LiTing by the shoulder once more, I pulled them through the opening.

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Chapter 182 – Life 68, Age 64, Martial Emperor 1

After passing the final barrier, we were teleported somewhere new. While we were still standing in the middle of a cloud bank, our visibility had improved, and we could now see up to a dozen meters away.

In the middle of the clearing, ChenKun stood rigidly with his hands clasped behind his back. To his left, Yan’s group smiled and waited for us to join them.

We walked over, but just as I was about to ask how things had gone for his group, Yan shook his head to silence me and motioned in the direction we had come from.

Behind us, there were six arches. Three, including the one we had just exited, shone with a brilliant white light. Two glowed dimly, and one was completely black. Piecing everything together, I could guess the three bright gates were from the three groups that had successfully passed the test. The dark gate was for a group that had failed.

We stood there quietly as we waited for the final result.

When a second gate faded and turned black, Ning ChenKun’s face twisted with anger. He didn’t make a sound, but the tension in his body was nearing a breaking point.

When the final gate flared with bright white light, everyone’s tension was released, but Ning ChenKun still didn’t look happy.

Only one of the male subordinates stumbled out of the gate. No attendants followed him.

Ning ChenKun didn’t say anything to the man. He just flicked a sleeve and turned around to face the new gate that had just appeared behind us.

“Let’s go.”

Without any hesitation, he walked through the arch.

We all just looked at each other briefly before following behind.

The gate teleported us above the cloud layer and to the outskirts of a small village surrounded by a short blue wall. Unlike the cities lower down the mountain, this village didn’t have any large, multistory buildings or massive building complexes. The entire place was only large enough to house a thousand or so people. How many of the residents were Emperors and how many were their descendants, I did not know.

My eyes only lingered on the village momentarily before they were drawn further up the mountain.

There, resting on the Summit of Dragon Peak, roughly two kilometers above us, stood a large, ornate temple. I couldn’t see many details from this far away, but while it was ornate, it didn’t look overly special. Still, I couldn’t look away from it.

A veritable waterfall of qi and other energies was pouring from high up in the sky and crashing down onto this temple. Some of it was absorbed into the building's walls, but most of the energy dispersed into the environment.

“What is that?”

I’m not sure who asked the question. It may have been me, but it could have been anyone.

Ning ChenKun’s reply was blunt and to the point. “The Summit.”

He only glanced at it before heading toward the village.

Tearing our eyes away from the glorious sight, we forced ourselves to follow after him. The walk to the village was silent, and Ning ChenKun’s attitude put a damper on what I felt should have been a time for celebration.

Right before we reached the village’s small wooden gate, he stopped and turned toward us.

He took a deep breath and suppressed the irritation that had been boiling up inside of him.

“There are four paths to the Summit. The Path of the Leader, The Path of the Crafter, The Path of the Master, and The Path of the True Chosen. As this group’s leader, I will be walking the Path of the Leader, but no others are allowed to follow. If you wish to climb to the Summit, I recommend following the Path of the Crafter. The Path of the Master requires you to spend two centuries as the master of one of the peaks, and the Path of the True Chosen is suicide.”

He gave us time to think about the situation before continuing.

“If any of you do not feel you can complete the Path of the Crafter, or simply do not wish to do so, you are welcome to leave the sect and join the Ning Clan. Normally, one is not allowed to abandon the sect, but as we are a Sovereign clan, you will all be allowed to withdraw and join us as guest elders. This is an important decision, so you should carefully consider your options.”

Ning ChenKun could barely look at us as he said this. He was still distracted by the results of the path, so his normal mask of affability had slipped.

“I can no longer provide anyone with any protection. My clan had no deathsworn in Heaven City, and I will immediately leave to climb to the Summit. Consider your decisions carefully, but know that waiting here too long can be dangerous. If you wish to join the Ning Clan, send a letter to our residence in South Gate City.”

I felt disappointed by Ning ChenKun’s response to the situation. The way he spoke, with a flat disinterested tone, made it seem like he didn’t care about us at all anymore.

We had gotten him to the city. Was he now ready to discard us as no longer useful? I had thought better of him than that.

Also, even if we were no longer able to help him in the sect, why wasn’t he trying harder to recruit us into his clan? It felt like he had just pitched joining his clan because he had to.

Our passage up the mountain had affected him in a strange way, and I didn’t understand why.

With his speech over, Ning ChenKun turned and walked into the village with his final surviving subordinate aside from Yan and me following close behind him.

I passed through the gate and meant to hurry to catch up to him and ask what was going on, but a man and woman stepped out to block our path. They were both middle-aged and were dressed like peasant farmers.

The woman looked at me with a predatory smile.

“Su Fang, it’s time we had a little chat.”

I didn’t immediately recognize either of them, but LiTing did. She darted forward and gave the woman a deep bow.

“Greetings, Master Jin.”

I blinked and then looked from the woman back to the man she was with. Only after a few more moments did I realize that he was Emperor Shen. I had only met him once, and that was over a decade ago. I had nearly forgotten what he looked like.

He raised a hand in greeting. “Don’t worry about your friends. I’ll take care of them. You and Jin need to discuss some things in private.”

I narrowed my eyes at him in thought. I did need to speak with Jin, but…

I looked at the woman. “You have a place we can speak without anyone listening in?”

She nodded.

“Then let’s all go together. I think it’s time we all sat down for a conversation. It’s long past time to end the secrecy between us.”

She lifted her right hand and rolled her fingers in thought.

“I thought it would be best to keep the details of our negotiation between just the two of us, but if that’s what you desire, it’s acceptable. Follow me.”

Everyone in our group, save for Cai XiaoYu, adopted a look of firm resolve. They knew what was coming, and they had been waiting for it.

Cai XiaoYu just looked bewildered by the situation.

As we walked, Jin saw fit to clear up my confusion about the situation with Ning ChenKun.

“Do you know why that Ning brat was so upset?”

“No. It felt… wrong. Shouldn’t he have at least been more passionate about recruiting us into his bloodline? Isn’t that what this is all for?”

Her eyes shot to Yan, but he just shook his head.

When Jin continued, her voice was more even and measured. She was choosing her words carefully.

“His grandfather, Ning ZeKun, is the only person in recent memory who… has been able to complete the Path of the True Chosen. When he did so, the Saint allowed him to expand his clan and ascend to Sovereign. Unlike… the other three Sovereign clans on the continent, the Ning clan does not have… a stronger force supporting them on the Central Continent. They’re all… here, and to date, Ning ZeKun is still their only Sovereign.”

I slotted this information into what Yan had told me previously, but it still didn’t explain Ning ChenKun’s reaction, so Jin continued.

“To improve his clan and ascend to Martial Spirit, Ning ZeKun needs strong descendants that can bolster his… family. Guest elders can… help. But ideally, he needs strong descendants. Ning ChenKun was the most promising descendant to arise in the clan in several years. Unfortunately, he failed this test.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Failed? Didn’t we succeed?”

Jin barked out a laugh. “He led fifteen Martial Emperors onto the path and eight of them died. What kind of success is that? Sure, you lit up three gates and were allowed to continue forward, but that doesn’t mean you succeeded.”

She sighed. “Little ChenKun is just not that talented of a leader. If it weren’t for your group being so abnormal, he wouldn’t have been able to survive. He’ll reach the Summit, so the Saint will allow him to ascend to Sovereign, but I doubt his grandfather will provide him the energy to do so. ZeKun would rather hoard it for a more promising descendant in the future.”

As we walked, I thought about Ning ChenKun. His final words to us had been disappointing, but knowing his situation, I could understand it.

I wouldn’t consider giving him an orb, at least not for now, but I would consider working with him again in the future.

Instead of taking us to a place in the village as I had expected, Jin led us through the portal to the Metal Peak. Then, she tapped on the stone arch with her identity jade and led us through it once more.

We stepped through into a large cavern with the densest metal qi I had ever experienced.

Like with Emperor Shen’s cave, I saw a lot of half-finished projects and scraps of metal lying around, but I didn’t have time to investigate. Jin led us directly into a side room with a large conference table. After we all took a seat, she tapped a gem in the center of the table.

“We’re shielded. Now, not even a Sovereign can listen in on our conversation. We should only need to worry about the Saint, and I doubt he has even heard of you. The clan representatives who know something strange is going on have almost certainly been doing everything they can to hide it from him.”

I looked at her and Shen. Then, I turned to my friends. I needed to explain things, and I wanted to tell them the whole truth, but I didn’t dare. I would tell them everything I could, and it would all be true, but taking note of how Emperor Li had told me the Earthly Dao communicates, I would add implications that might not be entirely accurate.

“You all know, or suspect, a bit about what’s going on with me. Here’s the truth. Whenever I die, I return to the day I received my blessing. I have a limited amount of control over that, and depending on the circumstances, I can shift that date forward sometimes, but ultimately, I will always return to the day I received my blessing when I was sixteen years old.”

“Wait… What!?”

Everyone had taken my statement in stride except for Cai XiaoYu. Yan put a hand on her shoulder and signaled for her to simply listen.

“It doesn't seem to matter how I die. I’ve experienced many types of deaths over the years, including one that ripped my soul apart. I always return whole and healthy.”

True, but that doesn’t mean I can survive an actual soul death.

“The Earthly Dao has contacted me several times and has even sent its incarnation to speak with me directly once. I have no idea what its plans for me are, but I am confident it has them. From what Emperor Li told me, this means it will provide me with some level of protection, though likely not much. After all, it doesn’t care how many times I die.”

The eyes of everyone in the room widened at this statement. They knew the Dao was involved with blessings, but they had likely only heard of someone meeting the incarnation in stories. I could only hope this information would be enough to dissuade the two powerhouses in the room from getting any ideas about controlling me or simply ending me.

“As Emperor Shen has deduced, in my travels, I acquired a spatial spirit fire seed and am using it to construct a storage space in my soul. This storage space travels back in time with me, allowing me to carry a large number of items with me. In the near future, I expect the volume of this space to begin expanding significantly. This is where the memory orbs come into play. I can store your memories, place the orb into my storage space, and then bring them back to you during the next… cycle. We will all be able to grow without worrying about the passage of time.”

I used the word ‘cycle’ instead of saying ‘my next life’ because I felt making things less personal would help them grapple with the situation better. It wasn’t that I was traveling through time. Maybe events were just cycling. Maybe I really would just be helping them remember a ‘past life’ in a future ‘cycle.’ I didn’t believe that, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

Heck, for all I knew, this could even be the truth of things.

I thought through what else I should tell them but couldn’t think of anything important that I was willing to share.

“That’s about it. Any questions?”

Cai XiaoYu looked like she was about to burst, but Yan held her back to let Emperor Shen speak first.

“How big has your storage space gotten?”

“Last time I checked, it was a sphere with a radius of roughly two meters. It might have grown slightly since then, but the difference would be marginal.”

He frowned. “That’s not much.”

“Most of the space is taken up with gold, spirit stones, and random pill bottles. The only things of importance are a couple of spirit fire seeds and some of LiTing’s weapons.”

I noticed LiTing shift when I mentioned her name.

Shen tapped his fingers in thought. “We’ll need to revisit this when you have a bit more space. For now, the memory orbs are all that I care about. But what do you care about? What do you want to take back with you?”

I laughed slightly. “Honestly, most of what I carry around hasn’t been overly useful. The money just helps speed things up early on in life. I would like to get my hands on as many spirit fire seeds as possible, but other than that, all I care about is information. I want books.”

I decided to add a little extra information.

“Books don’t need to be carried in my storage space. I’ve developed an ability that lets me store them separately. If I could, I’d pilfer all the books of the sect. I don’t need to keep them. I don’t even need to read them. I just need to touch them. After that, the information is mine forever. Ideally, I would like to get a position as a sect librarian so that I could raid the libraries freely.”

Emperor Shen laughed. “I’ll see what I can do. I can get you into the Earth Peak library, but the other peaks, especially Dragon Peak, will be tough.”

I smiled at the offer. “Let’s talk about it again next time. I’m still developing this ability, and it doesn’t work quite right on Rank 6 books yet.”

Jin cleared her throat. “Speaking of books.”

She reached into her storage space and pulled out a stack of six thick tomes.

“I’ve been made aware of the deal you struck with Shen and old man Li. I want you to carry my memories through time as well. I’m not going to make you my disciple like those fools, but I will give you knowledge on refining equal to what they have provided.”

She slid the books toward me.

“As I understand it, they also allowed you to make a single request of them. Li gave you an invaluable fire seed, and Shen gave you a worthless scrap of paper.” Shen looked abashed at this but didn’t speak up to refute the statement. “I will be more direct.”

She pulled six more books out of her storage space.

“From what Shen has told me, I have a fairly good idea of what you were getting up to in the Earth Peak Trial. These are two sets of techniques for the Warrior Tier. The first is my family's secret cultivation technique. It will let you cultivate metal essence. The second is one I recently acquired. It will let you cultivate lightning essence. Will these gifts be sufficient to purchase my ticket on your trip through time?”

I grinned at her. “More than enough.”

Suddenly, Jin turned predatory, and I realized I had spoken too hastily. I should have been more careful with my words.

“Well then, if it’s more than enough, I would like to make an additional request.” The corner of her mouth twitched in amusement. “Take my granddaughter’s memories with you too.”

“This… I don’t know. Honestly, I’m hesitant to take you along with me. Bringing in people I don’t know involves risks, and the more people I bring, the riskier it becomes.”

Jin’s smile turned wide and ingratiating. “That’s perfect then. You do know her. She was your student, Jin ZiHan. You spent so much time and effort training her. It would be a waste not to let her remember it, wouldn’t it?”

“That might be possible…” In the face of a caring grandmother, it was hard to muster much of an objection. “If I do, I want something else in return. During the next cycle, can you get me into the Metal Peak Trial to cultivate essence even if I’m a member of a different peak?”

Without hesitation, Jin pulled out a coin made from an unknown metal and placed it on top of the books.

“That won’t be a problem. Enter the portal to the Metal Peak while holding this token, and I’ll come to meet you. I’ll start preparing her a memory orb immediately.” She hesitated but continued. “Li said we needed to let you learn to make the orbs on your own, but if you want help, let me know. LiTing is advancing rapidly, but I don’t know when she will be ready for something like that.”

I considered her offer.

It would be years before LiTing was ready to make the memory orbs.

How long had this life already lasted? I started it at the end of our first term as a Martial Master, so I would have been 25? I was now…64? So, 39 years? How had so much time passed?

At the beginning of this life, I only had 45 years left on my 100-year plan. The years LiTing needed to learn Rank 6 refining would carry us past my deadline. Then, I would need to finish up this life without regrets and return to the Wastes.

I had to go back to the Wastes. I needed to repay my debts. But how could I end this life without regrets? There was so much left I wanted to do here.

I looked at my friends sitting around the table. I didn’t want to leave them yet. We never really got to spend a life challenging the sect together. I wanted more time… But… Even if I was the only one who even knew about it, I needed to keep my word. I needed to repay my debts.

My mind raced as I tried to find a solution.

There was one, but… It might not be fair. It might be nothing more than a way to lie to myself, but it was the only option available. I could stick to the letter of my promise, even if I broke the spirit of it.

I could start a new life, no matter how little of the 100-year timeline remained, and finish it to completion. I wouldn’t start anything wholly new. I would use this time to settle things in the sect and have one final life with my friends. We could work together to try and reach the Summit of this damn mountain.

Then. Then, I would return to the Wastes. I was stretching my promise, but I would not break it. I couldn’t allow myself to break it.

Decision made, I looked at Jin with resolve burning in my eyes. I took out six of the blank jade orbs I had made and passed them to her.

“Thank you. I…” I paused to think about what to tell them. “I have a self-imposed time limit in this life. Four more years. After that, I will die and return to the beginning. Then, I want to grab everyone and rush to the Summit as quickly as possible.” I looked from her to Shen. “I could use help from both of you. While I can learn to make the formations myself, I don’t know if I’ll have time to do so properly in this life.”

They both nodded, and Jin moved the orbs to her storage bag.

With Jin and Shen taken care of, I turned my attention to my friends.

“Is there anything you all want to know?”

Yan could no longer hold Cai XiaoYu back.

“Yes! Can… Can I go too? I don’t have anything of value, but…”

I held up a hand to stop her. “Yan knew what this meeting was about, and he trusted you enough to bring you with us. For now, that’s enough.”

She beamed a bright smile at me.

“Fang.” YuLong twitched nervously as he caught my attention. “What about… Can I get memory orbs for my family?”

I did my best to give him a compassionate look. “For now, I want to keep the group that knows about this small. We can look at expanding to others in the future. Until then, you can start studying how best to help them.”

I suddenly thought about how I had just given a spot to Jin’s granddaughter. “If there’s someone important… Let’s wait until the next cycle. If there’s someone important, you can talk with them in the next cycle, and I’ll add them in, but only one. The more we add, the more of a risk we’re taking. Alright?”

He silently nodded his head.

JiaQi’s worried voice was next. “Can… How does your storage space work? Can you take people back with you? Can you take… beasts?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. In the past it wasn’t large enough to try. I don’t know for certain what will happen if I take someone back with me like that.”

She closed her eyes. She was on the verge of tears. “Can you take LuLu back with you? If… If we go back to when we were all sixteen, she won’t exist. She might never exist again. If it doesn’t work… Can you please try?”

I bit my lip and examined the deer closely. LuLu was a giant, but if I moved things around, she should be able to fit. Since I planned to expand my space even further before the end, it wouldn’t be a problem.

“I can try, but I don’t know what will happen.”

“I know. Thank you.”

Tears began to trickle down JiaQi’s cheeks.

I looked at LiTing, but she shook her head.

“Yan?”

He gave me an appraising look. “You said you’ll go back in four years, right? We’ll discuss a test for your storage space at that time. For now…”

He looked at the others in the room. “You should all know that his blessing allowed me to pass on some rather sensitive information. I died a soul death caused by a tribulation from the Heavenly Dao and was brought back to life by his blessing. That’s the situation we’re dealing with.”

Yan’s grin became somewhat manic. “We need to wait until the memory orbs are in place so we’re all safe, but once that’s done, we’ll be in a very interesting position. Personally, I plan to see what I can steal from the Zhuge Clan, and if possible, I’ll go to the Central Continent and raid the Zhu Clan. We’ll have to plan things out carefully, and we can’t rush, but everyone should start thinking about how we can exploit this situation.”

I saw a glint of greed appear in a few eyes.

I held up a hand to stop it. “Certain possibilities can be considered. If the Zhu Clan is as ruthless as you have told me, we can consider it, but I don’t want to hurt innocents. Some of the details about the resets… the cycles… I’m not confident about how it all works. In any case, robbing an evil organization is fine. Robbing an orphanage is off the table.”

Everyone calmed down slightly at my words, but they were still excited. After all, there were more than a few ‘evil organizations’ in the world.

“I know four years isn’t much time, but that’s all I have. Think about how best to spend it to prepare for what’s ahead, because once the next cycle begins, I don’t want to waste any time. Everyone will have orbs to keep their memories safe, so none of our deaths will matter anymore. It will be a time to take risks and see how far we can push things.”

When the meeting ended, everyone rushed away to start preparing. We had a lot of work to do.

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Chapter 183 – Life 68, Age 64, Martial Emperor 1

I only had four years before I needed to die and reset.

After laying everything out to my friends and allies, I dedicated myself wholeheartedly to reaching Peak Emperor before this deadline, but it didn’t take long for me to understand the difficulty of raising my cultivation base so high in such a short timeframe while ascending properly.

Gathering enough qi to advance so quickly was difficult. Earning enough contribution points to buy sufficient karmic energy with my limited Rank 6 skills was completely impossible. So, I abandoned cultivating properly and began advancing without it.

After that, I made a deal with Emperor Shen that allowed me to cultivate in his cave on the Earth Peak in exchange for an unspecified future favor. With an endless stream of pure earth qi supporting me, I was able to rapidly advance. My cultivation base wasn’t pretty, but that no longer mattered.

Once I completed my final breakthrough, I exited the cave to see Shen waiting for me. He walked up and clapped me on the back.

“You should be glad old man Li isn’t here. You’re the only disciple he’s ever been allowed to accept. If he saw you destroy your foundation like that, he would be pissed!”

His words gave me flashbacks to something that happened a few lifetimes ago, and I could only smile weakly in response.

“Why are you rushing like this anyway? What’s the point? Why even cultivate if you’re just going to just die in a few more years anyway? Does it affect the next cycle?”

I shook my head. “No, it has nothing to do with the way the cycles work. It’s a… personal decision.”

I wasn’t willing to tell him about the System or its need for credits, and I didn’t know how to explain my 100-year plan or my need to hold myself to it. It barely even made sense to me.

Before I came to the sect, I had told myself that I was doing so in order to prepare to repay my debts in the Wastes. I was here to learn what I needed to learn so that I could achieve that goal, and I had locked myself into a 100-year schedule.

I had committed myself to that. I needed to repay the debts I owed in the Wastes, and at this point, I was confident I had the tools needed to do so. Some things, like my storage space, weren’t ready yet, but I had all the information I needed to take the final steps. I no longer needed to stay in the sect. I should return to the Wastes and start working to fulfill my mission there.

I just… I didn’t want to leave everyone yet. I wanted to stay here a little longer.

After so much time cultivating my soul, I had gained an understanding of what was happening. Two parts of my soul were in conflict.

The newer parts, the parts that had grown since I had learned to cultivate it properly, were attached to the friends I had spent the last several decades with. The thought of leaving them now and possibly spending centuries separated from them was abhorrent to this part of my soul.

The older parts, the parts from my first lives in this world when I grew my soul without understanding what I was doing, the parts now walled in and protected by my soul cultivation technique, those parts of my soul were screaming about the need to repay my debts.

I was able to identify the impulses driving me, but I didn’t have a way to change them. All I could do was to try and follow a course of action that would satisfy both halves of myself.

Attempting to keep to the letter of my promise would satisfy one part of my soul. Breaking the spirit of it to spend one last life with my friends would satisfy the other part.

Unfortunately, I didn’t feel I could explain that to Shen or anyone else properly, so they just saw my actions as either mysterious or blind recklessness.

With Shen and Jin taking care of the memory orbs and my cultivation base having risen far quicker than it had any right to, I had a bit of extra free time on my hands. I decided to spend it on learning more about soul formations. That was the most important issue left for me to tackle.

The Heaven City Scripture Pavilion had a small selection of soul skills related to attack and defense, and I purchased them all as soon as I had the contribution points needed to do so. The sect had marked them as anywhere from Rank 1 to Rank 6, but that categorization seemed false. Even though my library couldn’t store Rank 6 techniques, it had no problem storing the sect’s ’Rank 6’ soul techniques. Even my ‘touch reading’ ability worked on them.

After studying them, it didn’t take me long to understand why these techniques wouldn’t have been made available lower down the mountain. They were incredibly dangerous. Soul-against-soul combat was one thing, but some of these techniques would allow a cultivator to use their soul to defend against regular qi attacks. If they misjudged the strength of their soul and the defense failed, their soul could be completely annihilated.

If one's soul was overpowering, these techniques would provide a way to utilize that strength, but even then, sending one’s soul into direct combat was a risky proposition. It wasn’t something that I would be willing to do unless I had no other choice.

More important than these combat techniques, though, was mastering the soul visualization technique I had purchased from the System, the Garden of a Hundred Flowers. While its premise was simple, its execution was far more difficult.

This technique was not a simple mental trick to let me think about my soul in more concrete terms. It gave me a way to interact with my soul in a nearly physical way while mentally projecting this interaction in the form of tending a garden.

To use the technique, I had to create a thin qi flow, pass it through an acupoint, send it into my soul, and then pull it out through another acupoint and back into my energy body. Then, I had to pass that same flow of qi into my soul through another acupoint and then pull it back out through yet another one. I had to knit together all my acupoints with a single flowing strand of qi.

Complicating things, I couldn’t go in and out of acupoints at random or the technique wouldn’t function properly. Making this even worse, the technique didn’t give specifics on what order to do the acupoints in since it would be different depending on the cultivation technique one was using. The manual only gave instructions on how I could figure out this order for myself.

Mastering this technique and finding the proper qi flow would take time, but I had completed the early steps of the process. I reached the point where I was able to visualize the inner core of my soul as a small walled-in garden. The flowers were a mess, and dozens of small white stones were scattered haphazardly around on the ground.

Seeing my soul in such a state of disarray, I had an instinctive desire to clean it up, but I held back. I needed to master this visualization technique before doing anything else, and even then, directly meddling with my soul seemed like it might be a bad idea.

Because of the difficulties involved in learning this technique, I hadn’t made any actual progress on learning to create a Qi Gathering Formation in my soul. That was fine. I didn’t need to rush it. I would improve first and only worry about carving my soul up once I was truly ready.

With less than a year to go before my deadline and not having been able to create the formation to automatically expand my storage space, I needed to manually expand it as much as possible to provide plenty of room for LuLu to hitch a ride with me. I also needed room for the ‘experiments’ that Yan had hinted at.

As a Martial Emperor, swapping out the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire for the seed of the Expanding Realms Fire went smoothly, and with the proper seed in place, I got to work.

Being a Peak Emperor with Rank 6 pills while sitting inside a Rank 6 formation massively increased the rate at which I was able to expand my storage space. Cultivating near the Summit of Dragon Peak helped even more.

While Dragon Peak didn’t have the level of earth qi that Shen’s cave had, I didn’t need pure earth qi for this. I just needed as much energy as possible, and Heaven City had the densest energy I had ever experienced. The waterfall of energy pouring down on the Summit made me wish I could cultivate there instead, but that wasn’t an option. Not yet at least.

My space was expanding rapidly, but it still wasn’t fast enough for my liking. I wanted it to be as large as possible, and I only had one more idea for how to make that happen. I needed to improve my space affinity.

Permanently enhancing that affinity was beyond my means, but I could spend some credits to boost it temporarily. In the past, such a huge outlay of credits for a somewhat meaningless boost would have made me blanch, but I was about to get a large windfall. It was better to use my current resources productively than allow them to sit around until they became meaningless.

After popping my spatial fire seed back into my storage space to be safe, I made my purchase.

“System, temporarily improve my space affinity to high seven-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 850 million credits. 49,200,000 credits remaining.

I felt the world around me distort slightly before it snapped back into place. Once I blinked away that sensation, I set about expanding my storage space.

Originally, I had only planned to spend a month on this task, but I had a bit of extra time on my hands, and I wanted to make good use of the boosted affinity. So, with nothing else pressing for my attention, I spent an entire three months expanding my storage space.

When I was done, it was a sphere with a radius of roughly 4.5 meters. While the radius had only slightly more than doubled, the volume of the space had increased by more than ten times, reaching nearly 400 cubic meters.

It was finally reaching a point where I could consider creating a small garden inside. There were still a lot of roadblocks preventing me from making that a reality, but space would soon no longer be one of them.

With my space expanded, I next had to spend time cleaning it out and restocking it.

I topped up the gold and spirit stones inside, but doing so didn’t take up hardly any room. I next added every pill and formation plate I might need from Ranks 1 to 5. With the help of Emperor Shen, I also added a few Rank 6 defensive formation plates, but I didn’t add any Rank 6 pills. I had no way of crafting ones that would be worth keeping.

Just in case anything went wrong, I stored Rank 6 armor and weapons for me and all my classmates. LiTing had made a metallic blue robe for JiaQi and a metallic black one for Yan. While the refining work on them was superior to the ones YuLong and I had, I didn’t have time to embroider formations into them, so they were a bit weaker overall. For YuLong, LiTing, and myself, I just stored the robes we had used during the trip to Heaven City.

What really surprised me was when everyone, including Shen, Jin, and Cai XiaoYu, presented me with a Profound-Rank fire seed. Even Jin ZiHan had bought one in Earth City and had it delivered to me.

The sect limited the purchase of fire seeds to one per person, and officially, the seeds remained the property of the sect. If someone departed for the Central Continent or retired from the sect to join a Sovereign clan, they would have to return any seeds they had purchased. So, giving these seeds to me like this violated the sect’s rules, but soon, that wouldn’t be any concern of ours.

After purchasing a final seed myself, I had a complete array of single-element Profound-Rank fire seeds for each of the five basic elements, all four secondary elements, and space. I was spoiled for choice on which one to place in my soul for use in my next life.

I considered using Emperor Li’s Earth-Rank seed but desisted. It wasn’t something that I could allow anyone to know about, and I wanted a seed that I would be able to use freely.

After considering my potential plans, I stored them all away except for the wind-based seed. That was the one I placed in my soul.

Finally, I sorted through the odds and ends that were lying around my storage space and cleaned out everything I no longer needed.

At some point, I had stored a large number of items for formation and alchemy practice inside, so I cleared them out, only leaving behind the box filled with various bags of rare or important herb seeds I’d obtained over the years. Kept in a jade box, those seeds hadn’t yet sprouted, and I could only hope they were still viable.

During this cleaning process, I came across something strange. While I had stored several blank stones for formations in the space, I didn’t expect to find a large chunk of granite. Granite was only used in Rank 1 formations, so it wasn’t something I would have usually kept around. Stranger was that the stone was a perfectly spherical ball the size of my head, not the normal flat square of a formation plate. It also had an unusually regular distribution of mica, feldspar, and quartz within it.

I had no idea where the stone had come from, and I didn’t need it, so I wanted to throw it away, but the mystery of how it had appeared in my storage space made me hesitate. I wasn’t sure if I should just throw away a mystery stone… After a thorough check in energy vision, I couldn’t detect even a trace of energy within it. It was a perfectly normal piece of granite with only its shape and regular composition making it at all unusual.

There wasn’t much reason to keep the stone, but I had more than enough extra space, and it appeared in my storage space somehow. I could at least hang onto it until I figured out where it came from.

With everything taken care of and my deadline right around the corner, Jin paid me a visit to deliver several boxes marked with everyone’s names.

“The ones for Shen, myself, and little ZiHan are already filled. For the others, you’ll need to take care of it yourself.”

I bowed slightly in thanks.

“How do they work?”

She picked one up and showed it to me.

“Have them insert their qi here. This will draw out their memories. Normally, you would want to focus on what’s important and only store critical information, but they’re all still young enough that these orbs should be able to hold everything. Just remember that this will only work once. After that, the orb will solidify, and the memories will be locked in place. There’s no changing them after that. If you want to add something, you’ll need to start again with an entirely new orb.”

She pointed to a different spot. “When they want to extract the memories, they need to insert their qi here. This will draw the memories out of the orb and store them in their soul. Soul memories aren’t as good as those in your head, but they’re better than nothing. They’ll be able to remember everything they did and why they did it.”

She placed the orb in the box, closed the lid, and looked at me seriously. “These orbs do have an important… quirk. You cannot store memories extracted from a memory orb into a new orb. Normally, this isn’t usually considered a problem, but for us, it’s something we need to keep in mind. If I want to retain three lives worth of memories, you’ll have to carry around three different orbs for me. When we have time, we can look at researching a way to fix this, but that’s for the future. For now, remember to keep all of the orbs safe, not just the ones from the most recent cycle.”

She hesitated a bit before continuing. “When you go back, your friends are only going to be children. All the work they’ve done to improve their souls will have vanished. After you give them their memories, they’ll remember what they did, and they’ll remember why they did it, but that reasoning might not make any sense to them without the same soul growth they’ve experienced in this life.”

“I understand. Thank you.”

After Jin left, I went to visit each of my friends.

After taking LiTing’s memories, she gave me a deep bow.

“Thank you, Teacher. I’ll do my best to learn more in the future so that I can be of greater assistance.”

This statement worried me slightly, but I accepted her bow and returned it.

After YuLong gave me his memories, he set his jaw and looked me in the eye.

“I know you plan to bring us all back in the next cycle and rush through the Academy. I… I’m not going to join you. I want to spend time with my family. Can you give me my memories before I go to the Academy? That way, I can live a life without being dragged into this mess and find ways to help my brothers and sisters. If it’s possible, just come grab my memories at the end of it all.”

I thought through the feasibility of doing this and eventually nodded.

“I’ll see what I can do. There are potential complications, but I’ll do my best.”

He placed a hand on my shoulder and looked me deep in the eye.

“Thank you.”

JiaQi’s memory transfer went smoothly, and when it was done, I was faced with the dangerous task of trying to take LuLu back in time with me.

To prepare, I had filled large rubber bladders with air, transferred them into my storage space, and then opened them. I could only hope that this would give LuLu something to breathe while she was trapped inside, but I couldn’t be certain.

I looked at the deer.

“Let’s start with a short test. I’ll put you inside for ten seconds and then bring you right out, okay?”

After the deer lowered her head in acknowledgment, I placed a hand on her body and willed her to enter my storage space.

Looking inside, I saw her appear. She was initially startled, but she quickly calmed down. After ten seconds, I pulled her out.

LuLu scratched at the ground, and JiaQi translated for her.

“She says it’s uncomfortable, but she can withstand it if it doesn’t last too long.”

“Alright, I’ll do my best to not make you stay in there any longer than necessary.”

I looked from JiaQi and back to LuLu a couple of times, making a decision.

“There’s another problem we need to discuss… It’s…” I took a deep breath to muster my resolve and consider my words. “It’s about… ‘time.’ I can take LuLu back, and she can spend your next life with you, but…”

“Time will still pass. She will grow old. I know.” JiaQi smiled at me. “I’m not worried about that. I just want to give her a happy, long, natural life.”

I shook my head. “Yes, but… no. There are more complications. I don’t know how long I will be around in the next cycle, and I don’t know what will happen after that. Bringing LuLu back with me every time will be difficult, and I don’t know that either of you would be happy with that.”

How much should I say?

I looked at LuLu. “If everything works the way I think it will, I can lock you into the timeline. I should be able to take you back to the beginning and lock you in with the rest of us. Every time the cycle restarts, you will return as you are now. You can learn and grow through countless cycles just like the rest of us. But there’s a problem with this… I won’t always be able to give JiaQi her memories back. In those cycles, you will need to figure out what you want to do on your own. You can explore the world by yourself, or you can try to follow JiaQi even though she won’t remember you.”

I gave the deer a steady look. “Is this what you want?”

LuLu didn’t even consider the question before dipping her head. I wasn’t great at reading her emotions, but she seemed overjoyed.

With that settled, I gathered the memories from a crying JiaQi and departed.

When I visited Yan, three other people were in his room. I had expected Cai XiaoYu, but I didn’t expect the two people who were tied up and lying on the floor unconscious.

I raised an eyebrow at this.

“Two men who were trying to have their way with a woman who wasn’t interested in their advances. You weren’t sure what would happen if you took someone back with you, right? Well, when these two decided that raping a young lady was a good idea, they volunteered to help you find out.”

He kicked the man on the left. “This one is only twenty years old, a low-level Disciple.”

He kicked the other man. “This is his master. He’s over a hundred.”

Yan looked at me, and the disgust that had been in his eyes faded slightly.

“This will tell you if you can take people back with you, and it’ll tell you if there are any differences between people born before or after the date you return to.”

I looked at the men on the ground. I didn’t like the idea of human experiments, but I didn’t have much pity for these two.

After taking Yan’s and Cai XiaoYu’s memories, I hauled the two pieces of trash away, but I didn’t place them in my storage space immediately since I didn’t want them wasting LuLu’s air.

With all my tasks completed, there was only one thing left to do. I needed to die.

I had considered a few ways for how I might go about that this time, but looking up the mountain, I made my decision. I would attempt to reach the Summit of Dragon Peak.

There were four paths to the Summit. One was the Path of the Leader which I could not walk. One was the Path of the Master which would require two hundred years of service to be allowed to walk. Neither of these paths was an option.

I could walk the Path of the Crafter, but that was risky since I might complete it successfully. Sure, my Rank 6 skills were low enough that I shouldn’t have any honest way of completing the path successfully, but that didn’t mean the powers that be wouldn’t rig things to push me through anyway. If they wanted access to Emperor Li’s fire seed, they might go easy on me to get me out of the sect and into their clutches.

So instead, I chose to walk the Path of the True Chosen. There was, of course, still the risk that this path would be rigged in my favor, but it seemed less likely. Ning ChenKun had said this path was suicide. I wanted to find out why and see if I could use that information in the future.

After saying all my goodbyes, I left Heaven City and began climbing the mountain.

I kept my best armor in my storage space so that I wouldn’t lose it, but LiTing had made me an extra Rank 6 robe to use during this climb. This robe was focused on pure defense. Nothing save a top-of-the-line Rank 6 weapon would be able to do anything to me while I was wearing it.

I climbed the mountain with confidence, and only a few hundred meters into my trek I arrived at four portals to darkness.

Without hesitating, I stepped inside the one labeled ‘True Chosen.’

I appeared less than a kilometer away from the Summit’s temple. A straight, unobstructed path led directly to its front gate. The area around me was barren gray rock, but that was to be expected this high up on the mountain. Overall, the place looked serene and peaceful.

I was confused by the situation, but I didn’t give it much thought. I just started walking forward.

When I did, a large angry dog with vicious teeth appeared out of a fissure in the surrounding rocks and rushed at me. It didn’t look too powerful. It was only a Rank 1 or 2 demon beast.

Not wanting to kill the poor creature, but not willing to let it harass me, I reached for my qi to brush the beast aside.

My qi didn’t respond. Frantically, I tried everything I could think of. Spirit fire, fire seed, qi, will-locks, direct affinity manipulation of the environment. None of it worked.

After only a few seconds, the beast arrived in front of me. I tried to fight back, but my movements felt sluggish. My normally qi-empowered muscles didn’t respond like I expected.

When the low-level beast broke through my defenses and clamped its teeth down on my arm, my fancy refined robe seemed like little more than tissue paper. The dog’s teeth pierced through it with zero effort.

I was completely defenseless before the creature.

Not wanting to be toyed with by a mad animal, I reached for a poison pill in my storage space to end my life quickly.

Nothing happened. The pill didn’t appear, and the demon beast continued its assault.

I could only imagine the watchers in the Summit’s temple laughing at my situation.

When the beast attacked me once more, I twisted my body to turn a crippling blow into a deadly one.

The beast bit into my neck.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Emperor Peak — 1 trillion credits awarded.

Total Credits: 1,000,049,200,000

-----------------------------------------------------

Affinities

Peak Four-Star – Earth

Mid Five-Star – Wood, Fire, Water, Metal

Peak Seven-Star – Wind, Lightning, Light, Dark, Karmic Energy

Peak Eight-Star – Space

Resistances

Mental Effects (Cultivation Techniques) – 25,000,000 credits

Mental Library

Capacity – Rank 5

Journal (with Mental Input) – Rank 3

Perfect Transcription – Rank 5

Touch Reading – Rank 4

Comprehension Boosts

Cultivation:

Cultivation Techniques – 1 billion credits

Qi Control – 100 million credits

Teaching – 100 million credits

Professions:

Alchemy – 1 billion credits

Formations – 1 billion credits

Herbalism – 20,000 credits

Martial – 1 billion credits

Social:

Reading Emotions (True) – 25,000,000 credits

Skills

Enhanced Soul Growth – 20,000 credits

Pill Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive)

Formation Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive, Detailed)

Technique Appraisal – Rank 3 (Earth)

Language (Western Han)

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 184 – Life 69, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

I woke up in a carriage, and my first thoughts were of being savaged by a wild dog, but I quickly squashed them. I had work to do.

My 100-year plan was basically at an end. I was using a technicality in the rules I had created for myself to allow me one last go, but once I started my final life here, that would be that. If I messed up and died, the run would be over. I would need to return to the Wastes and forget about finishing things in the sect until my other tasks were complete.

I wouldn’t let that happen. I would use the time I had to settle a few debts, use everything I had learned to achieve as much as I could, and take my friends to the Summit of Dragon Peak to see what awaited us there.

But before any of that, I had to make my final preparations. I wasn’t quite ready to begin that final life.

When the carriage arrived outside of Yellow Orchid Academy, I begged the driver to wait for my return.

I rushed inside and applied to join the Academy. When the receptionist tested me and saw that I had a peak four-star earth affinity, as well as all my other affinities, she had a shocked expression on her face, but I didn’t let that delay me.

“I want to join Instructor Sun’s Disciple cohort. He is a Martial Master under Grandmaster Ning ChenKun.”

The receptionist gave me a strange look at the direct request.

“Masters and Grandmasters are allowed to choose their own Disciples. I can put in the request, but they might not accept it.”

I considered trying to bribe her with a high-Rank pill but desisted. That might only make matters worse.

“Please do. I only wish to join the Academy if I can do so under Instructor Sun’s guidance.”

After making my request, I left the Academy and had the carriage driver take me to the Blue Wind Pavilion where I purchased two storage bags. As unfortunate as it was, storage bags were not something I could take back in time with me.

I filled them both with a large number of gold bars, spirit stones, and assorted pills ranging from Ranks 1 to 5. Then, I walked outside the Pavilion where the carriage driver was waiting for me and handed him one of the bags.

“Thank you for your assistance.”

Before he could look inside, I turned and headed to a hotel to await the Academy’s decision.

I didn’t know if this world would simply reset or not when I died, but either way, I now considered my debt to the driver repaid in full.

I booked the largest hotel room I could find, and once I was inside with the door locked, I let LuLu out of my storage space. She chuffed at me, but I didn’t understand her meaning.

“Sorry about this. We’ll see JiaQi tomorrow, alright? Just hang on until then.”

LuLu circled the room and sat down along the wall furthest from the door.

I didn’t expect anyone to try to attack me, but having the protection of a Rank 6 demon beast felt pretty good.

I was glad that she had survived the reset healthy and intact.

Speaking of… I pulled the two ‘men’ from my storage space. I had drugged them with potent pills to keep them sedated during the reset process, and the younger man was still sleeping soundly, dead to the world.

His master, on the other hand, was simply dead.

The older man hadn’t survived the transition. As far as I could tell, his body looked healthy, but at some point during the reset process, he had died.

I pulled out my journal and jotted down the results.

People born after the reset are fine, including demon beasts. It appears as if anyone alive before the reset point dies. Unknown if the latter includes demon beasts or not.

It had been a good test, but now I had two corpses to dispose of.

The next day, I was notified that I would be allowed into Instructor Sun’s class, so I headed to the Academy directly.

When I arrived, just like last time, we had a class on learning to control acupoints.

This time, I did my best to mimic LiTing’s and the others’ progress. Did Instructor Sun buy the act? Was I cultivating too slowly for someone with a four-star affinity? I don’t know. I didn’t care enough to pay him any attention. I was just waiting for the class to be over.

Once it was, just like last time, Yan invited me for a meal, an invitation which I easily accepted.

As we were walking to the cafeteria, I checked each of the rooms we passed, and when I found one that was unoccupied, I slowed my steps.

“Hey, can we go in here and chat for a second? There’s something I want to talk about with all of you.”

Everyone gave me a strange look. Yan was particularly suspicious, but he nodded slowly.

Once we were all inside, while the others just looked at me, Yan wanted answers.

“What is this about?”

I held up a hand. “One moment.”

I reached into my storage space and pulled out a Rank 6 defensive formation that would interfere with anyone trying to listen in. Everyone stared at the large slab of bluish stone as I placed it in the middle of the room.

Even with our cultivation session in the classroom, I didn’t have much qi in my body. All my strength was just barely enough to activate the formation, and that was after I had primed it beforehand so that all I needed to do was apply a small trickle of energy to turn it on.

When the formation bloomed to life, everyone’s eyes widened in shock.

Then, I took out the four boxes with their memory orbs.

“I know you don’t know me, but please trust me. This is important.” I held up LiTing’s orb in front of her and pointed to one of two dots that marred its perfectly white surface. “Inject your qi here, it’s not much different from how you control your energy while cultivating. These are memory orbs that contain essential information that each of you needs to know.”

LiTing stared at me with her mouth agape. She didn’t reach for the orb.

Knowing what I had to do, I turned to the most suspicious member of the party.

“Yan, you need to do this.”

“I don’t know you. Don’t talk to me so familiarly.”

I was rushing things. I should have handled this better.

“Yan, if you want to tear down the Zhu Clan. This is the only way.”

He looked at me, and I could feel his emotions surging.

Shi YuLong stepped forward with all the recklessness of a teenager who hadn’t yet learned what this world was capable of.

“I’ll do it. Let me go first.”

Before anyone could respond, he picked up the box with his name on it and injected his qi as I had instructed.

His eyes went blank, and he stared straight ahead at nothing.

“What did you do to him!” JiaQi’s voice was ferocious.

I held up a hand. “Please, just wait.”

In energy vision, I watched as his qi cycled through the orb and returned to him as thin streamers of white lines of energy. They passed into his body, through his acupoints, and into his soul. With his limited qi, the energy had to cycle several times before the memories were fully absorbed.

Just as JiaQi was about to scream again, YuLong reached out a hand and placed it on her shoulder. He looked at me gravely and then turned back to JiaQi.

“Calm down. Do as he says. Trust me. You need to do this. You’ll understand once you do.”

He looked at Yan with the gaze of an old monster. “This is what you’ve been hoping for.”

Yan might not have trusted YuLong completely, but as a faint desperation welled up within him, he reached forward and grabbed his orb. After he absorbed his memories, he gave me a wry smile and then turned to the girls.

“Absorb the memories. They’re safe. If you trust me at all, you can trust me with this.”

Finally, the girls relented. First LiTing, then JiaQi.

Once she was done, JiaQi looked at me in panic.

“Where’s LuLu?”

I gave her a comforting smile and pulled the deer from my storage space.

JiaQi ran forward and hugged her around the neck.

Yan’s eyes gleamed slightly. “What about the two experiments?”

“One dead, one… survived the process safely. Right now, the assumption is that anyone born after the reset point will be safe.”

He nodded at this answer.

I grabbed everyone’s attention.

“This is just a layover. Once this conversation is over, I’m going back to the beginning. If we’re going to aim to reach the Summit, it needs to be done cleanly. I can’t have a known attachment to Emperor Li.”

I motioned to YuLong. “YuLong wants to spend some time with his family. I need to get him his memories before he comes here so that he won’t be a known associate of ours and won’t be pulled into any storms we create. If any of you feel the same way, let me know. If you want, you can spend the next cycle relaxing outside the sect, and I’ll do my best to pick up your memories at the end of it.”

I looked around at the group, but no one took me up on the offer.

“Good. Final thing. I need to know the best time and place to contact each of you. I’m going back about a month and a half. I just need to know a time and place that I can expect to find you alone and unguarded.”

JiaQi cocked her head. “I can see how that’s needed for YuLong, but why us? Just come to the Academy like this again.”

“Do you want to stay here? Do we have anything to gain from the Academy? I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to spend the next four years studying how to be a proper Disciple again.”

JiaQi chuckled at this. “Fair point. But a month and a half? We’ve been in school for the last month. Before that, I guess I was alone in a carriage on my way here. Anytime then would be fine, but I have no idea where I would have been on any specific day.”

I nodded. “That’s good enough.”

As YuLong and LiTing had also been alone in carriages, things became a bit easier than I had first thought. Of course, that was until we got to Yan.

“I’ve been staying in ChenKun’s South Gate residence ever since I got my blessing two months ago.”

“That… how are we supposed to get you the memories then?”

Yan took out a piece of paper and wrote down a sequence of indecipherable characters.

“Have a courier from the Blue Wind Pavilion deliver this to me. I’ll meet you in the Pavilion at noon the day after I receive it.”

I nodded and tossed the second spatial bag filled with supplies to LiTing.

“I don’t know what happens to these timelines when I’m gone. Hang on to that just in case it doesn’t end.”

Then, I looked at LuLu.

“Let’s go.”

I pocketed the deer into my storage space, and after a final glance at my friends, simultaneously grabbed the formation plate and swallowed a poison pill.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 2 — 20 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 1,000,049,200,020

...

I woke up in my tiny apartment in the Su Clan. It had been a long time since I’d been back, but this wasn’t the time to reminisce. I needed to be quick, especially with the first part of the plan.

“Sys—”

I stopped myself. I wanted to try something first to see what happened.

My hut was a little cramped, so I opened my door to give myself more room.

Reaching into my storage space, I tried to extract LuLu.

Nothing happened.

I tried again. I noticed the deer react to my prodding, but I wasn’t able to summon her outside.

I quickly opened my journal and jotted down the results.

Cannot take a Rank 6 beast out of my storage space while within Wastes. Worked fine in South Gate City.

It was a bit of extra information about the Wastes, which was interesting, but I needed to focus. I didn’t want to waste any time I wouldn’t be able to get back.

“System, I want to purchase two teleports. First, send me to a secluded spot in the wilderness roughly one kilometer south of JiaQi’s location. The exact distance and direction can vary, but it needs to be somewhere in the woods with no one around. Then, when I say the word ‘goodbye,’ teleport me back here.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 7,520 credits. 1,000,049,192,500 credits remaining.

I appeared in the middle of a forest and immediately took LuLu out of my storage space.

“I’m going to lock you into this place. JiaQi should be about a kilometer to the north and heading to South Gate City. Okay?”

The deer dipped her head in acknowledgment.

“Goodbye.”

I appeared in my house once more and sat down in the center of the room.

“System, how much to move my permanent reset point ahead to this moment.”

Cost 257 billion credits.

I sucked in a breath. Messing around with pulling a powerful being back through time was costly, but it was the only way to preserve LuLu’s life.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 743,049,192,500 credits remaining.

With that, I was able to relax and no longer worry about losing time.

What came next was going to be… tricky. None of my friends had cultivated yet, so they didn’t have access to qi. That meant they wouldn’t be able to use the memory orbs.

Without their memories, they wouldn’t trust me. So, what could I do?

My plan was a bit direct. I would toss an alchemical powder in their faces, knocking them out, and then drag them into my storage space. Then, I could teach them to cultivate and have them absorb the memories. It wasn’t elegant, but it would get the job done.

“System, tele–”

Wait.

A new thought occurred to me.

“System, how much would it cost for an ability to transfer memories directly from a memory orb into someone’s soul as if they had absorbed it normally? If it makes the ability cheaper, you can make it so that this ability only works with a person’s own memory or only on Martial Disciples. You can also make it so that this ability will only function four times.”

Processing… Memory Implantation. Limit 4. Cost 4 billion credits.

Note: This will only allow you to restore a person’s own memories. Ability is only effective on Martial Disciples. Recipient must be in physical contact with a memory orb.

“How much to make this a permanent ability?”

Cost 100 billion credits.

A good option for the future, but for now it was just an unnecessary extra expense.

“Purchase the limited ability.”

Purchase confirmed. 739,049,192,500 credits remaining.

“System, teleport me inside of JiaQi’s carriage.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 3,765 credits. 739,049,188,735 credits remaining.

I appeared, still kneeling, in the middle of JiaQi’s carriage.

“What the hell!”

Her scream startled me, and I jumped onto the seat opposite her.

She stared at me in fear.

I didn’t give her or any guards time to react. I pulled out her orb and tossed it to her.

“Catch.”

Reflexively, she moved her hands and grabbed it. The moment she did, I activated the Memory Implantation ability.

Instead of her own qi entering the orb, energy from the environment coalesced and poured into it. A fraction of a second later, it exited the orb and poured into JiaQi’s soul.

She stared at me blankly for several moments. As she did, I grabbed the orb and placed it back into my storage space. After only about five seconds, her eyes widened in shock.

“You’re an ass!”

I gave her a quick smile. “I’ll leave a message for you at the Blue Wind Pavilion after I secure a residence.”

Then, I subvocalized so she couldn’t hear me.

“System, teleport me inside of LiTing’s carriage.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 13,825 credits. 739,049,174,910 credits remaining.

As I was already sitting down, I appeared seated directly across from her.

I didn’t even pause. I just tossed her the orb and activated my ability before she could understand what was happening.

Once her eyes regained focus, she gave me a strange look, but I couldn’t stick around. I just grabbed the orb and continued onward.

“Check the Blue Wind Pavilion for a message.”

She nodded, and I set off once more.

“System, teleport me inside of YuLong’s carriage.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 5,260 credits. 739,049,169,650 credits remaining.

Quick as I could, I tossed him the orb and activated it. As a scion of an empire, he might have guards paying closer attention to the carriage.

When his eyes regained clarity, we nodded at each other shortly, I grabbed his orb, and then I vanished once more.

“System, teleport me to a secluded spot in South Gate City.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,240 credits. 739,049,168,410 credits remaining.

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Chapter 185 – Life 70, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

After appearing in an alley in South Gate City, I headed directly for the area of town with the Blue Wind Pavilion. When I found an inn that looked nice but not too fancy, I went inside and booked a room.

Before anything else, I needed to get cleaned up and make myself presentable. After all, it wouldn’t do to enter the Pavilion in the ratty robes of a Su Clan orphan.

Once inside my room, I sat down to decide on a proper wardrobe for this life.

I had a general idea of everything I wanted to accomplish, but I still had a lot of research to do before I would even know if my plan was viable. It would be nice to match my robe with my future peak, but with so many unknowns, it was best not to worry so much about that.

Should I just purchase the fanciest robe possible? Something that screamed Sovereign clan scion? Maybe. It would be interesting to see what the System would design for such a situation.

As I was thinking through different possibilities, I felt a pang deep within my soul. A small part of me vehemently rejected my idea of planning out a new wardrobe like this.

I had only purchased a new robe from the System twice. Both times were at the start of a new adventure. This wasn’t supposed to be a new adventure. I was only supposed to be completing my unfinished tasks. I wasn’t supposed to be starting anything new.

My face turned grave, and I nodded silently in acknowledgment of this promise.

Instead of purchasing something new, I changed into the formation specialist robe of my last life. They might not be a perfect match for where I was headed, but they looked fancy enough to not stick out too much.

Dressed to impress, I headed out of the inn.

When I entered the Blue Wind Pavilion, I was greeted by an all too familiar face. It was far, far younger than the one I had spent so much time with, but it was undeniably the same person. She looked exactly like the version of LiTing I remembered most. It was the face of the disguise I had given her.

I may have stared at Meng LuYao a bit too intently. She blushed and looked like she wanted to run away, but she was well-trained enough not to do so.

“Hello, sir. Welcome to the Blue Wind Pavilion. How may I help you today?”

This snapped me out of my trance, and I gave her a polite smile.

“Yes, sorry. I’m looking to purchase a manor on the outskirts of the city. Is this something the Pavilion can assist me with?”

“Of course, sir. We can help you arrange any purchase you wish within the city or abroad.”

She handed me off to a middle-aged man who quickly noted down details of what I was looking for. This was pretty straightforward. I wanted it to have at least a dozen rooms and be in an area with the densest qi possible.

Because of the latter half of this request, I had to provide a down payment of several dozen spirit stones, but I handed them over without complaint. I even offered to pay double the asking price for any place suiting my needs if I could purchase it immediately. Money was no object.

Simple as that, through the power of cold hard cash, I easily acquired a fitting home where my friends and I could prepare for the road ahead.

Just before I left the Pavilion, I took out Yan’s note and handed it to an attendant.

“I want this letter delivered to Zhuge Yan. He’s staying with Ning ChenKun in the Ning Clan’s South Gate City manor.”

Task complete, I headed back to my inn room.

The next day, I arrived at the Pavilion slightly before noon and accepted the deed to my new manor. Then, I went to a conference room to await my friend.

Only a few minutes later, the door opened, and Yan walked inside. He gave me a suspicious look but quietly sat down opposite me. He didn’t speak. He was forcing me to be the one to initiate contact.

“I have something you need to take a look at.”

I pulled out his memory orb and rolled the jade ball across the table to him.

He reached out to grab it, and the moment it was in his hand, I activated my Memory Implantation ability.

Yan’s eyes went blank for several moments. When the transfer was complete, he nodded to me.

“How did the experiment turn out?”

“The older man died during the process, but the younger one survived it.”

“Good to know. What’s the plan?”

I passed him the deed to my new manor. “I purchased a new place. I’m going to fix it up and then seclude myself to cultivate, but first I’ll install Qi Gathering Formations for each of us. It should be an ideal place to raise our cultivation bases as quickly as possible.”

“I’ll have to make an excuse to leave ChenKun’s manor. He’s excited at the prospect of me becoming one of his future subordinates, and I’ll have to let him down carefully.”

“You know what you need to do better than me. Just do what you think is best. By the way, are you going to stick with dark qi this time, or do you want to try a different element?”

Yan tapped his fingers on the table. “You keep talking about rushing up the mountain. You’re looking to ascend as quickly as possible?”

I nodded.

“Then I’ll stick with dark. I’d like to try something new, but that would take time that I don’t think you want me to spend.”

“Thank you. If you have any problems with ChenKun, just let me know.”

After Yan left, I headed out to my new manor to get things arranged properly.

I didn’t bother with our new home’s furniture or decor. Those things weren’t important to me. What I cared about was having a place to help us cultivate safely and privately.

First, I took out several Rank 6 formation nodes created by Shen and placed them around the manor, creating a powerful defensive grand formation. Because I was using plates instead of carving them directly into the surrounding landscape, and because I didn’t have the qi needed to activate the formation properly, these defenses were not as strong as I would have liked. However, by supplying the main node with a large pile of spirit stones, I was able to create a barrier that could defend us from all but the most powerful assailants.

Then, I worked on setting up several different cultivation rooms. A metal area for LiTing, a dark one for Yan, and a water one for JiaQi. In each room, I placed a set of plates inscribed with Rank 1, 2, and 3 Qi Gathering Formations. These formations would condense and purify their specific qi types far above what was normal for their Rank.

Usually, this would be considered a bad idea. Placing someone in an area with too much qi can cause problems if they don’t know what they’re doing, and letting new Disciples cultivate in an area of purified qi can lead to them forming bad habits. For us, neither of these was an issue. My friends knew what they were doing.

I did not, however, create a cultivation area for myself. I wasn’t quite ready to do so. I needed to see if my experiment would work first.

Once all the formations were set up to my liking, I took out four small jade stones shaped like large blank coins. I placed each coin on the main node of the defensive formation, and a small burst of qi from the formation caused tiny lines to appear on each of them.

To a layperson, the coins would have only looked like they had been badly scratched up at random. In truth, these scratches transformed the simple jade coins into formation keys. Anyone holding such a key would be allowed to pass into the manor freely, but anyone not holding one would be blocked.

With everything set up, I went to the Pavilion and left letters for LiTing, Yan, and JiaQi along with one of the jade keys for each of them. Keeping the last key for myself, I returned to the manor and secluded myself in a small room in the back.

If anyone needed me, they would be able to find me, but I would need to concentrate to pull off what I wanted to do next.

While my friends had all advanced to Martial Emperor in their last life, they still didn’t have the breadth of knowledge and experience with low-level cultivation that I did. Recovering their previous cultivation bases wouldn’t be much of a challenge for them, but my additional experience meant that I would be able to advance slightly more rapidly than they did.

This gave me a bit of extra time to play with, and I knew exactly how I wanted to use it. I was going to create a novel cultivation technique.

Even if I had the extra time, the part of my soul that wanted me to return to the Wastes balked at the idea of me not only cultivating a new technique but also first spending time to create said technique. However, its dedication wasn’t actually to my promise to return to the Wastes specifically. It was more focused on forcing me to start repaying my debts in the abstract. Instead of waiting until I returned to the Wastes, I could satisfy this part of my soul by starting to repay certain debts to people in the Nine Rivers Sect.

While I had dealt with several people in the sect, such as my combat trainer Lord Gong, most of this was done through equal exchanges. I might decide to give the ones who were nice to me a little something extra, but no debt existed between us. However, there were three people in the sect who I felt I owed a deep debt to, and I needed to repay them for what they had done.

The first of these debts was to the Master of the Lightning Peak. He had sent gu to invade my soul on our trip to Heaven City. I needed to repay him for that. Since the cultivation technique I wanted to create was central to my plan for repaying this debt, that core piece of my soul was easily soothed.

While my idea seemed rather straightforward, I had already noticed a few quirks that could be a problem. I had time to work on this technique, but it wasn’t unlimited, and I couldn’t allow myself to get bogged down. So, before I began my work, I made a purchase to speed things along.

“System, boost my comprehension of cultivation techniques to a total of 100 billion credits.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 99 billion credits. 640,049,168,410 credits remaining.

Taking a deep breath, I reached into my storage space and pulled out two of the books Jin had given me, the Rank 1 technique for cultivating metal essence and the Rank 1 technique for cultivating lightning essence.

If this was going to be my last life in the sect, at least for now, I wanted to take full advantage of it, and the best way to do that would be by draining it of as much essence as possible. Jin had already promised me access to the metal essence as part of our earlier deal, and I would repay my debt to the Master of the Lightning Peak by absorbing every drop of lightning essence I could.

Shen hadn’t seemed too happy about me cultivating earth essence since I needed ten times as much as a normal disciple. How would the Lightning Master feel about me absorbing something ten times as precious? I would just need to rely on Shen, Jin, and the sect rules to prevent him from doing anything too reckless in response.

However, before I could make that dream a reality, I first needed to create my new cultivation technique.

In theory, my idea was simple.

I wanted to use the Writ of True Earth as a base. At this point, I was most comfortable fighting with earth qi, and I didn’t want to spend time learning combat techniques that used other qi types. However, I would strip out all the earth essence filters from the technique and then add filters for lightning and metal essence.

Making the process easier, all three techniques used the same set of 361 acupoints. While the exact filter types used at each point varied, they had roughly the same distribution of filter types. About a quarter of them were pure essence nodes, and about two-fifths were pure qi nodes. The rest were mixed nodes. However, which acupoints were qi and which were essence varied by technique.

My first pass at making the combined technique was crude and direct. I laid out each node on a large sheet of paper and marked the ones that were used for qi gathering in the Writ of True Earth, either pure or mixed. After that, I marked the nodes that were used for essence gathering in the metal technique, and then I marked the essence gathering nodes of the lightning technique.

Once that was done, I worked on creating new filter designs. I had the pure qi filters and the qi-plus-essence filters from the technique manuals, but I needed an essence-plus-essence filter and a qi-plus-two-essence filter. I also had to modify the qi-plus-essence filters to work with earth qi instead of lightning or metal qi.

One complicating factor that I wasn’t yet sure how to address was that each technique contained two different designs for the qi-plus-essence filters. I didn’t even know what purpose these differences served. I could only push forward and hope that the reason for this became clear during testing.

Using the designs from the existing manuals as a guide, it didn’t take me long to create a few prototype filters. I didn’t expect these first iterations to function properly, but I just needed them to be safe enough for a trial run. When I was confident they wouldn’t kill me, I was ready to begin experimenting with using them in an actual cultivation technique.

However, that was when I felt a ping from the manor’s defensive formation. Someone had used a key to enter the manor.

I exited seclusion to see who had entered and was happy to find that JiaQi and LiTing had arrived together.

LiTing just gave me a complicated smile, but JiaQi ran forward and hugged me.

“Thank you.”

My return hug was only slightly awkward, but she didn’t care. “Where’s LuLu?”

She snickered at that. “I didn’t think bringing a Rank 6 demon beast near the city would be a good idea. Besides, she’s been trapped in the sect for far too long. I told her to go out and explore the world for a few years. She needs to have some fun for a while, and at her level, there aren’t many things around that can hurt her.”

I looked at LiTing who had just been staring at me strangely.

“Anything wrong?”

“I…” She breathed deeply. “The memories you gave me feel… strange. I… The girl from those memories… she… I don’t understand why she felt certain things.”

I gave her my best comforting smile. “Those impulses were partly from your qi cultivation technique, but most of it was from your soul cultivation.”

I looked back and forth between the two girls. “This was something I had to grapple with at first too. When you start a new life with your old memories, some of your actions won’t make much sense. This… world… imposes changes to our thoughts, but that gets undone at the start of a new life.”

I struggled trying to explain things. “I would suggest you think of it like this. You have the memories of what happened, but in a way, that person wasn’t you. The memories are from a different possible you. Don’t try to recreate anything from that life. Just use what you learn from them to create something new.”

LiTing bowed her head. “Thank you, Tea— Thank you, Fang.”

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Chapter 186 – Life 70, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

If I wanted my ambitious ideas for this life to come to fruition, I had a lot of work to do. Designing the cultivation technique I had in mind was far beyond anything I had done before, and it would require all the time and effort I could give it.

Still, one of my main reasons for returning to the sect was to spend more time with my friends. I had work to do to achieve my goals, but I couldn’t let that consume me entirely.

So, after talking with the girls for a while, we agreed on a schedule. Once a week, we would all stop whatever we were doing and go out for dinner together. With that plan in place, we separated out to our individual cultivation chambers and got to work.

Returning to the diagrams I had made for my cultivation technique, I carefully scanned them. There were problems with the design, I didn’t doubt that, but I needed to try it out to learn what needed to be fixed.

The technique used twelve acupoints in the upper right arm. To figure out how to make the technique work properly, I needed to experiment with filters and other ideas, and that would take qi that my body didn’t have. So, I cultivated the Writ of True Earth in my upper left arm to advance to Martial Disciple 2.

Then, I tried cultivating my experimental technique in my upper right arm.

The backbone of the technique was the complex qi vortex from the Writ of True Earth.

As for filters, two acupoints only needed basic qi filters, so they weren’t a problem.

Three acupoints used qi-plus-metal-essence filters and three used qi-plus-lightning-essence filters. For these, I had only needed to modify the qi portion of the filter. I was familiar enough with the Writ of True Earth and earth qi filters that this didn’t pose too much of a problem. The final filter designs might not have been optimal, but I was confident they would work.

Three of the acupoints needed two-essence filters. The designs I had come up with for these were questionable. They were essentially crude versions of the qi-plus-essence filters cut up and stitched together. Worse, there were two versions of the qi-plus-essence filters for each element, and I wasn’t always confident which one to use where. Still, I gave these filters good odds of working properly. They might not be ideal, but they should work.

The final acupoint required a qi-plus-two-essence filter. I had no idea where to even start in designing something like that since none of the essence techniques had anything like it. After flipping through my vast library of cultivation techniques, I found a single three-element qi cultivation technique that used a type of triple filter on certain acupoints. My own design was loosely based on the structure of this filter with the details added from filters in the three essence techniques.

Overall, the ‘technique’ I had created was a mess.

Using qi from my left arm, I put all the filters in place and started cultivating my new technique in my right arm.

Impurities flooded into me.

While the pure qi and pure essence filters held, a large number of impurities leaked through the qi-plus-essence filters, and the qi-plus-two-essence filter collapsed entirely.

I didn’t stop. Even as impurities poured into my body, I kept cultivating. As I did, I carefully inspected how both the energy entering my body and the energy being blocked by the filters were being affected by my creations.

Once I learned everything I thought I could learn from the experience, I ceased cycling the technique. Then, I took an Energy Expulsion Pill from my storage space and swallowed it. All of the energy I had absorbed, including the cultivation base I had built in my left arm, was expelled from my body.

Experiment #1 was a near-total failure, but I had learned from it. With that new knowledge in hand, it was time to start over from the beginning.

After a week of research, as planned, I put everything down and went to have dinner with LiTing and JiaQi. We didn’t leave the manor together, though. Instead, for some reason, they arranged to meet me in the city.

I made sure to arrive at the correct restaurant on time, and everything seemed to be going well, but when the waiter led me to a private room, opened the door, and ushered me inside, the sight that greeted me made my blood turn cold.

LiTing gave me a seemingly beatific smile. “Fang, why don’t you sit down.”

I awkwardly stumbled forward and grabbed a seat, but there was no way I was going to start this death trap of a conversation.

Across the table from me, sitting shoulder to shoulder, were three young women. LiTing was on the left, and JiaQi was on the right. Sitting between them was an attendant from the Blue Wind Pavilion whom I was all too familiar with at this point, Meng LuYao.

While Meng LuYao looked a bit uncomfortable, LiTing smiled happily, and JiaQi gave me an evil grin, enjoying my discomfort.

“So, Fang, guess who we met.”

I stared at JiaQi. What was I supposed to say? Was there even a proper response to that?

LiTing put an arm around Meng LuYao.

“Sister Yaoyao is so pretty, isn’t she? She really is the perfect image of a first disciple. I can see why you would have chosen her.”

While LiTing’s voice was playful, I felt a deeper longing behind it that worried me. This situation was dangerous for more than one reason, and dealing with it was completely beyond me.

In this setting, Meng LuYao lacked the confidence that I had associated with her in the past. That confidence had been built on her position as a Pavilion attendant. Here, she was just a young mortal sitting at a table with cultivators.

LiTing’s face turned serious. “Fang, I want to ask you for a favor.”

I held up a hand to stop her. “Wait till we get back home.”

She nodded happily.

After an eternity, the waiter arrived and brought us our dishes. As we ate, LiTing and JiaQi talked about trivial things and discussed how their progress had been going while Meng LuYao and I just sat there, silently taking it all in.

Once we were finished, as I expected, LiTing pulled Meng LuYao back to our manor with us. After we were safely hidden away behind its formation, LiTing pulled me to the side to ask for her favor.

“Fang, I want to bring LuYao with us. I feel I owe her, and she… I don’t know. I felt a connection with her the moment I saw her. She’s like the sister I never had.”

There was no connection between the two girls. LiTing literally only knew her skin deep. Creating a deep attachment over her memories of using Meng LuYao’s appearance as a disguise for several years couldn’t be healthy. How could I diffuse this situation? Was there a way to turn her down without it causing even more issues?

“I know, but… she’s a mortal. I don’t think she has any affinities, and even if she did, she doesn’t know anything about cultivation. She would never be able to catch up with us.”

LiTing bit her lip. “Can you… Can you give her my memories?”

I immediately turned serious. “What?”

“Give her my memories from the last cycle. That will tell her everything she needs to know. As for her affinities… we just need to find some essence for her, right? If we can get her into the sect, with my memories, she shouldn’t have any problems with the Metal Peak Trial. Not as a Grandmaster or Lord.”

I gave her a long look.

“If something goes wrong, it will mean the immediate end of this cycle. If she says or does something to let others know what’s going on, it’s too dangerous for all of us. Are you okay with that?”

Tears welled up in LiTing’s eyes. I wanted to think it was an act, but I could tell that it wasn’t.

I put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m willing to try it out, okay? Just know that this comes with a lot of risk.”

We walked back to where JiaQi and Meng LuYao were waiting for us.

“Miss Meng, do you know why LiTing brought you here?”

“She… she said there was a chance I could become a cultivator.”

“Did she tell you anything else?”

“N… No.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I felt the beginnings of a migraine. This was one of the problems with bringing people into the time loop. They would each have their own dreams and aspirations. LiTing’s desire to include Meng LuYao would only be the beginning of the problems I would face from this, not the end.

Still, this was what I had wanted. I wanted others to take this journey with me. There would be hiccups along the way, but it would be far better than spending an eternity alone.

After a long look at LiTing, I took a deep breath. There wasn’t a good way to handle this, so I took the best one that I could think of. If this situation was going to cause the loop to fail, better it happened as soon as possible to mitigate the fallout.

“Miss Meng, let me explain the situation.”

I proceeded to give her all the details about how I was looping, how I brought back LiTing’s and JiaQi’s memories, and even about how I had used her appearance as a disguise for LiTing.

She looked at me in disbelief, but quick looks at LiTing and JiaQi confirmed my story.

“That’s the situation. Now, LiTing wants to give you her memories from her last life. This will teach you to cultivate, and I can help you improve your affinities so that you will be able to do so. However, I will only give you her memories this one time. At the end of this life, I will store your memories of this life for you to use in the future. You won’t have anything you gained from LiTing to rely on, so you need to use her memories to practice and learn things yourself.”

I reached into my storage space and brought out LiTing’s memory orb.

“You need to make a choice. You can pick up this orb and accept the memories inside, or you can leave. If you wish to leave, you will not be harmed. I will ensure you are protected. However, I will erase any memories of this conversation from your mind. What do you wish to do?”

I held the orb steady before her eyes. I could see that JiaQi and LiTing wanted to urge her to pick it up, but I shook my head slightly at them.

Meng LuYao's eyes were fixed on the orb.

“This will let me become a cultivator?”

I studied her and evaluated those words. She wanted to become a cultivator, and she might agree to anything to make that happen. That wouldn’t be good for her, and it definitely wouldn’t be good for us.

Quickly considering my options. I returned the orb to my storage space. When it disappeared, panic crept onto Meng LuYao’s face.

“Miss Meng, this is an important decision. You shouldn’t rush it. And even if you wish to, you cannot absorb these memories without qi.”

I turned to JiaQi. “Take her to a side room and teach her the basics. She doesn’t need to advance, she just needs a bit of energy in her body, but the more the better. Talk with her and answer any of her questions honestly.”

JiaQi smiled softly and moved forward to guide the other girl away, but Meng LuYao’s words caused her to stop.

“But… I can’t cultivate. I don’t have any affinities. It’s impossible…”

I walked forward, placed a hand on her shoulder, and subvocalized.

“System, give Meng LuYao a peak seven-star metal affinity. Use the cheaper, temporary option.”

There was no reason to pay ten times the price when it wouldn’t remain after this loop anyway.

Purchase confirmed. Cost 17,760 credits. 640,049,150,650 credits remaining.

I smiled at the girl. “There. I’ve given you enough essence to raise your metal affinity to a decent level. No matter if you choose to join us or not, it is yours. You can now become a cultivator whether you choose to join us or not.”

This time, fear blossomed in full on her face. “What’s the cost? There’s always a cost. Especially for something like this.”

“Don’t worry. The cost has already been paid. I used your image to disguise LiTing without your permission. That incurred a debt. I gave you this essence to repay that debt. I consider us even. Now, you can freely choose what happens in the future. Go with JiaQi, talk with her, and think carefully about your decision.”

I motioned to JiaQi, and she led the girl away. Once they were gone, I looked at LiTing.

“This could cause a lot of trouble, you know? If she doesn’t agree, we’re going to have to restart the cycle.”

LiTing closed her eyes to stop tears from forming. “I know. I’m sorry. I just… The moment I met her, I felt like she could be my twin sister. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

I walked forward and wrapped an arm around her to comfort her.

“Don’t worry. We’ll figure things out.”

I quickly scribbled down a Low-Yellow metal cultivation technique and delivered it to the girls. It wasn’t anything amazing, but it would be enough for what they needed to do. An hour later, the two of them left their secluded cultivation and came back to talk with us.

Meng LuYao still looked nervous, but a determined look had appeared in her eyes.

“I want the memories.”

I nodded silently and held the orb out to her. Following JiaQi’s guidance, Meng LuYao inserted the qi into the orb, and the memories flowed into her.

The struggles the young woman faced when absorbing decades of memories from an unfamiliar mind were far greater than what my friends had dealt with. These memories were completely foreign to her, and they didn’t completely mesh with her psyche.

When she was able to open her eyes and look at me, she gave me a half-smile. “Thank you, Teacher.”

LiTing quickly stepped forward and guided Meng LuYao off to a side room.

As I watched them go, I could only sigh. “That may have been a mistake.”

JiaQi laughed. “So what? You’re an immortal time traveler. If anyone is allowed to make mistakes, it’s you. Don’t worry so much about it. This will make LiTing happy, and if it doesn’t work out, at least we’ll know for next time.”

I snorted and returned to my cultivation room.

Putting the situation out of my mind, I returned to working on my cultivation technique.

Over the next month, I iterated on the filter designs several times, but making everything work properly was giving me far more trouble than I would have wished. I was making progress, but it was slow.

It got to the point where I was considering just buying the technique I wanted from the System, but I held back. One of my main reasons for designing it myself was to receive the burst of enlightenment from creating a new technique. I wouldn’t get that if I just bought the thing.

During this time, I kept up my appointments with the three girls. Once a week, we went out to eat together.

At the dinner table, LiTing and JiaQi dominated the conversation. I was out of my element, and Meng LuYao was still slightly uncomfortable around us. LiTing was treating her as a sister though, and she was slowly coming around.

This made me chuckle silently to myself. It was a difficult situation, but there was one advantage to it. Even with LiTing’s memories, Meng LuYao would need time to adapt to being a cultivator, absorb what LiTing had known, and apply it to herself. That was enough of an excuse to allow myself slightly more time to develop my technique. After all, I didn’t need to be ready until everyone else was, right?

I felt that core piece of my soul rebel at this logic, but it couldn’t outright refute it. That meant I could delay things until JiaQi, LiTing, and Meng LuYao were all ready.

At the end of our first month in the manor, Yan finally arrived and joined us.

After meeting with the girls and introducing him to Meng LuYao, he pulled me aside for a private conversation.

“You’re bringing her into the loops?”

I winced slightly. “I’m going to try it. As JiaQi said, if it doesn’t work, at least we’ll know for next time.”

Yan smirked. “Well then, I have another proposal for you.”

A twinge in my head indicated my migraine was about to return.

“Ning ChenKun. Consider pulling him in as well. His position makes him dangerous to keep in the loop continuously, but this would be a perfect time to bring him in. He can be a solid ally, and he has the power to back us up.”

“Yan…”

He held up a hand to stop me. “You’re looking to rush your advancement, right? That means you don’t intend to stick around forever. This is a good chance to bring ChenKun into the fold. Make him your subordinate, help him reach Heaven City alive, and then let him make a memory orb to store some fond memories of us. If nothing else, it will be a useful tool to have in the future.”

He… made some solid arguments. I had told everyone that this was the life to try things. Maybe this was just one more item to add to that list.

“I’ll think about it. I can’t make any promises.”

“Don’t worry. ChenKun is currently focused on his time in the Academy. Let him enter the sect and see how hard it is. Without your pills, he’ll have a much harder time of it this cycle.”

I grinned wryly in response, and we rejoined the others to discuss the merits of Yan’s idea.

Once the meeting broke up, I returned to my room to focus on perfecting my cultivation technique. I felt like things were starting to spiral out of my control, and if I wanted to survive the fallout, I needed to be prepared.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 187 – Life 70, Age 17, Martial Disciple 1

System Alert: A novel cultivation technique has been created. Please name your technique.

I collapsed to the ground in joy. It had taken me over a year, and my friends had all already advanced to Martial Master, but I had done it.

More than that, as I had hoped, having the technique cultivate two different types of essence had been enough for it to be considered ‘novel.’ I didn’t have to try and add any bells or whistles to push it over the top.

For a name, I had decided to play with the idea that it was an earth technique but only helped with affinities for different elements.

“Writ of Wandering Earth.”

Writ of Wandering Earth. Rating Peak-Earth Rank 1 Earth Cultivation Technique. Would you like to submit this technique to the Dao?

Only being Peak-Earth was a disappointment, but it was what I had expected. To make everything work properly, I had needed to simplify things, so I stripped out a few of the extra features from the Writ of True Earth. That one used interference patterns during cultivation to increase qi density and make it more powerful.

By cultivating this technique, the strength of my qi would be less than half of what it was in my last life. This would be a bit of a handicap, but with Rank 6 pills, Rank 6 formations, LiTing’s Rank 6 weapons and armor, and the vast amount of experience I had, this small handicap to my qi wouldn’t be much of a hindrance.

That said, should I submit the technique to the Dao? Considering that neither type of essence matched with the technique’s qi type, I was pretty confident I was the only person in the universe who would find much value in my creation. Still, it was exactly what I had wanted, and I didn’t think ‘the Dao’ would care about its limited usefulness.

“Yes.”

Submission successful. Contribution confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 100,000 credits.

Note: Earth Rank 1 techniques will no longer qualify you for further discounts.

It wasn’t much of a discount, but I already had a plan for these credits, and I had already checked the prices.

Just as I was about to make my purchase, my mind suddenly felt like it had been struck by lightning. A significant amount of information about my new technique and how to improve it poured into my mind, but right before it would have addressed how this cultivation technique helped me permanently improve my affinities, the flow of information abruptly cut off.

“System, that doesn’t seem correct. Why didn’t I get all the information I was supposed to? There is no way that was all of it.”

Insufficient energy.

I grumbled at that. “How much would it cost to complete the information transfer?”

Cost of information on essence is not possible to calculate at this time.

I didn’t like it, but there was nothing I could do about it, so I refocused and made my intended purchase.

“System, purchase a mastery of Rank 1 talisman artistry. I want the complete knowledge and skills of a Rank 1 talisman artist from this continent.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 100,000 credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 50,000 credits. 640,049,100,650 credits remaining.

Information didn’t flood into me like I had expected. Instead, a new ball of memories formed in my soul. When I tapped into it, I knew everything I needed to know to make Rank 1 talismans. When I let my focus on those memories fade, the knowledge of talisman artistry disappeared.

Even when tapping into this ball of memories, I had no concept of how to improve my skills to Rank 2 or beyond. I also had no understanding of what might have been edited out by asking for only knowledge from this continent. Without dedicating myself to practicing talismans, I wouldn’t be able to make this knowledge my own. Thinking about this, I realized it might be similar to what Meng LuYao was going through with LiTing’s memories. She had the knowledge, but it wasn’t really hers.

This situation was fine with me.

Before entering the sect, I just needed to learn to make talismans. My only other option had been to boost my talisman comprehension by a few billion points and learn everything on my own, but I didn’t want to spend so much precious time learning a brand-new skill. While the total time I had was unlimited, my time in this life wasn’t.

Even so, learning a new craft was fun, and purchasing the information about one directly was spoiling future entertainment. In other circumstances, I might have looked at just taking a different path so that I could enjoy learning talisman artistry on my own, but I didn’t have much of an attachment to talismans, and I didn’t feel much heartbreak over losing the chance to learn the skill independently.

The only reason I cared about learning to make them was because I needed to know how to do so to enter the sect through the Lightning Peak and gain access to the Lightning Peak Trial. This knowledge provided me with everything I needed to know to succeed.

With a trove of new information in hand, I returned to working on my cultivation technique.

While I hadn’t learned everything I had wanted from the enlightenment of creating a novel technique, I did learn something important. Experimenting with and practicing this technique in the sect’s territory had been the right call. If free essence had been available in the environment, I could have seriously damaged my existing affinities by randomly cultivating it with a poorly designed technique.

Before I was ready to cultivate for real, I needed to fix a series of fatal flaws with the technique.

Thankfully, with the help of the enlightenment, this wouldn’t take too much time.

After dispersing my cultivation completely, I used my new information to perfect the Rank 1 technique and then cultivated all the way to Martial Disciple Peak. Then, I started working on the Rank 2 technique.

The Rank 2 manual for the Writ of True Earth was far more complicated than the Rank 1 manual, but with the knowledge I had gained, it was far easier to modify.

What set an essence cultivation technique apart from a qi cultivation technique were small spur meridians that connected with the essence filters. I wasn’t sure of their exact purpose, but I knew they had something to do with what made the technique unique.

To make things work, I started with the Writ of True Earth, stripped out the spurs for Earth Essence, removed a couple of the techniques complicating features that made it several times more difficult to cultivate than normal, and added in the spurs for both lightning and metal essence.

This took time, but with a solid understanding of the Rank 1 technique, it wasn’t an impossible task.

System Alert: A novel cultivation technique has been created. Writ of Wandering Earth. Rating Peak-Earth Rank 2 Earth Cultivation Technique. Would you like to submit this technique to the Dao?

“Yes.”

Submission successful. Contribution confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 10 million credits.

Note: Earth Rank 2 techniques will no longer qualify you for further discounts.

Once the knowledge transfer process was complete, I made my purchase.

“System, I want a mastery of Rank 2 talisman artistry. I want the complete knowledge and skills of a Rank 2 talisman artist from this continent.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 10 million credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 5 million credits. 640,044,100,650 credits remaining.

After cultivating to Martial Master Peak, I started working on the Rank 3 technique, but thankfully, the Rank 3 version of the techniques only needed minor modifications. The dantians for the three techniques were nearly identical. The only changes I had to make were to small spurs, similar to the Rank 2 technique, but I didn’t need to remove any features of the design.

System Alert: A novel cultivation technique has been created. Writ of Wandering Earth. Rating Peak-Earth Rank 3 Earth Cultivation Technique. Would you like to submit this technique to the Dao?

“Yes.”

Submission successful. Contribution confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 1 billion credits.

Note: Earth Rank 3 techniques will no longer qualify you for further discounts.

My head filled with everything I needed to know about the technique, and I bought my final discounted bit of information.

“System, purchase a mastery of Rank 3 talisman artistry. I want the complete knowledge and skills of a Rank 3 talisman artist from this continent.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 billion credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 500 million credits. 639,544,100,650 credits remaining.

Developing all three techniques and cultivating to Martial Grandmaster 1 took me a total of eight years. This was slower than I would have wanted, but I could satisfy myself with the reminder that it was faster than it would have been if we had just gone to the Academy again.

While I was only a Grandmaster 1, LiTing, JiaQi, and Yan were all at least Grandmaster 7. Meng LuYao had fallen behind and was only a Grandmaster 3 since while she had LiTing’s memories, she still had to work to incorporate the lessons into herself.

Over these years of cultivation, I didn’t drop back into my habit of putting everything aside to cultivate. I mostly spent all my time cultivating, but every single week, I went out with the group for a meal. Even if I wasn’t the most talkative one at the table, I was there.

One thing that worried me, though, was that Meng LuYao was starting to adopt a lot of LiTing’s mannerisms and speech patterns. This wasn’t helped by LiTing treating the girl as a little sister. It might not be much of a problem now, but it couldn’t be healthy, and it wouldn’t be good for future lives where I didn’t give LiTing’s memories to Meng LuYao.

But… maybe this was a connection they both needed? LiTing seemed happier than ever, and Meng LuYao was learning faster the more she embraced this identity. If it only lasted this one life, maybe it would be fine?

When I entered our private room in the restaurant for the first time after advancing to Grandmaster, JiaQi’s eyes shot toward me.

“You did it? Does that mean we’re finally getting out of here and entering the sect?”

I gave her a thumbs up. “Yup. The next exam is in eight months. Everyone needs to be ready before then.”

Everyone smiled at this, happy to start our adventure in the sect, but JiaQi seemed exceptionally excited. I didn’t want to ruin her mood, but I had to address the elephant in the room.

“How are you going to deal with LuLu? If you walk into the sect as a Grandmaster with a Rank 6 demon beast by your side, people are going to have a fit.”

She waved my concern aside. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll send her up north to the empires. She’ll have to run there, but that won’t take her too long. Then, we can accept missions in the same area she hides out in. She won’t be able to help us directly, but having a Rank 6 guardian hiding out in the woods to protect us from high-level threats will be nice.”

“That… alright… that could work. Will not having her around hurt you with the Water Peak?”

JiaQi just shrugged. “Maybe? Doesn’t matter too much. I have a high five-star water affinity. I won’t need to worry about trying to raise my affinity too much until I reach Martial King, and it’s plausible for a high-level king to bond a Rank 6 demon beast, even if it’s unlikely. Either way, it’s fine. I don’t like the idea of bonding with a new companion in our current situation. Maybe… Maybe when we all know more about what the future has in store for us.”

Our dinner concluded peacefully enough, but when we got back to the manor, Yan stopped everyone from going to their rooms.

“Since Fang is a Grandmaster now and we’re planning our return to the sect, there’s something we need to discuss.” As he talked, he seemed uncharacteristically nervous. “As you know, I am from the Zhuge Clan. By entering the Academy and the sect, I was going against my clan’s rules, and they weren’t happy about that.”

I noticed his hand start twitching. “Well, here’s the thing. I didn’t enter the Academy this time, so I haven’t broken any rules yet. They might not be happy that I haven’t returned home, but they can’t be too angry. In fact, once they learn I’ve risen to Grandmaster without having gone to the Academy, they might be ecstatic. They might see it as me having abandoned any notion of rising to Sovereign outside of their purview.”

I nodded slowly at him, but I didn’t understand where this was going.

Yan let out a soft laugh.

“If I were to return home, I might be able to negotiate access to… restricted items.” He looked at me. “I’ve checked carefully. The only known copies of the light and dark essence cultivation techniques are in the Zhuge Clan’s vaults. So, what I want to know is, how do you all feel about staging a robbery of a Sovereign clan?”

My mouth dropped open slightly while everyone stared at him in shock.

After only a moment, I regained my composure and spoke with emphasis.

“No. This isn’t the time. I know you’re eager to settle things with your clan, but let’s wait, okay? Take time. Study the situation. They aren’t going anywhere. They can’t go anywhere.”

I tried to exhale the negative emotions that boiled up at the thought of changing all our plans like this. Adding people to the loop was one thing. My ideas on how to deal with choosing who to add and why were ephemeral at best, so adding Meng LuYao or even Ning ChenKun was only a matter of having a plausible reason to do so.

This would be different. This would almost certainly mean throwing away everything I wanted to achieve in this life. I wouldn’t allow that to happen.

“Yan, you’re too focused on the idea of being able to do anything you want without consequence. That isn’t… That isn’t how I see things. Our biggest advantage is time. We have time to slowly decide what to do and learn how to do it.”

I felt a twinge of frustration from Yan, but outwardly he just smirked playfully at me.

“Says the man rushing to advance his cultivation.”

I smiled in response and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know. I’m a hypocrite sometimes. But my point is, this is a big deal. Don’t rush it. Spend time feeling it out first.”

He was a bit unwilling, but he finally nodded, accepting my decision.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 188 – Life 70, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster 4

In the brief time I had before the sect’s Entrance Exam, I quickly raised my cultivation level as much as I reasonably could, reaching Martial Grandmaster 4. I wasn’t able to catch up to my friends, but I did close the gap.

Knowing the sect held potential dangers, we discussed waiting until Peak Grandmaster before entering, but we also needed access to essence to start raising our affinities. While this would involve some risk, it was minor. We were confident in our ability to handle it.

We got in line for the Exam on the first day and slowly made our way to the front of the line. After taking the test, we would all be separated and sent to our own peaks, but we arranged to meet up near the Gateway Plaza once the formalities were all taken care of.

Only one person could enter the Exam every five minutes, so I hung back to let my friends go first. When I entered, there were half a dozen scribes sitting at a long table to my left, and the door leading to the teleportation gate was to my right.

I walked up to the table and the head scribe addressed me. He seemed a bit more excited than I was used to.

“Name?”

“Su Fang.”

“Age?”

“24.”

“Blessing?”

“It has a few nuances, but it has helped me learn a few professions, notably talisman artistry.”

The scribe raised an eyebrow at that, possibly linking me to my friends who had just come through and who also had comprehension blessings. After noting everything down, he pointed to an affinity-testing orb.

I placed my hand on the orb and channeled my qi into it like normal. Unlike in the past, where there had been nothing but a mix of chaotic lines, this time, a bright auburn-colored stone appeared in the orb.

The scribe looked shocked. He wordlessly, haltingly held forth a hand and tapped the orb. As he did, I paid close attention to the way qi left his body and interacted with the orb. Memorizing the technique as best I could for later use.

The orb transformed, and all nine of my elemental affinities were revealed. Four-star earth, five-star in the other basic elements, seven-star in the secondary elements. I’m not sure the scribe even noticed the static caused by my karmic and space affinities. He could only wordlessly wave for me to enter the Exam portal.

As I walked that way, I made my customary purchase.

“System, I want a scheduled mental reversion so that when I leave the Exam, my mind is restored to its previous state.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 million credits. 639,543,100,650 credits remaining.

I stepped through the gateway.

I stepped out of the Exam and looked around, confused.

Where was everyone?

I had reentered the same room, but the six scribes had been reduced to only three. The head scribe who had recorded my information earlier remained at the desk, but only two of his assistants remained beside him.

They were each busy writing furious reports and didn’t even seem to notice when I stepped into the room.

“Uh… Hello?”

The head scribe’s head shot up, then he waved at one of his associates.

“Go, go. Get his report.”

One of the assistants stood and ran to the side of the archway. He placed a jade stone on it and brought it back to the head scribe who placed it on a formation place to reveal my results. When they appeared, all of the scribes froze.

“Another one.”

The head scribe took a deep breath and looked at me.

“Welcome to the Nine Rivers Sect, Disciple Su Fang. Based on your results… I want to congratulate you on your results. You may choose to enter the sect as a grade 3 core disciple of the Earth Peak, Fire Peak, or Lightning Peak. Which would you prefer?”

I smiled and bowed my head slightly. “Lightning.”

The head scribe snapped a finger at an assistant.

“Take Core Disciple Su Fang to the Lightning Peak.”

The assistant gave two deep bows, first to the head scribe, second to me.

“Please follow me.”

As I walked with the scribe through the portal to the gates of Mortal City, he explained some of the basics of the sect that I was already familiar with. Not needing to hear them again, I changed the topic of our conversation.

“Senior, I was given a place as a core disciple, right? Is there any way I can lose this position? Might it be stripped from me in the future?”

“Please, just call me Brother Kun.” This first response was instant, but he was hesitant to answer my actual question. “As for the rules of a core disciple, I should not speak on them…”

I smiled, reached into my storage space, and pulled out a handful of pill bottles. The scribe was a low-level Lord. These could help him tremendously.

“Of course, Brother Kun. I understand. Please accept these as recompense for even asking. It’s just a shame that I don’t know what is expected of me.”

He wanted to refuse, but when he saw what was in the pill bottles, his refusal froze on his lips.

“Right… right… that is a shame.”

He hurriedly grabbed the bottles and stuffed them into a storage bag.

We continued in silence before he spoke up once more.

“Brother Su… Did you know that core disciples are considered the future leaders of the sect? They have the potential to become important elders. It’s… It’s regrettable that many of them do not fulfill their potential as leaders. It would be best if they were to do so the moment they stepped into Yellow City, but so few know that it's an option.”

I grinned. “Yes, that sounds terrible. But I guess the sect has prohibitions against giving advice to that effect.”

The scribe nodded slowly. “Yes, for example, we are not allowed to advise anyone that they should attempt to earn all of the contribution points used to purchase karmic energy through… leadership activities.”

I reached into my storage space and pulled out a few extra pill bottles.

“I’m sorry things are so hard on you. I hope these will soothe your mind.”

As we walked, I quickly flipped through my mental journal to check if I had left any notes on important occurrences in the Exam. There wasn’t much, but there was something.

No torture. Just hard physical labor.

Was the difference due to my cultivation level? Was it something else? Also, why was I only marked as a core disciple and not a ‘chosen’ disciple? Was it all related?

I had three clues to work with. The torture, my experience on the Path of the True Chosen, and the physical labor. That suggested they cared about my physical body, but why? I felt like I was missing more than half the puzzle. The only possibility that immediately came to mind was that they were looking for strong bodies to possess, but that didn’t feel like the right answer to me.

The way the sect selects Grandmaster chosen… This should only be Grandmaster-level information, right? It might be a secret, but it wasn’t a secret of the universe, was it? The ‘value’ of information was a lot harder to judge than items, but I might get lucky here.

“System, how much for a detailed explanation of why I wasn’t selected as a chosen disciple?”

Cost 50 trillion credits.

That gave me another data point. Knowing the information now would change karma and destiny in a way that was within the means of a Sovereign. I didn’t know what it meant, but it was an extra data point.

I needed to consider this further, but for the moment, my time was up. We had reached the Gateway Plaza and were about to enter the Lightning Peak.

In general appearance, the Lightning Peak didn’t seem too different from the Earth Peak. The mountain itself was a large rock of barren stone, and barely anything grew in the surrounding landscape. However, where the Earth Peak looked like virgin stone recently raised from the depths of the earth, the Lightning Peak was a blasted landscape of charred, pockmarked dirt.

Before I arrived, I had imagined a thick black storm cloud circling around the peak, but instead, the sky was blue and cheery. When I looked around in energy vision, I got a better sense of why that was.

Clouds would have denoted water qi was present. It wasn’t. Around the crown of the mountain was only pure lightning qi. As I watched, more and more lightning qi gathered from the surrounding environment. When it reached a tipping point, the qi coalesced into a bolt of lightning and struck the ground with heaven’s fury. This dissipated the lightning qi around the mountain, but even as it struck, qi was already building up around the peak for another strike.

These random lightning strikes caused my guide to become flustered as he led me into a nearby administration building.

Inside, there was only a middle-aged woman sitting primly behind a desk doing paperwork.

My guide cleared his throat. “Allow me to introduce you to Su Fang. A new grade 3 core disciple of the Lightning Peak. Please get him situated right away.”

At first, the woman looked upset at the interruption, but when she processed the words, her eyes widened, and she smiled at me.

“Of course, of course. Welcome, Senior Brother Su. It is my honor to introduce you to the Lightning Peak.”

I held up a hand to stop her.

“Thank you. I only need my identity jade and to be registered.”

My guide looked sheepish and fished about in his robe before taking out a jade badge and handing it to me. As soon as I had it, I passed it to the receptionist.

“Right, of course. Right away.” She moved and placed it on a formation plate. “But Senior Brother Su, we would like to welcome you to the peak properly. Please, let me show you around.”

I waved her off, not caring that I might offend a petty Lord in the process. I wasn’t here to make new connections, and I wasn’t worried about low-level Lords who had to focus their energies on recruiting new sect members. I was here to repay my debt to the Master of the Lightning Peak. What did the opinion of a Lord count as when weighed against an Emperor?

As soon as my jade was processed, I took it back and left the peak. I needed to meet back up with my friends, but there was something else I needed to take care of first.

I pulled out the coin Jin had given me and walked through the portal to the Metal Peak.

On the other side, I spent several moments examining the giant mountain that looked to be made from pure steel, but it wasn’t too long before I was interrupted.

“Who are you?”

Jin was staring at me with narrowed eyes.

I held up her coin. “We need to talk privately.”

She smirked. “Follow me, kid.”

She took me back through the portal and into the same conference room we had used previously. After she tapped on the formation to seal the room, she addressed me once more.

“Alright, talk.”

I reached into my storage space, withdrew the box with her orb, placed it on the table, and opened the lid.

“I assume you know what this is?”

Her expression became unreadable. “Of course I know what a memory orb is. Explain.”

I placed her coin next to the box. “I am here to deliver this orb to you. It contains… valuable information.”

She carefully examined the box from afar, and when she was convinced that it was safe, she reached out with qi and slid it closer before picking up the orb directly. If I had an activation of Memory Implantation that worked on an Emperor, I might have wanted to use it at that point, but sadly, I didn’t.

“What is your role in this? Are you just a delivery boy or are you looking to get something from me?”

I put on the best granite expression I could. “Everything is explained in the orb.”

She placed it back into the box and looked at me. “Fine, you may leave now. If there are no problems with the information contained within, you will receive appropriate compensation for your services.”

“That… That’s a problem… The information in that orb is sensitive. I cannot leave it with you. I must insist you absorb it now or lose it forever.”

Jin’s eyebrow raised playfully. “Lose it forever? You think a mere Grandmaster can do such a thing in front of me?”

I simply nodded.

“You seem confident. I wonder where that comes from.” Jin’s face remained playful, but her eyes became calculating. “Wait here.”

She stood and walked from the room.

A minute later, she walked in with an older man in ragged clothes and threw him to the ground next to the table.

“Absorb the memories in this orb.”

The man’s face was full of fear, but he complied. He reached out with his qi and pulled the memories from the orb.

His eyes went blank.

When he returned to the present and saw me, his eyes widened. A flash of thoughts and emotions crossed his face as he processed the new information he had access to and tried to find a way to use it to his advantage.

“Su Fang! Help me! This woman is mad. You can’t trust her. Work with me and I’ll give you whatever you want.”

I cocked my head to the side as he screamed. Reading his emotions as best I could, I didn’t believe a word he said. More interesting to me was that Jin didn’t seem overly concerned with stopping his rambling.

“She…” His eyes darted to Jin. “She didn’t absorb the memories. She doesn’t know what you can do, right? That’s good. You can just come back and save me. We can end her without her even knowing what happened!”

I turned my head to Jin. “When are you going to stop this? You know he can’t leave now.”

She snorted and threw out a blade of metal qi, ending the man’s life.

“Interesting enough, it seems.”

Then, she used a thread of qi to absorb the orb's memories.

Once she was done, Jin laughed at me. “We need to figure out a better method for next time. Let me think on that. I’ll tell you later.”

I nodded, took out Shen’s and Jin ZiHan’s orbs, and slid them to her.

“I’ll let you take care of these. You can get an audience with Shen easier than I can. What about the Metal Peak Trial?”

“You’ll need contribution points from missions, same as everyone else. That’s a rule I’m not allowed to bend. Once you’re ready, just come back through the portal and I’ll get you set up.”

After a few words of parting, I took my leave to go find my friends.

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 189 – Life 70, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster 4

Upon leaving the Metal Peak, I found JiaQi standing near the Gateway Plaza and waving at me. After a quick greeting, she led me to an apartment complex where everyone else had already settled in.

Upon entering, I didn’t speak and instead immediately set about laying down a formation to protect us from eavesdroppers. I also wanted to lay down a powerful defensive formation, but we were supposed to be safe in Mortal City, and going overboard on our defenses would only draw unwanted attention to our little group.

Once everything was configured to my satisfaction, I looked around at everyone and grinned.

“How did you all do?”

LiTing held up her badge.

“Yan and I were made grade 3 core disciples. We’re assuming you were as well.”

I held up my badge in confirmation and turned to JiaQi.

She gave me a slightly sheepish expression. “I only got ungraded core. I have enough beast taming knowledge to pass the path to Yellow City, but that’s about it. Whoever’s in charge must’ve figured that wasn’t enough to warrant anything better.”

Her words sounded slightly bitter, but I could tell she didn’t care. Her position in the sect was meaningless to her. Still, I patted her on the shoulder in a show of sympathy.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make a proper beast tamer out of you in the future. You have plenty of time to learn.”

She rolled her eyes at me, but I ignored it and moved the conversation along.

“Meng LuYao, how did you do?”

She blushed. “I… I was only rated as a grade 1 inner sect disciple. I still have a lot to absorb from LiTing’s memories. All the information is there, but I have a hard time accessing it sometimes.”

LiTing smiled happily and put an arm around her. “Yaoyao’s doing great. Don’t worry, she’ll be a proper First Disciple in no time, Teacher.”

Her words were playful, but they bothered me deeply. Even if she spoke in a joking tone, there was something deeper going on.

I couldn’t even fix my own psychological issues. How was I supposed to help someone else? There was no simple System purchase to fix this situation. I could only push forward and hope for the best. In the worst case, I would just have to end this life and pretend it never happened.

However, if Meng LuYao was going to be brought into the time loops, I needed to get her a life on her own away from LiTing. One where she could develop as her own independent person in a stable, happy environment. Setting something like that up in this insane world would be a challenge, but I would try to find a way to make it happen.

Making a note about Meng LuYao in my journal but deciding to leave well enough alone for the moment, I turned my focus to Yan.

“Have you made any plans yet?”

He shook his head. “Nothing solid. We need to reach Peak Grandmaster, but that’s just a matter of time. We should all also raise our affinities to peak five-star while we have the safety net of Mortal City supporting us. To do that we’ll need to complete some missions. What are you thinking?”

“Before that, let me share some advice I just received. It’ll help us plan things out a little better.” I gave everyone a careful look. “We need to become city lords. When we enter Yellow City, we shouldn’t directly go buy karmic energy. We need to become city lords first and only use the contribution points from that to purchase the energy we need to advance. Anything else will affect our position in the sect.”

Yan cocked his head to the side and put on a calculating expression. “How much will it affect us?”

“Not sure. I was only told that it’s important. From what I experienced last time, I would say that if we don’t become lords in Yellow City, we may be dropped a grade or two. If we don’t do so in Profound City, we’ll be dropped to the inner sect.”

LiTing spoke up to offer her thoughts. “Yaoyao and I don’t need to worry about that. We can drop to the inner sect, right?

She turned to the other girl for confirmation, and Meng LuYao nodded hesitantly.

I looked at her. “If you’re interested in becoming a core disciple, it isn’t a problem. We can make it work.”

“N… No. It’s fine. I need to understand things better first.”

I gave her my best reassuring smile and looked at JiaQi who just waved a hand.

“No need. I’m not interested in running a city. Might need to figure that out in the future, but I’ll just have fun this time around.”

I looked at Yan. “So, just you and me?”

He drummed his fingers on the table in thought.

“No, I’ll step back too. You can handle things in this cycle, and I’ll act as your lieutenant. I have a few ideas to try, but I mainly want to study how you run a city and compare it to what I saw from ChenKun. It should help us find ways to maximize karmic income in the future.”

I raised an eyebrow at this, but he didn’t feel the need to explain any further.

“Fine. Then that’s our plan. I’ll take on a position as city lord, you can all be my ministers.” JiaQi wanted to object, but I didn’t give her a chance to speak. “Let’s prepare well while we’re in Mortal City. I don’t know how much a lordship will cost, but with the way things work in this sect, I’m certain it won’t come cheap.”

Everyone signaled their agreement, even the somewhat recalcitrant JiaQi.

“While we have the protection of Mortal City, we need to do as many missions as we can to earn contribution points. I talked about this with LiTing last time, and I would like to focus our efforts on defensive missions. I don’t want us to be the ones causing mortals to suffer. If you find one that looks good, one that we can all do together, sign us up.” I gave a small smirk. “I’d rather not do so through the Lightning Peak. I don’t want to earn any credit for its Master.”

Yan nodded. “Any preference.”

“Actually…” I chuckled as I realized that I could use this to help repay another debt. “Look for anything relating to the PangBo Merchant Association. Any missions targeting them, ones that won’t hurt the civilians under their control. If we’re doing missions, let’s use them to grind that organization down as much as we possibly can.”

The problem with defensive missions was that they were slow. After accepting one, our group was required to hole up in a city for days or weeks and wait for it to be attacked. The advantage of defensive missions was that this provided us with ample time to cultivate.

After half a year of constantly visiting various cities to thwart the PangBo Association’s plans, I had advanced to Martial Grandmaster 6 and earned enough contribution points to enter a Trial.

I considered visiting the Lightning Peak Trial, but since the Metal Peak was going to be far easier to deal with, I decided to get it out of the way first.

Carrying Jin’s coin, I entered the portal to the Metal Peak. Before anyone had a chance to notice me, I was whisked back through the portal and brought to the same private conference room as usual.

“Su Fang, it’s good of you to come. I assume you’re here for the Trial?”

“Yes. Before I go… Will anyone other than you be able to watch what happens in there? Can I… go all out?”

Jin laughed. “There are a few others who have access, such as the Saint and the Sect Master, but you don’t need to worry. No one will bother checking in on you unless they already suspect something. At that point, it wouldn’t matter what you did anyway. So, feel free to do your worst.”

I bowed my head slightly to that.

“But, before you go off and destroy my Trial, we need to talk about something.” Jin’s face turned serious. “Shen got a visit from old man Li, and we think it’s something you need to know about.”

“There shouldn’t be any connection between us… Is there a problem?”

“Yes and no. Li visited Shen and talked about how he didn’t have a disciple. He went so far as to say that in only a little over a decade, it would be too late. He talked about how there wasn’t any time left and said that ‘if it’s going to happen, it has to happen before then.’ This was rather out of character for the old man, and nothing like this happened last time. We think his blessing was behind it.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you think it means?”

“We think… There are a few different possible interpretations, but we think it means his blessing wants you to reach the Summit before he dies.” A look of concentration appeared on Jin’s face as she parsed her words carefully and obviously. “A group will meet you there. His blessing likely wants him to be in that group, not his successor.”

“I see… Li once told me that it’s dangerous to read into a blessing’s intent. All we know is that his blessing wanted him to tell Shen those words. We don’t know if it wants me there, it wants me to double guess it and not arrive, or something else. Possibly, its only intention was for you to pass on this message.”

Jin breathed out in defeat. “I hate information blessings. The Earthly Dao is an inscrutable being with inscrutable goals. It may be trying to help us. It may not be. Either way, it’s much nicer when its strings aren’t so apparent.”

“I’ll talk to the group about this. We were looking at ascending quickly anyway, so the idea is worth consideration. I’m just not sure we can reach Peak Emperor in such a short window.”

“It’ll be difficult, that’s for sure. It helps that you all know what you’re doing and won’t have to spend any time studying, but gathering enough qi and karmic energy so quickly will be difficult. If you need any help, let me know.”

“Thanks. For now, I better just get to work then. Where’s the Trial?”

With no one other than Jin able to monitor my activities, I was able to waltz through the Metal Peak Trial without any difficulties. There were metal elementals, cutting tests, and other obstacles, but none of them proved to be a challenge.

This was because I was wearing Rank 4 armor and holding a Rank 4 weapon that LiTing had made in our last life. The moment I entered the Trial, I pulled them both out of my storage space and equipped them. After that, nothing in the Trial was able to cause me any real trouble, and anything too annoying to dispatch with a slash of my staff was quickly burnt away by my Profound-Rank fire seed.

Higher-Rank Trials might become slightly more challenging, but I doubted it. The only reason I limited myself to Rank 4 weaponry was because of the excess weight of the more powerful equipment. My storage space was stocked with everything I would need to complete this Trial as a King without too much difficulty.

Using these items was somewhat against the rules. Even though LiTing had made them and she was on my ‘team,’ no one would believe that. However, all of it was brought in through my storage space, and there wasn’t anyone who could both see what was happening inside the Trial and would care what I did in there.

On my very first visit to the Grandmaster-level Metal Peak Trial, I reached stage 117 and only stopped because my affinity broke through to peak five-star.

Once that was done, I returned to my group, and we discussed the situation with Emperor Li. If we were going to reach the Summit, I had to admit that I would rather have them there to greet us than whoever his replacement would be. However, reaching Peak Emperor before his death would be extremely difficult. I didn’t want to just throw everything away to chase after ghosts.

Yan shared a few of his thoughts about what might be going on, but he didn’t have any clearer picture of the situation than I did. No one else seemed to care much either way. In the end, our final decision was to not make a decision. We would continue on as normal and see what happened. If we were close to reaching the Summit in time, we would consider rushing near the end, but for now, creating a solid foundation was more important.

After several more months, I reached Grandmaster 8 and headed to the Lightning Peak Trial.

This time, I couldn’t allow myself to use LiTing’s refined items, not even one she had made during this life. I didn’t want to give the Master of the Lightning Peak any more information than I had to.

This Trial was filled with lightning elementals, lightning strikes, and lightning traps. Most Grandmasters, even skilled ones, would have found this Trial difficult, but while I wasn’t willing to use refined items, I didn’t hesitate to show off one of my other advantages.

My active fire seed was the Profound-Rank Slicing Winds Fire. It was a wind-based fire that naturally shaped itself into arcs of slashing wind blades. While lightning elementals were difficult for most cultivators to deal with, they couldn’t stand up against a powerful wind attack.

Since my wind affinity was only peak seven-star, I had difficulty controlling the fire properly, but with its natural destructive tendencies, I only needed to aim it at my enemies. The fire took care of the rest by itself.

My first time through the Lightning Peak Trial, I reached stage 82 before exiting for safety reasons. The second time, I reached stage 76 and claimed a peak five-star lightning affinity as my own. I was slightly worried when the Master of the Lightning Peak didn’t choose to contact me during either of these attempts, but he might have just been better at biding his time than Shen.

As time passed, everyone in our group reached Peak Grandmaster and boosted their affinities to peak five-star. Roughly a year after entering the sect, Yan made a trip outside to deliver Cai XiaoYu’s memory orb, but little else of note had happened during this time.

Besides the Trial, my presence on the Lightning Peak had been minimal enough that I didn’t draw any attention. I had found this peak to have a far greater martial focus than the Earth Peak, and disciples would routinely challenge each other to duels to fight for benefits directly from the Master of the Peak. Since I had no interest in these games and no reason to fight for these benefits, I faded into the background.

My position on Dragon Peak was a bit of a different story. Our group had waged a silent war upon the PangBo Merchant Association, and there was little chance they didn’t know who we were. Sadly, there wasn’t much they could do to stop us.

The sect rules prevented them from attacking us in Mortal City, and even when we were out on a mission, they were prevented from sending a horde of high-Rank cultivators against us. They only tried to break this prohibition a single time, and that resulted in half a dozen Peak Lords going missing in the forests surrounding the city we were defending. As it turned out, the ‘wildlife’ in that area was unusually vicious, especially the deer.

Fifteen months after entering the sect, with everyone having reached the limit of what we could accomplish in Mortal City, it was time to move on.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 190 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Choosing the path we would walk on our way to Yellow City was more complicated than I had originally imagined.

For LiTing, Yan, and Meng LuYao, the path that made the most sense was the Path of Soul. They had sufficient knowledge of high-level martial and profession skills, so the other two paths would be easy for them as long as their cultivation levels were sufficient. However, while they knew how to cultivate their souls, rapidly raising them to a level suitable for a King or Emperor was still a bad idea. By taking the Path of Soul first, they would be removing a potential future bottleneck.

JiaQi, on the other hand, hadn’t mastered many of the high-Rank beast taming skills. If she waited to take the Path of Mind until the trip to Profound or Earth City, she would have a difficult time passing it. Therefore, she needed to walk that path on the way to Yellow City.

I didn’t want her to walk it alone in case she got into trouble, so since the order I walked the paths wasn’t overly important, I joined her on the Path of Mind.

Before entering, I handed her a second-generation version of my communication formation to see how it would handle the path. I had made this one after we reached Heaven City last time, and while it didn’t have many improvements over the first iteration, it should have a longer range. I also found a way to let it pierce through weak shielding formations. The plan was for her to buzz me the moment we entered the path. Then, if either of us had to enter the holding area, we would signal the other with two buzzes.

Once we were both ready, we passed through our portals and entered the Path of Mind.

I decided to stick with the test for alchemists. While my purchased knowledge would have let me pass the test for talisman artists, I didn’t have any attachment to that profession, and I didn’t want to give the Master of the Lightning Peak the satisfaction of seeing my talisman skills. While I would have also been fine on the formation specialist path, I just stuck with what I knew to avoid any additional complications.

When I entered the first test cavern and found the ‘challenge’ waiting for me, I was almost ashamed of how simple it was, but I didn’t let that stop me. Its simplicity just meant that I would be able to get things done sooner than I had hoped.

However, before I could get started, two things interrupted me.

First was a buzzing from my communication formation. This was the signal that JiaQi had entered her test. I sent a buzz back to confirm that everything was working properly.

Second was a shout from the ‘holding area.’

“Hey boss, we got a new one over here. Come take a look!”

I walked to the portal and looked out to see a stocky middle-aged man wearing a fraying pale brown robe. He had several bandages wrapped around his arms and legs, showing his time in the holding area hadn’t been overly pleasant.

When he saw me walk toward him, he gave me an evil smirk.

Shortly after I approached the portal, a group of two women and two men raced out from the underbrush.

A tall lean woman with an angular face gave me a nasty look before glancing at one of her male companions.

“Check him.”

The man reached into his storage bag and pulled out a large stack of papers. After rifling through more than half of them, he stopped, pulled one out, and handed it to his leader.

“He’s here, boss. He’s wanted by PangBo.”

The leader’s mouth curved upwards when she saw the paper.

“Interesting. Has someone been causing problems for Master Pang? Well, we can’t let that happen, can we boys?”

She turned to the other woman. “Take the other notices. Check to see if his friends are also on the path. There’s a bonus if we can grab them all.”

Then, she looked at me with a greedy glint in her eye. “Come on out here and we’ll make things quick. Master Pang has a large bounty out on you and your companions. We only need your life. We don’t need to torture you unless you make us upset.”

I cocked my head to the side and looked at them. This was the third time I was walking the Path of Mind, but I had never visited the holding area before. Doing so could be considered ‘unfinished business.’ Maybe it was time to see what it was like in there.

Using my communication formation, I sent two quick buzzes to JiaQi. Then, I stepped through the portal. According to the test’s rules, I wouldn’t be allowed back onto the path until two full days had passed. That gave me plenty of time to look around.

I had never been completely sure if the holding area and the people threatening me from it were real or not, but looking at them in energy vision, I saw that nothing here was fake, it was all real. This was a bit of a shock on its own since it meant that an herbalist had been able to grow a lush jungle deep beneath a mountain. If that was possible, then my plans for my storage space weren’t as far-fetched as I had feared.

The gang’s leader laughed at me. “Good choice. Now stand still while I end this.”

I didn’t move, but I did watch carefully in energy vision to make sure there were no hidden surprises.

She threw out a punch.

When it came within a centimeter of my skin, my defensive formation flared to life and flung her backward.

I grabbed a standard Rank 1 refined staff that I had purchased from the sect from my storage bag and slammed it into each of my attackers, sending them to the ground in a heap. As I had expected, anyone hanging around in the Path of Mind’s holding area wasn’t very skilled.

By this point, the leader had struggled to her feet, but I sent her back down to the ground with a solid kick.

Standing over her, I smiled down at her kindly. “Let’s talk.”

My two-day stay in the holding area was rather boring. The jungle biome held a variety of herbs, animals, bugs, and mineral deposits, so it would be a decent area for weaker cultivators to practice their professions, but I doubted it got much use. Most of the time, it would just be a staging ground for robberies.

The one bright spot of my holdover there was how nice the former bandits had been once they left the darkness and joined the light. They explained a bit about the bounty hunter system in the sect, and they even agreed to post one in my name after they reached Yellow City.

Of course, I wasn’t so crass as to place a bounty against Manager Pang, no matter what he had tried to do to me. There were much more important issues at stake.

The Rank 3 talisman knowledge that I had gained from the System included one particularly important design. It was for the Rank 3 Soul Cleansing Talisman. When placed on a person’s body, it would send a shock of lightning through their soul and destroy any invading organisms. This talisman only worked on Grandmasters and Rank 3 gu, so I would need to develop something better in the future, but it was a beginning.

The bounty I had them place was simple. For each cultivator freed from the PangBo Merchant Association, I would pay 5 Perfect Rank 3 pills and replace the used talisman. To get things started, I gave the former bandits ten of these talismans and told them they could purchase as many as they wanted from me while I was in Yellow City.

If everything went well, this bounty would become quite costly, but it was a solid way to repay my debt to Manager Pang while helping some poor people find a better life.

To do this, the ‘bounty hunters’ would first need to be able to pass the tests on the Path of Mind and leave this place, but their leader assured me that this wouldn’t be a problem. They weren’t in the holding area because they had to be. They were here because they wanted to be.

The small group left and was on their way out of the path before even an hour had passed.

Finally, after two days of twiddling my thumbs while waiting for the timer to expire, I was able to exit the holding area. Back on the path, it didn’t take me long to complete all the tests and make my way to the exit.

Outside, I found JiaQi waiting for me.

“What happened to you in there? How did you fail?”

I laughed at that. “Just having a little fun. Let’s get going.”

Upon entering Yellow City, we headed for the spot where we had arranged to meet our companions. When we arrived, LiTing gave JiaQi a worried look.

“You didn’t have any problems on the path, did you? It took you so long. Did you fail?”

JiaQi harrumphed and pointed a thumb at me. “No. This idiot did.”

I waved off the attention. “I was just making some new friends. Let’s focus on what’s next.”

Yan cleared his throat to get our attention. “While we were waiting for you to arrive, I did a little checking around. You can purchase a position as a city steward in the temple, the same place where you buy karmic energy. For Grandmasters, this option is only available to grade 3 core disciples. Just remember, you won’t be the city lord, so you won’t receive any karmic energy from the position. You will only receive contribution points based on the amount of energy you generate. You will then have to purchase the karmic energy back using those points, and I’m certain the price you pay will include a steep markup.”

That was about what I had expected.

“Were you able to get any information on what kind of cities are available for purchase?”

“Anything, more or less. There are no limitations placed on grade 3 core disciples, so you have the freedom to choose exactly what kind of city you want and how exactly you want to manage it.”

That was good, but I was a bit out of my depths. I had helped Prince CaoHan manage his city for decades in a previous life, but the breadth of that experience was limited. I wasn’t well versed in all the factors that might be important in choosing the best location for our future endeavors. Thankfully, I had people to help advise me.

I looked around the group. “Any thoughts on where we should go?”

Everyone immediately turned to Yan.

He cleared his throat. “There are many considerations, but I would say that the most important one is what your goal is. You need the city to generate as much karmic energy as possible. How are you going to accomplish this?”

He took out a crudely drawn map of the sect’s three empires from his storage bag.

“I was able to purchase this map in a small store near the temple. It doesn’t entirely match up with the situation I remember, but it should be good enough for now.”

He pointed out the locations of various kingdoms.

“In general, I prefer to separate cities into two main groups. First are cities on the edge of a kingdom. Kings usually prefer their vassals to raid other kingdoms than fight amongst themselves, so these cities are more militarily active. You can attack cities more freely, and you can expect to be attacked more frequently in return.”

He gestured at some of the cities near the center of a kingdom.

“These will be more peaceful and easier to develop. You will need to focus far more on the prosperity of your people as you will not gain many benefits from raiding. In these cities, you will be competing against your neighbors for economic advantages, not military ones. Of course, these are broad categories, and no city is entirely peaceful. No matter where we choose to settle, we will be attacked by our neighbors. The decision is more about the frequency and importance of such events.”

I nodded in understanding.

“Nothing requires us to attack our neighbors though. Even if we are on a disputed border, we don’t have to attack, right?”

Yan shook his head.

“I don’t know. Even after ChenKun reached Peak Lord and was ready to advance to King, he was adamant about defeating Lord Hao. I’m confident that this was driven by information he learned from his grandfather, but he never shared the details of it with me. All I can say is that it appears defeating other Lords is important for your future advancement. Whether that advancement is to the position of a kingdom steward, or if it is related to becoming a Sovereign, I cannot say.”

The lack of information was annoying, but Yan had told me enough to plot a course forward. As a few plans appeared in my head, I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Ning ChenKun and Lord Hao were playing games of dominance to show off for the sect. If that’s the case, we can do likewise and repay a debt at the same time.”

My eyes roamed the map carefully, wanting to stare a hole through it.

“Where is Lord Hao located?”

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Chapter 191 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Grandmaster Peak

As it turned out, I was being a bit rash. Lord Hao was not, in point of fact, Lord Hao. Grandmaster Hao had yet to reach such a lofty position.

This was unfortunate, but I wasn’t going to allow it to delay us. After conferring with Yan, I chose to purchase the title to NanLu City, located on the south bank of the YaLu River. The north side of the river had been Lord Hao’s domain in the previous timeline and was owned by a separate kingdom, though it was still within the same empire. This meant that border raids were allowed and kingdom-level interference was unlikely.

In truth, I had no interest in pillaging Lord Hao’s city and hurting his people. The general plan was to improve the prosperity of my domain and encourage people to leave the surrounding lands for mine. This would no doubt anger the Lords of those lands, and they would strike out to pull me down. We would then need to respond swiftly and decisively to their aggression.

Ultimately, our actions would cause innocents in the area to suffer as their Lords dragged them into fruitless wars, but I had to accept that. In this world, in this sect specifically, everything had been designed to make it easier for the people at the top to step on those below them. I could only try to direct the damage I caused onto those who deserved it as much as possible.

Upon arriving in NanLu City, I was shocked by the state that it had been left in by the previous steward. Walls were crumbling, less than half the houses were still standing, and the city was under severe food shortage.

If I could only use one word to describe the scene, it would be ‘perfect.’ I couldn’t understand why any Lord would leave the city in such a state unless they were completely incompetent. NanLu City was a karmic energy goldmine.

Of course, we hadn’t picked NanLu randomly. We had wanted a place we would be able to quickly transform so that we could rapidly generate a large amount of karmic energy, and Yan’s information had indicated that this city was an ideal candidate. It was just far worse than anything we had expected.

I looked at Yan, and we nodded at each other. We had a lot of work to do, but if we could get this place back in shape, we would be able to earn contribution points at an astonishing rate. We wouldn’t even need to harass the surrounding Lords to do so.

Before anything else, we had to set up our base of operations, so we walked directly to the lord’s manor in the center of the city. In the past, this building would have been a grand sight. It was a large three-story complex with several outbuildings for the different branches of the city’s governance. The sight that greeted us, however, was a ghost of its former glory.

The manor’s roof had several holes in it, and one section was completely caved in. The paint on the walls was flaking, and the wooden boards underneath had developed a deep rot. When we entered the manor’s main hall, the only thing there to greet us was a large empty room with a cold stone floor.

Not letting the sight slow me down, I pulled a large, round table and several padded chairs from my storage bag and set them up in the center of the room. After everyone took a seat, I started the meeting.

“This city is in a bit worse shape than I had imagined, but that only makes things better for us. Yan, any idea on how things got so bad?”

“Aside from simple neglect, the surrounding Lords must be more active than I had believed. This might be because my information was… outdated, and the current Lords were not in the area at that time. It could also be because a powerful force was nearby to keep them in check. Either way, I would say this city’s current state is a result of no Lord being able to survive an onslaught from one or more of our new neighbors.”

I nodded, accepting this explanation. “That makes our job more difficult but far more rewarding. I had expected the city to already have a group of ministers in place, but as they have not greeted us, I will assume they do not exist. Seeing the state of things, I wouldn’t necessarily trust their judgment anyway. For now, Yan will be the Grand Chancellor. If any of you notice any issues, you can bring them to either of us.”

I turned to LiTing. “I want you to be the Minister of Public Works. We don’t want to show off your refining skills, but I’m hoping your knowledge of materials and general craftsmanship will provide insights into how we can fix this place.”

She seemed a bit unsure about this position but gave a short nod.

“Meng LuYao… I haven’t asked before, but it could be important. Are you willing to share any information about your blessing?”

“It’s…” Her eyes wandered around the room nervously. “It lets me… assess people. It’s not very informative, but it tells me a bit about a person’s natural talents. When I first saw you, you…”

I waved her off as casually as I could. “So, you saw me as an alchemist, LiTing as a refiner, and JiaQi as a fighter?”

“Ye… Yes. LiTing’s and JiaQi’s abilities are at a level I’ve come to recognize as being from blessings. If I concentrate, I can also pick up more normal talents in other areas.”

“Thank you for sharing.”

That kind of blessing was a potential landmine since she would see my improving ‘talents’ over the course of several lives. At first, this might be chalked up to a result of self-improvement over the course of several loops, but as time passed and others didn’t progress in the same way, it would raise questions I didn’t want to have to answer.

I added this to my list of future problems and returned to the present.

“Miss Meng, would you please assume the position of Minister of Personnel? Your blessing should make you an excellent fit for such a position.”

She nodded silently.

“JiaQi—”

“Minister of War.”

I blinked at her.

“I’ll be your Minister of War. Don’t try to rope me into rituals or, gods forbid, merchant talk.”

“Alright… that’s fine… But we still have three more positions to fill. Minister of Revenue, Minister of Rites, and Minister of Justice. Any suggestions?”

Yan was the first to voice his opinion. “I would recommend XiaoYu as Minister of Justice. She’s still only a Martial Disciple, but she’s advancing as rapidly as she can. While she can’t join the sect yet, LuLu can give her a ride here and she can start working with us. Things will get easier after she advances to Grandmaster, but with there not being any strong cultivators in the city, she shouldn’t have too many problems even as a Disciple.”

“That might work… Any other suggestions?”

This time, it was JiaQi who spoke up. “What about Jin’s granddaughter? You gave her an orb, right? Might be a good idea to bring her into the fold.”

It was a solid suggestion. Jin ZiHan had a mathematics-related blessing. It might not be useful for a cultivator, but it could make her a powerful Minister of Revenue.

“I’ll have to talk to Jin about that.”

Hearing this, LiTing raised a hand. “Let me. It’ll look strange if you keep going to the Metal Peak to talk with Master Jin. Let me help with this.”

“Okay, thanks, LiTing. Moving on, we still have one last slot to fill.”

No one else volunteered another name, so Yan looked at me carefully before making a final proposal.

“If these are not going to be empty titles, if you want ministers who know what they’re doing and who can properly fill these roles, you need a Minister of Rites who understands the sect, its rules, and what is expected of someone looking to excel here. You need someone who knows more about such things than I do.”

I took a deep breath. Yan had made the suggestion before, and I had put it off. Including the man would be dangerous, but I could see the benefits of having his counsel.

“You’re saying I need Ning ChenKun. Will he do it? He wants to be a Sovereign. Will he take the position of Minister of Rites under some unknown Grandmaster?”

“Let me talk to him. He should be arriving in Yellow City soon to start setting up his own domain. Joining us would mean abandoning the path his grandfather established for him, and he would lose access to his clan’s deathsworn, but I might be able to convince him to take that risk. Last time, he didn’t have any standout classes in the Academy other than us. Without our group, he should be on rather shaky footing by this point.”

I rolled my fingers on the table in thought, considering the potential implications. From what I had learned from Jin after reaching Heaven City, the Ning Clan was the weakest of the four Sovereign clans and was in a rather precarious position. Ning ZeKun, their patriarch, was the clan’s only Bloodline Tier cultivator. This meant he wouldn’t be in a position to help us against the other clans, but it also meant he would be more willing to work with outside forces.

While I considered myself a nominal Peak Emperor and had solid connections to three other Emperors, gaining a connection to Ning ZeKun wasn’t something to scoff at. The dividing line between Emperor and Sovereign was far harsher than that between Grandmaster and Lord.

I studied Yan, trying to analyze his reasons for making this suggestion. I felt a mix of ambition and vindictiveness from him, but both feelings were muted, and neither seemed directed at me.

He had to see bringing Ning ChenKun on board with us as a way to further his plans against the Zhu Clan, but I didn’t sense any deceit in him. This was his honest advice. He genuinely believed that it was the right decision.

“Alright. Talk with him. Just be careful with what you say.” I looked around at the group and measured my words in case we were being spied upon. “While Ning ChenKun is around, everyone needs to be careful. At the end, I will bring him with us if possible, but I don’t want him in a position where he might have thoughts of betrayal.”

After getting everyone’s agreement, I returned my focus to Yan. “It’s your idea. Make it happen.”

Once the meeting broke up and everyone headed off to attend to their own business, I left the manor to inspect my new domain and see what I had gotten myself into.

My first concern was the city’s defenses. If Yan was right, we could expect to be attacked as soon as word got out that the city had a new owner, so we had to be prepared. It would be good to have skilled defenders to push back any invaders, but they would take time to train. Before that, we would have to rely on fixed defenses.

An inspection of the city wall showed that while it was in ruins, it hadn’t been worth much even when new. The wall was constructed from large sandstone blocks dragged up from the local bedrock. This would have been sufficient to guard against mortals, but even a Disciple-level earth cultivator would have been able to cut through it without much difficulty.

To be fair, no simple stone wall would protect a city from an earth cultivator. Defensive formations were critical if one wanted any form of defense against even the simplest techniques. The real problem with sandstone was that it was a poor qi conductor and couldn’t easily be integrated into most formations.

A quick check of the surrounding area indicated that there were no other mineral deposits large enough to build an entire wall with. So, if I wanted to fix this problem, I would either need to import hundreds of tons of stone, or I would need to find a way to make this sandstone more effective.

Importing stone would work, but it would take time, and it would be expensive. Sure, the cost of a granite wall wouldn’t be much to a Lord, but it also wouldn’t be much of an improvement. To really make a difference, I would need something like West Brook City’s rhyolite walls, and that wouldn’t come cheap.

While I could use a single Rank 5 pill to pay for everything, that would defeat the purpose of this exercise. I was supposed to show my city management skills to the sect, and relying on unexplainable wealth to solve all my problems wouldn’t cut it.

With a small boost to my current water and fire affinities, I was confident I would be able to make Perfect Rank 4 pills without a will-lock, and that would give me a way to fund everything in an ‘explainable’ way, but it still felt like cheating. Without knowing how my actions would be graded, I could only guess at how to proceed, but I felt it would be best to rely on my personal wealth as little as possible.

A long time ago, back when I was the city lord of North Lake City, my Minister of Rites had said that I should only personally fund a single project. That might have just been a local tradition, but it also might have a deeper source. It might be a tradition that had been started by the Nine Rivers Sect.

After long hours of deliberation, I decided to put the matter of the city’s defenses on hold. The best option would be to make something work with the sandstone, but I needed to try a few experiments first. I could do that later. First, I needed to understand the rest of what I was facing.

I shifted my focus to the people. While the defenses were important, my true goal had to be improving the lives of my citizens. Walls and defensive formations were important for making that happen, but they were only one piece of a far more complex puzzle.

A single look was all I needed to tell that the people were underfed, and with only a few questions, I understood the cause. A large portion of the city’s diet had come from the fishing industry. Less than a year ago, the YaLu River had been poisoned during a war between two cities upstream. The fish that weren’t killed off by the poison were deadly when eaten, so the city had been forced to abandon its primary food supply.

Basic foodstuffs were rather inexpensive at my level, so I could import as much as needed to solve the immediate issue, but I needed to do more than that. I needed to fix the root of the problem so that NanLu City would be able to stand on its own.

I took out my mental journal and scratched down a few notes on what needed to be done. There was a lot to fix, but with a solid team behind me, I was confident we could make it happen.

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Chapter 192 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Grandmaster Peak

There was a lot to fix in NanLu City, but before anything else, I had to enhance the city’s defenses. If I tried to improve my citizens’ quality of life first, hungry Lords from the surrounding lands would swoop down and destroy all my hard work.

My first impulse was to find a way to construct viable fortifications out of the area’s abundant sandstone deposits. However, after a week of experimentation, I was forced to accept that it just wasn’t going to work. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get sandstone to contain the energy of even a Rank 1 formation.

Overall, the composition of the minerals in sandstone was not too different from granite, but the way these minerals were structured and bonded together created significant differences in the effectiveness of the final composite stones. No matter how carefully a formation was constructed, sandstone crumbled to pieces when injected with any meaningful amount of qi. It was simply ill-suited as a construction material.

The remnants of crumbling sandstone made me think about how I had been constructing jades for memory orbs in my previous life. I could grind the stone down into a fine powder and then use the base minerals to build a perfect wall one layer at a time. A monocrystalline quartz or feldspar wall could potentially handle high levels of high-Rank energy, and it would provide an excellent base for a full defensive formation around the city.

However, constructing something like that would require me to reach at least Martial King first, and even then, it would be the work of decades. NanLu City wasn’t huge, at least not in terms of cities on the Nine Rivers Continent, but it still held more than 100,000 people and covered an area of nearly 100 square kilometers. That meant I needed to construct over 40 kilometers of wall. It would need far more stone than I could possibly build up through such a slow, methodical process.

Still, the concept was interesting, and it might be useful when I had the time and reason to make such a dream a reality. I made a note of the idea in my journal and then set it aside for the distant future.

After considering a few more options, I had to concede that there was no way I would be able to make a meaningful wall with the materials I had on hand. Once I accepted this conclusion, I had to start thinking in new directions.

Did I need a wall? When combined with formations, a wall was a valuable part of a layered defense, but unless it was made of special materials, it was nothing but a hindrance. At most, the current wall only served to control the flow of citizens in and out of the city. It did nothing to stop cultivators from attacking or sneaking in. In that case, why not just get rid of it?

If I relied only on energy shields from formations, my defenses might be weaker than normal, but I also might be able to strike a better balance between defense and economic growth.

There were downsides to this idea, but I wasn’t sure there was a better option. I needed solid advisors to help me understand how best to proceed.

At the end of the week, I met with everyone in the main hall of the city lord’s manor for our regularly scheduled meeting. The place was still barren, but I had left the large circular conference table in the middle of the room so that we would have a place to sit and discuss the city’s affairs.

This time, we had a new addition to the group, Ning ChenKun. He hadn’t agreed to join us, but Yan had somehow convinced him to sit in on a meeting. For the moment, he was only an observer.

I started things off by laying out the deficiencies I had found in the town’s defenses. They had all seen it for themselves, and while they weren’t familiar with the intricacies of stones and formations, they knew the situation wasn’t good.

Once my recap was finished, JiaQi spoke up.

“No matter what you do, walls and formations won’t solve the real issue. We need a dedicated group of defenders to push back any attacks. Our fixed defenses just need to hold for long enough to allow our defenders to get into position.”

I nodded in acceptance. “I can work with that. How’s your recruiting going?”

“That…” JiaQi turned sheepish. “There aren’t any cultivators in the city. Anyone who showed even the slightest hint of talent left long ago. From what I’ve been told, even though the sect is draining this place of its essence, there are occasionally people born with nine-star affinities. That’s not great, but with enough effort and training, nine-star can be enough to reach Martial Master. Unfortunately for us, the surrounding Lords have already stripped this place clean of anyone with even a low nine-star affinity.”

I rubbed my chin in thought. “I understand. Just do your best. If nothing else, it might be a good idea to try and draw in servant disciples from the sect.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ning ChenKun wince at this comment, but he didn’t raise any objections, so I continued on to other topics.

“LiTing, how are things progressing?”

“There’s a lot to do, but none of it seems overly difficult. If you help me with manipulating a bit of earth, we should be able to get the town into pretty good shape in only a week or two. A bit of mortal-grade work on buildings and sewage systems doesn’t take much time, after all.”

Again, I noticed that Ning ChunKun seemed dissatisfied with this response, but I let it slide.

“Have you talked with Jin?”

LiTing’s face turned pensive. “Yeah… I’m not sure why, but Master Jin was a bit too excited when I mentioned the idea of us recruiting ZiHan. She really wants that to happen. She said ZiHan should be here within the week.”

“She likely just wants a deeper connection with us, but we should still be careful.”

I turned to Meng LuYao. “Any news on recruiting personnel to help run the city? Once LiTing and I start fixing things up, we’re going to need people to manage it.”

Her voice was soft and lacked confidence. “I’ve run into a lot of the same problems as JiaQi. Most of the skilled administrators have left the city. There aren’t any I would trust to do more than low-level tasks. I’ve started looking for capable disciples in the sect that might be willing to join us, but it will take time to find people who would be a good fit.”

Ning ChenKun shook his head, unable to hold back his disappointment any longer.

I ignored him and nodded to Meng LuYao. “Just do your best.”

Then, I looked around the table. “We’ve all got a lot to do, so I won’t keep you here any longer. But Yan and Ning ChenKun, I’d like to talk with the two of you in private.”

LiTing, JiaQi, and Meng LuYao said quick goodbyes and left the three of us for a private conversation. When they were gone, I focused on Ning ChenKun.

“What’s the problem?”

He folded his hands in front of him and sat to think for several moments before responding.

“What is your goal? What you are doing… It doesn’t make any sense. So, I want to know. What is your goal?”

I quirked an eyebrow. “Why doesn’t it make sense? I’m trying to restore the city, generate karmic energy, and earn contribution points.”

This answer didn’t satisfy him.

“What is your goal? State it as simply as you can.”

I felt the urge to answer immediately, but I took time to step back and think. What was my goal? What was I trying to accomplish in this life?

Spend time with my friends? Yes, but I was already doing that. It wasn’t a goal.

Repay debts? That was more of an excuse to mess with a few assholes than anything important. It wasn’t a motivating force.

I wanted to reach the Summit and see what happened when I got there, but again, that didn’t feel like a solid goal. As long as I went through the proper motions, I would eventually be able to make it there easily.

Reach Sovereign? It would be nice, but that wasn’t really important to me.

I was just trying things out and living a life I wanted to live. I wasn’t pushing toward a true goal, and my actions had been somewhat scattershot. I kept telling myself I wanted to race to the Summit, but I had spent a lot of time creating a new cultivation technique, and now I was running a city without a clear understanding of what benefits I was trying to gain from doing so.

I wanted to enjoy my time with my friends, complete anything that felt ‘unfinished,’ and learn what I could about ascending to Sovereign.

For my friends, this was enough. JiaQi was having fun doing her own thing, LiTing and Meng LuYao were bonding over their shared memories, and Yan was spending his free time pursuing his vendetta against the Zhuge Clan in secret. They no longer cared about goals and no longer had to worry about learning the complex skills a cultivator needed to master to become successful. They had been happy to follow where I led.

However, I knew this answer wouldn’t satisfy Ning ChenKun. Anyone I didn’t fully bring into the fold would see this as their single, precious life. I needed an answer that could satisfy them. I needed an answer that would help my actions make sense to them, even if they didn’t understand the importance of the goal itself.

A few possibilities ran through my head, but I locked onto one that was both challenging and interesting. Our group would have to work together to accomplish it, and it would be difficult, but it was possible. It was a goal that might even hold the promise of an invaluable reward. I had considered it several times since Jin brought it up, and I had been hesitant to commit to it, but the choice felt correct.

I looked at ChenKun with renewed confidence. “I want to reach the Summit within 13 years.”

That would be one year before Emperor Li would die. This was the only solid goal I could come up with, and it achieved everything I would want from a goal. It let me work together with my friends, it pushed me to the Summit, and it did so in a way where I couldn’t waste too much time.

ChenKun looked at Yan who just nodded, accepting this new pronouncement.

“Fine. You want to reach the Summit. Why? What do you want when you get there?”

I studied him carefully as I thought about my answer. “I’m… not entirely sure. A friend suggested that it was important for me to do so.”

Ning ChenKun looked like he wanted to scoff, but he held it back. “Reaching the Summit means you will leave the sect and join one of the Sovereign clans. That’s it. If that’s all you want, I can send you to the Ning Clan right now.”

“But—”

He held up a hand to stop me.

“Reaching the Summit also means that the Nine Rivers Saint will allow you to ascend to Sovereign, but it doesn’t provide you with the energy to do so. The way you reach the Summit is far more important than just getting there. All your actions will be reviewed by the clans. You must convince one of them that you are worth an investment of precious energy. Even the—”

He flinched as his words were abruptly cut off. When he resumed, he spoke more deliberately. “Even the most powerful clans only have a limited number of Sovereigns, and they are extremely tightfisted with Sovereign-level energy, especially when it comes to outsiders. You have to use your time in the sect to prove to them that you are worth such an investment. If you are not extremely careful, your ascension to Sovereign will be forever blocked, even if you are able to reach the Summit.”

I nodded in understanding. “Isn’t that what I’m doing by being a city lord and repairing the city?”

“No. Your actions might make sense for an actual Lord, but this is a game. The goal isn’t to improve the city, it’s to do so in a way that will score points with the clans. Personally constructing everything, recruiting Grandmasters from the sect, paying for everything with outside resources. Doing things like this is meaningless. What are you showing the clans? Your skills with formations? Your subordinate’s skills with refining? Your ability to pay Grandmasters to help you? You can do all of this without a city. You should use the city to show off new skill sets. Raise the people here to meet the challenges around them. Don’t just pay to bring new people in. Anyone can do that.”

“But isn’t the mission system of the sect set up to do just that? Pay outsiders to come in and fix a city.”

“Yes. However, Lords should only use contribution points generated by their city to do so. They shouldn’t use their personal wealth. Your city doesn’t need to be able to do everything on its own, but it does need to be self-sufficient. If the city can’t survive without you injecting money into it, what have you accomplished?”

He shook his head and looked away. “This city… It might be impossible to restore it without outside resources. The clans may make allowances for this, or they may not. No one knows. That’s part of the problem. We are all trapped in a game with unknowable rules. We can only do our best, and my best recommendation is to do everything you can to avoid relying on anything but what the city can provide you with.”

I looked down at the table and drummed my fingers in thought. Ning ChenKun made solid points, and they were ones I had loosely considered before. Putting these ideas into practice though… It would take time. Returning this city to true self-sufficiency using only the resources of the city… It wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. I could spend an entire lifetime trying to make it happen.

Yes, Ning ChenKun made good points, but did they matter for me in this lifetime?

“No.”

Resolve filled me as I looked at Yan and Ning ChenKun.

“We are going to reach the Summit in 13 years. I’m not going to delay our ascent to play the clans’ games. From what I understand, I need to rule a city to remain a core disciple until we reach Earth City. That’s important if we’re going to purchase Emperor-level karmic energy and walk the path to Heaven City, but that’s the only hard rule I’m aware of. I can’t allow myself to constantly worry about conforming to unknowable expectations from people I’ve never met. As long as we follow the rules well enough to be allowed to continue advancing, that is enough. That is the attitude I will show the clans, and they can decide as they will after we make it to the peak of the mountain.”

Yan smiled, satisfied with my decision.

Ning ChenKun looked disturbed. I bowed my head slightly in his direction.

“Thank you for your advice, but that isn’t the right path for me. I will still welcome you to join us on our journey, but our goal is to make a steep ascent. We will reach the Summit in 13 years. Then, we will find out what comes next.”

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Chapter 193 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Grandmaster Peak

In the end, Ning ChenKun decided against joining us, and I couldn’t blame him. We weren’t willing to tell him anything about what was really going on, and even if we did, I knew it would be hard to accept. However, before he left, he shared some valuable information.

According to ChenKun, the advice I had gotten about ascending as a Lord was on point. As long as all the karmic energy I used in the Lord realm was purchased using points earned through managing a city, I would be allowed to remain a core disciple even if I didn’t gain a King-level stewardship. If I reached Peak Lord through managing NanLu City, no matter how I did it, we would have the opportunity to purchase Emperor-level karmic energy and head to the Summit.

Another valuable insight he shared related to the path to Heaven City. A core disciple leader was required, but we didn’t need a full group of sixteen Emperors like ChenKun had assembled last time. I would be able to walk the path with only five subordinates. Each subordinate could take two attendants with them, but this wasn’t mandatory.

Of course, he also mentioned that larger groups were supposed to better show off a leader's capabilities. Someone who could gather fifteen Emperors under them was more impressive than someone who could only gather five. However, since this wasn’t an actual requirement, we wouldn’t need to struggle to fill those extra spots.

After ChenKun departed, I gathered the group back up and explained my plan. We weren’t going to worry about what was expected of us. We would work as hard as we could as fast as we could to transform this city as much as we could, and I personally would fund all of it through selling Perfect Rank 4 pills.

With this new strategy in place, I traveled to the Lightning Peak and submitted a mission request.

I needed stone. I could try to work the sandstone, or I could try to build solid defenses without a wall to support them, but if I was going to allow myself to spend my personal wealth on this city, then I was going to do it right.

My first impulse was to imitate what I had seen before and construct a rhyolite wall, but I could do better. While I was only a Martial Grandmaster, I was also a Formation Emperor and had a peak four-star earth affinity.

Sorting through a few possibilities, I decided to place an order for two stones. Kyanrolite and ziethanite.

Kyanrolite was a heavy stone used in certain Rank 4 formations. It was good at conducting qi and would be able to mesh well with a defensive formation. It also wasn’t rare, so purchasing enough to build an entire city wall was well within the realm of the possible. The downside was that kyanrolite wouldn’t provide much of a defense against earth or wood cultivators. Its qi conductivity meant that such cultivators would have no difficulty boring large tunnels straight through it.

My solution to this problem was ziethanite. It was a rarely used mineral best suited for Rank 5 formations. However, it was typically only found in powder form, and even with a King’s will-lock, it was difficult to work with unless one had a peak four-star affinity. So, while it was a Rank 5 mineral, purchasing it on a budget generated from Rank 4 pills was still possible.

With my current power, I wouldn’t be able to construct any formations with ziethanite, but that wasn’t the plan. I was going to construct the walls and formations from kyanrolite and then cover everything with a dusting of ziethanite. No Grandmaster would ever be able to break through such a barrier. Most Lords wouldn’t even be able to do so.

Since I was purchasing all these high-Rank materials, the cost of constructing my wall was enough to beggar most Lords, but that didn’t stop me. I had plenty of resources in my storage space to fund the initial phase of construction, and by either advancing to Lord or increasing my remaining basic affinities to peak five-star, I would have as many Perfect Rank 4 pills as I could sell.

A couple of days after starting this new approach, after initial purchase orders were placed but before any real changes had started, Yan called everyone to the manor’s main hall. Cai XiaoYu and Jin ZiHan had finally arrived, and we needed to be there to welcome them.

When I arrived, I noticed strange looks passing between Yan and JiaQi, but I wasn’t sure what it was about. I expected the two new girls to be there with the group when I arrived, but they were strangely absent.

Before anything else, Yan wagged his finger around the room, asking for the anti-eavesdropping formation to be activated. Once it was, JiaQi turned to me with a funny look.

“Fang, what can you tell us about blessings? Have you seen them… change?”

I nodded. “Back in the Wastes, there was someone who was initially given a lightning blessing. Later it changed to ice and then to fire. The Earthly Dao messes with such things. Why?”

JiaQi looked like she wanted to laugh. “Well, you see, XiaoYu and ZiHan have had their blessings… altered. If the all-powerful Earthly Dao did this intentionally, I would be interested to hear his purpose in doing so.”

A spike of fear shot through me. “What happened?”

Just then, the door of the hall opened, and two young women walked inside. Except for their hairstyles, they both looked nearly identical. They had flawless white jade skin, and there was not even a hint of any scratch or imperfection to mar their beauty. Their skin was so smooth that an ethereal glow radiated from their bodies, making them both look like fairies descended from the heavens.

As the others greeted them, I just stared at the two girls for a long time before recognition sunk in.

“Cai XiaoYu? Jin ZiHan?”

Once I was able to see past their beauty, I sensed deep discontent from both girls, but while Cai XiaoYu was simply annoyed, Jin ZiHan was furious. When she entered, she headed straight for JiaQi and had a quick conversation with her. This discussion ended in screaming.

“You’re saying the Earthly Dao did this intentionally? First, it gives me a worthless mathematics blessing. Now it’s a damn beauty blessing? Why won’t it just give me something normal?”

A… beauty blessing? Was that right? Why would it do that?

I returned to staring at the two girls, but I no longer paid attention to their looks. I was analyzing them in energy vision.

If only one of them had been given a ‘beauty blessing,’ I might have chalked it up to the Earthly Dao doing some kind of strange test. But both? There had to be something deeper going on.

I cleared my throat to get their attention.

“You said this is a ‘beauty blessing.’ Is that all it is? Does it affect you in any other way?”

“No.” Jin ZiHan nearly growled at me. “All it does is enhance our skin.”

I furrowed my brow. “What about protection? Does it make your skin harder to cut? Does it bruise less easily?”

Cai XiaoYu stepped forward to answer the questions in a more even tone.

“Yes, maybe. If you’re only considering mortal weapons and when our bodies aren’t enhanced with qi, then it might help, but as a cultivator, that’s meaningless. A Rank 1 refined dagger will still cut us easily enough, and even the simplest qi shielding will provide more ‘protection’ than this blessing gives us.”

I nodded at her. “Thank you.”

Her words helped me paint a better picture of what was going on, but I didn’t want to share my thoughts with the group. I couldn’t help but feel the Earthly Dao was using the girls’ blessings as a back door to send me free information while bypassing the limitations of the System. If that were the case, I didn’t think it was something that should be advertised. I was irrationally afraid that even speaking my thoughts aloud might be enough to pull the attention of one of the higher beings who was supposed to be keeping the Earthly Dao in check.

So, instead of letting the group linger on thoughts of the girls’ blessings, I redirected the meeting. We had work to get done.

As previously planned, Cai XiaoYu was assigned the position of Minister of Justice, and Jin ZiHan was given the position of Minister of Revenue. She no longer had the mathematics blessing, but she knew enough to get the job done.

This still left open the position of Minister of Rites, but I no longer considered that position important. We didn’t need someone trying to guess what the clan leaders felt was important. We were going to break the rules and see what happened.

Once the meeting was over and everyone knew what they were doing, the group separated and headed out the door.

As they left, I gave one last long look at Cai XiaoYu and Jin ZiHan. Their blessings were important. I didn’t feel as if I could do anything with that knowledge yet, but I would pay attention to them as they grew and try to learn what the Earthly Dao was telling me.

As the sect-appointed steward of NanLu City and not a true city lord, I didn’t receive any karmic energy from the city directly. Instead, the karmic energy was somehow absorbed by the sect, and I received contribution points in return.

When I went to the temple to check on my progress, I was shocked to find that without having made any real changes to the city, I had already earned enough points to purchase the energy I needed to advance to Lord. Simply appointing my friends and allies to their current positions and directing them on how we would proceed was enough for a large initial burst of energy and points.

Not willing to delay my progress, I purchased the energy I needed and returned to the city. After informing everyone of the situation and sending JiaQi, LiTing, Yan, and Meng LuYao off to purchase their own portions of karmic energy, I secluded myself and broke through to Martial Lord.

After less than a week, everyone was able to complete their breakthroughs, so we met in the main hall, and Yan made a suggestion on how to proceed.

“Since we’ve all broken through, I think it would be best if we made the trip to Profound City before kicking the hornet’s nest here. Once we get to work, we can expect to have a lot of trouble from our neighbors until everything is secure, so it would be better to make that journey first.”

I nodded. “I’ll travel with JiaQi on the Path of Soul. If she needs to spend time cultivating, it might take us a couple of months, but we’ll be back out as soon as possible. You three should take the Path of Mind. That will let us regroup and walk the Path of Body together.”

No one had any major complaints, but Jin ZiHan and Cai XiaoYu were worried about keeping the city together in our absence, so I left them a primed and ready-to-go Rank 6 defensive formation. If they ran into any trouble they couldn’t handle, they would be able to retreat to the city lord’s manor and activate the formation. It would be able to protect them indefinitely from anyone up to a Peak Lord.

If anyone more powerful than that tried to attack, LuLu would make sure they never even saw the city.

Walking the Path of Soul didn’t take as long as I had feared. Since JiaQi knew it was going to be a problem, she had been preparing for the journey from the beginning of the reset. I wasn’t entirely sure how she was feeding her growing soul, but she knew more than enough to do it the right way.

We still stopped in the fourth area for a few weeks just to be safe, but in less than a month, we reached the final stone arch on the path. When I stepped through, I was transported to an identical-looking area with an elderly man sitting behind a desk.

The elder flipped through a few pages before looking up at me.

“Disciple Su Fang, you have earned your initial karmic energy as a Lord through points generated by your domain. This is commendable. You have also demonstrated talents in soul cultivation, alchemy, and martial arts. This is all very good.”

He placed the stack of papers down on his desk and looked me square in the eye.

“However, you are a member of the Lightning Peak. You do not cultivate lightning qi, and you have demonstrated no proficiency with talismans. As such, the Master of the Lightning Peak has requested for you to be dropped to the level of ungraded inner sect disciple. After careful consideration, and in light of your achievements to date, the peak’s elders have chosen to reduce your position to only grade 3 inner sect disciple. If you wish to regain your position as a core disciple, you may do so through the Exam at the end of the year.”

The elder didn’t wait for me to respond. He waved a hand and exchanged the jade token on my waist for one with the symbol of an inner sect disciple.

“Study talismans well. The elders expect you to make a quick return to the ranks of the core disciples.”

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Chapter 194 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Lord 1

My demotion to the inner sect was a slight problem, but it was one that was easy to solve. After a couple of months, I would be able to take the sect’s Exam, and a quick purchase of Rank 4 talisman knowledge would be enough to ensure my return to core disciple status. For the moment, I just needed to continue on as normal.

After reaching Profound City, JiaQi and I immediately turned around, teleported out of the sect, traveled through the portal network, and returned to NanLu City.

When we arrived, I was shocked by the change. We had only been gone for a few weeks, but the town was already pulling itself together. On every street, I saw dozens of people cleaning the cobblestones, tearing down dilapidated buildings, and planting fresh flowers.

The walls surrounding the city remained in their same crumbling, broken-down state, so outside observers hopefully hadn’t noticed any changes. However, the city inside the walls had completely transformed.

When I arrived at the city lord’s manor, I found the three people responsible for this change.

LiTing, in her position as Minister of Public Works, had laid out careful plans of what needed to be done and how to do it. For the most part, this involved making a list of the buildings that needed to be torn down and the materials that needed to be purchased to construct something new in their place.

Jin ZiHan, in her role as Minister of Revenue, had been in a more difficult position, but she had excelled. She was not yet a Grandmaster, so she couldn’t personally visit the sect to sell pills or buy supplies. Instead, she had to relay everything through a team of servant disciples. Even with that limitation, she had still been able to take the pills I had left her and transform them into everything LiTing and the others required.

However, none of this would have been possible without Meng LuYao. As Minister of Personnel, not only had she recruited Jin ZiHan’s servants, but she had also recruited numerous other low-level sect disciples to do odd jobs around the city.

When I called a meeting and gathered everyone together, I wanted to thank the women for their hard work, but Jin ZiHan didn’t want to hear it. She was all business and only wanted to focus on what she considered to be the most important problem.

“You didn’t leave us enough resources to fund the purchase of the ziethanite, but we’ve found a source for the kyanrolite. The suppliers are ready to begin delivery, but we wanted to wait until you got back. No one here understands your plans for it.”

Thrown off by this immediate shift to business, I had to pause and think.

“Building a wall and installing the defensive formations will be a lot of work and take up too much time. I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to handle it personally.” I drummed my fingers on the table. “Send a special request to the Earth Peak. Ask for Tie Yang. He’s a skilled Formation Lord and has a team that should be able to handle something like this. I’ll draw up some plans, and they can execute them. I’ll only need to step in once it’s time to infuse the walls with the ziethanite.”

Jin ZiHan’s cheek twitched slightly in irritation. “I can do that, but that brings us back to the problem of money. We don’t have enough for all the stone we need, and paying Formation Lords to do all that work for us is even more of a problem.”

I nodded and grabbed a blank scroll from my storage bag. After scribbling down the names of several Rank 4 herbs, I took a moment to think through a few options and then added a few basic Rank 5 earth-aligned herbs to the list.

“Use whatever funds we have remaining to buy as many of these herbs as possible, and I’ll transform them into pills. That will solve the money issue.” I pointed out the Rank 5 herbs. “These might be a bit outside the budget, but buy one or two if you can. I can make a simple Rank 5 pill with them, and we won’t have to worry about contribution points at all if we can sell a few of those.”

She gave me a false smile and accepted the list.

We ran through a few more important issues, but for the most part, my friends had everything in hand. With the issue of the city’s defenses handed off to Tie Yang’s crew, I had time to implement what I hoped would catapult NanLu City to the next level.

I was going to build a pill factory.

While I still had the original pill factory diagrams from my time in Eight Flower Kingdom, there were problems with them. The concept behind the design was to use dozens of individual formations to create an assembly line that would automatically concoct pills. This worked, but it was messy. The numerous separate formations interfered with each other and caused the environmental qi to become turbulent.

Aside from that, the quality of the pills produced by the factory wasn’t very high. They were Perfect pills, so their efficacy wasn’t overly important, but with my current knowledge and formation skills, I knew I could do better.

Ultimately, the crux of the issue was that our original way of thinking about the factory was flawed. We didn’t need a complex chain of separate formations. What we needed was a single properly designed grand formation.

This grand formation would be powered and controlled by a single main node in the center of the factory. This main node would then supply energy to a chain of child nodes in a controlled and organized manner.

Fully redesigning the pill factory so that it followed the principles of a grand formation would require years of effort. Not only that, but I was also sure that by the time I was able to complete such a redesign, I would have improved my knowledge of formations and would want to start all over and redesign it from scratch once more.

So, while I could take the time to try and design a ‘perfect’ factory, I had to hold myself back. Perfection was the enemy of good enough, and good enough was all I needed.

I made a few notes on my ideas for a grand factory formation, but eventually chose to stick with the tried and tested formation designs that I already had. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work.

After a quick discussion with LiTing, I appropriated an abandoned warehouse near the center of the city and installed production lines for Nutrition Pills and a couple of other valuable Rank 0 pills. For the initial run, I made swift work of the formations and didn’t spend time worrying about maximizing their power or efficiency.

Once the first production line was ready to go, I visited Jin ZiHan.

“I need a supply line for low-level herbs. They’re all only Rank 0 or 1, and some of them are usually just considered weeds. It would be best if we could set up a farm near the city to grow them ourselves, but importing them would be fine for now.”

Jin ZiHan pulled out a thick book and wrote a few notes.

“Importing them will be difficult. No one in sect lands grows anything at that level, so we would have to purchase them from outlying kingdoms. That will add cost, but more importantly, it will create delays which I’m assuming you don’t want.”

She looked at me, and I nodded in confirmation.

“As you know, I trained in herbalism at the Academy. I haven’t learned much since leaving, but I know the basics, and I know what we need to do to make this happen. I can give you a list of the formations we will need, and I will get in contact with an Herb Lord who can speed things along. After that, while we could hire a servant disciple to take care of things, if they are only Rank 0 herbs, you should talk to LuYao about hiring someone from the city. True herbalism skills won’t be required, and she should be able to find someone with a talent for gardening.”

With the help of my friends, the pill factory was up and operational after only a month. It wasn’t operating at full capacity yet, but the city’s populace was already starting to reap the benefits of taking Nutrition Pills.

As the first shipment of pills was handed out, I kept careful track of my contribution point total, expecting it to surge to new heights. However, the results were disappointing. My point total increased slightly, but it was only a gain of around 10 to 20%.

I might just need to give the factory more time to see its true effects, but when I was in Eight Flower, I had received a flood of energy the moment the first pills left the factory. I couldn’t help but feel something was different.

Needing advice, I sought out Yan. After I explained the problem to him, he shook his head at me.

“I was worried about this, and what you said confirms my suspicions.”

I raised an eyebrow and gestured for him to continue.

“You gave the mortals pills, healed their bodies, and made them more productive, but how much did you truly change their fates? Are their lives really going to be any different now than they were before? Ultimately, there is one key difference between the people in NanLu City and those in an outlying kingdom.”

It didn’t take me long to catch his meaning. “Essence.”

Yan nodded. “Healing mortals outside the sect, especially youths, will grant them incalculable new opportunities, including the chance to become cultivators, ascend to at least Grandmaster, and live for hundreds of years. A child who would have died at six could live to be six hundred because of a single pill. But here, that isn’t going to happen. These people will never cultivate, and they will never be more than what they are right now. Healing them will make them a bit more productive, and it might make them happier, but it won’t change their lives.”

I lowered my head and ran my fingers through my hair in defeat. Was there nothing I could do? Was it impossible for the people of NanLu City to become anything more? Was this all caused by a lack of essence?

That last thought made me freeze, and then a moment later, I let out a hearty chuckle.

I looked up and patted Yan on the shoulder. “Thanks, I know what to do.”

Having advanced to Lord, I could now improve my affinities once more, so I traveled through the portal network and made my way to the Metal Peak. When I arrived, I found Jin waiting for me, and we went directly to her conference room where she immediately returned ZiHan’s and Shen’s memory orbs to me.

Once we were seated, I had important questions that needed to be answered.

“Both you and Shen have indicated there are rules binding your actions. I wanted to know, can the Master of the Lightning Peak strike at me if I make him upset? Is there anything he can do to me directly?”

Jin had to give the question a bit of consideration.

“He wouldn’t be allowed to do much to target you specifically. The biggest threat you have to worry about from him is the challenge he sets for you on the path to Heaven City. Since you’ll be the group’s leader, and you’re a member of his peak, there won’t be much Shen or I can do to stop him from making things as difficult as possible. Of course, if you make him exceptionally angry, he might order others to attack you.”

“Is he allowed to send Kings and Emperors after me?”

“That’s a bit of a gray area. I don’t know if there are rules barring it since the cost of sending an Emperor after a Lord would rarely make sense. But if you make him mad enough….”

I bowed slightly to her. “Thank you.”

That answer was a bit disappointing.

Using up ten times as much essence as a normal disciple might upset the Master of the Lightning Peak, but he shouldn’t resent it enough to send high-level assassins after me. However, if I started stealing extra essence for the people of NanLu City, he might not be so kind. It was an unfortunate development, but there were other ways to accomplish my goals.

After a moment’s thought, I returned my focus to Jin.

“Can you please send a message to Shen for me? I need a way to collect essence from the environment, store it, and then transfer it to my citizens.”

Jin snorted in amusement. “I can let him know, but I can already tell you his answer. He won’t be allowed to share such information.”

She reached into a bag, pulled out a small white bar, and handed it to me. “This is an interesting substance, have you ever talked with LiTing about it? Also, you should have learned to transform martial techniques into formations by now, right? Why haven’t I seen you do that recently? Oh, and your actions are a bit too loud. You should take a vacation and let things cool off. Why not visit your friend JiaQi’s hometown?”

I stared at Jin as she rambled off this list of random incoherent questions. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Thank you, Jin. I’ll keep that in mind.”

I gave her a deep bow. Then, I took my leave and headed to the Metal Peak Trial.

As a Lord, this version of the Trial was far more difficult than the Grandmaster version, but using LiTing’s Rank 5 refined gear and a Profound-Rank spirit fire seed, none of its challenges were able to hold up for even a moment under my onslaught. Once again, on my first attempt, I reached far enough to max out my metal affinity, improving it to mid four-star.

With that task complete, I headed back to NanLu City to have a chat with my friends.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 195 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Lord 1

Over the next couple of months, almost all my time was consumed with alchemy.

JiaQi was hiring warriors, Jin ZiHan was hiring builders, Cai XiaoYu was hiring law enforcement personnel, and Meng LuYao was hiring people to deal with the city’s expanding bureaucracy. LiTing needed supplies to rebuild the city’s buildings, and Jin ZiHan needed supplies to rebuild the city’s walls. All of this cost money, and we paid for all of it by selling pills.

I had hoped that the profit from a few Rank 5 pills would have covered everything, but the ziethanite was more expensive than I had planned on, and as a Lord 1, I could only make Rank 5 pills if I had the matching peak four-star affinities, so the ones I could make were limited to those that only required pure earth-based herbs, and the demand for such pills was lacking.

Therefore, I had to spend countless hours locked away in an alchemy workshop in a mad rush to pay for everything that needed to get done. Thankfully, I had Yan to keep everything running smoothly. He had a solid sense of when I would want to be involved in a decision and when he could make a decision in my stead.

During what little free time I had, I wanted to research the formation designs that Jin had hinted at, but I always found myself pulled in several different directions. I needed to help design the city’s wall and defensive formations, I needed to create formations for Jin ZiHan’s herb farm, and I needed to inscribe basic pest control formations to protect the city’s food supply. A lot of these were tasks that should have been delegated to contracted specialists, but Meng LuYao was too busy working to restore basic city services to deal with them. So, while I wanted to improve the citizens’ affinities, that project fell off my radar until I had more time to dedicate to it.

After two months of frantic work, it was time for the sect’s Exam, and I hadn’t even hinted at trying to learn Rank 4 talismans. I could only hope that the elders from the Lightning Peak were paying attention to that.

Right before I headed to the Exam site, I made my purchases.

“System, I want all the knowledge of Rank 4 talismans that could be expected from an expert on this continent.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 100 billion credits. 539,543,100,650 credits remaining.

That was a bit of a blow to my credit reserves, but it was money that needed to be spent.

“System, give me the standard mental reversion point for when I exit the Exam. After I leave the Exam’s Trial, return me to the way I was right before I entered.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 100 million credits. 539,443,100,650 credits remaining.

I had spent a sizable number of credits, and I didn’t have much to show for it. Since I was going to be working on those formations soon, I might as well add in a purchase that would actually help me with my real goals.

“System, bump my formation comprehension up to 100 billion credits.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 99 billion credits. 440,443,100,650 credits remaining.

Satisfied, I left NanLu City and headed for the Exam.

When I stepped out of the Exam, the head scribe stared at me with wide eyes.

“You… you’ve been promoted to a grade 3 core disciple. Congratulations, Lord Su.”

I lowered my head slightly, took my new identity jade, and left. On the way back to NanLu City, I checked my journal.

No torture.

That seemed to confirm one of my suspicions. The sect was interested in body modifications. They had been ‘torturing’ me to study the truth behind my transformation into the guise of Chen WuJing.

This made me worried for Jin ZiHan and Cai XiaoYu, but as long as whoever was running this place only thought they had a worthless ‘beauty’ blessing, they might not look into things too deeply. If they were paying attention, though, they might have noticed how the girls’ skin was improving with each advancement. Something far more than a simple beauty enhancement was at play.

As for myself, I was keeping detailed records of the flows of energy within their skin. I had only attempted to mimic them once, and that had been a painful experience. So, for the moment, I was content to watch and keep a record of my observations.

At any rate, while this was all interesting, I had too much else to concern myself with at the moment. Even if studying these blessings unlocked the trick to becoming one of the sect’s chosen, I wasn’t sure that was what I wanted out of this life. I already had more than enough to keep me busy without adding on several more layers of complications.

Instead of poking at this problem further to see what came out of it or purchasing ridiculously priced information from the System to assist me in solving the mystery, I just noted the information down in my journal and returned to the work I cared about.

With my return to core disciple status, the next task was to make all of NanLu’s citizens cultivators.

To make my people cultivators, there were four things I needed: a way to gather essence, a way to store essence, a place to gather essence from, and a way to transfer it to my people.

Jin had given a huge lead on number three, and her hints suggested I needed to talk to LiTing about a solution to number two. However, since LiTing was busy with other tasks, I focused on problem number one.

I needed a way to collect free essence in the environment and purify it into a state that would allow it to be absorbed into a person’s body. This seemed difficult at first glance, but after only a few seconds, I realized how blindingly simple it was. I would have easily been able to come up with the solution even without my recent comprehension boost.

One of the first formations I had learned was a filtered Rank 1 Qi Gathering Formation. It gathered energy from the environment, passed it through a filter inscription, and trapped the condensed and purified qi within a shielded area.

An ‘Essence’ Gathering Formation would be the exact same thing. I just needed a different filtering inscription.

Designing a brand-new filter for an entirely new energy type was far beyond my capabilities. Even though my comprehension of both cultivation techniques and formations was at an insane level, I didn’t have the theoretical knowledge of energy structures to even begin understanding how to possibly design a filter from scratch.

I didn’t need to.

Jin had said it. I needed to transform my technique manual into a formation. I had essence cultivation filters for earth, metal, and lightning. Even if I couldn’t figure out the other six on my own, I could still use the filters in these techniques as a base for creating Essence Gathering Formations for their respective elements.

Redesigning a filter from a cultivation technique to work properly inside a Qi Gathering Array was a bit tricky, but the enlightenment I received when making my cultivation technique significantly improved my understanding of metal and lightning essence filters. Since Jin had been the one to point me in this direction, I decided to start with designing a metal essence formation.

With the help of the knowledge from the enlightenment, I was able to complete an initial design within a single day. Then, I spent another full week refining and improving it. When I was done, I examined my creation with my formation analysis ability.

Rank 1 Essence Gathering Formation (Metal)

Base Material: Granite

Base Material Quality: 109% of standard reference

Energy Throughput: 107% of standard reference

Energy Efficiency: 74%, 114% of standard reference

…

Satisfied, I went to look for LiTing.

When I asked LiTing to help me design a formation to trap essence in a way that would allow it to be easily transported back to the city, she just stared at me blankly. The entire notion was foreign to her, and she didn’t have any idea how to even begin approaching the topic. However, that all changed the moment I showed her the white bar Jin had given me.

She studied it for several minutes, probing it with her qi. Finally, she handed it back to me.

“Yeah, that should work. Why did you come to me when you already had an answer?”

I blinked. “What?”

She pointed at the white bar. “That’ll work. No clue how much essence it would take to give someone an affinity, but that should be able to hold a good amount of it.”

I couldn’t help but rub my forehead in a bit of frustration. “Please, back up. What do you mean? What is this bar? Jin just gave it to me and told me to talk to you about it.”

“Oh… It’s glucina. It’s… like a metal? It’s like rust. Glucinium rust.”

I nodded. “An oxide.”

Thinking through her words triggered my language ability, and I gained a better understanding of her meaning.

“It’s beryllium oxide. Alright. I can understand that. How does that help?”

She tilted her head slightly, my words somewhat unfamiliar to her, but she didn’t let that stop her.

“Glucina… It doesn’t want to accept metal qi. It is metal, but it… rejects the energy. It takes a lot more work than normal to push the energy inside, and once you do get energy in there, it’s even harder to get it out. At the same time, glucina can store a lot of energy. So… yeah. You don’t have to worry about formations or anything like that. Just find a way to push the essence into that bar and you’ll be good.”

She hesitated and then corrected herself. “It’ll only work with metal essence. Glucina isn’t great with the other elements.”

I looked at the bar and then back up to LiTing with a smile. “Thanks, that's a huge help.”

Beryllium oxide might only be able to store metal essence, but finding a stone that could serve a similar role with earth essence shouldn’t be a problem. I had no idea where to even begin looking for something to store lightning essence, so I didn’t bother. My citizens could find homes on the Earth and Metal Peaks, they wouldn’t need to bother with the Lightning Peak.

With all the pieces falling into place, I spent another few weeks designing two new formation plates. The first was basically an Essence Gathering Formation, but instead of transferring the energy into a shielded bubble, it shoved it into a bar of beryllium oxide. A second formation then pulled the essence out of the bar and shoved it into a standard bubble.

During this design process, I also bumped the formations up to Rank 3 to make the process faster, but I wouldn’t know how quickly they would be able to gather essence until I was able to test them somewhere that had free essence in the environment.

According to Jin, the best place to do that would be somewhere near JiaQi’s hometown. I wanted to make the trip myself, but JiaQi and Yan had noticed troubling signs from a couple of the surrounding cities. It was looking like an attack might be on the horizon, so it was an inconvenient time for me to leave the city.

Instead, I relied on Meng LuYao to hire an outer sect disciple to make the journey in my place. Of course, I wasn’t crazy enough to tell him anything about what I was trying to accomplish. I just gave him a formation plate with a bar of beryllium oxide hidden inside and told him how to activate it.

After that, I stopped focusing on the essence situation and gave the city’s defenses my full attention.

Tie Yang had done a wonderful job of getting started with building a wall and installing a defensive formation, but it was an enormous task, and the kyanrolite could only be delivered so quickly.

Leaving Tie Yang to slowly construct the city’s permanent defenses, I focused on establishing a series of smaller temporary formations around the city’s perimeter that could protect us until his job was complete. Instead of crafting high-quality powerful defensive shields, I made hundreds of smaller formations that were quick to assemble and deploy. This gave us layers of protection that would slow the advance of any enemies to a crawl while we either dealt with them or waited for our real defenses to come online.

After that, I threw in some rather nasty offensive formations that would punish anyone who attempted to destroy my brand-new herb farm or the smaller villages within the city’s aegis.

When the first attack arrived, I was surprised to find that it came from the south, toward the center of the kingdom.

A host of a hundred Martial Disciples, a score of Martial Masters, and a dozen Martial Grandmasters all dressed in black robes descended on NanLu. When they arrived, they perched themselves on a small hill to the south of the city.

A Peak Grandmaster walked forward and used a wind qi technique to amplify his voice.

“Citizens of NanLu City. It is time for you to pay tribute to AnFeng City. Do not resist.”

The moment he finished speaking, I triggered a formation that lit up bright lights scattered throughout the city. This was to signal my citizens to remain within the walls until the situation was dealt with.

Once that was done, I sat back to see how my formations fared against a few Grandmasters.

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Chapter 196 – Life 70, Age 26, Martial Lord 1

The temporary defenses I had created for NanLu City were suboptimal, and it would have been a bad idea to rely on them long-term, but they were more than enough to give Tie Yang and his crew the time they needed to complete our true fortifications.

These interim protections consisted of three layers of weak Rank 4 defensive formations. For the low-level ruffians that were trying to invade us, it might take an entire year to get through even the outermost perimeter.

Of course, JiaQi could have just sent a group of mercenaries to sweep them away easily enough, but that would have been a self-defeating strategy. We needed to wait a bit before the harvest was ripe.

So, after ensuring everything with the assault was going smoothly, I returned to my regular business of alchemy, formations, and getting the city back on a path to prosperity.

I just hoped the invaders didn’t try attacking my herb farm or the city’s outlying villages. That would make things… messy. It would provide a bit of fertilizer for our growing crops, but no one wanted to have to clean up a bunch of dead bodies.

Not too long after this attack started, the Grandmaster I had sent to collect essence returned.

He had been gone for several months by this point, and I was beginning to think something had gone wrong, but I needn’t have worried. He had just taken his time getting to JiaQi’s hometown, and once there, he had left the gathering formation active for over a month. Then, he collected it and came back. No one troubled him along the way.

Fortunately for him, he hadn’t tried to uncover the secrets of what I was up to. I had hidden the beryllium oxide bar within a layer of stone, and if anyone tried to break the plate open and look inside, several Rank 5 Explosive Pills were ready to give them a bit of a surprise.

Once I deactivated this trap and removed the bar, I looked at it closely in energy vision.

I would have said the results were disappointing, but I didn’t have anything to compare them against. The bar appeared to be relatively empty, and the amount of essence within it seemed quite limited, but without knowing how much each person would need, I didn’t know how long this supply would last.

So, after talking with Meng LuYao and drafting a handful of volunteers from the city’s populace, I set up the essence extraction formation and created a bubble of purified metal essence. When someone walked inside, the essence would immediately seep into their bodies and boost their affinities.

The first volunteer to attempt this process was a 17-year-old boy. He had no affinities, but he did have a blessing to improve his spearmanship.

Since I didn’t know how effective this essence would be, I regulated the energy within the bubble to a small fraction of what had been gathered.

When the boy stepped inside, essence poured into his body like rain soaking into barren earth.

The child’s skin split apart, and vicious cuts appeared all over his body. He screamed in agony.

Reacting instantly, I raced forward, ripped him out of the essence bubble, and shoved a Healing Pill into his mouth.

I stared at him, panicked. What went wrong? That shouldn’t have happened.

As I examined his healing wounds, I tried to get him talking. “Are you okay?”

“Ye… Yes.”

I tried to comfort him, but once he was assured of his survival, he only wanted to know one thing, the same thing that all of the mortal onlookers wanted to know.

“Did it work? Can I cultivate?”

I couldn’t help but let out a relieved chuckle. “Let’s check.”

Side by side, we walked to where Meng LuYao had set up an affinity testing orb. The boy pushed the limited energy within his body into the orb, and everyone waited for the results.

For a moment, nothing happened, but once that energy level inside the orb crossed an unknown threshold, the image of a small dull red metal ingot appeared. A moment later, it brightened. After brightening twice more, the ingot dulled and became slightly yellower. When this happened the boy’s face fell. After that, the image of the ingot only brightened a single time.

The boy, having seen the brightly glowing red ingot become dull and lifeless, looked to be on the verge of tears. “Did… Did something go wrong?”

I patted him on the back. “Congratulations. A mid eight-star metal affinity.”

After that, I toned down the formation and only gave people enough essence to reach peak nine-star. Meng LuYao could work out a system where they could earn more, but for the time being, I wanted to spread the essence around as much as possible.

With my citizens’ affinities improving, I figured it was time to work on my own.

I looked out at the cultivators who were assaulting the city’s formations. Their numbers had grown slightly, but not to the point where I was worried. It wasn’t time to deal with them yet, and they wouldn’t be able to cause any problems during the next week, so I confidently left the city and headed to the Lightning Peak.

When I got there, I headed straight to the Trial. While I hadn’t earned any contribution points from missions recently, points from ruling a city worked just as well, so I was able to enter without issue.

Like my previous visit, I relied solely on my seed of the Profound-Rank Slicing Winds Fire to handle all the Trial’s obstacles. This wasn’t nearly as effective as it had been when I was a Grandmaster, but with lightning’s weakness to wind, it was good enough. I barreled through the Trial and quickly racked up enough points to reach a mid four-star affinity.

As I was leaving, a voice echoed throughout the entire Trial.

“Do you know how precious lightning essence is? It is far more difficult to collect than the baser elements, and you are just wasting it. You don’t even use it. Are you just trying to anger me?”

I cocked my head to the side. “Yes.”

Then, I left.

When I arrived back in NanLu City, I was surprised to find that the number of attackers had grown substantially in the brief time I was away. There were now multiple groups dressed in the regalia of multiple cities. Wondering what was happening, I made my way to the city lord’s manor.

Everyone was already seated around the conference table when I arrived, so I joined in on the meeting in progress, and Yan explained the situation.

“The Lord of Yellow Bluff City decided to attack the herb farm. Your formations shredded his forces, and that got everyone else to take us more seriously. None of the Lords have appeared in person yet, but they have all ramped up the forces they’re sending against us, and it looks like they sent specialists to assist in taking down your formations.”

I nodded in understanding. “If they’re this aggressive, how are they working together?”

“Pack tactics. None of them feel like they can suppress the others, so they’re working together to prevent anyone else in the area from rising up.”

I snorted. If being a city lord was a game to impress the clans, I doubted this strategy would work very well. At least, it wouldn’t if I were the one deciding who to raise to Sovereign. For all I knew, this could be exactly the attitude the clans were after.

I turned to JiaQi. “Are you ready?”

A wide grin spread across her face. “Been waiting for weeks.”

“Just remember, the sect rules say you can’t attack them directly. You’re only allowed to attack other Lords. You can only command our troops and get them into position.”

She smirked and left without comment.

During my last life, the Master of the Lightning Peak had taught me an invaluable lesson. If one were to flood an area with qi, it would be incredibly difficult to detect more subtle energy signatures.

So, if, for example, a group of Grandmasters constantly bombarded an area with qi for several days on end, once they destroyed the formations they were attacking, it would be extremely difficult to notice energy signatures from other formations buried in the ground around them.

I had built the defensive formations around the city in three layers. The attackers were now on the third and final layer of these defenses, and they were standing in the area that had sat between the second and third layers.

The moment JiaQi charged out of the city with her small band of mercenaries, formations underneath each of the invaders sprang to life. These were not offensive formations. They were shielding formations. These shields separated the horde of over a thousand attackers into small pockets of four or five people each.

JiaQi’s people went through each of these pockets one by one and attached Rank 3 Restraining Talismans to each person.

In less than an hour, everyone who had been attacking the city had been turned into a captive.

The Lords of these cultivators never showed themselves. They were too cautious and relied on sending underlings to do their dirty work. If the city had looked like it was going to fall, these Lords might have been willing to charge into the fray, but given the results, they stayed well back.

That didn’t bother me. The ransom I exacted from my captives made everything worthwhile, and when combined with the karmic energy generated from injecting purified essence into my populace, I was on track to rise to Martial King faster than ever before.

I didn’t think the local Lords would willingly just let this defeat stand, but before they could mount another assault, Tie Yang was able to complete my wall. To finish things off, I infused the wall with ziethanite dust and activated a grand formation powerful enough to straddle the gap between Ranks 4 and 5. After that, there wasn’t anything a lowly Lord could do to us.

In the following years, my friends and I still continued helping the city improve through injections of essence, pills, and new construction, but our efforts were no longer necessary. All we had to do was wait as the contribution points piled up.

While the city was generating an unnatural number of points, and we all had Rank 4 pills and formations to help us cultivate, there were limits to how quickly a person could advance their cultivation level safely. I still needed to pause between each advancement to let my cultivation base settle, and I filled most of this free time with my most important unfinished task. I needed to learn to carve a Qi Gathering Formation into my soul.

The skill I had purchased from the System, the Garden of a Hundred Flowers, was supposed to allow me to visualize my soul in a way that would make inscribing it with formations possible, but mastering that technique had proved to be incredibly difficult.

This was because the technique required me to weave a single strand of qi through each of my opened acupoints. With a normal cultivation technique, one that only used 9 acupoints, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but my technique used a full 361 acupoints. The enlightenment I had gained when creating it had helped me better understand what I was supposed to do, but the System had cut that knowledge short, and I didn’t learn everything I needed to know.

That being the case, and to save as much time as possible, I purchased a little help.

“System, give me a 100 billion credit boost to my comprehension of soul techniques.”

Purchase confirmed. 340,443,100,650 credits remaining.

This didn’t give me an instant understanding of everything I needed to do to use the technique successfully, but once the comprehension bonus was in place, studying the intricacies of the technique became far faster and easier.

Four years after first arriving in NanLu City, my friends and I had all reached Martial King 1.

During this time, we saw neither hide nor hair of Lord Hao. The commotion I had caused early on must have scared him away. That made me a little sad, but it was fine. Lord Hao was just an annoyance from the past. If I had a way to easily annoy him in the future, I might do so, but he was no longer of any importance.

I did, however, take time to refresh the bounty I had laid on the PangBo Merchant Alliance. Using my new knowledge, I created hundreds of Rank 3 and 4 Soul Cleansing Talismans and handed them over to the bounty hunter’s guild. Like Lord Hao, the PangBo Alliance was of no real importance, but I wanted to give their captives what chance I could to be free.

With that, everything I needed to do in Profound City was complete, and we were ready to continue our ascent to the Summit of Dragon Peak.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 197 – Life 70, Age 29, Martial King 1

Not long after everyone reached Martial King, I relinquished my position as steward of NanLu City, and we all returned to Dragon Peak.

Over the past four years, Jin ZiHan and Cai XiaoYu had cultivated diligently and had reached Peak Grandmaster. They would need time to catch up with us, but they had a large number of contribution points from serving as my ministers, so they would be able to purchase all the karmic energy they needed to reach Earth City.

These two also benefited greatly from a small loophole we had discovered in the sect’s rules. They were only allowed to pay for time in the Trials by using contribution points earned from missions. However, working as one of my ministers counted as a ‘mission.’ So, while I was paying them with points earned through selling pills and formations, to them, they were accruing points earned from missions and were thus able to use them to purchase entry into a Trial.

Using the glut of resources we were able to funnel them, Cai XiaoYu and Jin ZiHan were rushing to raise their cultivation bases as quickly as reasonably possible. None of us wanted them to damage their foundations in the process, but even if they didn’t fully understand my reasoning, they accepted that I wanted to reach the Summit before Emperor Li’s death. To help make that happen, they were willing to risk creating somewhat weak and unstable foundations for this one life.

As for the rest of our group, since we were all Martial Kings, there wasn’t much left for us to do in Profound City. So, after making a few simple preparations, we gathered up and headed to Earth City via the Path of Body.

While we were all skilled and knowledgeable, for Yan, LiTing, and Meng LuYao, this journey still had the potential to be dangerous. Their personal combat skills were not as high as they could have been, and being only at Martial King 1 put them at a disadvantage against higher-level opponents.

To offset this, LiTing made everybody the highest quality Rank 5 refined weapons and armor that she could. In the past, she had hidden her refining abilities, and none of us had openly worn her equipment. We had saved it for use as a trump card if we ever faced mortal peril. However, we had now reached the point where we could be more open with her abilities.

As fully kitted-out Kings, no one below Emperor would be able to pose much of a threat to us. In the near future, I doubted there would be anyone to attack us simply because LiTing was a refiner. Once we reached Peak King, with the combination of skills our group possessed, there wouldn’t be many forces on the entire continent that could stand against us. And if someone did try something, we also had Jin’s and Shen’s support to fall back on.

We still wouldn’t advertise that LiTing was a refiner, and we certainly wouldn’t make anyone aware that she had a potent refining blessing, but we also wouldn’t handicap ourselves by not taking advantage of her abilities.

So, fully armed and armored, we entered the Path of Body.

This path was much as I remembered it, a dense jungle that blocked us from easily seeing any waiting ambushes, but while potential danger surrounded us in all directions, we strode forward confidently.

During this trek, a group of illusory beasts would jump out and attack us with every meter we advanced. These opponents weren’t difficult to handle, but they were annoying.

After walking a full two kilometers under this non-stop assault, the path split apart and passed through five separate stone arches. Upon entering, we were teleported to individual challenges, but with our skills and equipment, the boss monsters we had to fight were easily defeated.

Everything proceeded smoothly, and it started to feel like we weren’t going to have to deal with any surprises.

However, just as I was starting to relax, the situation changed. When I exited the fourth individual challenge, I found JiaQi surrounded by four men in ragged clothing. A quick check showed that they were all between Martial King 4 and 6.

These men had advanced their cultivation through the King realm without using karmic energy. This made them weaker than other King 4s and 6s, but it made them far stronger than the average King 1.

I looked at JiaQi and cocked my head.

“Do you need any help?”

One of the men sneered at me. “Stay out of this if you know what’s good for you.”

I ignored him and continued looking at JiaQi.

She just waved me away. “I’ve got this.”

Nodding, I moved to the side of the path and sat down under a tree to cultivate while I waited for everyone else. About ten minutes later, everyone was ready to go, so I stood back up, and we headed to the fifth and final challenge.

As we left, I couldn’t help but feel that JiaQi needed to learn some type of disposal technique. After her conversation with those bandits, she had left the area a bit too… messy.

Once I defeated the final challenge boss, I was once more teleported to an illusory space with an elder sitting behind a large desk covered in papers.

He looked at me with a conflicted expression.

“Disciple Su Fang, you showed great skill in running your city, you performed excellently within the Trial, you have displayed a strong talent in fighting, and you have openly displayed high levels of talent in two separate professions. However, you have never openly demonstrated any ability with talismans. As certain talismans have been traced back to your group, and as you have been granted core disciple status by the Exam, we suspect that you possess such a talent, but you have never openly displayed it.”

As he spoke, I could feel a small wave of anxiety drifting from him.

“As you have not demonstrated the necessary talents, the Master of the Lightning Peak has demanded that you be dropped to the rank of ungraded inner sect disciple. Once this became known, three other masters began suggesting that you should be allowed to transfer to their peaks as a grade 3 core disciple.”

I wasn’t sure why it was three masters, but I could sense a growing agitation in the elder’s voice.

“This has placed us in an awkward position. There are no provisions for you to transfer to a different peak, and many of the Lightning Peak’s elders feel that it would be wrong to punish such a talented disciple too severely. Therefore, you shall be demoted to the level of ungraded core disciple. Please note that this decision is final, and you will no longer be able to improve this position through the Exam.”

As usual, before I could respond, he vanished, leaving me alone with nothing but a stone arch for comfort.

Once we entered Earth City, I leased a small building where everyone would have plenty of room to cultivate.

Unlike when we entered Profound City, we didn’t have much to do here. This was just a stopover while we cultivated and waited for Jin ZiHan and Cai XiaoYu to join us, so we had spare time to spend on other activities.

One of the first things I did was visit the Metal Peak and run through the Trial to boost my metal affinity to peak four-star, maxing it out. After that, I considered going to the Lightning Peak, but I decided to hold off until I was a Peak King. I was somewhat leery of what the Master of the Lightning Peak might have planned for me there, and I wanted to arrive in top form to face it.

After that, I had to buckle down and spend most of my time generating contribution points to help everyone ascend to Martial Emperor as quickly as possible. LiTing and Meng LuYao started selling refined products to the sect, and Yan and JiaQi started accepting a variety of combat missions, but the points they could generate through these activities were a bit limited.

The sect only generated karmic energy from three dozen kingdoms, and with all the Martial Kings that wanted access to that energy, it sold for a sky-high price. To earn enough contribution points for all of us to advance in as short a timeframe as possible, we needed far more points than would be possible to generate from missions alone.

That was where the merchant associations came into the picture. The wealthiest merchants were cultivators who had reached Martial King or Emperor centuries ago, and they had been slowly hoarding contribution points ever since. Whenever, say, a talented alchemist rose up, they were able to use that stored wealth to purchase any and every pill that alchemist made. Before long, such an alchemist would advance to Heaven City, and the merchants would have a supply of high-quality pills to sell over the course of decades while they waited for the next such talent to appear.

To generate as much cash flow as possible, I needed to make Perfect Rank 5 pills. While I had previously been able to do this with the assistance of an Emperor-level will-lock, with my affinities, making such pills as a mere Martial King 1 was out of the question. So, I needed to make a purchase.

“System, permanently raise my wood, fire, water, wind, light, and dark affinities to peak five-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 52,230,000,000 credits. 288,213,100,650 credits remaining.

With that, all my affinities with both the primary and secondary affinities were at least peak five-star, and I was able to easily handle any Rank 5 herb. This allowed me to make nearly anything in Emperor Li’s Rank 5 alchemy book, and what pills I couldn’t yet make were only a matter of practice.

After discussing the situation with the various merchants throughout Earth City, I was a bit surprised to learn that they weren’t overly interested in cultivation resources. Instead, since they would only be buying Perfect pills from me, they much preferred either common healing and energy recovery pills or more exotic and unique pills that were too difficult for the average Pill King to concoct.

The reason for this made sense after I thought about it. Most of the Martial Kings in the sect had reached their limits. They wouldn’t be able to advance any further, so cultivation resources were no longer important to them. They couldn’t gain any more power, so they wanted pills and items that could enhance what they already possessed.

This situation was perfect for me. It meant that most of the esoteric pills in Emperor Li’s book that I needed to practice to improve my skills were exactly what the merchants were looking for. This let me both earn contribution points and shore up my Rank 5 alchemy skills in concert.

In whatever time I had when I wasn’t cultivating or practicing alchemy, I worked on improving my proficiency with my soul visualization technique.

After years of practice, I finally reached the point where I felt I had the technique mastered.

When I used the technique to look at my soul, I saw a massive field of rolling multi-colored hills. Four flowers dominated the landscape: orchids, chrysanthemums, lotuses, and alliums. However, near the border of my soul, the bright reds of the alliums dominated everything else. While a few extra varieties of flowers had also taken root, these four were dominant.

Strangely, these flowers grew without a care for their natural environments. These lotuses grew out of the soil of my soul as easily as a mundane one would grow in water. This was because they were not true flowers. They were representations of the four philosophies I had been studying.

Near the center of my soul, there was a large garden surrounded by a thick stone wall. While the area outside this wall was a mix of vibrant colors, the area inside the wall was a disordered mess.

The landscape was mostly dominated by a massive cypress tree, and around its roots were dozens of small white jade stones that looked exactly like memory orbs. A riot of weeds grew in the shade of this tree and tried to hide these stones from view.

The rest of the inner garden was a mix of random plants that had been placed without a thought for what should grow where. There were bamboo shoots, small tree saplings, bushes, and flowers in a disorienting mix of conflicting colors.

Seeing the state of my inner soul in such turmoil made me anxious. Part of me wanted to use one of the sect’s techniques to try and tidy it up, to make the place more presentable. I could find a soul technique to uproot out-of-place plants and trim the various shrubs. Part of me wanted that, but the rest of me abhorred that idea.

My soul was who I was. It was the only piece of me that remained through the resets. I would not go about cutting it up with some random technique out of some vague sense of propriety.

Still, I could try to become a better me. Not through using technique to perform a soul lobotomy, but by approaching life differently and fixing myself naturally. That’s what I had wanted to do for a while now, after all. I might have had a few false starts, but if I kept trying, I could get there.

Shaking off these melancholic thoughts, I focused on the very center of the inner garden of my soul.

There, a bright green flame sat upon a small pedestal and burned with feverish intensity. A small black orb about the size of my fist sat in the middle of this fire. This orb was pure black, but as the light struck it from odd angles, it shimmered with a rainbow of colors.

This orb was my storage space. Soon, I would be able to inscribe this garden with a formation to grow the space inside that orb far beyond its current limits.

This wasn’t yet the time. I still needed more study and practice, but it would be soon.

While I worked on improving my soul technique, my friends and allies had their own projects.

As might be expected, any time Yan wasn’t cultivating, he was researching and studying the Zhuge Clan and, to a lesser extent, the other Sovereign clans. I had been able to talk him out of the idea of trying to rob them in this life, but he hadn’t given up on the idea. He had only delayed its implementation for a future cycle.

LiTing’s pursuits were a bit simpler. She was working to perfect her Rank 5 refining skills. Her goal was to be able to create memory orbs before we reached the Summit, but she would need to improve significantly before that would be possible.

As for her part, JiaQi was focused on learning more about beast taming. She had been able to help LuLu reach Rank 6 long ago, and she wasn’t yet ready to contract a new beast, but after returning to the beginning and having to start over as a Disciple again, she felt the need to learn more and advance her skills.

Finally, there was Meng LuYao.

I had noticed that whenever the rest of us were focused on practicing our profession skills, Meng LuYao tended to slip silently out of the building. At first, I didn’t think much about this, but after several months, I began to wonder what she was doing.

So, I followed her.

She walked a twisting route through the city, seemingly unsure where she was headed. As she walked, she weaved in and out of shops and storefronts in what appeared to be a way to throw off any pursuit, but it was done so clumsily that I doubted it would have any such effect.

Finally, she arrived at a small park that was little more than a pond surrounded by a few trees. It was one of the few green spots in the city.

I had expected her to be clandestinely meeting with someone, but instead, she took out an easel and art supplies and started painting. After watching for half an hour, I recognized the image she was recreating. It was the school I had formed with LiTing on the Path of Soul.

Unable to hold back anymore, I approached and walked up to her side. Meng LuYao showed no outward signs of being startled, but I could sense that my appearance had been unexpected.

After thinking for a moment, she reached over and tapped a formation plate on her box of inks and brushes. This created a small privacy bubble around us to block any eavesdroppers from listening in. Once it was in place, Meng LuTao glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.

“LiTing really did see you as ‘the Great Teacher,’ you know? You were a child her own age, but it seemed like you could do anything. The two of you learned about soul cultivation at the same time, but after only a few years, your knowledge had reached a level she couldn’t even begin to compare herself against. It turned you into something of an idol. For a time, she didn’t understand these feelings, but eventually, she came to see you as almost a figure to be worshiped. Learning the truth of how you knew so much at such a young age didn’t change those feelings, it only solidified them.”

I just watched as she continued drawing, unable to respond.

“It’s interesting. With my blessing, I can easily see that LiTing’s talent in refining, Yan’s talent in strategy, JiaQi’s talent in fighting, all of these, they are all far greater than any talent you possess. If things stay the same, then in a hundred years, you won’t hold a candle to any of them.”

She turned her head slightly and looked at me.

“But things won’t stay the same, will they.”

I gave a wry smile. “Few things do.”

She chuckled. “You would be surprised. For nearly everyone I’ve ever met, talents are stagnant. They never change. LiTing might have the greatest talent I’ve ever seen before, but it hasn’t changed one bit since the first moment I saw her. Only one person has ever been an exception to this rule.”

I raised an eyebrow. It was an interesting claim, but I didn’t trust her assessment. “If there is one exception, then there will be many.”

Her impassive face broke into a grin. “Exactly. So, Great Teacher, help me. I can see everyone’s talents, including my own. I have none.”

Her grin slipped and became melancholic, but she didn’t stop painting.

“Zero. I have no talent for anything. I thought LiTing’s memories would help, but no. I have all the knowledge of cultivation and refining she left me. I can mimic her skills, but I can’t learn anything new. I’ve tried learning the basics of alchemy, formations, beast taming, and herbalism. I can’t even understand the most basic skills. So please, Great Teacher, help me.”

I looked at her painting. It was extremely vivid and lifelike. The trees appeared to be swaying in the breeze, and the stones on the ground were cracked and weathered. During the time the rest of us had been studying our professions, LuYao had been studying painting, and she had reached an impressive level.

“No talents, not even in painting?”

She silently shook her head.

That seemed… wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. So, I reached out to the System to gather more information.

“System, improve Meng LuYao’s comprehension of painting by 100 credits.”

Processing… Unable to purchase such an enhancement with credits.

“Interesting…”

LuYao gave me a side eye but continued her work.

“System, improve Meng LuYao’s comprehension of human resources skills by 100 credits. Her knowledge of who to hire and fire.”

Unable to purchase such an enhancement with credits.

“System, improve Meng LuYao’s comprehension of cultivation techniques by 100 credits.”

Purchase confirmed. 288,213,100,550 credits remaining.

LuYao froze. Then, she set down her bush and took a seat in the grass.

“Thank you. It’s not much… but thank you.”

I sat down beside her.

She looked wistfully at the sky. “You know, when LiTing first came to me, I was scared, but the idea of becoming a cultivator… The idea that I could take charge of my own destiny instead of just waiting for someone to take a fancy to me and pull me into their household as a concubine… In the Pavilion, I never dealt with anyone beyond a Grandmaster. I thought that if I could just reach that level, then I would be free, but that’s not true, is it. All of you are far more powerful than I had even dreamt of, but you’re just as trapped as I was.”

Her words stirred up a few memories, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “When I first became a Grandmaster, I was killed by a single punch. The next time, I never even saw the person who killed me. Even as a King, I had to kill myself to avoid being enslaved, twice.”

I shook my head and looked down at the ground. “There’s always someone better. No matter how good you become, there is always someone better, and there is always a higher mountain to climb. I can help you learn. I can help you grow. I can’t help you become better than everyone else. There will always be someone better.”

She let out a soft sigh. “Then what’s the point? Why not just put it all aside?”

I thought back to a time not long after I first entered this world. “It’s an option. One that I considered once during a dark patch. But… I can’t. There’s… I don’t know why, but I feel a drive. I need to help… I just don’t know…”

I shook my head, dismissing depressing thoughts, and turned to LuYao.

“Recently, Ning ChenKun asked me a question. ‘What is your goal?’ I didn’t have a satisfactory answer. I still don’t. It feels like an impossible question, but you should think about it. If you find your answer, let me know. I’ll see what I can do to help.”

A small tear welled up in her eye. “Thank you.”

We sat there silently for a time, but as always, I soon left to cultivate and push myself ever onward.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 198 – Life 70, Age 34, Martial King Peak

Five years after arriving in Earth City, I made my first visit to the Lightning Peak since ascending to Martial King. I was a Peak King, and I was wearing a silver Rank 6 refined robe embroidered with formations of lapis lazuli.

By showing off LiTing’s equipment, I was giving the game away a bit early, but I was worried the Master of the Lightning Peak might have rigged the Trial, so I needed to be prepared to go all out.

Upon entering the Trial, I tried relying on my Profound-Rank wind-based fire seed, but even with its elemental advantage, it lacked the stopping power that it had possessed in the lower-Rank Trials. However, the decreased effectiveness of the fire seed wasn’t enough to stop me. This was a Trial designed for a King, and I was wearing the armor of an Emperor. Nothing was able to hurt me, and nothing could withstand a single strike from my staff.

Not knowing how high the Trial could go, I considered pushing the limits to see what happened, but there was little reason to do so. At stage 159, my lightning affinity broke through to peak four-star. I continued for another 10 stages after that, but there were no additional rewards, so I gave up and didn’t waste my time.

Whoever was watching, the Masters of the Peaks, the Sovereigns, the Saint, they would see this Trial wasn’t a challenge for me. If they cared about knowing how deep I could go, they would offer me a reward. There was no reward, so they didn’t care.

Even I had to admit that was fair. At this point, the only thing this Trial was testing was the quality of my armor and weapon. Spending all the energy that had to be required to run a Trial would be an extremely wasteful way to test that.

Upon exiting, I walked casually to the arch back to Dragon Peak. No one tried to stop me, and I didn’t receive any messages from the Master of the Peak. I had a suspicion that this might have been different if I had shown any weaknesses during the Trial.

However, I didn’t let my guard down. The Master of the Lightning Peak had shown what type of person he was in my last life when he sent gu to invade my soul. I could only assume that he was keeping his powder dry for when I attempted to ascend to Heaven City.

After returning to Earth City, I set about advancing to Martial Emperor. Purchasing enough karmic energy for everyone to advance to Emperor 1 was a bit of a hit to our finances, but while LiTing and I spent our time crafting, the others went out on missions to rack up as many points as they could.

During this time, Cai XiaoYu and Jin ZiHan were advancing at a rate of four times a year, and their foundations were becoming a bit shaky, but with a bit of help, they were still able to rush forward fast enough that everyone reached Martial Emperor only six years after we first entered Earth City.

To prepare for the journey ahead, LiTing and I made sure everyone was kitted out with the best equipment we could make given the time constraints. Then, we left the city behind and headed up the mountain.

When we arrived at the path’s six archways at the base of the clouds, I looked around at my friends and allies.

“Do your best to stay safe. Take it slow. Use everything you have. Don’t hold back.”

They all gave short sharp nods of agreement.

I stepped up to the position of the leader. Yan walked to my right and took the door for my lieutenant. LiTing and JiaQi took the two doors to our left. LuYao joined Cai XiaoYu on the rightmost door, and Jin ZiHan took the final one between Yan and the two other women.

After a final glance around and a deep breath, I took one step forward and passed through the arch.

The moment I stepped through the portal, I found myself in the center of the dense cloud bank.

Before I could even get my bearings, I sensed five bolts of lightning empowered with the full strength of a Peak Emperor crashing toward me.

I didn’t even have any time to react. All I could do was await their punishment.

The instant the lightning struck, it disappeared.

All the energy was pulled into one of my robe’s formations that was designed like the explosive formations I had once learned to craft in the Yellow Orchid Academy. The energy was sent on an endless loop, circling in a complex pathway through my robe.

Of course, this formation wasn’t able to contain all the energy from five full power strikes of a Peak Emperor without exploding. When the stored energy reached a critical level, the excess was channeled outward into a powerful burst of electricity.

With that first attack handled, I was able to stand up straight and look around the clearing.

I smiled. If that was all the Master of the Lightning Peak had in store for me, this test would be easier than expected.

After a quick inspection, I found the small path that led up the mountain and began my trek.

Only five meters into this journey, five more bolts of lightning shot down from the sky. Using my peak four-star lightning affinity, I channeled the bulk of their energy directly into the ground, saving my robe from being overtaxed by an excessive amount of qi.

After another five meters, another five bolts were sent at me.

Then, another five meters, another five bolts.

When I crossed the five-meter mark for the fourth time and lightning crashed toward me once more, I couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle. My last time on this path, the Lightning Master had shown a propensity for using excessive amounts of energy to hide things, and I had been watching for it.

While it looked like five bolts of lightning were striking down at me, that wasn’t the case.

I ignored the three lightning bolts, pulled out my crescent moon spade, coated it with a thin sheen of the Slicing Winds Fire, and slashed at the two lightning elementals mixed in with the regular lightning bolts.

The poor creatures didn’t have any time to react before they were cut in two. If this had been a normal strike from a normal weapon, the elementals would have been able to reform, but with the Profound-Rank wind-based spirit fire enhancing my attack, the energy that formed the elementals’ bodies dispersed immediately.

Holding my staff at the ready, I continued my advance.

As I walked, I thought I was ready for anything, but I was wrong. I hadn’t been prepared for what came next.

Nothing.

Sure, there were still the occasional lightning strikes and elementals to defeat, but there were no traps, no overly powerful monsters to fight, and no gu. It was… a normal test.

When the cloud bank solidified around me, I found that my way forward was blocked by the same metal that had been used last time. The one LiTing had identified as a Rank 8 metal.

My gut impulse was to walk forward and snatch it again, but this situation was… different. There was no storm of lightning and gu coming toward me. I was simply left alone in front of an impassable wall of metal.

Starting to believe that this might be a legitimate test, I examined my surroundings more closely.

Unlike last time, I wasn’t being blocked by one solid piece of metal. The wall was formed from several interlocking pieces that created an iris. It was a door. I just had to find a way to open it.

After a quick search, I found a total of nine crystal discs the size of my palm embedded into the stone of the mountain. When I looked around and couldn’t find any more, I began to understand what was expected of me.

Channeling my earth qi, I sent a powerful bolt of energy at each of the nine discs. One of them lit up with a ruddy brown color, but my energy just bounced off the remaining eight.

I smirked. The nine discs were laid out in the same pattern as the arches in the Gateway Plaza. Each arch led to a different elemental peak. Each disc needed a different element.

Using the lightning qi trapped within my robe, I sent a bolt of electricity toward what I presumed to be the correct disc. When the bolt struck it, the disc lit up with a bright yellow light.

Two down. I only needed a source for the other nine elements.

I pulled out a tendril of Slicing Winds Fire and sent it toward the wind disc. When the fire landed, the disc lit up in neon green.

With six more discs to go, the light coming from the earth disc winked out. A quick check proved that another burst of qi was able to light it back up, which meant that there was a simple timer involved in the test. I needed to light all nine before the first one went out.

I could have accomplished this task by using the bevy of spirit fires that I had stashed away in my storage space, but the Master of the Lightning Peak was playing nice. I would give him the courtesy of attempting this challenge in a more suitable manner.

These discs required high-level energy to activate, and I didn’t have the talisman knowledge required to make something that would work here. However, I did have the ability to create something almost as good.

Taking out a large amount of powdered stone, I meticulously crafted nine Rank 6 disposable formations. These were rather simple trinkets, but they were each capable of unleashing a single powerful blast of elemental energy, mimicking the effects of an attack talisman.

After making one formation for each of the test’s nine discs, I placed the formation stones on their proper discs and activated them all at once.

Each of the nine discs lit up simultaneously, and the iris blocking me from advancing opened.

I still considered stealing the valuable metal, but the Master of the Lightning Peak had played everything straight with me in this life. He had complained about me and tried to have me demoted, but he had never sent anyone to attack me, and he never tried to enslave my soul. I would give him the courtesy of not stealing his testing supplies.

After one final glance around, I stepped through the gateway.

On the other side, nearly everyone was already waiting for me. The only ones not present were LuYao and Cai XiaoYu.

LiTing gave me a worried look. “Did he make it hard on you?”

I could only shake my head. “No, it was a fair test… Unusually fair, but fair.”

I turned around and looked at the arches. Five were lit up while one remained dull.

Just as I was starting to worry, the final arch burst into light, and two figures walked out.

A smile crossed my face, and I let out a breath of relief.

After greeting the women, I turned around to see that a new arch had already appeared.

As one, our entire group walked forward.

When we approached Heaven City, I started to get worried. A group of over half a dozen Emperors were waiting for us.

However, once I noticed Jin and Shen leading them, I let that worry mostly slide away. Though, I was still slightly concerned about the woman standing beside them like she was their equal.

The unknown woman was wearing dark red robes, and her hair was slightly graying. She looked to be only several years older than the other two, but since they were all Emperors, she was likely centuries older.

As I entered the village’s gate, the older woman gave me a sharp nod.

“Jin, Shen, I trust you can oversee things from here. Su Fang, I look forward to collaborating with you in the future.”

Then, she turned and led two of the other waiting Emperors away.

I wanted to ask about what was going on, but Jin shook her head.

“Come, let’s get some privacy.

Once we were safe behind the walls of Jin’s conference room, I looked at my two allies.

“What happened? Everything felt too… easy. I was expecting the Master of the Lightning Peak to send something truly horrific against me, but it was just a straightforward test. Then, once we were out, you three were waiting for us. Who was that woman?”

Shen held up a hand to stop my questions. “First, that was Huo NuAn. She’s the Master of the Fire Peak. She joined us to make sure nothing unfortunate happened upon your arrival. It was unlikely, but we wanted to be safe.”

“Oka—”

Jin cut me off. “As for Lei LiuXian, the Master of the Lightning Peak, he can be reckless, but he isn’t a complete fool. He saw where things were headed and chose not to engage. If he tried something and didn’t kill you, he would have only made a powerful enemy.”

Shen continued the explanation. “Make no mistake. He could have killed you if he really wanted to. With your skills and equipment, he couldn’t have done it on his own, but he could have purchased the assistance of the Li Clan. He just wasn’t willing to go into debt and anger his peak’s elders over you. Worse, if he did go into debt and still didn’t succeed, he would have cut off his own future. There was no reason to go to such lengths over an obnoxious brat who will be leaving the sect soon anyway.”

“That… makes sense. I just didn’t expect him to be so… rational. Last time—”

Jin snorted. “Last time he was doing the Li Clan a favor. He wasn’t going into debt. He was putting others in his debt.”

She waved a hand, dismissing the previous subject. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. You’ve reached Heaven City. You can leave through the Path of the Leader and reach the Summit any time you want. You don’t need to wait until Peak Emperor. So, what’s your plan? We might not see you again after you leave, so we need to be prepared.”

I took a breath and refocused.

“Right.” I looked at Jin and Shen. “There are four years before Emperor Li dies. I want to see what’s going on. Why would he want me to reach the Summit before he dies? I want to find out. We need memory orbs for everyone, and I don’t have time to make them, so I’ll have to rely on the two of you again.”

I focused on Shen. “If possible, I’d also like to use your cultivation cave. Even if it’s not necessary, I’d still ideally like to reach Peak Emperor before heading up the mountain, but this time, I need to make true ascensions using karmic energy. If I destroy my foundations by advancing without it, I might ruin whatever surprise is waiting for me at the Summit, so I need to do things properly, but I still need to advance as fast as I can.”

He nodded and smiled. “Of course, but we will need to discuss that favor you owe me.”

I turned to my friends. “I’m going to be busy over the next few years, and I might not have much time to see you all. Have fun, but try not to die without using an orb first, alright?”

While I tried to keep my words light, I don’t think it worked.

I focused on Yan and JiaQi. “We probably shouldn’t draw attention to him, but it would be good if we knew where YuLong ran off to. We’re going to need to find him so we can grab his memories.”

Yan waved this off. “Don’t worry. I’ve been following his adventures. We might need to step in and save him if things get much worse, but for now, he’s fine.”

I raised an eyebrow, but Yan didn’t elaborate, so I moved on.

“Well, those are my plans. What about everyone else?”

Jin and Shen didn’t deign to share their intentions, and my friends' plans all boiled down to learning as much as possible in what time they had remaining. They weren’t going to be doing much cultivating. Instead, they would be focusing on improving their other skills.

After a lengthy chat, we broke apart and each left to pursue our personal objectives. I had a lot to do, and time was quickly running out.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 199 – Life 70, Age 35, Martial Emperor 1

Upon visiting Heaven City’s temple and learning the price of karmic energy, I felt like I was in a bit of a bind. I was only giving myself four years to cultivate before heading to the Summit, but just like in my last life, karmic energy was going to be a major problem.

I hadn’t spent enough time on Rank 6 formation and alchemy skills. I could make some money from selling what few of them I could make, but Emperor-level karmic energy was a precious commodity. After some quick math, I found that if I wanted to use karmic energy during every breakthrough, the highest I would be able to reach before Emperor Li’s death was Martial Emperor 3. If I pushed myself, I might be able to get enough for Emperor 4, but that was my absolute limit.

According to Jin, that would be fine. I could ascend to the Summit at any time. There was no need to reach any specific advancement threshold. However, while Emperor 4 might be good enough for the sect and the clans, it wasn’t good enough for me. If at all possible, I wanted to reach Peak Emperor.

If I reached the Summit as a Peak Emperor, it was likely that additional opportunities would be available to me, and even if not, advancing to Peak Emperor as soon as possible also meant reaching Martial Sovereign as soon as possible. Additionally, something unexpected might happen at the Summit. Reaching Peak Emperor before leaving Heaven City would ensure that I received as many credits as possible no matter what.

However, while reaching Peak Emperor within the next few years would be ideal, I needed far more contribution points than I could possibly accumulate in that time.

If I wanted any hope of advancing to such a level, I needed help. My friends might be able to spare a few points, but they weren’t much better off than I was. None of them had high-level Rank 6 skills. I could ask Jin for help, but I had already relied on her too much.

As I saw it, I only had one option. My putative ‘master.’ Formation Emperor Shen.

I used a token Shen had given me to travel to the Earth Peak and directly enter his cave at the peak of the mountain. Not long after I arrived, he showed up to greet me.

“Here to use my cultivation cave already?”

I noticed a twinkle in his eye as he looked at me. He knew something.

Taking a deep breath, I gave him a steady gaze.

“No. I need help. Can you… loan me contribution points?”

That simple twinkle turned far smugger and more self-satisfied. “How much?”

“Enough… Enough to purchase all the karmic energy I need to reach Peak Emperor.”

Shen bobbed his head up and down sagaciously. “You’re asking for a loan? This means you plan to pay it back. When can I expect repayment?”

“I…”

Shen closed the jaws of his trap. “You can’t, can you. That is a bit of a problem. While I have been an Emperor in the sect for long enough to build up a substantial number of points, as the Master of the Earth Peak, there are rules that bind me. I can’t just give you points. Even if you are my beloved disciple, that just isn’t allowed.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. I had gotten a good enough sense of Shen to know he was going to give me the points. He was just playing around.

“What do you want?”

“Well, you see, I can’t just give them to you, but I can use them to purchase something from you in advance. Let’s call these points a… downpayment. I’ll hand them over to you now, and you just need to bring me my purchase at a later date.”

My mouth dropped open slightly. “You’re not allowed to give me points, but you’re allowed to give me points if I promise to give you a random item at an unknown point in the future? That doesn’t seem like a very secure system.”

Shen lifted two fingers and tapped his right temple. “That’s how Oaths work. It’s all about intent. Well, mostly. Anyway, I have to sincerely believe that if I give you these points, I am, in fact, purchasing an item from you. I have to believe you can obtain it, that if you obtain it, you will give it to me, and that the item is worth what I am paying for it. As long as those conditions hold, my Oath remains unbroken.”

He gave me a wide grin. “So, Fang, are you willing to sell me an earth-based Earth-Rank fire seed?”

I blinked at him.

“Of course, you will need to deliver it and pick it back up whenever you give me my memories. That will be a bit of a burden. So, I’ll give you the points now, and then every cycle, those same points will belong to you. You’ll get them whenever you deliver the seed to me. What do you think?”

I stared at Shen. I couldn’t help but feel as if he had been planning this for years. Did he even have those points at the beginning of the loop, or had he been building them up ever since he got his memories back? Had he been waiting for this exact moment?

It was a horrible deal. An Earth-Rank fire seed was worth far more than the energy needed to reach Peak Emperor. That was true… but was it true for me? If I were able to get such a seed once, I could go back and retrieve it countless times. I could build up a small stockpile of Earth-Rank seeds. They would hold little value.

Also, I already had to deliver and pick up his memory orbs. Adding an extra jade box containing a fire seed wouldn’t be any trouble. In a way, he was offering me free access to Emperor-level karmic energy.

However, that was only true if I could actually acquire such a seed.

“I can’t make any promises. I’ve never even heard of such a fire seed. But if I can get it, I’ll let you have it.”

Shen nodded with a sly smile. “That’s good enough. As long as you make a good-faith effort to obtain it, I’ll be satisfied. However, I will not give you even one more point until I get the seed. Understood?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He turned around and waved me away.

“Go on, I’ve got work to do. I’ll transfer the funds into your account.”

Using Shen’s cultivation cave and the karmic energy I purchased with his points, my cultivation base grew rapidly. To reach Peak Emperor before I needed to go to the Summit and meet with Emperor Li, all I needed to do was ascend two or three times a year.

So, between each advancement, I had a bit of extra time. While I maybe should have spent this time learning Rank 6 alchemy to help earn contribution points in the future, I was far too focused on a different project.

Having mastered the soul visualization technique, I was working on learning how to carve formations into my soul. This was a bit tricky, but once I figured out the basics, it wasn’t too much different from carving a formation into solid rock.

One thing that made the whole process a bit strange was the entire concept of size. How ‘big’ was my soul? With the visualization technique, I saw it as a large walled-in garden surrounded by an expansive field of flowers, but it couldn’t really be so big, right? Didn’t it need to fit inside my body?

If the entire field was the size of my body, then the garden at its center would only be about the size of my fist, and the spirit flame at its center would be smaller than a pea. So, if I made what would seem like a regular-sized formation in this soul garden, would it, in reality, be tiny? I had no clue, Shen didn’t know, and the System refused to sell me the information.

That being the case, I could only work with what I knew. If I wanted to create a Qi Gathering Formation that would cover my entire soul, it would need to be designed like a massive grand formation, and learning to make a high-quality Rank 6 formation on that scale would be incredibly difficult.

It would also be exceedingly dangerous. I had no experience with soul formations, and creating one that would contain as much power as would be normal for a formation of that size would be a terrible idea.

So instead, I chose a different route. In my soul visualization, I saw my storage space as sitting atop a large plinth. My first formation would be limited to that plinth. In the future, when I was more skilled and knowledgeable, I could make a formation large enough to cover the inner garden. Much later, I could make one that would blanket the entirety of the outer fields.

A small formation within the storage space’s plinth wouldn’t be as effective as a larger one, but discretion was the better part of valor. No need to push for too much. If this smaller formation didn’t have the strength I needed, I could simply scale it up.

Still, even with limiting myself to a small-scale formation, I didn’t have the skills needed to make a perfect Rank 6 Qi Gathering Formation. So, I studied. Anytime I wasn’t cultivating, I was studying.

Nearly three years after entering Heaven City, I was able to produce a Rank 6 Qi Gathering Formation that Shen described as ‘adequate.’

I could have pushed for more, but I was running out of time. After this life, I didn’t know how long it would be before I would be in a position to work on Rank 6 formations again, and since I didn’t know what dangers the Summit would bring, I had to complete everything before ascending.

While I couldn’t create a ‘perfect’ Rank 6 Qi Gather Formation, I could create one that was good enough. I just needed to be able to work around its flaws in the future.

Secluding myself in Emperor Shen’s cave, I looked inwards, saw my soul, and focused on the white stone plinth at its center. It had a two-meter-wide circular base extended half a meter above the ground. The column at the center of this base was one meter tall and a quarter of a meter wide. My fire seed sat at the apex of this column.

Ever so delicately, I used a soul manipulation technique to carve the thin swirls of qi vortices at several places around the base of the plinth. These lines were much narrower than would be normal, and the space between them was excessive.

This was my plan. I would carve the best formation I could, and when I later improved my Rank 6 formation skills to the limit, I would be able to carve a far superior version overtop the original.

I carved five equally spaced vortices around the plinth’s base. However, these were not the simple spirals they appeared to be. One line formed the primary spiral and circled toward its central nucleus. A secondary line coiled around this initial line, making a circular pattern around the initial spiral while also spiraling toward the central nucleus itself. A tertiary line coiled around this secondary line, and a quaternary line circled that one.

In total, as a Rank 6 Qi Gathering formation, there were six iterations in each of the five primary spirals. Every sub-spiral had to have a precisely attuned pitch and radius so that the various lines amplified each other and didn’t cause any sort of interference.

After painstakingly carving these five initial inscriptions, I then used a similar technique to create a five-armed spiral connecting each of these outer vortices to the center of the plinth.

Finally, I created a cone-shaped spiraling coil throughout the central column. The tip of the coil was placed at the nucleus of the five-armed spiral, and the wide base of the cone was flat against the top of the column, allowing all the collected energy to flow directly into the spirit fire seed.

In total, working as fast as I could, this took me nearly eight months to create. I was running out of time, but I still had enough to get done what needed to get done. Even if not, even if I had to miss my meeting with Emperor Li, this task was worth that loss.

Gazing at the completed formation using my visualization skill, I couldn’t help but be excited for the possibilities it would unlock.

Tentatively, I pulled five thin strands of qi from my energy body, through an acupoint, into my soul, and used them to activate the five outer formation vortices.

As my small initial investment of qi cycled through the vortex, more energy appeared as if from nowhere and slid into position, increasing the amount of power flowing through the system.

In less than a minute, the outer vortices had gathered enough energy to operate at full power and started feeding energy into the five-armed spiral that covered the base of the plinth.

Before I even had time to blink, the base’s spiral was at capacity and was pouring energy into the cone which then dumped an incredible amount of energy directly into the seed of the Slicing Winds Fire that sat atop the plinth and surrounded my storage space.

The light-green flames showed no reaction. The moment the energy touched them, it simply vanished, consumed by the fire.

Wondering what was going on, I looked inside my storage space.

Everything was pandemonium.

Jade boxes filled with spirit stones, spirit fires, fire seeds, equipment, and more were being flung around at bone-shattering speeds. When they crashed into each other, the boxes burst open and flung their contents into the growing maelstrom. This new debris was then whipped around by the vicious whirlwind and hurled into anything that remained in one piece, destroying or damaging all my possessions.

Reacting as fast as I could, I shoved a large amount of qi into my soul to clog the formation and deactivate it.

It tried to fight me. It wanted to absorb my qi and feed it to the flames, but my peak four-star earth affinity was enough to put up a fight. It took longer than I would have wished, but I was eventually able to kill the formation and end the flow of energy.

Once that was done, I assessed the situation.

In my soul, everything seemed normal. There was no damage, nor were there any signs that the formation had even been activated.

In my storage space, nearly all my possessions lay scattered in several heaps. Low-level refined items had been busted and torn apart by the maelstrom that had unfolded.

Why? What went wrong?

Looking at the half dozen fire seeds that had been knocked out of their jade boxes, I began to understand.

I switched my focus to the Slicing Winds Fire that sat contentedly on the plinth in my soul and surrounded the small orb that represented my storage space. I wanted to curse.

Instead, I took a breath. This was a learning experience. I had learned something.

As I stared at the fire seed, a new thought popped into my head.

I found an unbroken box, stuffed the wind seed into it, and pulled the Cold Mountain Fire into my soul. Then, I unclogged a single vortex of the Qi Gathering Formation.

Energy was pulled through the formation and pushed into the Cold Mountain Fire, but it showed no reaction.

However, in the center of my storage space, a large, spherical granite rock had appeared and was growing at a prodigious speed.

I cut the flow of energy to the formation, took out this new stone, and then rooted around in the piles of trash that was my storage space until I found the mysterious stone from the end of my last life. They were nearly the exact same. The only slight difference was that the new one was covered in small beads of moisture.

Everything began to click. The Expanding Realms Fire burned energy to create space. The Cold Mountain Fire burned energy to create stone. The Slicing Winds Fire burned energy to create… air?

I would need to be careful with that last one. It formed something, but was it normal air? Was it oxygen? Was it carbon monoxide? I would need to do some tests, and it probably wasn’t a good idea to stuff anyone into my storage space until I knew if its new atmosphere was breathable.

Before anything else, I swapped the Cold Mountain Fire for the Expanding Realms Fire. Then, I activated the formation one final time.

Energy poured into the black flames of the spatial fire seed, and I watched as my storage space grew at a visible rate. Every minute, nearly 5 cubic meters of new volume was created. If that kept up, my storage space would grow by over two and a half million cubic meters every year.

Those numbers sounded impressive, but there were a billion cubic meters in a cubic kilometer. At its current rate of expansion, growing a space large enough to store an area the size of NanLu City would be the work of millennia.

However, this was a start. My space was finally growing on its own at an impressive speed, and that speed would only increase in the future.

That was, of course, if I stayed in an area with high qi levels and could keep the formation active at all times. Unfortunately, doing so might be a problem. High-Rank Qi Gathering Formations could drain the environmental qi for miles in every direction. If I kept this formation active in the Wastes, it would easily drain all the energy in Dragon City, and no one would be able to cultivate, not even me.

I returned my focus to the world around me and looked in energy vision to see the effects of my new formation. When I did, I was confused. There were zero signs that it was even active.

I stood up and went to find Shen.

He was working on the same giant stone slab that he had been standing on when we first met.

“Emperor Shen, can you take a look at something?”

He snorted and turned his head to me. “What is it? Another attempt at a formation?”

I furrowed my brow. “I just finished inscribing the formation into my soul. Can you sense anything? Do you see any signs that it’s active?”

He squinted his eyes and looked around the room. “No… Is it working properly? Is pulling in the normal amount of energy?”

I nodded slowly.

“Interesting… I’ve never worked with soul formations myself. This is something worth investigating…”

Since he didn’t have any ideas, I returned to the cultivation cave and sat down. I tried to think of anything that could explain the situation.

Slowly, an important memory crept into my thoughts. A while ago, I had purchased information from that System that seemed a bit… overpriced. I asked if there would be any problem with my soul space when I entered a Trial. The System had told me that there wouldn’t be because the Trial was an expanded physical space. It wouldn’t affect my soul or anything inside of it.

Was that related? Was the formation pulling energy from… elsewhere? From some type of spiritual space?

That… That had the possibility of being problematic. Would running a Qi Gathering Formation be detectable? Would it cause new issues with some type of… spiritual entity?

I couldn’t allow myself to be chained down by unknowable ‘what ifs,’ but I could take reasonable precautions against them.

“System, how much to… to conceal the effects of my Rank 6 formation? It doesn’t have to be perfectly concealed. I just want to make it so that its effects won’t be noticeable unless someone at the level of an Emperor or above is intentionally looking for it.”

Cost 225 billion credits.

That was a tough cost to swallow, but I was trying to hide the effects of a Rank 6 formation, so it made sense. I could probably lower the cost by lowering the power of the formation, but that wasn’t going to happen.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 63,213,100,550 credits remaining.

I felt a subtle change in the world that I couldn’t quite describe. Suddenly, things just felt… calmer.

I looked into my soul and storage space. The formation was still churning away, and the space was growing as rapidly as ever.

Then, my eyes landed on the piles of trash that my storage space now contained. The large heaps of broken boxes, spirit stone dust, and random spirit fires were shifting and tumbling as the space around them grew.

It was time for some spring cleaning.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 200 – Life 70, Age 37, Martial Emperor 7

Going through everything in my storage space was a pain, and I wanted to just dump it all out and start my collection from scratch. However, while most of my hoard had been trashed, there were still important items that needed to be saved.

I grabbed two storage bags and used them to help sort through what needed to be kept and what needed to be replaced.

My collection of herb seeds had been trapped below all the other boxes, so they had been spared. I also wouldn’t get rid of my collection of fire seeds, but I did need to purchase new boxes for all of them. For all of them except Emperor Li’s Earth-Rank seed, that was. Even after being bombarded in the chaotic maelstrom, that box had remained intact.

Aside from the seeds and the… seeds, the only items to come out completely unscathed were my Rank 6 weapon, my Rank 6 armor, and the plate of Rank 8 metal. They weren’t damaged because they were what was causing most of the damage.

Luckily, while the memory orbs’ boxes had been destroyed, the orbs themselves were undamaged. Seeing this, I quickly ran out and purchased a new jade crate with several partitions. I covered it in a layer of ziethanite and then had Shen inscribe it with the best defensive formation he could muster.

Shen didn’t even whisper a hint of protest at my request. He wanted to keep the orbs safe even more than I did.

I somehow forgot to tell him that my storage space lacked the energy density needed to make such a formation functional. Jin’s bar of beryllium oxide had pointed me down a path with solid possibilities for storing energy and fixing that problem. But I still needed more time to research it. However, I wasn’t going to let that stop me from getting free work out of a Formation Emperor.

While my fire seeds had survived the incident intact, my collection of spirit fires did not. They weren’t as useful as the seeds, but it was nice to be able to access two distinct types of flames at the same time. Unfortunately, when the spirit fires broke free from their containers, they dissipated into the aether of my storage space. While that was a bit of a loss, it was a recoverable one. None of the fires were anything overly special, and I could make new ones using my seeds or just buy them if I wanted a flame that I didn’t already have the seed for.

The biggest disaster was the destruction of my book collection. Most of the volumes had long since been copied into my mental library, but the Rank 6 books and a couple of Jin’s refining books had not been. I didn’t want to lose that knowledge, so I carefully placed all the damaged and destroyed scraps of paper into a large jade box for safekeeping. I had to hope the System would save me from needing to ask for new copies.

I just chucked everything else into a storage bag and called it a loss. It would take a little time to remake my pill and formation collection, but I needed to do that anyway. I would be spending a lot of time in the Wastes in the near future, and I needed to plan around what would be most useful there.

As I was cleaning out the lingering detritus, I noticed Emperor Li’s token mixed among the trash. I quickly snagged it and placed it securely into the jade box with the herbs. I might never want to use it again, but I still wanted to keep it.

Once everything was cleaned up. I had to move on. I had a lot to do and little time to do it.

The task I decided to knock out first was refilling my newly emptied storage space.

With my friends’ help, I purchased a new selection of fire seeds from the sect, but I didn’t spend much time looking at them. I was interested to see what each would create when provided copious amounts of energy, but I would need to set up a controlled testing area first. I wasn’t willing to risk destroying everything in my storage space again.

After that, I considered what would be most valuable to take back with me to the Wastes. It would be easy to get ingredients for Qi Gathering Pills, but other, more esoteric ingredients were more difficult to come by. Instead of stocking up on completed pills, I purchased a large quantity of every available herb. Some of them might decay before I had a chance to use them, but after being stored in a jade box, their medicinal energy should remain stable for a rather long time.

As I was doing this, two herbs caught my eye, and I knew they would be invaluable for my future endeavors. They were two of the herbs that Emperor Li had provided me with when he first tested my alchemy skills in Eight Flower’s Blue Wind Pavilion.

In my mental library, I flipped open Emperor Li’s Rank 3 alchemy book and found the details on how to make a Perfect Rank 3 Shadowed Soul Pill. After a bit of practice, I was able to make it with an efficacy of 134%. After consuming the pill, I would be completely undetectable by anyone up to Peak Grandmaster for nearly an hour and a half.

I stocked my storage space with several dozen of these pills.

After that, I added in supplies for Rank 1 to 6 formations and talismans. I didn’t know what I might need, so like with the herbs, I felt it was best to only stockpile the raw ingredients. I couldn’t even use the Rank 5 and 6 talisman supplies, but better to have them and not need them.

Finally, after talking with Jin and LiTing, I added in an ample supply of various materials needed for creating Rank 1 to 6 refined weapons and armor. I didn’t have any immediate plans to learn refining, but it might be a long time before I returned to the sect, and stocking up now would mean that I could learn refining in complete secrecy.

Just as I was finishing up, I remembered the important lesson I had learned when I first entered South Gate City and popped a few extra crates filled with copper, silver, gold, and spirit stones into my storage space. While I could generate endless wealth through alchemy, I needed to maintain a supply of walking around money at all times. Even if I never used it, I still needed to be prepared.

Once I was satisfied with my new hoard, I turned my attention to books. There were a lot of books that I wanted to get my hands on.

“System, upgrade my mental library, my perfect reading, my touch reading, and my mental journal to Rank 6.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 10,899,990,000 credits. 52,313,110,550 credits remaining.

With that purchase in place, I was ready to head to the sect’s libraries.

As Shen had told me previously, gaining direct access to Dragon Peak’s libraries proved impossible unless I was willing to give up on ascending to the Summit and transition into the role of an elder. Still, he was able to get me into the Earth Peak library and Jin got me into the Metal Peak library.

The books I was able to copy there were mainly focused on refining and formations, but that didn’t bother me. I grabbed everything and stuffed my mental library full of information.

Surprisingly, they had also somehow managed to convince Huo NuAn to let me into the Fire Peak Library. I was grateful to the older woman, but I knew this also meant I would have to repay her in the future.

Using all the contribution points I could scrape together, I then purchased copies of all the Rank 1 to 5 techniques available in Heaven City and on the Lightning Peak. The Rank 6 knowledge was a bit beyond my price range, but I bought all the books related to talismans I could afford. While general cultivation knowledge was available to everyone, information on talismans was limited to members of the Lightning Peak, so I wanted to grab what I could while I was still a member.

After that, I sat down in my apartment and took out the jade box containing the remnants of all the books that had been destroyed by the maelstrom in my storage space. They were in terrible condition, but that didn’t matter. They had only been cut up and shredded to pieces. With the near omnipotence I had over my storage space, I had been able to collect even the tiniest scrap of paper.

Piece by piece, I carefully made my way through the pile, ensuring that I touched every single speck of paper. This meticulous process took several days, but when I was done, I looked in my library and found pristine copies of each book.

Sighing in relief, I stored the ruined books back in their jade coffin and placed the coffin in a secure spot within my storage space as a reminder of what could happen when playing with forces I didn’t understand.

One of the smaller tasks I took care of to prepare for my time in the Wastes was learning to manipulate an affinity testing orb.

I had watched when the examiner at the Yellow Orchid Academy resolved the chaotic lines within the orb into clear images of each of my affinities, and I wanted to learn to do that myself. I also wanted to see if I could find a way to have the orb display false affinity levels.

Jin ZiHan volunteered to help me experiment with this. While her wood affinity was peak five-star, she also had several lower-level ones.

It took a bit of trial and error, but I was able to figure out how to use the examiner’s qi pattern to resolve ZiHan’s affinities without too much effort. Far more difficult was getting the orb to show my own affinities properly.

The chaotic lines were caused by an interference pattern created by her different affinities. By injecting a small portion of my qi, I was able to suppress the interference between ZiHan’s affinities and allow the truth of them to shine through. Suppressing the interference of my own affinities using my own qi didn’t work quite so well.

After working on this problem off and on for months, I still wasn’t able to get my affinities to show up correctly, but I was able to limit what I sent the orb. While I had zero understanding of the underlying mechanics of how affinity testing orbs detected affinities, I found a way to crudely block my acupoints in a specific way so that only the ‘signal’ for a single affinity was allowed to pass through.

This same method could also be used to nearly cut off that single remaining affinity so that it could be displayed as anything from low nine-star to its true level. However, I couldn’t use it to make the orb display a higher level than I possessed.

This was all well and good, but the Su Clan tested their children when they were Martial Disciple 1, before they had opened any acupoints. I would need to wait until after a reset to figure out how my current technique needed to be modified to work in that situation.

While this wasn’t everything I had wanted, it was good enough for the moment.

These minor tasks filled the time between my cultivation sessions, and before I knew it, the date of Li’s death was quickly approaching. While I had been able to reach Peak Emperor with Shen’s assistance, I was running out of time, and there was still something important that I still needed to get done.

I needed to find YuLong and record his memories.

Retrieving YuLong’s memories was going to be tricky.

YuLong was a member of a branch family of the ruling clan of the Empire of Eternal Winter. To gather his memories, we needed to travel north to the empire and find him. If I were alone, I would have been at a complete loss as to how to proceed, but Yan had been tracking his movements and knew exactly where we needed to go.

I grabbed a blank memory orb from Jin, and then Yan, JiaQi, and I set out from the sect in a carriage pulled by Rank 5 wind horses. Unfortunately, no Rank 6 horses were available, but that wasn’t too much of a problem. These Rank 5 horses were fast enough that they could outrun LuLu even while pulling a carriage.

The Nine Rivers Continent was large, but by traveling at a speed of hundreds of kilometers an hour, we covered ground quickly. Thankfully, the carriage had been inscribed with formations that let it float slightly above the ground. Otherwise, we would have been in for a much rougher ride.

When we first entered the Empire of Eternal Winter, everything seemed normal, but the further we traveled, the more I saw worrying signs of neglect. Fields along both sides of the road lay fallow, villages were burned down, and the carcasses of livestock sat rotting under the sun’s harsh light.

The situation only appeared to worsen as we rode toward the center of the empire. The temperature outside plummeted, and the ground was covered by a thin layer of snow, preventing anything from growing at all. In energy vision, I could tell that this snow was unnatural, but its origins were a bit of a mystery. There was no apparent source for the energy that created it. My best guess was that it was caused by a massive grand formation.

Yan directed the carriage to Rimegard City, the capital of the empire. He hadn’t told me much about his plan. He just said that there was an additional ‘surprise’ waiting for me. So, I was a bit wary when the carriage pulled up to the imperial palace.

Yan looked between JiaQi and me. “You two might want to put on your best equipment. This could get messy.”

Putting words into action, he pulled out his best refined armor and shuffled around in the carriage while sliding into it. After a quick look at each other, JiaQi and I followed suit.

Once we were all ready, Yan opened the door and guided us outside.

Burly soldiers guarded the palace, but Yan didn’t even look at them. He just walked directly toward its entrance.

Two guards walked forward to block our path. Yan waved a hand, and they fell to the ground.

I couldn’t hold back my questions any longer. “Yan, what’s going on?”

He glanced at me and kept walking. “YuLong’s sister was forced into an arranged marriage with a scion from their clan’s main branch. She didn’t fancy this arrangement, and YuLong decided he wasn’t a fan of it either. So, he started a small rebellion. Right now, he’s in a cell below the palace, waiting to be executed.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but I didn’t need to. While I was considering what to say, we entered the throne room.

Yan threw out a blast of qi and destroyed the throne. Then he did his best to empower his voice with qi, shouting loud enough to make the entire palace vibrate.

“Shi YaTing! Come out now or we will destroy your palace.”

When nothing happened, Yan threw out another bolt of energy, blasting a large hole straight through several walls.

“How dare you behave atrociously in my empire!”

The wall in front of us burst apart, and a sturdy well-built man stepped through the opening. He was wearing robes of royal blue embroidered with golden dragons. His hair was done up in a bun and covered by a golden hair clip.

Yan smirked. “Shi YaTing, we are here for Shi YuLong. Present him to us this instant, and we will leave you with an intact corpse.”

“You dare!”

Yan glanced to the side at JiaQi.

She rolled her eyes but played along.

She rushed forward and smacked Shi YaTing to the ground. Before he could even move, she gave him a solid kick.

A quick check showed that the man was a Martial Emperor 7, four levels above JiaQi, but he couldn’t even raise a hand to defend himself from her onslaught.

Lying on the ground. Shi YaTing looked at us with a gruesome face.

“How dare you. You dare invade an empire and slay its Ruler? When the Zhuge Clan finds out about this, they will call on the Alliance to crush you! Your whole clan will be eradicated for what you have done here. Root and branch!”

Yan snorted and tossed out a bolt of qi, ending the man’s life. Then, he walked forward and grabbed the former Emperor’s storage bag.

After that, without the Emperor’s assistance, it took us quite some time to find YuLong. As Yan had said, he had been imprisoned deep under the palace, and whoever had designed the place liked the idea of catacombs. When we finally found YuLong, he was a bit beat up, but he was alive.

I handed him a memory orb, but he just stared at it.

“I’m not sure I want to remember anything that happened this life… but I need to. If I don’t, I can’t fix it.”

He rolled the orb around in his hand and looked up at me.

“You said I might be able to take a family member with me, right? My sister. I need to help her, please…” YuLong looked down. “Not this time. I can’t let her remember this. But next time? Can I help her?”

Something about that request struck a chord deep within me. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Of course. I’ll help you where I can. If… If you don’t want to remember this life, I can do it for you. I can take care of things.”

He shook his head. “No, I need this. I need to be the one to help her, to help them all.”

YuLong sent a thread of qi into the orb, imprinting his memories.

We talked a little more, and during a brief period when Yan left us alone, I asked YuLong an important question and noted his answer in my journal.

Eventually, Yan pulled me off to the side. He fished around in the storage bag he had taken from Shi YaTing, pulled out three books, and handed them to me.

“Water essence cultivation techniques. You’re welcome.”

I stared at them, and Yan explained. “This clan isn’t much different from you. They built a formation to harvest water essence based on these techniques. By the way, I couldn’t find any copies of light or dark outside of the Zhuge Clan, and I couldn’t find even a hint of the wind technique. The fire techniques are down south in the Pang Clan of the Brilliant Sun Empire. The wood techniques are out east in the Red Forest Sect.”

He glanced at the door to where YuLong was waiting.

“I’ll stay here for a while and help out YuLong. I can charter my own carriage back to the sect. You and JiaQi should go grab those two sets of techniques. It’s a bit of a journey, but it won’t take much time with Rank 5 beasts.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

Following Yan’s advice, we first took the carriage to the Red Forest Sect.

I was planning on trading whatever I needed to trade to get my hands on the wood essence cultivation techniques. However, when we arrived, we found out why the forest was ‘red.’ This sect didn’t exactly play nice with the locals. They were closer to bandits than what I would consider a proper sect.

We didn’t have time to clean up all the evils of the world, but I could put an end to the ones I came across.

When JiaQi and I left, there was no longer any Red Forest Sect on the Nine Rivers Continent. However, the memory of them would live on as I had transferred all their technique manuals into my mental library.

After that, the Pang Clan was much nicer to deal with. They were a simple down-on-their-luck clan that needed a bit of help. I handed over a pile of wealth large enough to make the entire empire jealous and was allowed to read their family’s secret techniques.

That done, JiaQi and I headed back to the sect.

My final task was the most important. I needed to gather everyone’s memories.

First, I went to Jin. When I arrived, she presented me with a large number of memory orbs. For this life, I only needed another eight, but she gave me more than eight dozen.

After handing them over, she winked at me. “You seem to have plans, and I thought you might need these. If not, we can just use them next time.”

“Thank you.”

She chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m not like that fool Shen. I won’t make you pay for them, and if you need more in the future, just let me know. But…”

My smile dropped, and I wanted to wince.

“Don’t look at me like that. If you find a good metal-based spirit fire, I would be interested in trying it out, but that’s entirely up to you.”

I closed my eyes and slightly shook my head from side to side. “Of course, Jin. Thank you.”

I took my leave and headed to the Earth Peak.

As soon as I arrived, Shen pulled me into the cave where he had been spending all his time working on a huge stone slab.

“You’re getting ready to leave, right? Well then, time to repay that favor you owe me for using my cultivation cave.”

He lifted one of his large hands and patted the slab.

“I’ve been working on this thing for decades, and I was worried I might not get it done before I lost my position as Master of the Earth Peak. You’ve given me a bit of hope there.”

He gave a big smirk that was full of teeth. He looked like the world’s biggest swindler.

“Here’s the deal. Take this with you and bring it back to me each life. You do that, and you can keep using my cultivation cave whenever you need it, alright?”

I sighed and hung my head slightly. Then, I started evaluating the logistics of the situation.

The slab was over 7 meters thick, 15 meters wide, and 20 meters long. It was big, but could it fit in my storage space?

The simple answer was yes. It had been nearly a year and a half since I activated the Qi Gathering Formation in my soul. The radius of my storage space had grown to over 125 meters. Shen’s stone would only take up a small fraction of the space I now had available.

Without responding, I walked forward, placed my hand on his formation stone, and pulled.

Storing something so large proved slightly difficult, but once I fixed it properly in my mind, it vanished, and a powerful suction force pulled both me and Shen into the vacuum left by the stone’s disappearance.

Shen laughed happily and tossed me a box containing his memory orb.

Unlike the two elders, my friends were a little more circumspect. Yan was the only one who even made a request, and that was simply to carry a notebook back for him. He would have his memories, but according to Yan, they lacked the sharpness of written notes. When I talked to LiTing, not only did she not make requests, but she also provided me with new refined weapons and armor for each Rank.

Unfortunately, the normal memory orbs didn’t work for LuLu. They required the use of qi, and her body didn’t possess any. The thought of her friend losing her memories made JiaQi a bit sad, but she understood the problem and didn’t press the issue. While she didn’t tell me so directly, I was sure LiTing would be working on this problem in the future.

After each person imprinted their memories into an orb and I stored it away, I asked them an important question.

“If you could improve one thing about yourself, if you could enhance your abilities in one area, what would it be?”

Each person had a different answer, and LuYao found it difficult to choose only one, but in each case, I carefully noted their desires down in my mental journal. Later, I would see what was possible.

Once all the orbs were collected, I met with everyone one last time to say goodbye.

I was wearing a silver robe with brass accents. This wasn’t my normal formation-imbued robe. That one was safely tucked away in my storage space. This one was far weaker. It would keep me protected, but it was disposable.

Around me, my friends and allies were all wearing plain work clothes. I looked entirely out of place among them, and I could feel a bit of separation between us, like we no longer belonged to the same world. The reality of what the time loops would mean for them was setting in, and they understood as well as I did that none of these memories would be carried forward.

After this final, bittersweet farewell, I departed Heaven City.

What awaited me at the Summit was unknown, but I was as prepared as I could be.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 201 – Life 70, Age 39, Martial Emperor Peak

The path out of Heaven City was steep and treacherous. Rocks wanted to slip from beneath my feet, and there were rarely handholds that I could use to steady myself. As an earth qi cultivator, this shouldn’t have been a problem for me, but for whatever reason, my techniques had no effect on the stone of this mountain.

As I climbed, I had time to reflect on my decisions. I felt… lonely. In this life, this was the first time I was ascending the mountain without someone beside me. I had entered the sect with Yan, JiaQi, LiTing, and LuYao. JiaQi and I had walked the paths to Yellow City and Profound City together. Then, our entire group had reunited and walked the path to Earth City together. On the way to Heaven City, ZiHan and XiaoYu joined us as we ascended the mountain together.

Now, I was leaving them all behind to walk alone.

Making the plan to do this had been easy, but doing it was more difficult than I had expected.

This separation was only temporary. I would see them all again in the future. But I knew my plans. Once this life was over, I would be returning to the Wastes, and they wouldn’t be joining me. I was leaving them behind, and I might not see any of them again for centuries.

Was that what I wanted? Was that really what I wanted? I had spent decades with them, and now, I was leaving them to walk alone into an unknown future.

A part of me wanted to repay my debts in the Wastes, yes, but alone on that mountain, I had to question if there was any meaning in doing so. What was the point of repaying debts that no one remembered? Why was I letting events from hundreds of years ago dictate my actions? Wouldn’t it be better to chart a new course forward with my friends and leave the past behind me?

There were people I had connections to in the Wastes. People who had helped me. People I wanted to see again. But those connections were… old. Those memories were starting to be covered over by the long march of time. Did I really want to go back and unearth them? Was it worth the pain?

Halfway to my destination, I paused and looked back to Heaven City. Part of me wanted to return to the Wastes. Part of me also wanted to walk back down the mountain and rejoin those I had left behind.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the sect rules were clear. I was not allowed to go down the mountain. I could only keep walking forward.

I turned back toward the Summit and continued my climb.

Roughly half a kilometer from Heaven City, I reached a small, flat ledge with four stone arches. The names of the four paths were emblazoned across the tops of these archways in shiny bronze lettering. ‘The Path of the True Chosen.’ ‘The Path of the Master.’ ‘The Path of the Crafter.’ ‘The Path of the Leader.’

I looked at the Path of the Crafter. That was the one that felt right. That was what I had been for a millennium. But it wasn’t what I was at the moment. I had almost completely given up on my crafting pursuits. This was the second time I had reached Martial Emperor, but I had yet to seriously pursue Rank 6 crafting. I had a chance to learn to craft talismans in this life, but I threw it away.

Those decisions had felt correct when I had made them, but I couldn’t help but wonder what might have been if I had walked the Path of the Crafter.

Turning my head, I focused on the gateway for the Path of the Leader. This was the path I had chosen to walk. It was time to see what awaited me on the other side.

I stepped forward.

I stepped out of the gateway and entered a long, cavernous grand hall. The walls to either side of me were 15 meters apart, and the far wall was nearly 40 meters away. The ceiling was over 20 meters tall.

The entire building was made of decorative marble depicting scenes of past glories, but these scenes were not carved into the stone. The stone was completely flat. Instead, the images were formed from gray mineral veins trapped within the white marble.

My eyes wanted to linger on my surroundings and take it all in, but they were inevitably drawn to the five people who were watching me.

Near the far side of the room, four old men sat around a horseshoe-shaped table. Behind the horseshoe, several meters further back, stood an ornate stone archway. Unlike the others I had seen, this one was not active. It looked like nothing more than a mundane arch.

Behind the archway, rising above it, was a large dais upon which sat a rather young-looking man in gaudy, multi-colored robes.

Mustering my courage, I walked forward and made my way to the table. As I did, I examined the four men sitting at it more closely. They were each wearing simple white robes and had their hair done up in basic topknots.

The man on the far right was old, but not elderly. If he were a mortal, I would place him in his late 40s or early 50s. The two in the middle would have been closer to late 60s or early 70s.

The man on the far left was simply a fossil. He didn’t look quite as bad as when I had last seen him, but sitting at that table, I could tell that Emperor Li didn’t have too much time left. I felt an urge to turn and acknowledge him in some way, but that would have been a mistake. I didn’t know him, and everyone here needed to believe that.

When I reached the line created by the tips of the horseshoe, the second man from my left, the one sitting beneath the right hand of the figure on the dais, raised a palm to stop me.

“Disciple Su Fang, welcome to the Summit.”

He paused, letting his words linger. He only continued when their echo had completely died away.

“I am the Master of the Nine Rivers Sect. Sovereign Jiu YiJun.”

He gestured to the man sitting across from him, the one closest to the man on the dais’s left hand.

“I am Sovereign Zhuge YeDu, outer elder of the Central Continent’s Zhu Clan and patriarch of their branch family on this continent, the Zhuge Clan.”

This man, Zhuge YeDu, smiled at me as if his long title had scored him some kind of point.

Then, everyone turned to the figure seated next to Sect Master Jiu YiJun. Emperor Li.

“I am Sovereign Li GuiYang.”

That was all. No extra titles, no extraneous appellation, simply Sovereign Li GuiYang. Not Emperor Li GuiYang, Sovereign.

This should have been obvious to me long ago. Yan had told me that an Earth-Rank fire seed was something only a Sovereign could possess. I had just never allowed myself to connect those two thoughts. Emperor Li was Emperor Li. That’s what he had been for centuries.

I didn’t have long to dwell on these thoughts as Emperor Li gestured to the man across from him, the one sitting next to Zhuge YeDu.

“I am Sovereign Ning ZeKun, patriarch and founder of the Ning Clan.”

Once all the echoes in the hall had disappeared, the group of four Sovereign turned to the figure on the dais and bowed their heads.

“I am Jiu YaHui, emissary of the Nine Rivers Saint.”

I didn’t completely understand the significance of that title, but I could guess what it meant. Back in the Blue Wind Pavilion, when I had shown Emperor Li’s token to WuJing, he had shown me how to greet the emissary of a Sovereign. This was the emissary of the Saint.

I dropped to my knees and kowtowed three times to the dais.

“Su Fang greets the emissary.”

I held my position on the ground until Jiu YaHui’s voice rang out once more.

“Rise.”

I stood and gave a deep bow to the emissary. I might have gone a bit overboard, but I wasn’t going to let pride be my downfall.

Sect Master Jiu YiJun cleared his throat and pulled my attention back to the table.

“Disciple Su Fang, you have reached the Summit via the Path of the Leader. Your achievements have been noted. The clans must now decide if they will accept you into their fold.”

For a long moment, everyone at the table was completely silent. First, they looked at Ning ZeKun. He appeared to want to say something, but he held his tongue. Then, eyes darted around the table, wondering who would be the first to break the stalemate.

Emperor Li, who had been sitting with his eyes closed and ignoring his peers, suddenly turned his head sharply and gave me a piercing glare.

“The Li Clan will accept you.”

This made everyone freeze. Then, before the silence could regain its grip on the proceedings…

“The Zhu Clan will accept you.”

“The Ning Clan will accept you.”

The sect master looked directly at me and looked me up and down.

“The Jiu Clan will accept you.”

Was this because of my actions in the sect, or was this the effect Emperor Li’s actions had on the others gathered here?

On the dais, the emissary tapped the right arm of his chair, and a loud gong sounded throughout the hall.

“Su Fang, as a novitiate of the Nine Rivers Sect who had reached the Summit and who has been chosen to join multiple clans, you may select the one you wish to join.”

The emissary tapped the left arm of his chair, and a large white stone appeared in the center of the horseshoe.

“As the Nine Rivers Saint has decreed, this choice shall be made openly. All must speak only the truth until a decision has been made. If any falsehoods are spoken, then the Stone of Truth will darken. Outright lies will cause the stone to turn black. Both the novitiate and the clans must be protected from any deceit.”

The echoes of his words were allowed to fade before he continued.

“Any who wish to make an offer to the novitiate in return for his servitude may do so.”

My eyes widened at that phrasing, but I didn’t have time to linger on it. Things were moving too fast.

Emperor Li and Sect Master Jiu turned to Ning ZeKun, but before he could speak, Zhuge YeDu stole the floor.

“I would make my offer first.”

The sect master glanced at him unhappily for speaking out of turn but waved for him to continue.

Zhuge YeDu paused briefly to give me a sickly sweet smile.

“I, Zhuge YeDu, on behalf of the Zhu Clan, one of the two strongest clans under the Nine Rivers Saint, hereby make you this offer. You will be allowed to travel to the Central Continent as a member of the Zhu Clan, and you will begin receiving the karmic energy needed to ascend to Martial Sovereign within the year.”

He gave me a slight nod. “You are familiar with my descendant, Zhuge Yan. You should be aware that he has already agreed to journey to the Central Continent and join the Zhu Clan. If you accept this offer, you will be allowed to join him. So, will you swear to join the Zhu Clan?”

Was Yan joining the Zhu Clan to try and steal their knowledge and undermine them? Would that work? It might be worth trying… I didn’t know how to respond to this entreaty, but I didn’t need to.

To the annoyance of Zhuge YeDu, before I could come up with a reply, Ning ZeKun cleared his throat and drew everyone’s attention.

“You are familiar with my grandson, Ning ChenKun. I have discussed your situation with him. I cannot promise you Sovereign-level energy within the year, but if you help me grow my clan, it will be yours one day. The Ning clan is not wealthy, but I will make this same offer to your companions. If any of them wish to join the Ning Clan, they are welcome. If they are about to reach the Summit, and if they help the clan prosper, they can also gain an opportunity to ascend.”

This offer contained a significant amount of hedging, but not only did the stone in the center of the gathering remain white, but I also felt sincerity radiating off of the man. He couldn’t offer me much, but he was honest about that. Like his grandson, Ning ZeKun seemed like someone I could work with.

As I was thinking through this offer, Zhuge YeDu let out a soft growl, forcing Ning ZeKun to correct himself.

“All of your compatriots save for Zhuge Yan.”

Zhuge YeDu smiled contentedly and increased his offer.

“If you wish to join the Zhu Clan, your other companions may accompany you. They will not be members of the clan, but you may bring them with you as servants.”

I didn’t trust Zhuge YeDu, but his offer was still tempting. From what I knew, there was little the Ning Clan could provide me. However, the Zhu Clan was an Ancestor-level force. They would possess knowledge several levels beyond anything I had ever seen before.

While I might like the Ning Clan better, the Zhu Clan could be more useful in the short term. I could join them, learn everything they were willing to teach me, and then, if they were as bad as Yan had suggested, I could take that knowledge somewhere else, possibly to the Ning Clan.

A part of me, the part that wanted me to return to the Wastes, wanted me to reject them both immediately. Leaving the Nine Rivers Continent, starting a new journey into the unknown, this wasn’t what this life was supposed to be about. I was just supposed to wrap up unfinished business. Accepting either offer would mean throwing away even the semblance of trying to follow my 100-year plan.

That… might be okay… I was still only living this one life. I could go to one of the clans, learn what I could from them, and use that new knowledge to help me when I returned. It would be better, right? I would have more information, more skills, and more credits.

Thoughts and plots ran through my head, but Zhuge YeDu interrupted me.

“Zhuge Yan is nearby. You should discuss this with him.” He looked at Sect Master Jiu YiJun. “I call for a vote. I would like Su Fang to be allowed to discuss his options with his friend.”

The sect master gnashed his teeth in annoyance. “This is improper. Everyone must be allowed to make their offers before additional motions.”

The emissary, Jiu YaHui, sighed in discontent. “A vote had been called. Who would allow Novitiate Su Fang to seek the counsel of Zhuge Yan?”

Zhuge YeDu gave a Cheshire grin. “The Zhu Clan supports this proposal.”

He glanced to his side and looked at Ning ZeKun.

Ning ZeKun studied Zhuge YeDu for a moment and then turned to me. “The Ning Clan supports the proposal.”

I looked at Emperor Li, but he didn’t speak. He looked to the sect master and the emissary, the two members of the Jiu Clan.

The sect master went first. “The Jiu Clan rejects the proposal.”

Then, the emissary. “On behalf of the Saint, I reject this proposal at this time.”

All eyes in the hall turned to Emperor Li. This must have been Zhuge YeDu’s plan. He had placed everything on Emperor Li’s shoulders and was watching to see what happened next.

Li sat and stared at me in thought before speaking.

“I wish to amend the proposal. He will be allowed to speak to his friend, but only if I am allowed to tell him the full truth of matters first.”

“No.” Both the sect master and the emissary responded before Li had even finished speaking.

Zhuge YeDu was a bit more contemplative. The gears in his head had started to turn, and I could see that he wanted to know where this would lead.

“The Zhu Clan will support this.”

Ning ZeKun was no different from Zhuge YeDu. He wanted to know Emperor Li’s goals.

“The Ning Clan supports this.”

A vein bulged on the neck of the sect master, but he held his tongue.

We all looked to Emperor Li who took several moments to gather his thoughts before speaking.

“Sovereign Ning ZeKun. Sovereign Zhuge YeDu. Sovereign Jiu YiJun. Sovereign Li GuiYang.” He looked me directly in the eye. “You may not be aware, but it is very rare for anyone who reaches the Summit to attract the attention of all four Sovereigns. Usually, a Sovereign will only appear for members of their own clan. The only person who has ever enjoyed a loftier reception was Ning ZeKun when he became the first person to successfully complete the Path of the True Chosen. Do you know why you have been given such an honor?”

He stared at me stone-faced, forcing me to respond.

Nervously, I cleared my throat. “Y… Yes.”

Eyes darted to the truth stone, and when it remained white, I noticed greedy glints appear in the eyes of the sect master and Zhuge YeDu. However, Li maintained control of the floor.

“Interesting… Do you know my blessing? Do you understand its implications?”

My eyes drifted to the truth stone. How much of a lie could I get away with? Probably none at all. I needed to be honest in what I said, and if they asked for more than I was willing to share, I could only refuse to answer.

“I have heard about it. Certain details are beyond me, but I have an idea of what you mean.”

A slight grin broke Li’s stony facade. “You know, the moment I decided to get out and stretch my legs by attending this little ceremony, everyone decided they wanted to accompany me. What more could a dying man wish for?”

I was sure the same answer appeared in the minds of everyone present: Immortality.

Li didn’t allow me to think about this matter too deeply.

“We are each offering you the opportunity to ascend to Sovereign. Before you can decide which offer to accept, you must first understand what your decision means.”

He pointed to the archway behind the table. “Once that doorway is activated, you will step through and enter the Central Continent. However, before you are allowed to do so, you must swear an Oath to the Heavenly Dao. You will swear to leave your past connections behind. You will swear to sever your connection to your old clan. You will swear to join your new clan in both body and soul. Then, you will be infused with blood essence from the clan of your choosing which will bind you to them. Body and soul.”

He leaned on the table and propped his head up with his right hand.

“Only by doing this, by swearing this Oath to the Heavenly Dao to be true to your new clan for all time, will it be possible for you to form the necessary karmic connection to properly absorb a bloodline’s karmic energy and advance to Sovereign. Without such a binding Oath, it is impossible.”

My eyes darted to the truth stone. It didn’t show even a hint of gray. I wanted to call out to the System, to ask if the stone was legitimate, but I didn’t dare to even subvocalize in the presence of at least four Sovereigns.

Emperor Li continued.

“After the Oath is complete, you must then both absorb and cultivate the blood essence of your chosen clan. This will forge the final links in the chain between you and them, binding the two of you together forever.”

My mind raced. Was this the only way? Could I alter the Oath somehow to safeguard future timelines? Could I use the System to create a workaround?

Sensing my inner thoughts, Emperor Li shook his head.

“There is no other path forward from here. I can tell you that ascending to Sovereign is not that complicated. There are no Rank 7 or above cultivation techniques. They do not exist, and they are not needed. You need only infuse your core with a sufficient quantity of karmic energy, and you will advance. However, you must only use energy generated from those connected to both your body and your soul through bloodline ties. To do otherwise, to ascend to False Sovereign using energy from a source not connected to you in such a way… It is a path to damnation. The four of us would join hands if necessary to prevent such an abomination from being created on this continent.”

Instinctively, my eyes shot toward the truth stone. It remained pure white.

I shuffled my feet. “And… if I want to leave? If I decided to not join a clan and remain an Emperor?”

The sect master’s and Zhuge YeDu’s lip twitched in a faint smirk, but Emperor Li just shook his head sadly.

“You have already been told the answer to this question. You have lived in the sect for years. You have accepted its karmic energy. In return, you are not allowed to leave the sect unless you join one of the Sovereign clans. You have ascended the mountain. You have reached the Summit. You have left the sect. Now, you must join one of the clans.”

Emperor Li… Sovereign Li GuiYang… reached into a storage bag and pulled out a small bottle containing a bright red centipede.

“When you chose to join the Nine Rivers Sect, you chose to join the clans. Before this meeting is over, you will swear the Oath. You will absorb a clan’s blood essence. Then, you will be allowed to enter the Central Continent. Your connections to everything you left behind will be severed. Your old clan will have no claim on you. Your old debts will all be null and void. It will be a new beginning, and you will have an opportunity to chart a brand-new life.”

Staring at Sovereign Li’s soul gu. I wanted to immediately swallow a poison pill to escape. However, was that possible?

In the past, I had been able to use my space affinity to break through his will-lock when I was only a low-level King. Both my affinity and cultivation level were now higher than they had been at that time. That should mean I would be able to escape from here at any time.

I lifted my eyes and stared at the Sovereign. Memories of him teleporting items into and out of my hands flashed through my mind. If he had wanted to, could he have simply teleported that pill out of my mouth? Had I really had the strength to break his will-lock as a mere King? Had his blessing ordered him to let me die?

I couldn’t be certain of anything, but at a minimum, I had to be extremely cautious. If I showed my hand, if any of the monsters in this room sensed that I wanted to escape and had the means to do so, they would not play nice. They had already shown they had the ability to block me from accessing my storage space on the Path of the True Chosen. If that happened here, I would have no choice but to join one of their clans.

Emperor Li pulled me from my thoughts. “As the representative of the Li Clan, I offer you a position in my clan. You will be granted sufficient karmic energy to rise to Peak Sovereign immediately. You will be given the position of an inner elder. All of your friends will be allowed to join you. If they reach the Summit first, they will all be advanced to Martial Sovereign 5. This includes Zhuge Yan, regardless of the Zhu clan’s opinion on the matter. If you desire to leave your old life behind, you may join the Li clan and do so.”

A wide smile crossed Li’s face, and he chuckled happily. Compared to the other two, he had made an outrageous offer, but the way he had done so–

Sect Master Jiu YiJun pounded the table in anger. “The Jiu Clan will make the same offer. Any who wish to follow you may do so. Our blood essence is not so worthless that we can squander it on untalented disciples, but they may join you as servants.”

With fear in my heart, and knowing what I had to do, I bowed to each of the Sovereigns and then even more deeply to the Saint’s emissary.

“Thank you. May I have time to discuss my decision with Zhuge Yan?”

Jiu YiJun waved a hand, and a portal appeared beside me. “You have five minutes.”

I bowed once more and stepped through.

I appeared in a small room with two chairs, a table, and a pot of tea where Yan was already waiting for me.

He smiled and gave me a subtle nod. “This is a fantastic opportunity, Fang. We can learn everything we need to learn from the Zhu Clan. Joining them might take us closer to our goals faster than I thought possible.”

I looked at Yan, appraised him, and assessed his words. There was an underlying meaning to them, but he wasn’t willing to say anything out of place while others were listening in. He had wanted to rob the Zhu Clan, and he saw the opportunity this situation presented, but I had to trust that he also understood the inherent dangers of the situation.

My face remained blank as I looked at him. “You understand what it means? What joining a clan involves? Did they explain everything to you?”

There was a small hitch in his smooth posture, but he didn’t allow it to ruin his performance. He did his best to maintain an affable demeanor, but I noticed a new glint in his eye.

He grinned widely to hide his true feelings. “I haven’t learned anything new, no, but I know the basics. We swear to join, have no more contact with anyone on the continent, and gain access to their resources. In our situation, this is perfect.”

They hadn’t explained the details to him. I could, but it would be dangerous to do so. If the waiting Sovereigns hadn’t explained, that likely meant Yan wasn’t supposed to know.

At any rate, while it would have been nice to get his thoughts on the matter, it wouldn’t change what I knew I had to do. I couldn’t swear that Oath, and they wouldn’t let me leave unless I did.

I nodded sadly to Yan and sat down. He took the seat opposite me. I wouldn’t see him again for many years. This was my last chance to say goodbye.

“Do you know anything about the Su Clan in the Western Wastes?”

A slightly confused expression appeared on Yan’s face, and he shook his head slightly.

I let out a wry chuckle. “It’s… It’s a horrible place. I’m not sure anyone in the entire clan knows much about cultivating, an eight-star fire affinity is considered impressive, and no one ever even taught them how to use an affinity testing orb. It’s a terrible place that I never want to return to.”

Yan’s eyes widened as he realized what I was saying.

“I owe debts. Debts I have been intending to repay for a long time. When I join one of the Sovereign Clans, those bonds will be severed, and there will no longer be a need to repay them.”

As Li was talking, part of me had seriously considered his offer. Part of me wanted to abandon the past, forget about everything that came before, and start fresh. I had an aversion to the idea of swearing a permanent Oath or binding my soul to an unknown clan, but would it really be so bad? Joining a new clan that might actually try to support me? Allying myself with someone who might try to help me learn and advance? What would I lose by throwing away the Su Clan to join the Li Clan or the Ning Clan?

As I thought this, another part of me insisted on returning to the Wastes and repaying my debts, but I had copied several soul techniques from the sect’s libraries. If I wanted to, I could carve out that small piece of my soul and discard it so that it never bothered me again. In this life, I had repeatedly made excuses to ignore its urges to return to the Wastes. It wouldn't be so difficult to just… give up. To cut that part of me away and forget about it.

I could do that, but that wasn’t the person I wanted to be. I needed to return. I had obligations. I had put them off long enough.

I looked at Yan. “I’ll see you in a few years.”

Before any of the waiting Sovereigns had a chance to intervene, I pulled my deadliest Rank 6 poison pill out of my storage space and placed it directly into my mouth.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Emperor Peak — 1 trillion credits awarded.

Total Credits: 1,052,313,110,550

…

A note from G Tolley

A final epilogue chapter for book 3 will be release tomorrow, and there will be no chapter this Friday. Volume 4 will start on Monday.

Please note that with the start of volume 4, chapters will mostly return to their normal length of 2,000-2,500 words each. The end of volume 3 has seen some rather lengthy chapters, this one is nearly 5k words, but sorry to say, that cannot become a new normal.

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 202 – Life 71, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

I opened my eyes and looked around at my small house in the Su Clan. There was a lot to do here, and it would take a long time for me to get it all done. I didn’t know when I would be able to see my friends again. I only knew that I would.

I took a few moments to breathe deeply, in and out, calming my mind.

Then, I thought through the entire encounter on the Summit from start to finish.

Everything had been too… fast. There were things that I had missed, things that didn’t register as important at the time that I needed to fix in my memory.

My mind returned to the beginning of the encounter, and I took out my journal to record my thoughts.

I arrived at the Summit. I passed through the gateway. The four Sovereigns and the Saint’s emissary were already waiting for me.

I paused. When I started writing again, it was much slower.

Why? The moment I stepped through, they were all already waiting for me. Is that normal?

My mind flipped forward in the encounter.

I entered a small room, and Yan was waiting for me. He looked like he had been waiting there for quite some time. Why? How?

My mind sorted through every possibility I could think of, but one stuck out above all others.

How long had it been between when I stepped into the portal and when I stepped out of it? Was my memory wiped? Was it something else?

From previous experiences, I had to guess that this had been the standard memory wipe protocol from the sect’s Exams, but that wasn’t guaranteed. Nothing was guaranteed. But I was damn sure the four most powerful men on the continent weren’t just waiting around for me to visit them. Something had happened between when I entered the portal and when I exited it.

I marked these notes for later review and then returned to working my way through the encounter.

The emissary used a ‘truth stone’ so that everyone could see if anyone was lying. It stayed white the entire time, but it’s unclear if it was real or if it was just a fabrication to encourage me to be honest. The reactions from the Sovereigns suggest it was real.

Truth. How can a stone detect ‘truth.’ What is ‘truth?’

If the stone was real, it’s unclear what its actual properties are. The Sovereigns would have known the limits of the object and would have known exactly how to skirt such limitations without triggering it. Case in point, Zhuge YeDu promised to ‘start’ giving me karmic energy within the year while not including any information about when I would have enough to actually ascend.

Also, Ning ZeKun said that all my friends would be allowed to join me at the Ning Clan and was forced to correct himself. The stone hadn’t reacted to that slip-up.

The truth stone was strange… How was it created? How did it work? At the moment, I only had one place I could turn to for answers.

“System, can the truth stone used by the Saint’s emissary really distinguish truths from lies?”

Cost of that information is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Right… fine. Give me as much information on such truth stones as I can buy for one billion credits.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 billion credits.

Truth stones are a product of the Central Continent. They are considered a naturally forming ore. It is believed that when a lie is told around such a stone, it will darken. The greater the lie, the blacker the stone will become.

The size of such a stone does not appear to be important. Many organizations rely on small shards of truth stone ore to detect deceit.

Credits partially expended. 967 million credits refunded. Transaction complete.

1,052,280,110,550 credits remaining.

That… that was a lot of hedging. No solid information about the stone itself, just information about what people think about the stone. It was also the first time my credits had been rejected in such a way.

After considering the situation, I thought I understood the System’s pricing. I was trying to buy information about a strange stone with mysterious properties that could somehow detect ‘truths.’ I wouldn’t have anywhere close to the credits needed to buy solid information about such an item.

After noting everything down in my journal, I put the problem to the side. If I wanted to learn more, I would need to get my hands on a stone and study it.

I returned to documenting my encounter at the Summit.

Emperor Li had me worried at certain points, but he and his blessing were giving me solid warning signs to escape as soon as possible. He is a dangerous person, but I don’t believe he is an enemy.

Ning ZeKun seems honest and is someone I might be able to work with. Zhuge YeDu is a snake.

The Sect Master was from the Jiu Clan. The emissary was from the Jiu Clan. With a different pronunciation, Jiu means nine. Possible clan connection to the ‘Nine’ Rivers Saint. Highly dangerous

Finally, I turned my thoughts to the true problem I would need to overcome.

According to Emperor Li, to ascend to Martial Sovereign, I will not need a cultivation technique, but I will need karmic energy from a bloodline connected to both my body and soul. Swearing an Oath and joining one of the four existing Sovereign clans is an option, but it should be a last resort.

Two other options exist. Find a new path to the Central Continent or create a new Sovereign clan of my own. For the latter, becoming a ‘true chosen’ of the sect may be a necessity.

“System, what is the cost of teleportation to the nearest city on the Central Continent?”

Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Okay then, how much to purchase information about the cost?”

Cost of information related to the pricing of teleportations to the Central Continent. 275 billion credits.

I shook my head. I could afford it, but it wasn’t something I was willing to spend credits on at the moment. So, I returned to my journal.

Cost of direct teleportation unknown, likely extremely high. The best option available for reaching Sovereign appears to be raising a new clan.

I paused in my writing as I considered this.

Advancing the Su Clan may be the best option. It already has a connection to my body, but it may not be connected to my soul. This is a potential problem. Still, it appears to be the best option available at the moment. This should be investigated further upon returning to the Wastes.

I marked down a few more thoughts and observations, but eventually, I put my journal away. The Summit held many dangers, and if I ever went there again, I would need to be more careful, but that wouldn’t happen for a long time.

With my reflections on recent events complete, I allowed my attention to turn to an important decision I had to make.

Over my last two lives, I had earned a substantial number of credits that could help me in countless ways. However, keeping them all to myself didn’t feel right. I wouldn’t have been able to reach the heights I had without my friends. Not in this last life, and not in the one before it.

I needed to repay them…

No, that was wrong. I needed to stop framing everything as a debt.

I wanted to help them.

How much should I give them? What was appropriate? Importantly, what would be the cost of making such gifts permanent?

I had already learned that if I wanted to give someone else a permanent enhancement, I would need to first purchase a boost for them and then shift my reset point. I wasn’t overly fond of continually advancing my permanent reset point because any time I lost was time I would never be able to get back. So, I had to make my purchases carefully.

“System, what would be the cost of improving Yan’s cultivation comprehension by 100 credits the moment right after I return from my next death and then shifting my permanent reset point to the moment right after that boost is applied?”

Processing… Cost 2,000 credits.

“What would be the cost of boosting Meng LuYao’s light affinity in the same way? Applying it immediately after I return and then shifting my permanent reset point to the next moment.”

Cost 2,000 credits.

Those prices were a bit painful, but they told me what I needed to know. Applying permanent boosts to others would cost 20 times what it did to apply them to myself.

Looked at another way, this meant that comprehension boosts for my friends were only 5% as effective as they would be if I purchased them for myself. For affinities, the math was a little nicer since I only needed to buy them ‘temporary’ affinities which were a tenth the price of ‘permanent’ ones. After locking them in, the final cost would only be twice what I had to pay to permanently raise my own.

So, how much should I spend? I ran some numbers and finally decided on an answer that I was satisfied with. Maybe I should have given more. Maybe I was giving too much. Either way, I was satisfied, and that’s all that mattered.

“System, as soon as I return from my next death, I want the following purchases to go into effect.”

I took a moment to gather my thoughts.

“First, boost the following comprehensions by 2 billion credits each: Zhuge Yan’s illusions, Chai JiaQi’s beast taming, Lin LiTing’s soul cultivation, Shi YuLong’s teaching, Jin ZiHan’s alchemy, and Cai XiaoYu’s fighting. Then, boost Meng LuYao’s light affinity to mid five-star and her cultivation and illusion comprehensions by 1 billion each.”

I thought through and confirmed all of those numbers.

“Finally, I want to shift my permanent reset point to the moment right after those boosts are applied.”

Cost 287,323,552,000 credits.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 764,956,558,550 credits remaining.

I lifted my head and stared at the exit of my house. A small smile crossed my face.

Dealing with existences at the level of the Sovereigns was dangerous and exhausting, but I had left that world and returned to the Wastes. My friends would be waiting for me when my tasks here were complete, but I didn’t need to rush to return to them. I could take my time and do things right.

It had been a long time since I had dealt with the madness of the Su Clan. At that time, I was new to this world, had no idea what I was doing, and was fated to be thrown away as trash.

The clan hadn’t changed, but I had.

It was time to repay my oldest debts, and that was where I would start.

However, before I could begin, I needed to visit an old acquaintance to help me lock in all the gifts I had just bought for my friends.

I exited my shack and went to the large red door that kept us from leaving the training area.

I pulled on it with all my strength, but I already knew my efforts were futile. Thankfully, my old buddy yanked it open for me.

“What are you doing? No one is allowed out,”

I punched him in the face.

He punched me in the chest.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 1 – 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 764,956,558,560

-----------------------------------------------------

Complete Status Page

Affinities

Peak Four-Star – Earth, Metal, Lightning

Peak Five-Star – Wood, Fire, Water, Wind, Light, Dark

Peak Seven-Star – Karmic Energy

Peak Eight-Star – Space

Resistances

Mental Effects (Cultivation Techniques) – 25,000,000 credits

Mental Library

Capacity – Rank 6

Journal (with Mental Input) – Rank 6

Perfect Transcription – Rank 6

Touch Reading – Rank 6

Comprehension Boosts

Cultivation:

Cultivation Techniques – 100 billion credits

Soul Techniques – 100 billion credits

Qi Control – 100 million credits

Teaching – 100 million credits

Professions:

Alchemy – 1 billion credits

Formations – 100 billion credits

Herbalism – 20,000 credits

Martial – 1 billion credits

Social:

Reading Emotions (True) – 25,000,000 credits

Skills

Talisman Artistry – Rank 4 (Continent-Wide Expert)

Soul Formation Concealment – Rank 6

Enhanced Soul Growth – 20,000 credits

Pill Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive)

Formation Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive, Detailed)

Technique Appraisal – Rank 3 (Earth)

Language (Western Han)

.

End of Volume 3.

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Volume 3 Afterword, Volume 4 Spoiler

Hello again everyone,

First, thanks for sticking with the book for 3 volumes and over 200 chapters. If you are liking the story and have not already done so, please considering giving the story a rating or review. It really helps drive more traffic here and puts the story in front of more eyes.

I know there were significant criticisms about the use of memory orbs near the end of the volume, especially the inclusion of Meng LuYao, but I feel this is best for the long-term health of the story. Fang needs peers he can grow with, and this is the start of that process. This will likely create a few additional road bumps for him in the future, but that's life. Everything you do has consequences.

Like normal for the end of a volume, I'm taking tomorrow off, and Volume 4 will start on Monday. I will try to get the end of volume cost charts updated and posted by tomorrow.

I hope everyone sticks around to see what's next.

The general direction of the next volume probably won't shock anyone at this point, but the specifics of how it is handled might not be what you expect. It doesn't quite match up with the standard tropes, but after a lot of thought, and after a major rewrite from the original drafts, it feels like it is the right direction for Su Fang.

Addendum: Volume 3 Earning and Spending Credits (Contains Some Spoilers)

Known tiers of cultivation:

Warrior Tier

Ruler Tier

Bloodline Tier

??? Tier

Martial Disciple

Martial Lord

Martial Sovereign

Martial Saint

Martial Master

Martial King

Martial Spirit

Martial Grandmaster

Martial Emperor

Martial Ancestor

Credits gained upon death for each known cultivation level:

Martial Disciple

Credits Awarded

Martial Master

Credits Awarded

Martial Grandmaster

Credits Awarded

1

10

1

1,000

1

100,000

2

20

2

2,000

2

200,000

3

30

3

3,000

3

300,000

4

40

4

4,000

4

400,000

5

50

5

5,000

5

500,000

6

60

6

6,000

6

600,000

7

70

7

7,000

7

700,000

8

80

8

8,000

8

800,000

9

90

9

9,000

9

900,000

Peak

100

10

10,000

Peak

1,000,000

Half-Step Master

200

Peak

20,000

False Lord

2,000,000

Martial Lord

Credits Awarded

Martial King

Credits Awarded

Martial Emperor

Credits Awarded

1

10,000,000

1

1 billion

1

100 billion

2

20,000,000

2

2 billion

2

200 billion

3

30,000,000

3

3 billion

3

300 billion

4

40,000,000

4

4 billion

4

400 billion

5

50,000,000

5

5 billion

5

500 billion

6

60,000,000

6

6 billion

6

600 billion

7

70,000,000

7

7 billion

7

700 billion

8

80,000,000

8

8 billion

8

800 billion

9

90,000,000

9

9 billion

9

900 billion

Peak

100,000,000

Peak

10 billion

Peak

1 trillion

False King

200,000,000

False Emperor

20 billion

Purchasing a temporary reset point:

Basic cost is the number of credits gained from the current cultivation level + the number of credits gained from the next cultivation level.

The cost of a temporary reset point will double each time they are used. This doubling will reset upon a return to the permanent reset point.

Each temporary boost purchased via the System will result in the price of a temporary reset points increasing by 10% of the credits used on such boosts.

Secondary reset points are available at eight times the cost of a primary rest point.

Any items taken out of Su Fang's storage space and left in the open world will create temporal anomalies, increasing the base price of a temporary reset point.

Known cost modifiers:

Gold Bars -- +20 credits each

Spirit Stones -- +50,000 credits each

Note: Other costs and fees may apply, details unknown at this time.

The cost of increasing affinities for the five basic elements:

Note: Prices are cumulative. You can't just purchase Peak 7, you have to purchase every step before it too.

Basic Affinity

Permanent Cost

Basic Affinity

Permanent Cost

Basic Affinity

Permanent Cost

9*

Low

100

6*

Low

1,000,000

3*

Low

10 trillion

Mid

250

Mid

2,500,000

Mid

25 trillion

High

500

High

5,000,000

High

50 trillion

Peak

750

Peak

7,500,000

Peak

75 trillion

8*

Low

1,000

5*

Low

100,000,000

2*

Low

10 quadrillion

Mid

2,500

Mid

250,000,000

Mid

25 quadrillion

High

5,000

High

500,000,000

High

50 quadrillion

Peak

7,500

Peak

750,000,000

Peak

75 quadrillion

7*

Low

10,000

4*

Low

10,000,000,000

1*

Low

10 quintillion

Mid

25,000

Mid

25,000,000,000

Mid

25 quintillion

High

50,000

High

50,000,000,000

High

50 quintillion

Peak

75,000

Peak

75,000,000,000

Peak

75 quintillion

The price of a temporary affinity that only lasts one life is 10% that of a permanent affinity.

The price of secondary affinities (wind, lightning, light, and dark) are 10x that of basic affinities.

The price of an affinity to karmic energy is 1,000x that of a basic affinities.

The price of affinities to space and time are 100,000x that of basic affinities.

Miscellaneous Items:

Misc

Mental Reversion

100 x 100^(Rank-1)

Knowledge

Cost

General Knowledge priced based on the effect it will have on the world.

Note: Asking seemingly unrelated questions that tell you something important will cost the same or more than simply asking for that important information directly. Both ways of asking questions result in the same effect on the world, so the price is the same.

Western Han Language

100

Item

Cost

Rank 1 Minor Healing Pill

10

Rank 1 Minor Healing Pill (Recurring)

200

Rank 1 Minor Strengthening Pill

25

Storage Bag, 10 m^3

1000

Su Fang's Storage Space

30M per m^3

Profound-Rank Fire Seed

5 trillion

Basic Robes with Cleaning and Self-Repair Formations

1,000

Skill

Alchemy (Disciple Alchemist)

10,000,000

Alchemy (Master Alchemist)

10,000,000,000

Appraisal (Rank 1 Pills, Limited)

10

Appraisal (Rank 1 Pills, Majority)

5,000

Appraisal (Technique)

Lvl 5 of Rank

Mental Library (Rank 1)

1000

Mental Library (Additional Ranks)

x10

Mental Library - Perfect Reading

x10

Mental Library - Touch Reading

x100

Mental Journal (Rank 1)

100

Mental Journal (Additional Ranks)

x10

Mastery of a Yellow-Rank fire seed

100,000

Mastery of a Profound-Rank fire seed (limited)

5,000,000

Mastery of a Earth-Rank spirit fire

10 trillion

Techniques

Cost

Rank 1 Low-Yellow -> Mid-Yellow

200

Rank 1 Mid-Yellow -> High-Yellow

400

Rank 1 High-Yellow -> Peak-Yellow

700

Increased Rank (Disciple, Master, etc.)

x100

Ex: Rank 2 Low-Yellow -> Mid-Yellow = 200*10

2,000

Increased Power (Yellow, Profound, Earth, Heaven)

x10

Ex: Rank 1 Low-Profound -> Mid-Profound = 200*100

20,000

Ex: Rank 3 Mid-Profound -> High-Profound = 400*100*100*10

40,000,000

Multipliers refer to improvements of techniques of different levels. Upgrading Profound techniques cost 10x the cost to improve when compared to Yellow. They do NOT refer to improving a technique from Yellow to Profound.

Techniques can not simply be upgraded from Yellow to Profound or from from Rank 1 to Rank 2.

Rank 1 Yellow Change Effect (with reference)

100

Increased Rank

x100

Increased Power

x10

Rank 1 Yellow Change Effect (no reference)

10000

Increased Rank

x100

Increased Power

x10

A note from G Tolley

I think this is everything that should be included from volume 3, but let me know if you think anything else needs to be added.

Chapter 203 – Life 72, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

When I first arrived on the Nine Rivers Continent, my soul was transported into the body of Su Fang, an orphan boy from the Su Clan, the undisputed rulers of the area known as the Western Wastes.

I spent several short lives trying to become a worthwhile disciple of this clan, but at every step, its unrepentant ruthlessness shone through. When I couldn’t cultivate, I was killed. When I cultivated poorly, I was killed. Then, after showing even the slightest bit of promise, I was enslaved.

At no point did anyone step forward to try and teach me how to do better. They were only willing to throw me a scroll for a worthless technique and tell me to learn on my own. If I didn’t, if I had even the slightest problem in learning to cultivate, they killed me.

It was a terrible place, and after I escaped, I had no desire to return.

However, two things had drawn me back.

First, the Su Clan had been instrumental in shaping my early years in this world. Su RuDi, a low-level alchemist, enslaved my mind and forced me to spend 80 years concocting pills for him while making me focus on repaying the ‘debt’ I owed him for all the ingredients I used. The situation had drilled into my head, into my soul, a need to repay my debts, and I needed to repay my ‘debt’ to Rudy.

More importantly, to advance to Martial Sovereign, I needed to cultivate karmic energy generated from cultivators connected to my bloodline. It was possible for me to change my bloodline and join a powerful new clan, but from what I had been told, that process seemed to be permanent. If I joined a new clan, I would never be able to leave it, no matter how many times I died.

Part of me could see value in attempting this. I could join a powerful force, prove my worth, and be showered with the energy and resources I needed to advance. I could try this, but if I did so, I would always be an outsider. They might assist me to benefit themselves, but they would never care about my advancement for my sake. I would never have an opportunity to ascend to the peak of whichever clan I joined, and that meant I would never have the opportunity to ascend beyond it.

Even with the drawbacks, this path may hold a certain allure if I were a normal cultivator. However, I had to consider my future. I wasn’t just living one life. I was living a constant sequence of lives. Did I want to have to worry about rejoining a new bloodline and proving my worth every time?

No. If possible, I wanted to create a path of advancement that didn’t rely on outsiders. I wanted to extract the best seedlings from the Su Clan and transform them into my own Sovereign clan. By using a combination of my storage space and memory orbs, I could make a clan that would be able to grow across timelines and not be reset whenever I died.

Secretly building a Sovereign-level force while ensuring that it wasn’t detected and destroyed by the rulers of this continent would be challenging. It would be the work of centuries. That was okay. I had the time, and when I was ready, there were those both in the Wastes and outside of it who I knew I could count on for support.

However, before anything else, I needed to reacquaint myself with the Su Clan. I had lived in its training compound for centuries, but I barely knew anything about the place or the clan that ran it. If I wanted to claim their best disciples as my own, then I needed more information. So, I decided to spend at least one life as a proper member of the clan to gain a better understanding of how it functioned.

After a quick review of my notes regarding my early days in this world, I found that I would be taken away to have my affinities tested in three to four hours. Before that happened, I needed to have a solid plan for what affinities I would display and what blessing I would claim to have received. To make such a plan, I needed a better understanding of what the Su Clan considered ‘normal.’

Reaching into my storage space, I pulled out a Rank 3 Shadowed Soul Pill and swallowed it. This pill would completely hide me from anyone below the level of Martial Lord for an hour and a half. While it was still possible for formations or special skills to break through this concealment, I doubted I needed to worry about anything like that.

Once hidden, I opened the door of my house and stepped outside.

After more than a full hour of waiting, the gate of the residential area still hadn’t opened. This made me a bit nervous that the effects of my pill would run out, so I took a second one just to be safe.

Finally, after a full two hours had passed, the gates opened, and a young woman stepped through. She was only 19 or 20 years old and was dressed in the dark brown robes of a servant. Walking as quickly as she could, she approached the house closest to the gate and bowed to its door.

“Master ShouDu, it is time for your evaluation.”

She stood there, bowed, for several minutes. I could sense a growing agitation in the woman, but she didn’t dare to move.

As she was nearing her breaking point, the door of the house opened and a pompous-looking boy in a bright red robe with golden embroidery stepped through. A lock of his long hair was done up with a golden hairpin that looked like a small crown, and the way he carried himself made it appear as if he believed himself to be the master of the entire world.

“What took you so long? Take me to see uncle at once.”

The young woman gave several quick bows. “Of course, young master, of course.”

The woman turned and hurried back to the area’s gate.

“Slow down, wench! How dare you make me run!”

She turned and gave a quick bow.

“Yes. Sorry, young master.”

As they departed, I stealthily slipped through the gate and followed them.

When we arrived at a smaller courtyard that contained only a single opulent building, Su ShouDu turned to the young woman who had been leading him and slapped her across the face so hard she was knocked to the ground.

“Tell Eunuch Pang to send someone prettier next time. I hate looking at you pathetic wretches.”

With a snarl, the jackass turned and entered the building.

At any other time, I might have thought that his behavior was the effect of a cultivation technique gone wrong. Here and now, I knew that couldn’t be the case. The boy hadn’t even started cultivating yet. He was just a born and bred bastard. The only explanation I could come up with for his actions was that he saw how cultivation-mad people acted and decided to imitate them.

It was a disgusting situation, and I wanted to do something about it, but at the moment, I was on a mission.

Leaving the young woman behind, I followed after the ‘young master.’

The room we entered was mostly empty, but this emptiness helped draw my focus to the marble pedestal at the center of the room which held an affinity testing orb.

An elderly man with graying hair dressed in a turquoise robe stood behind the orb, and a middle-aged man in rich blue robes sat on a dais at the back of the room. To my left, a scribe sat at a table, taking notes.

When ShouDu entered the room and saw the man sitting on the dais, he gave a slight bow of his head.

“Uncle.” His words hid a trace of disdain. “I have been kept waiting for far too long. Let’s get this over with.”

The man at the back of the room didn’t rise to the bait and gestured for the elderly man to begin the examination.

“Place your hand upon the orb and insert your qi.”

ShouDu strode forward arrogantly and slammed his hand down on the orb.

At first, nothing but a chaotic mix of lines appeared, but after ShouDu exerted himself, the image of a stone appeared. It started as a rusty red color, but after brightening twice, it dulled and became beige. Then, it brightened twice more.

Once ShouDu was spent, the elder nodded his head and smiled. “High seven-star earth affinity. Very impressive. An affinity worthy of a true scion of the Su Clan.”

ShouDu straightened his back and raised his chin.

The elder examined him up and down. “What is your blessing?”

ShouDu let out a pleased chuckle. “I have been blessed with superior strength. It is already enough to break stones apart with my bare hands.”

The elder’s smile slipped slightly, but he still nodded in acceptance. Then, he turned to the scribe.

“Su ShouDu shall be given the Rocky Ground Mantra. A suitable technique to display his newfound physical might.” The elder gestured to a room on the right. “Young master, please.”

ShouDu stuck his chin even higher in the air and walked into the side room where another scribe was sorting through various scrolls. After accepting his technique, ShouDu left, but I stayed behind. As stealthily as I could, I tapped a finger on each of the scrolls in the room, sending them all to my mental library. A quick check showed that the best on offer was a Low-Profound technique, but I didn’t let that stop me from copying everything into my mental library.

Once that task was complete, I returned to the hall where the elders were waiting for the next child to appear. I quietly took a seat in the corner of the room and studied the situation. Both elders were Martial Grandmasters, with the older man at the orb being a Grandmaster 5 and the man at the back of the room being a Grandmaster 7. The scribe off to the side was only a Martial Disciple.

I didn’t recognize the elder at the orb, but the sight of the man at the back of the room struck a chord in my memory.

After flipping through my notes, I found out why. He was Su YuanFei, the Second Elder of the Su Clan and the brother of the clan’s patriarch. He had teamed up with Rudy and was one of the men responsible for the clan’s destruction. He had also been responsible for torturing me after claiming that I was part of a plot by the Grand Elder and the Fourth Elder to poison the clan’s Disciples.

ShouDu had called him ‘uncle.’ Did that mean he was the son of the patriarch?

I took a step back. No, that information wasn’t reliable. It was knowledge from 80 years in the future. At the moment, YuanFei and his brother might only be the sons of the current patriarch, and ShouDu might be his grandson. The infighting from the ‘past’ may have not yet begun.

Su Clan politics was something that I could potentially use to my advantage, but it wasn’t my focus. I didn’t care about taking over the clan. I only wanted to steal their disciples. So, I refocused on my mission as another child was brought in to be tested.

I sat in that room for over an hour and made notes on the names, affinities, and blessings of over three dozen children.

Something that surprised me was that at least three-quarters of the people who came in weren’t sure what their blessings were. Some had vague ideas, but others were completely clueless. This ran counter to what I knew from past experience. I had thought everyone received some form of innate knowledge about their blessings, but that might have only been because of the people I had surrounded myself with. With most of these Disciples being the dregs of society, it was possible that the Earthly Dao hadn’t seen fit to grant them such knowledge.

Of those that did have a grasp of their blessings’ effects, only a few had anything worthy of note, and those were mostly slight physical improvements. After the events in the Nine Rivers Sect, such blessings interested me as a research topic, but most people in this world considered them rather worthless. Slight physical strengthening would do nothing against an opponent empowered by qi.

The affinities of these Su Clan Disciples weren’t any better. At least, not on the surface. Nearly four out of ten were evaluated as having zero affinity, though I suspected that just meant they had multiple affinities. Three in ten had a nine-star affinity, and nearly all the rest were in the low eight-star range. Only a handful had anything better, and only a small few could claim a seven-star affinity.

As for their elements, over half had earth affinities, and the rest were mostly spread between water, metal, and wood. There was almost no one with a fire affinity, and the highest I saw only had a mid nine-star affinity. No one showed any signs of an affinity with any of the secondary elements.

If fire affinities were so rare, then the Su Clan’s territories had to be lacking in fire essence. Since the Twin Mountains Sect possessed a pool that could increase a person’s fire affinity, I had a decent idea of where all that essence might be going.

As I watched the youths test their affinities, I also studied the process of using qi before opening one’s acupoints. A person’s energy was still contained within their energy body, and it was still coming out through their acupoints. The only differences related to the quantity of qi one could extract and how difficult it was to do so. After an hour of study, I was confident I could easily adapt the affinity masking skill I had previously developed and use it as a Martial Disciple 1.

My Shadowed Soul Pill was wearing off, so, satisfied with the information I had collected, I snuck out of the building, returned to the residential area, and re-entered my house.

Then, I pulled out an affinity testing orb from my storage space and practiced sending it energy at different affinity levels. This took a few attempts, but I quickly got the hang of the process and was able to simulate any single-element affinity I wanted as long as it was lower than my true affinity with that element.

Not long after I mastered this skill, a middle-aged servant wearing a dark brown robe opened my door and looked at me. He attempted to maintain a mask of neutrality, but I could sense the disdain in his eyes.

When he spoke, it sounded as if he believed himself a superior giving orders to an underling.

“Follow me.”

I stood graciously and exited my small house. It was time to see what future I would have with this Su Clan.

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Chapter 204 – Life 72, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

The servant led me out of the residential complex and back to the ornate building I had just left. After entering, I walked directly toward the testing orb. As I approached, the elder behind the orb folded his arms across his chest, and I noticed a ring inset with a small shard of white stone on the middle finger of his right hand.

Was that white gem a truth stone? Was that how they were verifying everyone’s statements? If so, I couldn’t imagine that such a small shard would yield great results. The System had claimed that the size of the stone was irrelevant, but how easy would it be to see gradations of gray on a stone less than two millimeters in diameter? A complete falsehood might be easily detected, but skirting the truth shouldn’t be much of an issue.

I stopped in front of the elder, and he gave me a pleasant smile, but I could see falseness in it. He was only waiting to figure out if there was any value in being respectful toward me.

“What is your name?”

“Su Fang.”

The sound of the scribe noting this down came from my left.

“Place your hand on the orb and channel your qi into it.”

I casually lifted my right hand and placed it on the orb. Then, concentrating as much as I ever had during one of the tests, I sent what little qi my energy body contained into the orb.

At first, there was just a faint glow in a rainbow of colors, but almost immediately, a dull brown rock appeared in the center of the orb. It brightened once, but that was all.

“Earth affinity. Mid nine-star.”

The elder’s voice was neutral, but I sensed that most of my potential value had just disappeared.

Having studied the other new Disciples, I understood that this affinity placed me near the bottom of the pack. However, the elder still kept things cordial.

“What can you tell us about the blessing you have received?”

“It has allowed me to gain a basic understanding of fighting techniques.”

The elder’s eyes flicked to the ring on his finger as I spoke. After confirming the ‘truth’ of my words, he looked back at me.

“Hmm, that works well with an earth affinity.” He glanced at the servant who was standing behind me. “Give him the Earth Heart Mantra and send him back.”

After bowing to the elder, I followed the servant to the side room and collected my ‘new’ cultivation technique. Then, I was taken back to my small house and discarded.

While I could have shown affinities high enough to shame everyone in the clan, that wasn’t my goal. I was here to suborn the clan’s Disciples and make them my own, so I needed to be in a position where I could learn who was salvageable, and I needed to be able to interact freely with these disciples to bring them over to my cause.

Also, there was a part of me that couldn’t help but wonder how far I could go in this clan with all the skills I now possessed. In the past, I had never been able to survive longer than a single month. Having shown the same affinity as I had back then, what would I now be able to achieve?

Back in my tiny house, I had a couple more decisions to make. What cultivation technique should I use? How quickly should I increase my level?

I did my best to remember back to my early days. There was a competition at the end of the first month. Had the normal disciples not advanced and the elite disciples advanced once? Or had the normal disciples advanced once and the elites advanced twice?

After flipping through my journal, I found the truth. None of the normal disciples other than myself had advanced at all during this first month. That meant that if I wanted to fit in, I couldn’t take even a single step forward.

This seemed… wasteful. If I wasn’t supposed to cultivate for an entire month, what was I supposed to do?

I considered taking a Shadowed Soul Pill and teleporting around the clan to stealthily learn what information I could, but I had no real interest in any of the clan’s secrets. My concerns were more about what kind of person each individual was and how they treated each other. I couldn’t learn that through being a mere disinterested observer. I needed to be a participant in their lives.

Another possibility was to make a quick hop over to the Blue Wind Pavilion and start dealing with matters there, but that felt… out of place. I doubted this life would last long enough for anything I started in the Pavilion to bear fruit, so it would be best to reserve that journey for when I had a longer life expectancy.

After considering my options, I left my house for a walk around the courtyard. Since I was here to interact with the other Disciples, that was what I should do. However, after more than an hour of wandering, no one left their house even once. They were all hunkering down and trying to learn to cultivate.

I couldn’t blame them for this. If they didn’t learn, they would likely end up dead, but it did make my task of getting to know them that much harder.

I thought about forcing my way into one of their homes for a private chat, but I didn’t think that would accomplish much. I would let everyone study in peace and see what came of it.

With nothing else to keep me busy, I decided to start learning the mystical art of refining.

Using a Peak-Yellow metal qi cultivation technique, I was able to break through to Martial Disciple 2 in only a single day. The low density of qi in the Wastes slowed my process down a bit, and it would make recovering any energy I expended far slower, but that was fine. I wasn’t in any rush.

Once my breakthrough was complete, I turned to the System to give my studies a bit of a boost.

“System, increase my comprehension of refining by ten billion credits.”

Purchase confirmed. 754,956,558,560 credits remaining.

Since I didn’t expect to get any large infusions of cash in the near future, I needed to be a bit thrifty with my credits, but ten billion was more than enough to help me learn low-level refining.

I next opened my mental library and retrieved Jin’s guide to Rank 1 refining.

According to Jin, there were two primary aspects to refining. Restructuring the base materials and infusing those materials with energy.

The ‘restructuring’ process wasn’t new to me. It was similar to how a formation specialist would restructure a stone. The difference was that while a single monocrystalline stone was ideal for formations, the ideal crystalline structure of refined items varied based on which attributes were desired in the final product.

If a bar of iron were formed entirely from a single crystal, it would be far harder than normal, but it would also be incredibly brittle. When formed from a collection of smaller crystals, the hardness of the metal decreased, but so did its brittleness. This meant that managing the crystalline structure of a metal had an immense impact on its mechanical properties.

This was one of the reasons LiTing had found it difficult to make a weapon that was both durable and deadly sharp. These two attributes required a careful balancing of the mechanical properties of the base materials.

While Jin’s Rank 1 book only covered basic metals such as copper and iron, I could see how these concepts could be translated to stone or even wood. The structure of wood was far different from metal, and it would require an entirely different understanding of material science, but the basic idea of needing to adjust the molecular organization of the material to achieve optimal results would still hold true.

Of course, this was only talking about the basic physical structure of the object. The art of refining included far more than just that. After a sword was properly forged, it would then need to be infused with qi. This energy would flow through the grains of the metal to enhance, diminish, or change its normal properties.

To start learning Rank 1 alchemy, all I had needed to do was burn away a few toxins within a flower and compress the resulting energy. From even a cursory glance, I could see that Rank 1 refining would be a far more involved process.

Thankfully, I had time, ample materials, and Jin’s expert knowledge to guide me.

During my first week of studying refining, I didn’t make much progress. I spent most of my time just getting a better feel for altering the crystalline structure of metals.

Then, as the end of the week approached, I took out the herbs for a Rank 1 Energy Expulsion Pill and quickly concocted it. I didn’t bring a pill furnace back with me, but for such a trivial pill, I didn’t need one. I just floated the herbs in the air and quickly condensed a pill.

Metal qi wasn’t nearly as good at destroying toxins as fire qi was, but these were just low-level herbs. Such details were unimportant.

Once the pill formed, I popped it in my mouth and then stood and headed out to the martial arts training yard.

When I arrived, I looked around at the children of the Su Clan.

One of them was going to die today. I didn’t know which one it would be, but I knew that our instructor would decide someone needed to die.

I focused on the man in the middle of the training yard. He looked to be in his late 40s, and a quick check showed that he was a Martial Master 1 earth qi cultivator. His hair was shorn short, and he wore a faded blue robe with cut-off sleeves to show off his bulging muscles.

Once everyone had arrived, he began our ‘lesson.’

“Quiet! Spread out and circle around.”

He waited in a stiff pose as we followed his orders.

“For the next three months, you will all be undergoing extensive martial training. Every hour of every day you will either be exercising, cultivating, or recovering. After three months, many of you will no longer be members of my clan. If you want any hope of remaining one, you will push yourself to do your best at every moment. If you do not want to be one, you will still push to do your best at every moment because if you don’t, the moment you leave this place, you will learn exactly how harsh this world can be to commoners. Basic martial skills are a necessity.”

His eyes roamed across everyone as he gave us all a disgusted look. I could feel a deep hatred radiating from him. He didn’t want to be an instructor, and he didn’t want to have to deal with children.

“This training won’t just be hard. It will be deadly. If you relax for even a moment, you might find out that it was your last.” He smirked and looked around the circle. “Now, time for a little demonstration. Do we have any volunteers?”

Everyone froze. No one wanted to be the first to offer themselves up for a beating.

As I looked around, I knew someone would be selected as the day’s sacrifice. Should I step in and stop it? Could I?

He was a Martial Master 1, but his foundation was terrible. With my knowledge and experience, I might be able to defeat him. There was a chance I wouldn't be able to survive such an attempt, but if I did, it might help me form a connection with my fellow Disciples.

Before I could make a decision, the bastard of an instructor took it out of my hands.

“Hmpf, not a single person brave enough to even demonstrate what they know. Fine. You! Step forward and show me something.”

He pointed at a young man to my left. A quick check of my journal showed that he was Su Yan. No affinity detected, no known blessing.

The instructor wasn’t kind to poor Yan. He used an earth qi technique to shove the boy forward onto the training yard. Then, he proceeded to torture him. It was almost a relief when the boy finally died.

“This is your lesson for today. In this training, slacking off for even a moment means death!” He looked around at us, and I could feel that he was hoping someone would step out of line. “Now, pair up and fight. I want to see if any of you have any possibility of being worthy of my clan in the future.”

Slowly the crowd began pairing off. My neighbor and I nodded at each other, and we moved into an open area to begin sparring. As we did, I didn’t pay much attention to my opponent. I kept my focus on the groups surrounding us so that I could study everyone else’s skill level.

Suddenly, I sensed a build-up of earth qi from the other side of the training yard. A quick glance proved that it was the instructor. He was looking straight at me with deadly intent.

The moment he saw me looking at him, he screamed at me. “What the hell are you doing?”

Then, he punched out and sent a wave of earth qi hurtling toward me and my partner.

I shoved my opponent sharply and then jumped backward, preventing either of us from being hit by the blast of energy.

“What was that!? I told you to fight, not—”

The instructor had instinctively continued his tirade, but when he saw both of us completely uninjured, his words cut off. A wave of emotions roiled through him, anger, confusion, and a tinge of resentment, but he didn’t strike at us again.

“Focus on sparring.”

With that, he snorted and turned away.

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Chapter 205 – Life 72, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

After our first training session ended, I carefully watched everyone as they returned to their houses. Upon returning to mine, I took out my journal and started making a map.

I could only match names to the faces of a few of the forty-odd young men and women, so making a full map of who everyone was and where everyone lived would take a bit of time, but it would be invaluable if I ever wanted to interfere with the affinity testing process.

Once this map was as complete as I could make it, I stood and stretched.

That long training session had reminded me of the horrendous shape my body was in at the start of these timelines. Recently, these problems had been masked by early cultivation and several months of good living, but this time, I was forced into an intense workout without any cultivation base to speak of. After only a few hours, I was severely exhausted and was about ready to collapse.

Long ago, I used a Rank 1 Healing Pill purchased from the System to fix most of my acute health problems. The first time I shifted my permanent reset point, I had locked in the effects of this pill, so I didn’t have to worry about any major health problems. However, I was still suffering from the chronic effects of long-term malnutrition.

Reaching into my storage space, I pulled out a small seed pod and used it to concoct a Rank 0 Nutrition Pill. After taking it, I felt a soothing energy flow throughout my body as small aches and pains were washed away.

With my immediate health concerns taken care of, I turned my attention back to refining.

I didn’t like the idea of destroying my cultivation base every week, so I chose to go ahead and cultivate the terrible Low-Yellow Earth Heart Mantra like I was supposed to. While metal qi was considered ideal for a refiner, I didn’t see any reason why earth qi shouldn’t work just as well. After all, while fire qi tended to work best for alchemy, the other types of qi were still usable, and depending on the toxins present, were sometimes superior. I would just need to do my best to limit the amount of impurities I absorbed from cultivating such an awful technique.

After breaking through to Martial Disciple 2 by opening an acupoint in my right fist, I returned to my refining practice.

Moments later, I noticed something strange while manipulating the crystalline grain structures within a copper bar. With metal qi, I had been able to manipulate such crystals rather freely. However, with earth qi, growing a crystalline matrix was easy, but shrinking it was nearly impossible.

After a bit of consideration, a possible explanation for this behavior occurred to me. To test my theory, I used a Qi Gathering Pill to quickly break through to Martial Disciple 3 as fast as I could using a Peak-Yellow fire qi cultivation technique. After opening an acupoint on my left, I then tried using my new fire qi to refine the same copper bar. This time, I found that destroying its crystalline matrix was extremely easy, but growing it was incredibly difficult.

This confirmed my suspicion. It was all a matter of the ‘wuxing,’ the map of creative and destructive interactions between elements. Earth produced metal. Fire destroyed metal. In context, this meant that while metal qi could manipulate metals freely, growing or shrinking crystalline grains with equal ease, earth qi only wanted to grow them, and fire qi only wanted to destroy them.

Next, I constructed a small Qi Gathering Formation, and using pills, I broke through to Martial Disciple 5 as quickly as I could. In my upper right arm, I cultivated wood qi, and in my upper left arm, I cultivated water qi. A bit of testing showed that, like with metal qi, these energies could be used to both grow and shrink the grains of a metal, but doing so was far less efficient than using metal qi.

After noting down my findings in my journal, I took an Energy Expulsion Pill and dispersed my somewhat twisted and malformed cultivation base.

Then, I focused inward and broke through using the Earth Heart Mantra on my right fist once more. Earth qi might not be ideal for use in refining, but it worked. Exerting myself by using earth qi in a manner contrary to its nature could even be good practice.

Nearly an entire week had passed during my various phases of cultivation and refining experimentation, and it was quickly time for another martial arts lesson.

This second ‘lesson’ went a bit better than the first. The instructor didn’t try to target me, and I was able to study the other new Disciples in peace.

What I saw was concerning, but not overly surprising. Most everyone’s bodies were slowly being consumed by impure energy. They were all advancing slowly and trying to form the best qi filters they could, but with a nine-star affinity, a Low-Yellow cultivation technique, and no guidance, none of them had much hope. At best, they could slow their advancement enough that the mental effects of their techniques didn’t completely control them.

Watching this group stumble around the training field also gave me a clearer understanding of the task I had set for myself. The Su Clan was a Grandmaster-level force, and its scale was already far beyond anything I would be able to manage on my own. Growing it into a Sovereign-level force would mean increasing its scale and complexity beyond nearly anything I could imagine.

A clan capable of allowing me to advance to Sovereign and beyond would need to rival the scope and scale of the Nine Rivers Sect, and even though I had lived in that sect for a century, I still barely understood how it operated.

In short, this wasn’t a project that could be rushed. I needed to build a clan from the ground up, and I would have to do more than a little experimentation to figure out exactly how it needed to be structured. While I could take inspiration from existing sects and clans, my future time-hopping, storage-space-inhabiting, Sovereign-level clan would be a unique existence in this world, and it would likely need an equally unique organizational framework.

With this in mind, I paid close attention to everyone during the martial training session and tried to find someone worth investing in, but our interactions were too limited. I was able to learn a little about how they reacted when forced into combat under the threat of death, but not much else. In sum, no one stuck out as any more worthy of recruitment than anyone else.

When the second lesson was over, I noticed the instructor glance at me. His gaze seemed both vengeful and uncommonly happy.

During the following week, I spent some time exercising outside in the hope of running into a few of my fellow Disciples, but everyone stayed locked away inside their houses, cultivating feverishly. I could understand this compulsion, but unfortunately, it didn’t help me get to know them any better.

Before the third lesson began, I allowed myself to advance to Martial Disciple 3, and by the end of the month, I had reached Disciple 4. This placed me squarely in the crosshairs of the instructor, but I no longer cared what he thought about me. I could have tried to avoid the inevitable fight at the end of the month by limiting my advancement, but my ability to do so had been questionable ever since I had dodged the instructor’s attack during our first lesson.

At any rate, I wasn’t gaining much intel by being locked up in my house. Instead, I was now just aiming to redeem my past self and see what would happen if I defeated one of the Su Clan’s elite trainees.

At the end of the first month, all the new Disciples were led out of our residential courtyard and guided to the depths of the training complex.

The high red walls surrounding us made me wonder what was located on the other side, so since no one was paying much attention to me, I took out my journal and worked on drawing a map of the complex as we made our way through it. This map was a bit crude, and all I was able to draw were a few streets marked with several doors, but it was a start.

Eventually, we were led to a large open area with a raised fighting platform in its center. To my left, a group of five middle-aged men sat on a balcony. I only recognized one of them, Su YuanFei. A quick check showed that they were all Martial Grandmasters, with YuanFei the highest at Grandmaster 7.

To our right, opposite the elders, a long platform at the same level as the fighting arena held ten somewhat cheap-looking thrones. The boys and girls sitting there were all clean and wore well-tailored robes. While they were all well-dressed, Su ShouDu, who was sitting at the far end of this platform, was unrivaled in the sheer gaudiness of his outfit. His bright red robe and small golden crown made him look like a tiny emperor.

Our martial arts instructor stepped toward the arena and bowed to the elder waiting there. Then he straightened and moved to the side, allowing the elder to take charge.

“Welcome everyone. I am Su HuaTian, Eighth Elder of the Su clan. Today, you are here to bear witness to the ten most elite and honorable new Disciples of our clan. They have each been blessed with powers and abilities far beyond their peers. They are the best of you, and they will be the proud representatives of the Su Clan in the future. Bow and pay your respects.”

I wanted to laugh, but I followed along with everyone else and bowed to the ten elites.

Once we rose, the elder continued his speech.

“Of course, the Su Clan accepts only the best of the best as its elite. These ten have been specially chosen based on the combined knowledge and experience of the clan’s esteemed elders. However, if you believe that you are superior to one of these hand-picked elites, you may challenge them to prove yourself more worthy of their position. This is your first such opportunity. After today, you will only have two more chances.”

I looked at the ten children on their thrones. In the past, I had been driven by cultivation madness to think that defeating them would be easy. This time, my mind was clear, and I could think rationally. I was absolutely confident I could crush any one of them.

Still, I didn’t step forward. I allowed the situation to unfold naturally.

The elder in charge of the competition stood before us. “Does anyone wish to challenge?”

No one made a move.

Our instructor gave me a vicious look. I gave a slight shake of the head. He squinted his eyes.

Su HuaTian looked at our instructor. “Deacon Xu?”

“Sir, I believe there is one disciple who should be given an opportunity to fight. It would be a good lesson for everyone.”

“Oh? Who is that?”

“Su Fang.” He looked right at me. “Step forward and give us all a demonstration.”

I had to thank the elder for reminding me of the deacon’s name.

I smiled and bowed. “Very well, Master Xu.”

As I walked forward, I quickly assessed the elites. There were six boys and four girls. Each of them was only at Martial Disciple 2. Their foundations were far better than the young men and women from my residential area, but none of them were overly impressive.

Studying them more closely, I got a sense of why that was. The Su Clan trained their Disciples to cultivate slowly to make their cultivation bases as perfect as possible. However, a fresh new cultivator would still make countless mistakes and pollute their bodies with impure qi. The Su Clan accepted this and just tried to minimize the damage.

During my time at the Yellow Orchid Academy, I had seen how the real elites of the continent were trained. We had practiced cultivation techniques as much as possible, and our instructors didn’t care about how many impurities entered our bodies. We just needed to learn to cultivate better. Then, once we had mastered the basics, we purged our bodies of impurities and forged a pristine foundation from scratch.

By comparison to even the weakest students in the Academy, the Su Clan elites looked a bit trashy.

As I was arriving on the stage, I had to decide who to fight.

After scanning all my potential opponents, my eyes locked onto a target that made me want to chuckle.

I pointed to the eighth disciple from the left. The one who had killed me several times during this exact same competition.

“I’ll challenge him.”

A smug look appeared on the boy’s face. He was excited for the chance to put me in my place.

As he walked onto the arena’s stage, I just gave him an affable smile.

Once we both were in position, the elder looked between us.

“This will be a fight to submission. Your goal is not to kill one another. However, fists have no eyes. In challenge fights, maiming and death are possible. Do you both understand?”

We responded simultaneously. “Yes, elder.”

“Good, bow to your opponent.”

I gave my opponent as genuine of a bow as I could muster.

The elder didn’t even allow me to straighten before beginning the competition.

“Fight!”

I had somewhat expected my opponent to charge at me, but we both just stood there. So, taking the initiative, I charged at him instead.

As I did, I watched as he cycled the qi in his arm.

The boy was only a Martial Disciple 2, meaning he had only opened a single acupoint in his upper right arm, but he had also cultivated his right fist to its limit.

He shifted the qi in his upper arm to enhance its speed and shifted the qi in his fist to his knuckles, giving him the power to deliver a devastating blow.

As I approached, I maintained my qi in its relaxed position, allowing it to boost my strength, speed, and defense equally.

When I was within range of the boy, he struck like a viper, using the enhanced speed of his boosted muscles to take me by surprise.

As soon as he made his move, I shifted my qi with pinpoint precision.

I knocked his blow aside with my right hand and delivered a devastating backhand with my left.

This sent him sprawling backward.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of the men on the balcony jump up from his seat and glare down at me.

I backed off and allowed the boy to stand and regain his composure. However, his anger got the better of him and he started shouting.

“Do you know who I am!? I am the personal disciple of Grandmaster Su YuanKong! How dare you hit me! How dare you hit an elite disciple!”

With that, he charged me like a bull. I stepped to the side and delivered a hard kick to his backside, sending him sprawling to the ground once more.

“YOU DARE!?”

This time, the shout didn’t come from the boy, it came from the balcony.

The man who had jumped to his feet earlier was now completely enraged. Using a bit of qi, he launched himself from the balcony and landed between me and my opponent.

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!? First, you openly question my, Su YuanKong’s, judgment by challenging my disciple. Do you think I am incapable of knowing who is and is not deserving of the status of an elite!? I am the son of the patriarch! You dare question me?”

He took a single menacing step toward me.

“Then, you openly attack my disciple, slapping both him and me in the face!”

He took one more step.

“THEN, not only did you not kneel down and beg for forgiveness, you attacked him AGAIN! From the crime of treason against the clan, I sentence you to death!”

The Grandmaster was only a few steps away at this point.

He sent a wave of earth qi hurtling toward me. If it hit me, I would be severely injured, but I wouldn’t be dead. From the look of anger on this man’s face, I could tell that he wanted me to suffer.

Quickly thinking through my options, I decided to play this out a little bit longer and see where it went.

I grabbed the man’s qi with my earth affinity and ripped it away from his control. Then, I whipped it around my body and flung it right back at him as a compacted fist of force.

Against a more skilled opponent, this wouldn’t have worked. My ability to take control of his energy so easily relied not only on my significantly higher earth affinity but also on the fact that my opponent had sent out this energy recklessly. He wasn’t even trying to control it. He was just trying to overwhelm me with it.

A tightly compacted fist of earth qi slammed into the man’s chest, snapping his ribs and severely damaging his internal organs.

Only a moment ago, the elders on the balcony had been sitting by patiently and mocking their companion for interfering in the competition, but seeing the patriarch’s son lying broken on the arena floor, they could no longer sit back and laugh. They had to intervene.

I had thought that a show of strength might make them want to recruit me into the upper echelons of the clan, but severely injuring one of their number had turned all of the elders against me. In their eyes, I was no longer a Disciple who had just won a fight I shouldn’t have. I was an assassin.

There might have been a way to better thread this needle. There might have been an elite I could have challenged that wouldn’t have upset anyone. I might have been able to defeat my opponent in such a way that I didn’t turn everyone against me. I might have been able to fight the battle to a draw, or I might have been able to find a way to lose graciously.

The thing was, I didn’t care about any of that. I wasn’t here to play their games. What would be the point of being a good little disciple? I was here to evaluate and judge the members of this clan to see who would be worth recruiting. Every single person who had been on that balcony had just failed this assessment.

With a team of Grandmasters moving to attack me, I was at a severe disadvantage. My affinities might let me counter a reckless attack, but I didn’t have any hope of fighting back against even a single high-level cultivator in a serious fight.

In any case, I no longer cared. I had learned all I was going to learn from this timeline. I was ready to move on.

I pulled a poison pill from my storage space and swallowed it.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 4 – 40 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 754,956,558,600

…

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 206 – Life 73, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Upon awakening in my small house, I sat in thought.

The elders’ actions had brought the situation in the Su Clan into clear focus for me.

The Eighth Elder had said that “the Su Clan accepts only the best of the best as its elite.” He had also said that the elite disciples had been “specially chosen based on the combined knowledge and experience of the clan’s esteemed elders.”

In the past, I had only focused on the first part of this message. The Su Clan accepts only the best of the best as its elites. They want the elites to be the strongest and best disciples possible. I had naively thought that if there were better cultivators among the normal disciples, then the elders would want to elevate them to the status of an ‘elite’ instead.

However, this interpretation completely ignored the second part of the message. The current elites were chosen based on the combined knowledge and experience of all the elders. To challenge an elite was to challenge the judgment of the elders.

By defeating one of these hand-picked elites, I had brought the judgment of all the elders into question. So, how did they choose to resolve this issue? They could have admitted their mistake, but instead, they chose to remove the root of the problem.

If I was dead, the chosen elites would return to being the best of the best in the Su Clan.

Originally, the Su Clan’s training routine might have been developed to sort through Disciples and allow the best to rise to the top, but over time, a deep rot had crept in. After living in this world for several centuries, I had a pretty good idea of its cause.

If the elders correctly chose the ten best Disciples five years in a row, they would want to continue that streak. Being unable to identify one of the best Disciples during the sixth year would be seen as a failure. If this continued for 100 years, then the elders who chose the elites in the 101st year would be under serious pressure to continue the tradition of always choosing only the best to be their elites.

Grouping the Disciples based on their affinities and blessings would give them information about who was likely to succeed, but it wasn’t guaranteed. It was possible that a powerful blessing could initially pass by unnoticed or underappreciated. However, by not providing the normal Disciples with any real training, the elders could ensure that the elites were always victorious. Unless a seriously overpowered blessing was somehow missed during the testing process, the elders’ ‘judgment’ would never be wrong.

As I had shown, they would still be wrong sometimes, but they had apparently chosen to sweep such mistakes under the rug instead of admitting their faults.

This only proved to me that the Su Clan was broken beyond any hope of repair. I hated to say it, but allowing the clan to be destroyed was probably for the best. If this was how the clan operated, their rule of the Wastes had to be utterly incompetent.

I didn’t care too much about the clan’s ultimate fate by this point. I just needed to siphon off enough of their Disciples to create a new Su Clan capable of providing me with the karmic energy I needed to advance to Martial Sovereign.

There were a few possible ways I could go about this.

One way would be to become a normal Disciple again and actively work to create bonds of friendship with the other Disciples while staying beneath the elder’s radar. This would let me develop a better understanding of the people I was dealing with before recruiting them into my clan. Unfortunately, the low quality of everyone’s cultivation meant that I would be trying to evaluate people through a haze of cultivation madness. While this path might still be possible, it would be difficult and time-consuming.

Alternatively, I could try to become one of the clan’s elites and use that superior position to command the respect of everyone around me. By starting as an elite, I could potentially gain the support of the elders, and once that was accomplished, I could change the clan’s training regimen to be more in line with what I had become used to. This could allow me to slowly change the clan from the inside, and then, once I had an established power base, I could look at taking over the position of patriarch.

However, after a bit of consideration, I chose not to pursue this path. Simply put, I had no desire to become the patriarch of the existing Su Clan. Every single cultivator in the clan was likely already rotten to their core, and trying to fix them would be a monumental task. I wasn’t even sure if it was possible.

There was something else I needed to consider as well. From what I had learned, anyone born before the start of the loop would die if I attempted to bring them back with me via my storage space. I had only tested this a single time, so I couldn’t be entirely confident in this conclusion, but it was my working theory. So, if I wanted to bring anyone who was alive at the start of the loop back with me, I would have to do so by transferring their memories through the use of memory orbs, and each orb could only hold the memories of one lifetime of a single individual.

While I was in the Nine Rivers Sect, Jin had given me nearly a hundred such orbs, but if I used them to pull even just ten or twenty people into the loop, that supply wouldn’t last long.

I couldn’t rely on orbs to build my new clan. I could maybe provide orbs to four or five people and have them become eternal elders who were capable of maintaining the stability and cohesiveness of the clan across countless loops, but such people could not make up the bulk of my new clan.

Instead, it had to be made up of people who could travel through time with me in my storage space, and that meant I was limited to members of the Su Clan born after the start of the loop. Therefore, the people who I really needed to recruit were only just now being born. It would be another sixteen years before they came of age and had their qi awakened.

I could try kidnapping them as children and forcing them into my soul space, but I had no desire to do so. Instead, I would wait for them to mature. Then, they could make their own choice of whether to join me or not.

The Su Clan held its blessing ceremony two weeks after the start of the new year. Anyone born now would be considered one year old, and in eleven and a half months, after the new year, they would turn two. That would mean those born now would be sixteen during the fifteenth ceremony after the start of the loop. However, since there might have been some children born in the weeks between the new year and my ceremony, it would be best to delay for an extra year.

That gave me sixteen years to work with. In sixteen years, I would need to be here to recruit Disciples, but until then, I could do anything I wanted. While embedding myself within the clan might simplify things, if I left and used these sixteen years to cultivate to Peak Grandmaster, I could return in force and completely suppress the Su Clan. I would have free rein to recruit their Disciples, and they wouldn’t have any way to stop me.

More importantly, if I wanted to carry a large clan around in my soul space, I first needed to take some time and learn how to make the place more habitable. The Su Clan was not the place I needed to be if I wanted to learn how to do that.

After thinking through a few ideas, a smile crossed my face as I remembered something important, and a plan for how to spend the next few years quickly formed in my mind.

“System, teleport me to a secluded spot in the Twin Mountains Sect’s city of nominal disciples.”

Purchase Confirmed. Cost 762 credits. 754,956,557,838 credits remaining.

I appeared in a dense forest with trees that twisted at the edge of my vision.

My first instinct was to step forward and find out what went wrong with the teleportation, but I quickly controlled that impulse and sat down to clear my mind.

Then, I engaged energy vision.

The forest around me was an illusion created by the sect’s defensive formation. As I had not yet cultivated, breaking the hold the illusion had on my mind was impossible. However, the quality of the sect’s formation was suboptimal, and by using energy vision, I was able to pierce through the veil of the illusion. This didn’t let me negate it entirely, but it did let me see both the illusory and real worlds in a kind of double vision.

Maintaining this state indefinitely would be incredibly difficult, and it might have been better to give up for the time being and just enter the sect normally, but I was already here. I might push forward.

Peeking out of the alleyway I had arrived in, I saw several of the sect’s disciples going about their normal business. This sight reminded me of yet another problem I had to deal with.

“System, I want a set of robes that match those of a nominal disciple from the Twin Mountains Sect.” After a brief hesitation, I added another request. “Also, give me a jade token that will allow me to ignore the illusory effects of the Twin Mountains Sect’s defensive formation.”

Cost 2,000,000 credits.

The sect’s robes were just normal cloth, so I had to assume that this price came from the jade token. Likely, it was so high because it would negate all illusory effects of the formation, not just those that a nominal or outer sect disciple’s token would negate. Such a high-level token might not be entirely necessary, but I had more than enough credits, so I might as well spend them.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 754,954,557,838 credits remaining.

After donning my new robes and attaching the token to my waist, I strode out of the alleyway.

Finding my target was harder than I had expected, but my journal had a few notes on the best places to look for him.

I wandered the sect for several hours but didn’t have any luck. Finally, late in the day, I entered a dining hall he frequented and saw him sitting alone eating dinner. It had been a long time, a very long time, but I could still recognize the first friend I had made in this world.

Grinning, I walked up to his table and took a seat.

“Brother Bao, it’s so good to see you again.”

The young man looked at me in confusion, but his cultivation technique’s enforced joviality took over and helped him respond smoothly.

“Ah, Brother… nice to see you again. Sorry, I seem to have forgotten your name.”

“No worries, Brother Bao, I’m Su Fang. Just call me Fang. I’m not surprised you don’t remember me. It’s been several years since I last saw you, but I was hoping we could reconnect.”

He smiled at me pleasantly with an honest desire to become friends. This desire might be the result of cultivation madness, but it was still heartwarming after my short stint in the Su Clan.

“Of course, Brother Su, of course. Please join me for a meal.”

“I…”

It was only then that I realized yet another mistake. My jade allowed me to see past the sect’s illusions, but that didn’t mean I would be able to make purchases with it. Even if I could, it likely didn’t have access to any contribution points. And even if it did have points, using a sketchy identity token was probably not a very good idea.

Bao noticed my hesitation and placed a hand on my shoulder to console me.

“Don’t worry. I understand. I had a hard time paying for food and rent when I was new here too. I earned a bit extra this week, so consider this my treat.”

Before I could respond, Bao stood and went to get another meal tray. When he returned and placed it before me, a tear welled up in my eye from this simple act of kindness.

“Thank you.”

As we ate, I steered the conversation to Bao’s hometown. He was from one of the many small farming communities in the area and had come to the Twin Mountains Sect because he had been blessed with the ability to gain a deep understanding of herbs simply by looking at them. He wanted to use that blessing to earn a living here and send money back home to his family.

“Brother Bao, can we talk somewhere more private? There’s something important I want to discuss with you.”

“Of course, come with me. I’m living alone right now, so we can talk in my apartment.”

As we walked through the sect, I felt a bit of pity for Bao. The naïveté from his cultivation technique made him far too trusting of a complete stranger.

Upon arriving at his apartment, we sat down across from each other at his dining table.

“Brother Bao, I have to ask. Why did you join the Twin Mountains Sect?”

“As I told you, to use my blessing to help provide for my family.”

“Yes, but why this sect? Why didn’t you join the Verdant Fields Sect?”

He tilted his head in confusion. “The what? This is the only sect I’ve ever heard of. If someone wants to join the sect, this is where they come. Why go anywhere else?”

I nodded in confirmation. As expected, being from a small farming village, Bao barely had any understanding of the Wastes, let alone the world outside of it.

“Brother Bao, your blessing… it might help you with alchemy, but that isn’t your calling. You were meant to be an herbalist. I can’t say how powerful your blessing is or how far it will be able to take you, but I can tell you that you will find it far more useful if you walk that path instead.”

He sat silently as he contemplated my words, his cultivation technique not allowing him to question the truth of my statements.

“Brother Bao, I am leaving the Twin Mountains Sect to join the Verdant Fields Sect. I want to learn herbalism. I remembered your blessing and wanted to take you with me. I can help you become a powerful herbalist, and this would put you in a far better position to help your family. What do you say? Do you want to join me?”

Bao sat in silence for several long moments before looking at me.

“You’re sure this will let me help them?”

I nodded.

“Alright… I’ll go with you.”

I place a hand on his shoulder. I knew I was taking advantage of his condition, but there was no good way around that. And anyway, I knew this was what was best for him. After he came to his senses, he could make his own choices without being influenced by his technique, but until then, I would do my best to help him as much as I could.

Closing my eyes, I thought through everyone else I could remember in the Twin Mountains Sect. There were several others who I needed to visit, and I needed to repay the entire sect for the benefits I’d gained from stealing their fire seed so long ago, but now wasn’t the time for that.

After considering all the people I could remember, I didn’t think there was anyone else in the sect who would be a good fit in the Verdant Fields Sect. However, there was one other person who I felt I needed to bring with us.

“System, teleport me and Bao to a secluded spot in Dragon Gate City.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,460 credits. 754,954,556,378 credits remaining.

A note from G Tolley

The age system mentioned in this chapter reflects the traditional Chinese way of calculating ages. At birth, a baby is age 1, and they age up at New Years. Someone born the day before New Years would then be age 2 when they were only 2 days old.

As for what that means for this story, someone who is 16 would actually be 14 or 15 according to Western standards.

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 207 – Life 73, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

When Bao and I suddenly appeared in a secluded alleyway, he couldn’t help but scream out in shock, so I quickly placed an arm on his shoulder to calm him down.

“Quiet. We don’t want to draw any attention.”

“But… But…”

I should have warned the man… I would have to remember that next time.

Grabbing Bao’s shoulder, I quickly led him away and into one of the nicer areas of town.

It was late in the day, and while the Blue Wind Pavilion should still be open, it wouldn’t be good to arrive there dressed as nominal disciples of the Twin Mountains Sect. So, I pulled a still stunned Bao along with me into an upscale inn.

After booking a couple of rooms, I dropped Bao off and settled down for the night.

In the morning, I got dressed in my fancy robe that had been designed to make me look like a formation specialist. Then, I turned to the System.

“System, I want to purchase a new robe for Bao. Make it match the one I’m wearing but tone it down a bit so that he appears to be my assistant.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 50 credits. 754,954,556,328 credits remaining.

Robe in hand, I met up with Bao, got him all dressed up, and we headed to the Pavilion.

Upon entering, no one came to greet us, just like the last time I had been here. This was more than a little unusual, but I didn’t let it phase me and simply led Bao forward, straight to the stairs to the second floor.

As we walked, I heard a commotion off to my right, which was also rather unusual in the Pavilion. Bao looked like he wanted to check it out, but I just grabbed his arm and ushered him forward, unwilling to involve myself more than necessary with things here for the time being.

When we arrived at the door to WuJing’s office, I glanced at Bao.

“Remember, no names.”

Bao nodded in confirmation. Then, I knocked on the door and entered directly, not waiting for a response. There were several ways I could have chosen to handle this situation, and I chose the most expeditious one.

WuJing, who had been sitting at his desk reviewing a mound of paperwork, looked up angrily as we barged in, but he didn’t allow this instant of anger to control him. He pushed it down and addressed us as he would any other rude customer.

“Yes? How can I help you today?”

His tone still showed signs of obvious annoyance, but I was rather impressed by the man’s control. A Grandmaster from the Su Clan likely would have killed me by now.

I motioned for Bao to close the room’s door. Then, I stepped forward and sat down in the chair across from him while silently appraising the man.

I had relied on WuJing’s help many times in past lives. He had helped me because his blessing allowed him to see that I would be able to help him in the future, but in this way, he was no different from Emperor Li.

Chen WuJing’s Peak Grandmaster likely meant that he was considered a powerhouse in the Wastes, but he was already in his late 90s. His energy body had already begun to calcify, making it difficult for him to improve any further. Still, his position was much better than Emperor Li’s. If I was going to somehow find some way to raise Li to immortality, bringing WuJing along as well wouldn’t be a problem.

While I wasn’t yet sure that was something I wanted to do, I did see potential in this man. No matter how I had presented myself, he had always been willing to work with me. His blessing helped him understand how little a person’s appearance mattered. He had assisted me in countless ways across several lifetimes, and if he was as good of a manager as I thought he was, I could soon be in desperate need of his abilities.

It was just a shame that he wasn’t a member of the Su Clan. That meant elevating him wouldn’t help me with my goal of attaining Sovereignty.

In any case, this was a decision for the future. I had come here on a mission, and it wasn’t WuJing who I was looking to recruit.

Reaching into my storage space, I took out Emperor Li’s coin and placed it on the table between us.

“I could use your assistance.”

WuJing narrowed his eyes at me and then looked down at the coin.

After only a second, his eyes widened in shock, and his body started trembling.

“WuJing greets his imperial majesty.”

He crawled from his chair, knelt on the ground, and kowtowed to the coin three times.

“Rise.”

When the older man was standing, I made my request.

“I wish to recruit one of your attendants for a special assignment.”

WuJing nodded at once. “Of course, emissary. I’ll inform her immediately.”

Before I could say more, he started moving toward the door. I had to hold up a hand to stop him. I hadn’t even had the chance to tell him who I was talking about.

“Manager Chen, please, let me explain. The attendant in question is named Ye SuYin. Do not tell her who I am. Do not tell her to accept my offer. She must be allowed to make this choice freely. I would prefer it if you didn’t even fetch her yourself. Just send a subordinate to request her presence in a conference room. I would only ask that you assure her that she can trust my offer.”

Wheels spun in WuJing’s mind, but he nodded and strode out of his office. Only a moment later, he returned and led me to the largest conference room on the second floor.

“Emissary, please wait inside. Attendant Ye will arrive shortly.”

I smiled.

“Thank you, Manager Chen.”

I entered the conference room, and Bao followed behind me like he was my secretary, though he was likely trying to give off the appearance of being my personal disciple.

As WuJing had said, the wait was short. Only a couple of minutes after I sat down, with Bao taking the seat to my right, a flustered young woman in the light blue qipao of a Pavilion attendant hurried into the conference room and gave me a deep bow.

“Hello, I am Ye SuYin. You requested my presence?”

The girl was somewhat panicked. She didn’t understand what was going on, and being sent to have a meeting with a strange man on the direct orders of WuJing had made her slightly afraid.

I waved to the chair opposite me. “Please, take a seat.”

Tentatively, she did as I requested.

I could see that she wasn’t in the right state of mind for the conversation we needed to have, so I turned to my companion.

“Disciple, go request some refreshments for our guest.”

Bao was out of his element, so it took him a moment to understand what I was asking him to do. This caused SuYin to jump to her feet.

“Sir, I’ll handle it right away.”

I waved for her to sit. “Miss Ye, please take a seat. Right now, you are my guest. Disciple Bao can handle such minor matters.”

This only made her panic rise as she sat back down, and I realized I had made a mistake. I should have let her fall back into a role she was comfortable with instead of forcing her out of it.

As Bao left, I took a deep breath to center myself and try to think through the best way to handle things from here.

“SuYin.” The young woman looked at me and nodded hesitantly. “I would like to make you an offer. The choice of whether to accept it or not is entirely yours.”

Thinking of an idea, I reached into my storage space, took out a large jade box filled with gold coins, and placed it on the table.

“I will give you two options. The first is simple. You can take this gold and leave. You will then be free to do whatever you wish, and if you desire, I will hire a team of bodyguards to protect you and your newfound wealth. You can continue your work in the Pavilion, return home and use this money to help your family, or do anything else you wish to do.”

Her eyes widened at the sight, and I held up two fingers.

“The second option is more difficult, and it will change your life forever. You can become my personal disciple. I will teach you to cultivate, and I will assist you in learning herbalism or any other profession you desire.”

This made her freeze in shock.

I stood.

“I will give you some time to consider your answer. You may choose either or neither of these options. If you want to just walk away and forget this meeting ever happened, you may do so. All I ask is that you think about the offer carefully. When you’ve made your decision, you can let Manager Chen know.”

With that, I left a stunned SuYin alone in the conference room. I knew this might not have been the best way to handle the situation, but it was the best way I could come up with. I was a stranger who had shown up randomly and was throwing her entire life into chaos. I wanted to give her time to process everything without my presence pressuring her into a rash decision.

As I exited the room, I saw Bao approaching with a tray that held a teapot and several small cups.

“Go in there and sit down with her. If she asks you any questions, answer them freely. There is nothing to hide. If she just wants to talk, then talk with her. Okay?”

He nodded. “Of course, Master.”

I wanted to snort at that title, but he was right. Under these circumstances, that was what he needed to call me.

While I might have more knowledge and experience than Bao, he was far better than me at dealing with people. His attitude might be enforced by his cultivation technique, but it made him the type of person that SuYin needed in this situation.

After a final glance at the departing Bao, I turned to WuJing who had been waiting for me patiently.

“I made my offer. I want to give Miss Ye some time to consider her options. Please, take me somewhere to relax while we wait.”

WuJing bowed and quickly led me off to one of the fourth-floor apartments.

SuYin took far longer to make her decision than I had anticipated. It wasn’t until after nearly three hours that an attendant came and guided me back to the conference room where she and Bao were waiting for me.

Once I was seated, SuYin, who had seemed confident when I first entered, became unsure and nervous.

“Have you decided?”

She looked at the large chest of gold that was still sitting on the table, firmed her resolve, and nodded.

“I… I want to learn to cultivate. I want to be your disciple.”

I smiled and pulled the gold back into my storage space.

“Good. Is there anything you need to take care of, or are you ready to leave immediately?”

“I’m… ready to leave…”

I gave her a moment to say more, but nothing else was forthcoming, so I allowed the moment to pass.

“Very well. I will take us somewhere to prepare for the journey ahead. Please, try not to be too shocked, and don’t scream.”

SuYin looked worried, but she simply bowed her head in acknowledgment.

I motioned for Bao to stand next to her and then began subvocalizing.

“System, teleport the three of us to the hotel room I slept in last night.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 9 credits. 754,954,556,319 credits remaining.

When the world around us vanished and was replaced by a small hotel room, SuYin’s eyes widened in shock. I could see that she wanted to scream, but Bao was there to calm her down, allowing me to focus on what I needed to do next.

“System, I need simple but sturdy robes for SuYin and Bao. Something that a low-level merchant in the area might wear.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 75 credits. 754,954,556,244 credits remaining.

Pulling the clothes out of System storage, I handed them to my two new companions.

“We need to get dressed.”

I left SuYin alone in my room and left with Bao. Once inside his room, he put on his new outfit, and I put on my ragged clothing from the Su Clan. Bao seemed confused by my choice, but I just waved off his concern.

When we returned to my room, SuYin had already removed the cosmetics and ornaments of a Pavilion attendant. Dressed in simple tan robes with no makeup and her long black hair hanging down loosely to her waist, SuYin looked like little more than a simple farm girl.

I nodded and looked between her and Bao.

“We’re leaving. Are you two ready?”

Bao, who was now getting used to this form of travel, grinned. “Yes, boss.”

SuYin looked more hesitant, but she also nodded. “Y… Yes.”

“System, teleport us to a secluded spot in the town where the Verdant Fields Sect recruits disciples.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 2,472 credits. 754,954,553,772 credits remaining.

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Chapter 208 – Life 73, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

The place where we appeared could barely be considered ‘secluded.’ While we did arrive in an alley between two buildings, those buildings were two cottages spaced rather far apart. If anyone were looking in our general direction, it would have been easy to see the three of us suddenly pop into existence.

I wanted to complain to the System, but after a quick look around at our surroundings, I understood the problem. We had been sent to a small hamlet that consisted of only a couple of dozen buildings. The place where we arrived wasn’t too hidden, but it might have been the best option available.

While the village itself wasn’t too impressive, the landscape around it was a sight to behold.

It looked as if the entire village was built upon a raft that was floating in the middle of the ocean. Outside the village’s wooden picket fence, the land was a large, flat plain covered in an endless expanse of bright blue flowers. When the wind rustled these flowers, it almost looked like a gentle breeze rippling through the waters.

After taking in the sight for several minutes, I refocused and pulled my companions along behind me as I explored the village.

The entire hamlet only had a single inn, and since the village was rather small, it wasn’t difficult to find. I booked three rooms and then left Bao and SuYin to get settled in as I went out to gather a bit of information.

While the Blue Wind Pavilion had a presence here, it was only a modest one-story shop that sold an extremely limited variety of items. Instead, its main function was to serve as an interface between the sect and the main Pavilion back in Dragon Gate City. After entering, I quickly purchased a basic rundown on the sect and returned to the inn to discuss the situation with Bao and SuYin.

I set up a low-level formation to prevent eavesdropping and then looked at my companions.

“Okay… So… I’ve dragged both of you out of your normal lives, and I’m sure you both have questions. If there’s anything you want to ask, please do so, but we need to discuss what comes next.”

SuYin looked nervous, but Bao just smiled at me pleasantly.

Seeing this, I knew what I had to do first. I placed a pill bottle in front of the young man.

“Bao, this is an Energy Expulsion Pill. Upon consuming it, your current cultivation base will be erased, and you will need to begin cultivating again from scratch.” He seemed confused at why I would offer such a thing, but I just raised a hand to stop him from asking. “Your current cultivation base is… bad, and you are being afflicted by a kind of cultivation madness that makes you extremely trusting. That is why you were so willing to give up everything and follow me. Your cultivation technique is forcing you to trust me.”

Bao just looked confused, but I could see understanding flash across SuYin’s face as she widened her eyes in horror. Again, I raised my hand, but this time it was to stop SuYin from interrupting.

“You both have important decisions to make before we move forward. Bao, this pill will remove the mental effects of your technique. It will allow you to make those decisions with a clear head. Don’t worry about losing any progress, I can help you regain it quickly enough, okay?”

Bao smiled and nodded. “Of course.”

Without another thought, he picked up the bottle, took out the pill, and swallowed it.

Bao’s body shook as all the energy it contained was expelled and dissipated into the surrounding environment. After less than half a minute, he slumped to the floor. While there were no changes to his physical body, his energy body had become little more than a deflated balloon.

SuYin glanced worriedly between the two of us.

“Is… Is he okay now?”

I nodded sadly. “Yes. The cultivation technique he was using will no longer be able to affect his mind, but his memories won’t change, and he will still trust those he has already been made to trust, including me. This is one of the dangers of cultivation. It is one of the easiest traps you can get caught in.”

Once Bao regained his senses, I returned to the topic at hand and laid out what I had learned.

“I have brought you both to the Verdant Fields Sect. If you wish to learn herbalism, this is the best place to do so in the Wastes. There are three ways to join the sect. The first is as a warrior. If you choose this path, you will be trained in combat and sent to guard fields from looters and raiders.”

Neither SuYin nor Bao seemed too interested in this, so I continued.

“The second option is to join as a farmer. You will be given a plot of land and will be required to grow herbs for the sect. You will be able to sell anything you grow for contribution points, and you can use these points to purchase lessons or items from the sect.”

This wasn’t much different from the Twin Mountains Sect’s nominal disciple city, so I was confident Bao would be familiar with the scheme.

“While anyone can attempt to join under these first two paths, the final path is that of the elite disciple. You will be given a series of tests, and if you prove yourselves worthy, you will be given the best training the sect has to offer. If you excel in this training, you will then be sent out of the Wastes to join the Verdant Forest Sect.”

It was hard to read the two’s reactions, but they didn’t seem as enamored with the idea of leaving the Wastes as I had expected. Likely, this was because their families were still here.

“This is your life. You must decide how you want to spend it. I brought the two of you here because I believe both of you can become skilled herbalists, but I have no intention of forcing you down that path. If you wish to leave, you may do so. If you wish to study something else, I am willing to help you learn. You are free to choose any path you wish to walk, and I will support you.”

In truth, I was enamored with the prospect of hiring SuYin and Bao to tend herbs in my storage space, or at least having them train the future Su Clan residents to do so, but I wasn’t going to force them. I needed to give them the freedom to choose what they wanted to do for themselves.

Bao’s earlier simple affability had vanished with his cultivation technique, and he appeared somewhat lost, so SuYin took control of the conversation.

“I… I don’t have any affinities, and I don’t know how to cultivate.”

I smiled at her. “Don’t worry, I can take care of that. If you want to learn herbalism, I can get you a wood affinity. If you wish to learn alchemy, I can get you a fire affinity.”

I paused in thought before continuing. “I can’t teach you herbalism. We will need the sect’s help for that, but I can teach you to cultivate, and I can teach you a few other professions if there’s something else you want to learn instead. If you become an elite disciple, the sect may want to teach you everything themselves, and you can follow their guidance if you wish, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You might want to learn herbalism from them, but I would suggest learning cultivation from me.”

She slowly lowered her head. “And… what are you going to be doing?”

“I’m joining the sect as a farmer. I’m here to get hands-on experience with herbalism. However… You should know that I’ll only be here for sixteen years, after that, I’ll have to leave, and you two will need to continue without me. If you want to join me when I leave, you can, but it would probably be best for you to continue moving up in the sect and learning everything they can teach you. But don’t worry, I’ll still come by to visit every few years to see how things are going.”

We talked for a little longer, but eventually, SuYin and Bao both chose to follow me and become farmers. Even though Bao’s cultivation base had been dispersed, its effects lingered, and he still trusted me implicitly. SuYin’s faith in me was a bit of a mystery, though.

She had only just met me, and she was willing to follow wherever I led. When I asked about it, all she would say was that her friend told her that she could trust me. After understanding the situation, I was a little worried, but there was nothing to be done about it.

With everyone’s decision made, we needed to register for the sect, but first, I had to make a quick purchase.

“System, boost Bao’s and SuYin’s wood affinity to peak nine-star and increase their herbalism comprehension by a hundred thousand credits each. Also, increase my herbalism comprehension to a total of ten billion.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 10,000,180,285 credits. 744,954,373,487 credits remaining.

The Verdant Fields Sect allowed anyone to register as a new farmer at any time, so there was no need to wait around for any kind of entrance exam.

After paying a small fee of 30 silver, we each received a lease for a small plot of land and a large bag of peony seeds, but we weren’t given jade badges to mark us as members of the sect. To earn such tokens, we would first need to grow a crop of flowers and bring them back to the sect. We could then sell the flowers for enough points to buy a badge.

When we arrived at the barren lands that now belonged to us, I couldn’t help but shake my head. All our sign-up fee had gotten us was a lease to a fallow field and a bag of cheap seeds. If we ran off and didn’t return, the sect would have only profited from the exchange.

Each of our fields included a small shack for us to live in, but these buildings were old and broken. Sleeping in them would have been no better than sleeping outdoors. If we wanted something better, we would have to build it ourselves.

At the sight of these living conditions, SuYin became more focused and resolved. She wanted to become a cultivator, and she was more than willing to endure such hardships. Bao, on the other hand, looked slightly depressed. He had to be worried that he had made a mistake by following me and leaving his cozy life behind.

While the sect might not care about our comfort, and while others might consider suffering hardships to be a character-building exercise, I had no desire to live in a rotten shed, and I wouldn’t expect my two new disciples to do so either.

After we arrived, while Bao helped SuYin learn the basics of cultivation, I took out various Rank 2 and 3 pills and formations and used a Peak-Yellow earth qi technique to cultivate as quickly as possible. Having used overpowered pills and formations, I was able to reach Martial Master 5 after only a single week. My cultivation base was about as bad as it had ever been, but that was of little concern.

With my body now brimming with power, I used a series of earth qi techniques to carve a simple cave system under the soft loamy soil of my field. I also made small, tidy caves for SuYin and Bao under their own broken-down huts so that they would both have separate living spaces for whenever they wanted a bit of privacy. While their dwellings were simple one-room affairs, mine was a rather spacious complex of training rooms and sleeping quarters.

Carving these caves into the soft soil of the fields took nothing more than a thought, but hardening the walls into solid stone was significantly more difficult, and it took me another two weeks to get everything just the way I wanted it. Then, I went to the Pavilion and ordered an assortment of simple furnishings to make our new homes more livable.

Once our housing situation was taken care of, I returned to my new cultivation cave and swallowed an Energy Expulsion Pill to clean out my trainwreck of a cultivation base. I had already decided that in this life, I would use the wood essence cultivation technique I had gotten from the Red Forest Sect. It would give me access to wood qi while also allowing my wood affinity to slowly rise over time.

I considered trying to create something new by combining it with either the water or fire essence technique, but after a bit of thought, I held off on doing so. Creating something like that would take a long time to get right, and I didn’t want to spend my time on it at the moment. Instead, I wanted to train my new disciples and learn the basics of herbalism.

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Chapter 209 – Life 73, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

While living in the Verdant Fields Sect, time seemed to pass me by far more quickly than usual. I spent each morning tending to my field of flowers and each afternoon teaching Bao and SuYin to cultivate using the methods I had learned in the Yellow Orchid Academy.

I did occasionally have them practice fighting against each other using basic combat techniques, but our primary focus was on helping each other learn to grow better, more potent herbs. This mostly involved teaching ourselves through experimentation and the books in my mental library, but after harvesting our first crop, we also purchased a few simple herbalism lessons from low-level members of the sect.

My disciples seemed to enjoy the time spent in these lessons, but I left the first one feeling more than a little underwhelmed. I couldn’t be too hard on the kid who was trying to teach us, but as a Disciple from a bottom-feeder sect in the Wastes, he was missing a lot of basic information. I found that the limited collection of books in my mental library was a far better guide than the teachers available to me as a simple farmer.

However, while I focused my efforts on my books and my experiments, SuYin and Bao continued taking these lessons and shared what they learned from them.

As for my experiments, knowing that blue peonies contained wood-based medicinal energy, I set up several different sections in my field to try different formations to see how various combinations of energies affected the growth of plants. These experiments proved that the herbs needed some type of energy other than just qi to grow properly, but I didn’t have any filter designs specific to medicinal energy, demonic energy, or any more exotic energy forms, so the conclusions I could reach were limited.

It was easy to grow a peony that was considered to have an efficacy of 100%. More or less, I just needed to place a seed in the ground and wait for it to blossom. However, my goal was to go beyond this. Where any normal farmer could grow a peony with 100% efficacy, an herbalist was supposed to be able to push it to 120, 130, or even 140%. I didn’t know what the theoretical limits of an herb's boosted efficacy were, but the best peony I had ever seen had an efficacy of 137%.

Of course, none of the lessons we received from the Verdant Fields Sect addressed this topic. They were more concerned with consistently achieving 100% efficacy instead of pushing beyond it.

Should I have gone to find a real teacher who could have told me how to do this? Probably. Should I have just bought the information from the System and had it shoved into my head directly? Maybe. But that wasn’t the point. I was enjoying spending some downtime farming and experimenting. It had been a long time since I had allowed myself to just relax and become absorbed in learning a new craft without worrying about schemes and deadlines.

I was learning herbalism far slower than I otherwise could have, but I was doing so with a unique approach. Other than just having fun, I was hoping that whatever I learned by studying in this way would complement what I would eventually learn from more knowledgeable sources.

Of course, I didn’t just focus on herbalism. At night, I would study Jin’s books on refining and slowly improve my skills in that as well. Wood qi wasn’t ideal for use in refining, but it was balanced. Where fire qi destroyed metal and earth qi hardened it, wood qi was more like metal qi. It affected metals evenly. It just took a lot of power to have any meaningful effect.

My schedule was simple. In the morning, I tended my flowers. In the afternoon, I trained my disciples. In the evening, I practiced refining. Like this, the days rolled by.

While I had only given SuYin and Bao peak nine-star affinities to start with, I knew that they would need more than that if they wanted to continue progressing. I considered having them learn the wood essence cultivation technique so that they could boost their affinities on their own, but learning a Peak-Earth technique with only a nine-star affinity would have been far too difficult.

I could have boosted their initial affinities to make learning to cultivate easier, but I wanted them to slowly work their way through learning more complicated techniques. I started by having them study a Low-Yellow technique, and when they mastered it, I gave them a Mid-Yellow one.

This process continued until they eventually both got stuck around the Mid-Profound level due to their lacking affinities. To fix this problem, I crafted a Rank 3 Wood Essence Gathering Formation. However, I only allowed them to use it for one hour each week. This was more than enough to slowly raise their affinities to help them master their cultivation techniques while not raising them so quickly that cultivation became effortless.

During the first couple of years, Bao’s initial knowledge and years of practice helped him learn techniques much quicker than SuYin, so he would often spend his time helping her master the basics. However, it wasn’t long before he started falling behind. When we first met, he was 22 years old, and stagnation had already set in. Because of this, he found cultivation much more difficult, and by the end of our first four years together, SuYin had far surpassed him. At that point, she became the one helping him out instead.

When SuYin turned 20, I guided both her and Bao on their breakthroughs to Martial Master. They then spent the next 8 years exploring and mastering that realm. After that, they broke through to Grandmaster. During the following four years, I trained them in everything they needed to know about the Grandmaster realm.

Bao, with his stagnated cultivation base and poor aptitude, struggled at times, but SuYin was always there to pull him up with her. I had no idea how high her talent in cultivation or herbalism was, but her blessing of a perfect memory meant that she never forgot a single word I said. After only a single practice session, she could remember everything I told her and was then able to guide herself and Bao in mastering it.

As their skills and cultivation bases grew, my own abilities grew as well. I was limited to only practicing Rank 1 herbalism because of the limits of my environment, but I gained several insights on how to grow peonies, astragalus root, and schisandra berries. Being a skilled Rank 1 herbalist after 16 years of practice was not impressive in any way, but I was having fun and was happy with whatever gains I made.

More important than my ability to grow random herbs, my experiments helped me better understand what I would need to do to create a viable ecosystem within my storage space. I had tortured peonies in nearly every way imaginable, and I did my best to understand exactly what they needed to survive and thrive.

While Bao’s cultivation base was languishing behind SuYin’s, his blessing allowed him to become an exceptional herbalist. Simply by looking at a plant, he would gain a unique understanding of its condition. When studying my experiments, he was easily able to pick out small problems and find ways to make minor changes so that the herbs would grow quicker and more vibrantly.

SuYin had the ability to memorize everything she was told, but Bao was able to go far beyond what he was told.

Unfortunately, he lacked the solid theoretical framework necessary to understand most of the information that his blessing provided him. So, while he always had ideas for how to improve my experiments, he could usually only give me vague advice, and sometimes he was entirely incapable of putting his thoughts into words.

Still, every bit of advice he could give me assisted in my endeavor to make the best Rank 1 herbs possible. While I was never able to create anything with an efficacy above 120%, by working together, we found several different methods of pushing these simple herbs to that limit.

Of course, none of these ‘special’ herbs were submitted to the sect. As far as the Verdant Fields Sect was concerned, the three of us were normal farmers with lower-than-normal success rates. I had no desire to get wrapped up in sect politics or have some elder decide that I needed to be shipped off to the Verdant Forest Sect. I was happy just spending my days tending my simple herbs.

As the years passed, my progress in herbalism might have been somewhat limited, but I did gain a rather firm understanding of Rank 1 and 2 refining. While crafting true weapons and armor would be a bit beyond me until I first learned rudimentary smithing, I was still able to perfect Jin’s method for growing specific grain patterns in low-Rank metals through the use of qi and then imbuing them with energy.

I might not be able to create a deadly Rank 2 sword, but I was more than competent enough to make a shiny Rank 2 steel ingot.

Another task I checked off my to-do list was learning about all the spirit fire seeds I now possessed. Including my Cold Mountain Fire and the Expanding Realms Fire, I now had copies of 21 different fire seeds, and each of them had different, unique functions.

To figure out what they all did without risking large-scale destruction, I decided to turn to the System.

“System, how much for an analysis ability that will give me the basics of what a fire seed is and what will happen when I supply it with energy? This only needs to work on seeds Profound-Rank and below.”

Cost 1 billion credits.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 743,954,373,487 credits remaining.

Then, I looked through my various seeds.

Cold Mountain Fire, Yellow-Rank, Elements: Earth/Water, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Granite/Water

Expanding Realms Fire, Profound-Rank, Elements: Space, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Space

Flowing Metal Fire, Yellow-Rank, Elements: Water/Metal, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Mercury

Blazing Inferno Fire, Profound-Rank, Elements: Fire, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Fire Qi

…

Red Lotus Fire, Profound-Rank, Elements: Fire/Wood, Consumes: Qi/Matter, Produces: Medicinal Fire Energy/Medicinal Wood Energy

Yellow Flood Dragon Fire, Profound-Rank, Elements: Earth/Water, Consumes: Matter, Produces: Demonic Earth Energy/Demonic Water Energy

Aside from the fact that some of these fires could produce medicinal and demonic energies, what most intrigued me were the seeds like the Blazing Inferno Fire that could consume any type of energy to produce pure fire qi. It could essentially act as a supercharged version of a qi filter, except instead of blocking unwanted energies, it would convert them into the desired form.

These flames opened up a few possibilities for providing energy and resources to my storage space as it grew, but I would need to carefully consider the implications of using them for such a purpose. Placing the seed of the Flourishing Grove Fire in my soul and allowing it to flood the space with wood qi might be beneficial in some ways, but as I had seen in my experiments on Rank 1 herbs, such an imbalance could have catastrophic consequences.

Speaking of my storage space, at the end of these 16 years, it had grown to a staggering 42 million cubic meters. It was now a sphere with a radius of over 200 meters. This was nice, but I was beginning to realize a problem. If my storage space continued to grow in this manner, it would be somewhat wasteful.

If I wanted to build a large farm or a city, I would need the largest horizontal cross-section possible, and a sphere wasn’t an efficient way to achieve this. I wanted to let the space expand a bit more first, but soon, I would have to try altering its shape.

With only a short time left until the sixteenth Su Clan blessing ceremony since the start of the loop, it was time for me to leave the sect and return to the clan, but before I did so, I needed to have one last meeting with SuYin and Bao.

Looking at my two disciples, I was proud of how far they had come.

Using the Essence Gathering Formation, they had only been able to raise their wood affinities to mid seven-star, and even with that somewhat limited affinity, they had both been able to form pristine foundations as Martial Grandmasters.

“Bao, SuYin, my time in the sect is over. I am leaving, and the two of you need to decide what you will do.”

Bao looked at SuYin and encouraged her to speak.

“Master… Where are you going? Can we go with you?”

I smiled and nodded. “I am returning to my clan to take care of a few simple matters. You may come with me if you wish, but I would recommend a different path. You have both remained farmers in this sect for a long time, but your current skills are far beyond anyone else here. Try to push yourself and see what you can achieve on your own.”

I looked around at our fields of blue flowers. “We are all Grandmasters, but we have only tackled learning Rank 1 herbalism. This sect may not be very powerful, but they should still be able to help you with the basics of Ranks 2 and 3. Why not try it out and see what you can learn? You might even get a chance to move up to the Verdant Forest Sect and become a Lord. I will visit you in a few years and see how things turn out.”

The two looked at each other silently for several moments before turning back to me.

SuYin was the first to bow her head. “Yes, Master.”

Bao followed only shortly thereafter. “Yes, Master.”

I spent a few more hours talking with them, and I handed off a few items that I felt would be helpful, but what I could give them was limited. There weren’t any storage bags in the Wastes, and carrying around the plate of an Essence Gathering Formation seemed like a quick way to end up dead.

After a final farewell, I returned to my cave and got dressed in a bright red robe that I had bought from the Blue Wind Pavilion years earlier. It was made of the finest silk and was embroidered with golden dragons. Then, I did my hair up in a traditional topknot and fixed it in place with golden adornments. Finally, I carefully shaved my face, leaving only a tidy short beard behind.

Fully prepared, I stepped out of my home and collapsed the cave I had been living in for the past sixteen years. Then, I departed.

While I wanted to teleport to my next destination directly, advancing to Peak Grandmaster had made the cost of teleportation much more expensive. Therefore, I instead took a carriage east, deep into the territory of the Rising Sun Empire.

Then, once I got close enough, I used a short-range teleport to mask my movements.

“System, teleport me to a secluded spot in Lushan City.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,590 credits. 743,954,371,897 credits remaining.

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Chapter 210 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Dressed as an important prince of a powerful nation, I strode confidently through the streets of Lushan City, capital of the Proud Mountain Kingdom, vassal to the Rising Sun Empire. Whenever anyone looked in my direction, they quickly averted their eyes and hurried away, not wanting to offend someone too far above their station.

The attention this drew was a bit of a problem. A proud prince such as I should not be seen walking around like a mere commoner, but there was nothing to be done about it. I just needed to reach my destination before my continued presence became an issue.

I was putting on this display because I didn’t want to walk into the Su Clan as Su Fang, a disgraced and escaped former disciple. I wanted to enter as someone they would take seriously from the start, someone who all the elders would have to kowtow before. By presenting myself as the descendant of a powerful clan, I would be able to apply pressure from not only myself but also from an influential unknown entity far beyond their reach.

However, I couldn’t just fabricate a brand-new identity out of whole cloth. They had truth stones, so if I walked in and said that I was the son of Sovereign Ning ZeKun, they would instantly know that it was a lie. I needed to give them a ‘truth’ that hid the truth.

To prepare for this deception, I read through dozens of books on the political landscape of the areas surrounding the Wastes that I had stashed away in my mental library at one point or another. In one of these books, I found detailed information about the Rising Sun Empire. This empire was one of the major powers that bordered the Wastes, and from past experiences, I had good reason to suspect that it was the Su Clan’s primary backer.

Importantly, this book didn’t just list the empire’s various kingdoms and cities. It also provided the names of the clans that ruled each of these places, and one of these names had caught my eye: The Fang Clan, Rulers of Proud Mountain Kingdom.

As I walked through the streets of Lushan City, I referenced a map in my mental library and was able to quickly make my way to my destination. Upon stepping inside, an older man rushed forward to greet me. He was meticulously dressed in an expertly tailored light blue hanfu with silver and gold embroidery.

“Prince Fang, welcome to the Blue Wind Pavilion. We are honored by your presence. How may I assist you today?”

I did my best to hide my shock, but I couldn’t stop myself from taking in a single sharp breath.

Based on the way he was dressed and the fact that he was a Peak Lord on the verge of ascending to Martial King, the man who greeted me had to be a high-level manager. Why was he here waiting for me? Why had he addressed me as Prince Fang? I hadn’t told anyone I was coming here, and I certainly hadn’t told anyone of my plans. It might not be a good idea to ask too many questions, but I had to know what was going on.

“You know me?”

The manager bowed his head. “Yes, Prince Fang. I received a missive regarding your arrival yesterday. I am ready to assist you in any way necessary.”

He reached into his robes, pulled out this ‘missive,’ and handed it to me.

After carefully looking at the manager, I turned my attention to the letter.

————

Manager Pang,

Tomorrow, a young man wearing a red robe with gold embroidery will enter the Pavilion shortly before noon. You are to treat him as a hidden prince of the Proud Mountain Kingdom and comply with any of his requests. Allow no one to question this identity.

If he seems suspicious of you, present him with this letter.

————

There was no signature. Instead, it was simply stamped with a red wax seal bearing the image of a stylized plum blossom. This seal radiated energy reminiscent of a high-Rank refined item.

I carefully examined the seal and then looked into my storage space where Emperor Li’s coin was resting inside of a small jade box. Comparing the two, I found that the image on the coin matched the seal perfectly.

Why was Emperor Li interfering in my dealing with the Su Clan? Or to be more precise, why was his blessing guiding him to interfere? Was it just trying to ensure that I remembered him? Was it trying to show off its power?

One possibility I had to consider was that it was trying to make me think that it was more powerful than it really was by randomly assisting me with a small task while I was still a Grandmaster to imply it could do something similar when I was an Emperor.

All I had needed to do was purchase a carriage ride to Dragon Gate City. The benefit of having Li’s assistance here was negligible. This setup might make my plans slightly easier once I arrived back in the Wastes, but there was no reason for a Sovereign-level figure to involve himself in such mundane affairs.

In any case, figuring out the psychological games that were being played here was beyond me. I might not like it, but as long as it didn’t interfere with what I needed to do, I would simply accept the help.

I returned my focus to the manager.

“I need to charter your finest carriage to take me to the Su Clan’s compound in Dragon Gate City within the Western Wastes.”

The man gave a slight bow. “Of course, Prince Fang. Please, follow me.”

While I waited for my ride to be prepared, I wanted to do a bit of shopping.

However, before doing so, I first had to take out a Rank 5 pill and sell it for a bit of cash that I could actually spend. While I had plenty of gold and spirit stones tucked away within my storage space, there was no plausible explanation for where that wealth had come from. A pill could have easily been hidden away on my person. A crate of gold? That would have been far less believable.

Waving around a Perfect Rank 5 pill might have been a bit much, but my plan was to masquerade as the prince of a powerful kingdom. Such items should be expected from one such as myself.

Using these funds, I purchased a high-quality storage bag, an assortment of high-quality furniture, and an expansive wardrobe. When Manager Pang saw what I was doing, he cleared his throat to get my attention.

“Prince Fang…”

I nodded slightly.

“Prince Fang, if I may make a few suggestions?”

I waved a hand graciously, signaling for him to continue.

With this, this manager proceeded to guide me through various areas of the store that I had never even glanced at before and introduced me to the world of luxury goods. Wine brewed from qi-infused rice, herbalist-grown tea leaves, and tea sets carved from exotic high-Rank stones. All of it was completely unnecessary, but it was all something that a powerful prince would likely carry around with him.

After over an hour of shopping, the manager led me outside to where a team of Rank 5 wind horses had been hitched to a magnificent carriage coated in a dark blue layer of enamel with golden pagodas embossed onto each door.

“Manager Pang, thank you for your assistance.”

The manager was a Peak Lord who would soon advance to Martial King, so I reached into my robe and pulled out several bottles of Rank 5 pills that he should find useful in the near future.

Upon seeing this, he attempted to frantically wave them away.

“Prince Fang, I cannot accept. I have only done what I should do.”

I reached out, grabbed his hands, and forced the bottles into them.

“And I am only doing what I should do. Your assistance has been most appreciated.”

Manager Pang quickly bowed, turned to the carriage driver, and spoke in a harsh tone.

“Ensure Prince Fang has a safe trip. Allow nothing to go wrong.”

If not for the carriage’s windows, I wouldn’t have even known that it was moving.

We quickly covered ground, and in only a couple of days, we reached the edge of the Wastes. Unfortunately, the Rank 5 beasts couldn’t take us any farther, so the driver had to change them out for a team of Rank 3 horses. After that, the speed of our travel slowed dramatically, but we still made decent time.

During this trip, I considered whether I needed to try and make my pretense of being a prince from a faraway kingdom more convincing. As far as I was concerned, arriving at the Su Clan as an unstoppable monster was more than good enough, but Emperor Li’s involvement suggested I needed to be a bit more active with my deception.

“System, how much for an item that would identify me as the crown prince of Proud Mountain Kingdom? A well-known signet ring, a crown, a jade seal… just, whatever the crown prince would normally carry around with him to prove his identity.”

Cost 2.5 billion credits.

“King-level credits? Isn’t that a bit much? Is the prince waving around a Rank 5 item like a madman?”

I could afford it, but I didn’t want to. Spending a few thousand credits here or there was meaningless, but I wasn’t going to waste several billion on a simple ruse.

“System, how much for something that a normal prince would carry to identify himself?”

Cost 2.5 million credits.

“That’s a bit better… Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 743,951,871,897 credits remaining.

A small signet ring appeared in the System’s storage space, and I pulled it out. Instead of being the refined item I had expected, it was a rather normal-looking jade ring engraved with the complex inscriptions of a formation key.

This made me wonder if there was any mischief I could get up to with the formation key of the crown prince, but I desisted. That wasn’t my mission, and I wasn’t willing to pillage a random Kingdom’s treasury for no better reason than just because I could.

I arrived in Dragon Gate City not long after the start of the new year. The Su Clan’s next blessing ceremony would be held in two weeks, and I wanted to be embedded within the clan before that happened.

Near the end of my trip, I changed out of the fancy robes of a prince and donned something far more impressive, a metallic dark blue robe made from a chromium-steel alloy. This was a Rank 3 refined robe that LiTing had made for me, and I had spent a bit of time over the last few years embroidering it with several formations made from threads of a silvery cupronickel alloy.

To the untrained eye, it would appear as if my robe was simply decorated with an elegant cloud and dragon motif. However, the lines that formed these images were twisted forms of various powerful Rank 3 formations, both offensive and defensive.

Wearing such an item would almost certainly get me marked for death anywhere in the world. Few Kings or Emperors would allow a person who could make such an item to live for fear of what they might create in the future, but as long as I remained within the Wastes, no one would be able to raise a hand against me.

When I stepped out of the carriage in front of the Su Clan’s main compound, I turned and passed the driver several bottles of Rank 3 pills to thank him for his service. If anyone questioned him, I wanted it to be clear that I was both wealthy and generous. The Su Clan needed to see me as someone who couldn’t be touched, but they also needed to see me as someone willing to spread my ample wealth around.

After sending the driver away, I turned and strode toward the gates of the Su Clan’s compound.

I had only been to the main compound once, and that was when I was executed as a traitor who had poisoned the clan’s disciples.

The compound was surrounded by tall red walls and a wide moat. A broad marble bridge allowed for easy entry into the compound, but several guards were stationed both at the gates and high atop the walls to screen anyone who tried entering without permission. While these guards were only high-level Martial Disciples and were thus unable to protect the place from any real attacks, they were more than powerful enough to keep out the riffraff.

As I walked toward the gates, the guards moved to intercept me.

I just waved a hand and pressed them to the ground with a small exertion of qi.

After that, I ignored them and continued making my way forward.

There were three gates into the compound. They all looked to lead to the same place, so without a second thought, I walked through the middle one.

On the other side, I was greeted by a rather impressive sight.

Before me was an expansive plaza tiled in dull blue bricks. Several meters in front of me, a meandering river cut through the plaza, and three bridges led across to a large area where dozens of Masters were displaying their martial prowess in duels atop small arena platforms.

Behind these combatants, looming above them, was a massive, red-painted wooden palace. It was set upon a thick, 12-meter-tall marble foundation, and its peaked roof rose another 30 meters into the sky.

I glanced around this plaza to get my bearings, but I didn’t dawdle or gawk at the sight.

After using the central bridge to cross the small river, I ignored the dueling combatants as well as the small cohort of guards that had started chasing after me.

I steadily climbed the steps of the marble base, neither rushing nor delaying my ascent, and walked inside the large open doors of the palace as if I belonged there.

The palace’s audience hall was almost entirely empty. The only item of note was the massive golden throne where one could sit and view the ongoing events in the plaza below.

Since no one was around, I stepped forward, sat down on the throne, and made myself at home.

When guards, both Disciples and Masters, charged toward the palace to evict me, I sent out a wave of qi and pressed them to the ground.

Even as a Peak Grandmaster, this shouldn’t have been so easy to do against so many opponents from so far away. The foundation of these guards was just so worthless that they couldn’t withstand even the slight amount of pressure I was able to apply.

Finally, after a full five minutes, I received a guest who was worth talking to.

A gray-haired old man charged into the throne room with a face filled with righteous fury.

“You dare!?”

I held up a finger to show off the signet ring of a prince of the Proud Mountain Kingdom.

“I am Fang Su. You may call me Prince Fang Su. Tell your patriarch that I wish to speak with him.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 211 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The elder did not immediately react to my pronouncement. As he was a Martial Grandmaster 5, I couldn’t bully him directly with my qi like I had done with the guards, and we were standing on a large marble platform, not in the middle of a forest, so as a wood cultivator, my combat potential was somewhat limited. However, they had built this palace out of wood, and I could use that to my advantage.

I held out a hand and used my qi to peel thin wooden strips from the column nearest the elder.

The old man tried to react, but his reflexes weren’t fast enough.

One strip of wood slammed into the back of his knees, and two more pressed down on his shoulders, forcing him to kneel before me. Then, I sent a few more to wrap him in place. If this were normal wood, he would have been able to break free easily, but reinforced with my qi, he wasn’t so lucky.

I smirked at him. “Much better. That is the proper way to appear before a prince.”

The elder snarled at me. “You can’t do this! How dare you attack an elder of the Su Clan?”

I sent another strip of wood to slap the man across the face.

“Do you question the might of the Rising Sun Empire? Or is it just the Proud Mountain Kingdom you look down upon? What is the Su Clan? Why should I even put it in my eye?”

“You… You…”

I dismissed the elder from my thoughts with a wave of a hand. Then, I turned to look down at the ground in the corner of the room.

“Have you seen enough?”

Another elder, a gray-haired man who looked to be in his late sixties, rose out of the floor. He was dressed far more ornately than the first and wore a mahogany brown robe with gold embroidery. His long white hair was done up in a topknot and was secured with a golden hairpin.

After fully emerging from the floor, he took a step forward and gave me a deep bow.

“Greetings, Prince Fang. I am Su TaiZu, Grand Elder of the Su Clan and the brother of its Patriarch.”

I tilted my head upward slightly in acknowledgment.

“Ah, so where is this brother of yours then?”

“He is calling for a gathering of the elders to greet you. We were not expecting your arrival, so it will take some time before everything is prepared.”

Despite my provocations, the Grand Elder showed no signs of annoyance or anger. Where the other elder had been enraged simply at the sight of me sitting on the throne, the Grand Elder didn’t seem to even care about me beating up his compatriot. This intrigued me.

After studying the old man for several long seconds, I chose to explore this potential crack in the Su Clan’s unity.

I stood from the throne and waved to the Grand Elder. “Please, follow me.”

As I walked to the front of the palace, the Grand Elder followed me without question. This made the elder who was still on his knees and being held in place by strips of wood scream in outrage.

“Grand Elder TaiZu, help me up at once! The Patriarch will hear of this!”

TaiZu didn’t even appear to hear the man. He just kept walking.

At the entrance of the palace, staying within the building’s shade while also gaining a better view of the plaza below, I took a table and two chairs out of my storage bag and placed them so as to give us the best view of our surroundings possible.

After sitting and gesturing for TaiZu to take the seat across from me, I took out a kettle and a formation plate. As I slowly made a pot of tea for us using the high-grade leaves I had recently purchased in Lushan City, TaiZu only watched with muted interest.

By offering him the seat and making him tea, I was taking on the role of host. Even though I was doing so within the Su Clan’s throne room, Su TaiZu seemed not to care about such things in the slightest.

Once the tea was ready, I poured a cup for my guest, but he waited for me to drink first, signaling that my station was above his.

With a slight nod of my head, I picked up my cup and took a sip. The tea had faint hints of a nutty aroma with fruity overtones. The qi that had been infused into the leaves as they had grown added a light sweetness to the flavor, but my lack of skill in tea preparation meant that I had allowed the leaves to steep for too long, creating a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Across from me, Su TaiZu took a sip and then swirled his cup, studying the liquid inside.

“This is good tea.” He glanced around at the table and chairs. “I must say that I am envious of your storage bag. It must make travel so much easier.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh? The Grand Elder of the Su Clan does not have one?”

The elder’s movements hitched for a moment, but I wasn’t entirely sure why. It didn’t seem like my comment offended him. A few seconds later, after a bit of consideration, he explained.

“You are not an official envoy.”

I paused to take a sip of my tea as I thought about how direct I should be.

“No.”

TaiZu nodded. “You came unannounced, brought no guards, and do not know that we have been forbidden from owning… certain items. So, if you are not an envoy, why are you here?”

The elder didn’t seem angry or suspicious, just curious.

“Isn’t that something I should discuss with your patriarch directly?”

TaiZu nodded again. “Possibly.”

As I had taken on the role of an impetuous youth, Su TaiZu was trying to play the role of an old fox and take advantage of me. If he were the first to learn of my plans, he would be the first to profit from them.

I glanced at the elder out of the corner of my eye. How much should I lead him on?

I placed my cup down on the table and faced the elder directly.

“I plan to build a new city within the Wastes, one capable of rivaling or even surpassing Dragon Gate City. Then, when the time is right, I will take the force I build there out of the Wastes and forge a new kingdom, a new empire.”

TaiZu didn’t respond to this immediately, but I could feel his skepticism. After a moment, he responded with a simple statement.

“They will try to stop you.”

I smirked. “No one can stop me.”

At this, for the first time, I sensed a trace of true disdain from the man. However, it quickly morphed back into curiosity. This rapid change in demeanor suggested his attitude was related to his cultivation technique, but I wasn’t certain of that. As the Grand Elder, he could have found it necessary to train himself to curb such reactions. Yes, my words were pompous and conceited, but until he knew if I could back them up, he was smart to not dismiss them completely.

Whether his attitude was due to cultivation madness or not, the Grand Elder was the first person in the Su Clan to impress me.

As we talked, the situation in the plaza below was rather chaotic. At first, many of the guards and cultivators had been trying to force their way up the stairs, but once they saw Taizu sitting next to me, they stopped. However, they still didn’t return to their duels. Almost everyone was just milling about, trying to decide what they were supposed to do.

I considered ordering them to return to their sparring matches so that I could study what the Su Clan was teaching these people, but that was when a young boy dressed in a formal robe that barely fit him ran up and delivered a letter to the Grand Elder.

He only gave the letter a glance before returning his focus to me.

“The Patriarch is ready to see you now. If you will please follow me?”

I raised my head slightly, stood, and collected my belongings back into my storage bag.

We didn’t need to travel far. TaiZu took me out through the back of the throne room and to a smaller building right behind it. Upon entering, I saw that it was simply another, smaller throne room where a dozen Grandmasters were waiting for us.

An older man dressed in a regal yellow and black robe sat upon a small throne and looked down at me. It seemed the Patriarch wasn’t willing to challenge my appropriation of his throne directly, but he also wasn’t willing to greet me unless he was the one sitting on it.

Without speaking, I glanced around the room and quickly assessed everyone. The Patriarch was a Peak Grandmaster, but his cultivation base wasn’t quite as solid as the Grand Elder’s. His meridians weren’t aligned with his qi flows as well as the other man’s, and his dantian showed signs of improper construction.

The others in the room were mostly low-level Grandmasters, and the only other people of note were one Grandmaster 6 and one Grandmaster 7. While these two were weaker than the Patriarch and the Grand Elder, they were also several decades younger.

As neither the Patriarch nor I was willing to speak, the Grand Elder left my side and took up a position next to the Patriarch. Then, he announced me in a voice loud enough for everyone in the small throne room to hear clearly.

“Patriarch, please allow me to present Fang Su, Prince of the Proud Mountain Kingdom.” He turned from the Patriarch and faced me. “Prince Fang, you stand before Su TaiZong, Patriarch of the Su Clan and Undisputed Ruler of the Western Wastes.”

I looked at the Patriarch and raised an eyebrow, but I did not bow my head even slightly. This caused a fraction of annoyance in the older man, but he held himself in check and took control of the situation.

“Prince Fang, how may the Su Clan assist you?”

I had to give the Patriarch credit for bravery. As far as he should be concerned, he was in a far weaker position than me. I could potentially cause a horde of highly skilled Grandmasters to descend upon his clan and utterly destroy it, but he refused to show even a hint of subservience.

“Patriarch Su, I have come to recruit members of your clan for my new… organization. I would appreciate your assistance in this endeavor.”

He narrowed his eyes at my request, and I could feel that he wanted to reject me instinctively.

“Prince Fang, as I am sure you are no doubt aware, our clan is already required to provide a large number of warriors to the imperial army. Perhaps it would be best if you took your recruiting elsewhere. I am sure there are many clans in the Wastes who would agree to send their children to fight for you.”

Looking at the surrounding Grandmasters, I saw that nearly all of them seemed to be in agreement. The notable exceptions were the Grand Elder and the Grandmaster 6 man who had looked to the Grand Elder for guidance in how to react to me. However, neither of these two spoke up in support of my proposition.

I smiled slightly at the Patriarch. “Very well, I will do as you say. It is a wise ruler who is willing to spread such rich rewards amongst those he rules. I will be sure to tell everyone that it was your beneficence that allowed them to gain such advantages over their rivals.”

Bowing my head slightly to the man, I turned and began walking out of his small throne room.

“Wait! What rewards are you talking about?”

I paused but didn’t turn back to look at him.

“I am sure they would mean nothing to one such as yourself. For any newly awakened child who wishes to follow me, I will give their clan ten Perfect Rank 1 Superior Qi Gathering Pills and one Perfect Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pill. Enough to help assist them in creating one new Martial Master for each child that enters my service.”

I heard a couple of gasps around the room at this price. While low-Rank Perfect pills were nothing special in South Gate City, and even clans in the Eight Flower Kingdom had been able to source Perfect Rank 1 pills when needed, they were not something that was easily found within the Wastes.

“I do not know how many would be willing to follow me for such a low price, but as long as the clans are willing to assist me, I will be sure to support them in return.”

I took one more step toward the exit and then turned back to the Grand Elder.

“Elder TaiZu, it was nice talking with you. I will spend the next few days in the city before journeying to see what clans in the Wastes might be interested in my meager offerings. If you have the time, I would like to talk with you further.”

Then, I left.

On my way through the large throne room, I sent a quick pulse of qi to free the elder who had been trapped in wood this entire time.

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 212 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After leaving the Su Clan, I found the nicest hotel in the immediate area and booked a room.

There were two distinct centers of influence within Dragon Gate City. The first was the area surrounding the Su Clan’s compound. The second was the area around the Blue Wind Pavilion. I considered booking a room within the Pavilion's area of influence, but that would have signaled that I truly intended to break off contact with the Su Clan. While I had threatened to work with other clans, that was, of course, not going to happen. No other clan could offer me what I needed.

My time at this inn lasted for two whole days. I hadn’t expected it to take so long, but it seemed that the Patriarch had decided to investigate me thoroughly before making another move. Since they couldn’t travel to the Proud Mountain Kingdom in anything less than a couple of weeks, I couldn’t imagine what they expected their investigation to reveal, but they would hopefully talk to the carriage driver who had brought me here. That would give them more than enough information to make the right choice.

When an envoy from the clan arrived and I opened the door to see who they had sent to treat with me, I wasn’t entirely surprised. I had shown favoritism toward the Grand Elder, but sending someone in his position out to negotiate with a junior would have been lowering his status. So instead, they sent the younger Grandmaster 6 man who had deferred to the Grand Elder in the previous meeting.

I nodded to him and opened the door fully, allowing easy entry.

“Please, come in.”

He gave a short bow and stepped inside. “Thank you, Prince Fang.”

I studied him as I guided him to the room’s sitting area. He looked to be in his mid-forties, so since he was a Grandmaster, I placed his age at somewhere around 120, but that was only a very rough estimate. He wore the same brown robes as the Grand Elder, but this man’s were much simpler and lacked any sort of embroidery. In a way, he almost looked more like a high-class servant than a noble.

Once we were seated, my guest took the initiative to introduce himself.

“Prince Fang, my name is Su Heng. I am the son of the Grand Elder. Unfortunately, he was unable to attend you today, so I was sent in his stead. After a lengthy debate within the clan, the Patriarch has decided that it is our duty to assist you with your goals, and we would like to discuss how we might best be able to do so.”

As he spoke, I could sense a faint nervousness in his posture and speech patterns.

After silently considering the situation for several moments, allowing my guest’s nerves to build even further, I pulled out a formation plate, placed it on the table between us, and activated it.

“We are now shielded from eavesdroppers. No outsiders will be able to listen in on our conversation. This might make them suspicious of you, but it will allow us to speak freely with one another, and it will help me trust what you tell me.” I gave him a sharp-eyed glare. “Let’s stop with the political speeches. Why are you here?”

Su Heng’s breath hitched. I could tell he wasn’t used to being questioned so directly, especially not by someone a quarter of his age. He would be far more used to talking around issues with flowery language.

“Prince… Fang. The clan wants access to your pills… And we want to deny them to others…”

I nodded but said nothing in response. This much was obvious, and we both knew it didn’t answer my question.

“I… My father sent me to evaluate the potential of cooperating with you… on a more personal level. He isn’t one to easily believe a person’s boasts, but he also isn’t one to immediately discount them either. He wants to know if you can do as you say.”

I gave him another moment to continue, but Su Heng fell silent.

“Very well. Then let’s begin by discussing my offer. As I understand it, the Su Clan will be inducting a new group of Disciples in the coming days. I wish to recruit any of them who are willing to follow me. The terms will be as I laid out previously. For each new Disciple that joins me, I will provide the Su Clan 11 Perfect pills. However, I won’t accept just anyone. I must personally evaluate each individual before they will be allowed to join my retinue.”

I allowed Su Heng a moment to process this before continuing.

“I will tell you this. I only desire to recruit a small handful of Disciples this year. If they prove themselves to be suitable for my needs, I would be willing to induct another group next year, and even more in the following years. This process will continue until I feel that the assembled force is sufficient.”

“I… see. And you only desire to recruit the new Disciples? Not any of the trained Masters or Grandmasters?”

There was a mix of emotions in the man’s voice, but I sensed a tinge of disappointment. Was this Su Heng looking to escape from the clan himself? I wasn’t enthusiastic about recruiting anyone from the clan’s upper echelons. I didn’t entirely discount the idea of recruiting leaders for the clan who could revive with me across the endless time loops, but I would much prefer someone who wasn’t already tainted by an existing association with the Su Clan.

“If there are any who truly desire to join me, I will consider it, but they are not who I am looking to recruit. My goal is to pull in new Disciples and mold them into what I need them to be.”

Su Heng’s head dropped, just a bit, but it was noticeable. “I understand. However, the Patriarch and the elders also want to see if there is a way for them to acquire more powerful pills. While Rank 1 pills are nice, they only help the younger generation. They thought that since you had access to Perfect Rank 2 pills, you might have access to Rank 3 pills as well.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. I had been hoping that would be the case.

“I want the Rosehill Hot Springs and its surrounding territories. I am willing to purchase the land outright for a large one-time payment, or I am willing to lease it for a small fee each year. Your elders can decide how they wish to handle this and what level of payment would be appropriate. If this is not possible, there is another location I have in mind for my training grounds, but the price I would be willing to pay is much lower.”

Su Heng stood and gave me a deep bow.

“I understand, Prince Fang. I will inform the elders of your request.”

I walked him to the door, but before leaving, he turned and offered me a warning.

“I was delayed in coming here because of disagreements within the clan on how to handle this situation. Some have thoughts of capturing you and forcing you to hand everything over to them, and others are looking to strike deals with you on the side. For now, the Patriarch is playing things safe. He has forbidden anyone from contacting you directly without his permission, and he has sent a missive to the Rising Sun Empire regarding your presence here. He plans to extract what benefits he can from you, and then, if possible, he will sell you off to them. Be careful.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”

The Su Clan took another few days to reach its final decision.

From Su Heng’s warning, I had expected them to quickly accept my purchase of the land so that they could snatch as many resources from me as possible, but they showed a bit more patience than that. While the Rosehill Hot Springs was within their ‘empire,’ the land was not directly controlled by the Su Clan, so selling it to me directly without first contacting the area’s current owner could have caused problems.

If they were certain the Rising Sun Empire would deal with me before they needed to fulfill any of their promises, they might have been willing to take that risk, but without first knowing the empire’s stance on my presence here, they were playing things rather safe.

Instead, they were only willing to agree to a short-term preliminary arrangement. I would be allowed to attend and participate in the training sessions for this year’s new Disciples. I would use this time to evaluate them. Then, at the end of this training, I would be allowed to recruit any who wished to follow me.

With this broad agreement in place, we then focused on hashing out a few important details. For example, the clan didn’t want me stealing their best talents, so I wasn’t allowed to actively recruit their elites. However, if one of those elites wanted to follow me, the clan also didn’t want to stop them from pursuing their dreams. So, if an elite requested a position in my retinue, I was allowed to accept them, but I would also have to pay a higher premium that would be determined by the prowess of the individual.

In truth, I saw this for what it was. The clan didn’t care about blocking anyone from pursuing dreams. They were just attempting to wring as much out of me as they could. That was fine with me. If they wanted me to throw a few extra worthless pills at them then I would.

The more important concession I had to make was to accept Su Heng as my attendant during my time in the clan. He would both serve as my attendant and as a spy for the elders so that they could keep track of what I was getting up to.

When he presented me with this requirement, I had to ask about it. It seemed somewhat out of place.

“The Patriarch is willing to let the Grand Elder’s son serve as my attendant? Wouldn’t he want to place one of his own people in that position?”

Su Heng smiled wryly at that. “Yes, but my father willingly gave up any claim on the pills you will be providing the clan. In return for his faction not having any access to your Perfect pills, I was allowed to be the one chosen to serve as your attendant.”

“He is willing to go so far?”

Su Heng chuckled mirthlessly. “He believes that you will either achieve greatness, in which case I may be able to bask in your reflected glory, or you will quickly burn out, in which case very little will have been lost.”

I nodded. “Very well. You may attend me. I will not stop you from doing your job, neither as my attendant nor as the clan’s spy. However, you should be aware that while you remain a spy, you will only be privy to information that I wish the clan to know. If you desire to step beyond that role in the future, we can discuss it, but I must first gain a better understanding of you. Just as you are unsure if you wish for a place in my retinue, I am unsure if I wish to offer you one.”

Su Heng gave a deep bow. “I understand, Prince Fang.”

“Good, then shall we depart? I am interested to see the quality of the Su Clan’s Disciples.”

The carriage ride up the mountain to the Su Clan’s training complex took less than an hour, and when we stepped outside, we were greeted by two older men. The first was the elder who had always been the one to test my affinities, and the second was Su YuanFei.

Both men bowed fractionally when they saw me, and Su Heng introduced them.

First, he gestured to the older man. “This is Su HuaLong, Second Elder of the Su Clan and the head of our training complex.”

Then, he gave a half bow to YuanFei. “This is Su YuanFei, eldest son and heir of the Su Clan’s Patriarch.”

I raised an eyebrow at the latter title. It was one I hadn’t heard before, and it might explain certain future events.

After that, Su Heng turned to me. “Second Elder, Young Master, may I introduce Fang Su, Prince of the Proud Mountain Kingdom.”

The Second Elder stepped forward. “Welcome, Prince Fang. We are honored by your presence. I hope you will be able to share your knowledge with us so that we may better prepare the next generation.”

I gave him a faint smile. “We will see.”

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Chapter 213 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The Second Elder led me past the large gates of the training complex and into the maze of red walls and narrow streets that I was familiar with.

I thought about taking out my journal and continuing my work of making a map of this place, but our journey ended before it really began. The courtyard I had been assigned was right next to the compound’s entrance.

The building in this courtyard was elegant but not opulent. It was a red wooden structure with small decorations in blues, whites, and other colors painted across the eaves and lintels. While the ground here was mostly paved brick, this courtyard did include a small garden with a variety of ornamental plants.

As we approached the entrance of the building, a young woman in simple dark brown robes opened the door.

The elder led me inside and gestured to the well-appointed room awaiting us. Its furniture was nothing too fancy, but everything was well constructed and carefully chosen to best suit the environment.

“Prince Fang, consider this your home while you are staying in our training compound with us. This courtyard is reserved for the use of only our most important guests.” He motioned to the young woman who opened the door for us. “This servant has been specially chosen by our head eunuch, and you can trust her to serve you well during your stay.”

After looking at everything with a discerning gaze, I returned my attention to the elder and nodded in acceptance.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Elder Su.” I turned to the young woman. “Have all of this furniture removed by the end of the day.”

Her eyes widened in shock, and not even the Second Elder was entirely sure how to react to my request.

“I… Ye… Yes, sir. Please excuse me while I make the proper arrangements.”

She gave a deep bow and scurried away.

Once she was gone, I turned back to the Second Elder. “When will the training sessions commence? I would like to be present for them from the very beginning.”

He cleared his throat and blinked to regain his composure.

“Yes… Of course… The new disciples are arriving today, and we will conduct the ceremony tomorrow morning. You are welcome to join us at that time.”

“Very good.” I nodded to the elder and YuanFei. “Elder Su, Young Master Su, it was nice to meet you. I shall retire and prepare for the trials ahead. Good day to you both.”

They didn’t seem overly happy with my quick dismissal, but there was little I wanted to say to these two. I would rather relax alone than spend even one more moment with them. However, the thought of a man who had to be nearly two centuries old still being called ‘Young Master’ made me chuckle internally. The title seemed a bit insulting, but unless his father was willing to step down, there must not be anything he could do to change it.

After those two departed, Su Heng also took his leave to prepare his own living arrangements. As my attendant, he would also need a place to stay within the training complex, and I wondered if he would get something as fancy as what they were giving me.

---------------------------------------------------

Once everyone had left, I found the house’s master suite and quickly moved all the furniture out into the hall. Then, I set up a simple privacy formation so that no one other than myself could enter the room. That done, I took out and swallowed a Shadowed Soul Pill, turning invisible and untraceable by anyone within the Wastes.

Of course, if I wanted to remain undetected, I couldn’t go around opening and closing doors, let alone the massive gates that were strewn about the training complex. So, after jumping out a window, I used a small burst of qi to propel myself to the top of the wall surrounding my courtyard.

After quickly getting my bearings, I ran along the walls and headed deeper into the compound in the direction of the tallest, most ornate buildings. I occasionally spotted a guard or two patrolling these ramparts, but unlike in the clan’s main compound, these walkways were mostly abandoned, so I was easily able to move about without needing to worry too much about stealth.

It was still the middle of the day, so I had expected the place to be rather busy, but I only saw the occasional guard or random servant doing odd jobs around the place. It seemed like this training compound didn’t get much use without any new Disciples around. Though, there was also the possibility that every building I passed held dozens of cultivators in secluded meditation. Except for martial arts, most training as a cultivator was just sitting alone in a room, after all.

Halfway to the largest building in the compound, I ran across Su Heng. He was walking quickly and purposefully, and I could see from the look on his face that he had a clear destination in mind. So, giving up on my original goal, I instead chose to follow him and see where he would take me.

While Su Heng was heading in roughly the same direction that I had been traveling, his destination was not the largest and most ornate of the courtyards. Instead, he went to the one just north of it, the second most ornate one.

After being let inside, he approached the door of the courtyard’s small mansion and announced himself before being let inside.

Even invisible, there wasn’t a good way for me to enter the building without being detected. While I might have been able to slip inside a door when no one was looking, a formation had been set up to detect anyone who tried to do that. There were solutions to such problems, but none were quick or foolproof enough for my liking. Instead, I approached a side wall and used my qi to open a small hole just large enough for me to hear what was going on inside.

The first voice I heard that was loud enough to be intelligible belonged to YuanFei.

“Heng, what can you tell me about this man? Is he really a wealthy prince?”

Su Heng’s response was stilted and awkward. “Young Master… I’m, I’m not sure. My father believes he may have a powerful backer, but he isn’t sure. He told me to be extremely cautious around Prince Fang.”

The conversation paused briefly, and I heard a few muttered curses, but it soon returned to more interesting details.

“What about my brother? Did he just send a foreign prince to me out of the goodness of his heart? I find that hard to believe.”

“Young Master… Second Young Master YuanFeng has become close with Prince Yangci of the Red Sun Kingdom. He has sent a dispatch to his allies and is waiting for them to respond before deciding how to react. Since Prince Fang only wishes to recruit our new Disciples, and since he has offered such an extravagant price for them, the Second Young Master had no choice but to accede to Prince Fang’s request and allow him access to the training grounds. I believe he is expecting Prince Yangci to deal with Prince Fang before any issues arise.”

I listened to these two talk for a few more minutes, but it was all rather boring clan intrigue. From prior knowledge, I could guess that this Prince Yangci was supposed to assist YuanFeng in claiming the position of patriarch and that this caused YuanFei to develop his ill-conceived revenge plot that would lead to the destruction of the Su Clan.

From the looks of things, Su Heng and YuanFei wanted to drag me into this mess to muddy the waters. I would play along if needed to further my own goals, but I had no interest in helping a bastard like YuanFei. I was only here to harvest a good crop of Disciples. After that, the Su Clan could deal with their family issues on their own.

Satisfied with what I had learned, I left, took out my mental journal, and worked on mapping out the rest of the compound. I would need to go back and label the courtyards later, once I learned what their intended functions were, but using the top of the walls as a reference, creating a basic outline of the entire compound wasn’t too difficult.

Once that was done, I tried to find where the new Disciples were being held, but I didn’t have any luck. The Second Elder had said that they were ‘arriving today,’ so either none had arrived yet, or they were currently being held in another nearby structure. While it would have been nice to get a read on them before they received their blessings, I didn’t consider it overly important.

As the timer on my Shadowed Soul Pill was running out, and since there was nothing else I wanted to learn, I made my way back to the guest house.

Upon my arrival, I found that all the furniture had already been removed, so I spent the next few hours decorating the place with the luxury items I had bought in Lushan City. If the Su Clan had any competent interior decorators, it would be good to have them come and arrange everything properly, but I was able to get it all looking decent enough.

With that task complete, I retired to my room to await the new day.

---------------------------------------------------

Su Heng came to find me early in the morning, and when he saw all the new furniture I had filled the place with, he seemed to be in a state of shock.

“Prince… Fang? You brought all of this with you?”

I nodded as I sat down across from him. The chairs we were using had each been crafted from a single tree which a wood cultivator had meticulously shaped into the form of a high-backed chair as it grew. This kind of craftsmanship couldn’t hold a candle to the understated elegance of the Ning Clan’s essence-infused furniture, but I doubted the people here would understand the value of such items anyway. It was far easier to understand the importance of furniture that had been made from a Rank 4 wood and had been sculpted by a Martial Lord.

Once I was seated, the servant assigned to me by the Su Clan made us tea from the leaves I had purchased at the Pavilion. After a quick check to ensure nothing had been tampered with, I took a sip before turning to discuss the topic at hand.

“Is it time?”

Su Heng, who had been looking around and gawking at everything, flinched as he was pulled back to the present.

“Wha… Ye… Yes. The blessing ceremony will begin one hour before noon. The children are being led in as we speak.”

I sat quietly in thought as I slowly sipped my tea. Once my cup was empty, I stood.

“Very good. Let’s depart.”

I didn’t wait for Su Heng and directly exited the building.

Su Heng caught up with me and tried to guide me, but I paid him little attention. Using my map of the complex, I walked straight to the large courtyard where I had undergone the blessing ceremony in the distant past.

It had been many lifetimes and many centuries since I had been forced to return there, but after identifying the residential area, with its broken-down houses and crumbling walls, I was easily able to find the courtyard where my journeys in this world had all begun.

When I entered, the only people present were a few servants who were working on finishing things up and making the place more presentable.

Some small piece of my soul compelled me to step onto the packed dirt ground, and with a little searching, I found the spot where I had first entered this world. I didn’t kneel down, that would have been too unseemly, but I did spend a few moments standing there, allowing my thoughts to drift back in time.

Suddenly, I turned to Su Heng and gave him a sharp nod of my head.

“This will work well.”

Then, I stepped forward to the small platform where YuanFei had always stood as he conducted the ceremony.

The servants had already placed seven chairs here, one group of five and one group of two.

I glanced at Su Heng for an explanation.

“These five are for the compound’s Grandmasters. These two are for us.”

I had to smirk at this deft maneuvering. If there had only been a single group of seven chairs, it would have been politically necessary to position me in the center of them, marking me as the most important person present. By separating us, YuanFei could retain his position while also not offending my sensibilities.

It was tactfully done, but should I poke the bear? I didn’t see any reason why not. I wanted to ensure the clan continued to see me as a pompous noble, after all.

I grabbed one of the two chairs that had been placed apart from the others, shoved it into my storage bag, and replaced it with an ornate throne.

With that, I sat down and waited for the festivities to begin.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 214 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

As I sat on the platform next to Su Heng, the servants finished their preparations on the ground below us. They would occasionally shoot wary glances in our direction, but since we didn’t say anything and didn’t interfere with their work, they did their best to pretend we weren’t there.

Once everything was clean and the dirt was all swept back into its proper place, the servants departed and left Su Heng and me alone. While the situation seemed to be making the man a bit nervous, I just sat calmly and flipped through a few of the cultivation techniques I had picked up in the Su Clan to study what they offered their disciples in more detail.

About an hour later, the red double doors of the courtyard opened, and a young Martial Master led a large group of children inside.

Upon seeing us, he inhaled sharply, and his eyes widened in shock, but he didn’t address us. He just carefully guided the disciples to sit on the packed earth in straight rows and columns and ensured the spacing between each child was identical.

As he worked, this Master, just like the servants before him, kept glancing at me and Su Heng, looking for any signs of unhappiness or disapproval.

I put him out of my mind and turned to my companion.

“Su Heng, I have never studied these ceremonies before, and it has been a long time since my own. What can you tell me about them?”

“This… I only know what I’ve been told.”

He began twitching as he thought through how to answer me. Su Heng seemed far too nervous for a man of his standing. He had been like this with YuanFei as well. Maybe he just wasn’t good with authority figures.

“These children have all reached sixteen years of age, so the qi in their bodies has started to awaken, and they are ready to be blessed by the Heavenly Dao. However, their bodies do not contain enough energy to connect them to that exalted entity. So, Young Master YuanFei will inject each of them with his qi to allow this connection to be made, allowing them to receive their blessings.”

I nodded at this. “What if he doesn’t do this? Will they just never be blessed?”

“You don’t kn—” He looked over at me nervously and pulled back his somewhat insulting question. “They can begin learning to cultivate now, without being blessed, and when the energy in their bodies is sufficient, the connection will form on its own. However, such a delay can result in weakened or crippled blessings.”

“Thank you for the explanation.”

Su Heng’s information mostly matched what I had been able to learn previously. The only detail he left out was that it was possible to be blessed on one’s own without first learning to cultivate. Over time, energy would slowly accumulate in a person’s body naturally, and when it was sufficient, they would receive their blessing. In rare circumstances, this could even happen before a child had an opportunity to attend a blessing ceremony, but it would never happen to anyone younger than 16.

Did Su Heng forget to include this additional information, or did he not know it? In the Wastes, with its low qi density, it was possible that such spontaneous blessings were impossible. Something to look into later. It was possible that this could mean an unusually large number of people in the Wastes had never been blessed.

After all the children were in position and kneeling on the ground, the Master who had been guiding them left. Shortly afterward, YuanFei and four other Grandmasters entered the courtyard.

YuanFei gave me a quick look of aggrievement, and his eyes landed on my throne for a little too long, but he maintained his composure.

After shooting Su Heng and me brief glances, the four Grandmasters following alongside him took their seats, and YuanFei walked to the front of the stage. After a bit of speechifying about the glory of the Su Clan, he sent out thin tendrils of qi and used them to pierce the dantian of each child.

Many of them, especially the ones in the front, showed little reaction to this process, but some of the weaker and more malnourished children showed signs of extreme pain. This could have been because of their constitution, but it also seemed like YuanFei was being a little rougher with the children who were farther away from him. Either he didn’t care, or he didn’t have the qi control necessary to properly channel his energy at such distances.

I watched the whole process closely in energy vision. Bestowing blessings had to involve an energy transfer from the Dao of some sort, and I was hoping to see hints of how that worked. However, the Heavenly and Earthly Daos were as ineffable as always. All I could see was Su YuanFei’s qi as it cycled through the body of each child and slowly dissipated.

Once his part in things was done, YuanFei backed off and took his seat with the other Grandmasters while the children below went through the process of receiving their blessings.

While I couldn’t see the energy of the Heavenly Dao crashing down upon anyone, a few of the children showed signs of its effects. While only a few showed any physical signs of being blessed, I could see thin streams of energy begin to cycle through the bodies of over half of them.

The appearance of this energy and the way it moved through their bodies reminded me of Cai XiaoYu’s and Jin ZiHan’s ‘beauty’ blessings. The energy in the bodies of these children seemed much weaker, possibly because they received a weaker blessing, but it seemed that most of these children had received some type of blessing that altered their physical bodies in some way.

I half-turned to Su Heng as I kept one eye fixed on the scene below.

“What does the Su Clan look for during these ceremonies? Are there any specific signs that the Grandmasters want to see?”

Su Heng gave a weak chuckle. “It is extremely rare for a blessing to have an immediate, visible effect. Those that do are prized, of course, but usually, there’s nothing to see. The elders are mostly just studying everyone’s reactions. Was the process smooth? Was it painful? Did the child faint? Did they show no reaction at all? That kind of thing. By studying their reactions, the elders can estimate both the strength of the blessing and the strength of the child.”

This made me fully turn and gawk at the man. Putting aside the fact that he didn’t have a way to see the various energies affecting the children below, had he not even seen that most of those ‘reactions’ were caused by YuanFei’s crude qi control? Even if Su Heng couldn’t see this, could no one in the entire clan see it?

Even if everyone in the Su Clan was as incompetent as I expected, I had a hard time accepting that no one could piece things together and figure this out. Was there truly no one in the Su Clan capable of understanding what was going on? It was possible that such people existed and just didn’t care about the blessing ceremony, but that felt unlikely. It was also possible that the Su Clan never produced anyone with enough talent to see qi well enough to understand what was happening, but that also felt unlikely.

Instead, I couldn’t help but feel that the answer was a bit more sinister than that. I already knew the Rising Sun Empire was recruiting soldiers from the Su Clan. Were they stealing away anyone competent enough to see what was going on? Was this a means to maintain the status quo? If anyone with any real skill was banished to the Rising Sun Empire, then the only ones left here would be the absolute dregs.

True or not, this reaffirmed my commitment to focusing on only new Disciples and not using memory orbs to pull in any of the older, trained members of the clan. Not only were these youths not yet fully corrupted by the clan, but there was also a greater chance for hidden gems to emerge from them.

Though, this situation did make me wonder if there was another Su Clan in the Rising Sun Empire where the recruits went after they left the Wastes. If there was, would I have a bloodline connection to it? There were possibilities in the vein, but even if true, it still seemed like a much better idea to use the children here to build my own clan from scratch.

As I mused on these topics, the children below us started to open their eyes and wake from the process of being blessed. When he decided that it was the proper time, YuanFei stood, gave a short speech, and then led the new Disciples away.

I looked at Su Heng. “What now?”

“Now, we decide who is worthy of being selected as an elite.”

---------------------------------------------------

Su Heng led me to the building that held the clan’s affinity testing orb. After first showing me around the testing room and the small library of cultivation techniques, he took me to the second floor where the four Grandmasters who had been with YuanFei were already sitting around a table and discussing the results of the blessing ceremony.

I studied these men a bit more closely than I had done outside. I didn’t recognize most of them, and I was sure I had never even seen a couple of them before, but one of the men was somewhat familiar to me. Sitting slumped in his chair and seemingly ignoring everyone else as they talked was Su YuanKong, the third son of the Patriarch and the man whose actions had led to my most recent death.

The other Grandmasters appeared to give YuanKong a slight bit of deference based on his status, but they didn’t seem overly respectful to the man himself.

Since neither Su Heng nor I planned to intervene in this discussion. We just took seats in the back of the room and observed as the group planned out their children’s futures.

A younger Grandmaster 3 man was the first to offer his opinion. “There can be no question that ShouLi is among the best of this year’s crop of Disciples. The Patriarch’s lineage has always been strong, and ShouLi showed excellent poise during the ceremony.”

The Grandmaster across from him nodded. “Of course, there is no question that ShouLi is an elite. Instead, we must consider those like DongHu. The Third Elder’s line has produced a few powerful warriors over the years, but it is far less consistent than the Patriarch’s.”

I turned and whispered to Su Heng. “This is how the decisions are made? Based on lineage? Not on their affinities or blessings?”

As Grandmasters, everyone in the room could hear me, but it was the eldest man at the table, someone nearly 300 years old, who was the most rankled by my comment. He looked at me with an annoyed expression.

“Of course we take such things into account, but it is easy enough to create a preliminary list of who to accept as elites based on their backgrounds. The Heavenly Dao bestows greatness upon those who deserve it. Knowing who is worthy is the best way to know who has the most powerful blessings.”

I bowed my head slightly to the old man, but he just huffed at me in derision before turning back to the discussion.

While I felt their methods were a bit absurd, they weren’t entirely without merit. When I observed the affinity testing process a while ago, I couldn’t help but notice that the better-dressed, wealthier children tended to have higher affinities. This only meant that they grew up in a more essence-rich environment, but that didn’t change the fact that those with the best affinities would usually come from wealthier families.

In total, the elders drafted a list of 15 names and sent it to YuanFei and the Second Elder who were waiting downstairs. Those two would then be responsible for choosing which ten would be elites and which would be castoffs.

I turned to Su Heng again. “Can we go down and observe?”

Before he could respond, the elderly man cut him off. “No! I will not allow you to interrupt the elder and the young master.”

I nodded to him graciously. I was willing to push, but I didn’t want to break off all pretense of politeness. Instead, I dropped a small seed on the ground and used a tendril of my qi to force it to grow down through the cracks in the floor.

I might not be able to observe things in person, but I could at least use this root to listen in on the conversations happening below.

The testing process took hours, and as each disciple was led in, I jotted down their name, affinity, and stated blessing into my journal. As I had noted with the last group I had studied, most of the Su Clan’s Disciples didn’t know what their blessings did, and many of those that did only had vague notions that it had improved their bodies in some way. When reports of this were passed up to the elders, they seemed extremely dismissive of such Disciples.

I had to wonder if some of those who ‘didn’t know’ what their blessings did had even been blessed at all. Had YuanFei simply failed to awaken them properly? Possible, and it was also possible that some were just lying like I had done in the past.

The biggest surprise to me was ShouLi. She had received a ‘beauty’ blessing. When this was reported to the elders, I expected them to be disappointed and dismissive, but instead, they seemed ecstatic.

“A new era of prosperity is upon us!”

At first, I was confused, but the next elder who spoke made everything clear.

“If she can marry into the Rising Sun’s imperial family, it will change the fate of our entire clan!”

I noticed a couple of the Grandmasters looked at me side-eyed, but I just wanted to snort. They might have been worried that I would try to steal their new ‘princess,’ or they might have been thinking about how they could use her to punish me for my insolence. Either way, I couldn’t care less. I was far more interested in the other Disciples. Even without the agreement I had reached with the clan earlier, I had already decided that I had no desire to chase after anyone the Su Clan had labeled as an ‘elite.’

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 215 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Once the affinity testing process was complete, YuanFei and the Second Elder came up to the second floor and sat down to join the other Grandmasters.

Not wanting to be entirely left out of the discussion, I stood, moved my chair, and joined the group around the table. This caused YuanFei and the others to narrow their eyes at me, but I just gave them a smile. I looked back to Su Heng to see if he would join us as well, but he quickly shook his head in rejection. Then, I turned to YuanFei.

After a moment of thought, YuanFei decided to ignore me and turned his attention to the Second Elder who placed ten sheets of paper on the table.

“These are our ten new elites. Does anyone have any preferences?”

The younger Grandmaster 3 man was the first to speak.

“Second Young Master YuanFeng has entrusted his daughter, ShouLi, to my care. This was true even before we learned of her blessing, but now, it is imperative that she becomes my disciple. My second consort has the skills ShouLi needs to learn if we are to have any hope of her marrying into the imperial family.”

YuanFei didn’t look happy about this, but he nodded his head. “Agreed. ShouLi must focus on learning the feminine arts. What of the others?”

The Second Elder reached out and sorted through the papers. After handing ShouLi’s to the younger man, he laid down five other sheets in the center of the table.

“These five all have martial or physical blessings and are destined to join the imperial army of the Rising Sun Empire.”

The Grandmasters around the table glanced at me to see my reaction to this statement, but I just gave them an interested nod in return. I had already said that I had no intention to steal any elites, and I didn’t plan on going back on that statement.

The Second Elder continued. “Each of you should select one Disciple from these five.”

There was a little back and forth about who got which Disciple, but none of the Grandmasters seemed to care too much. To them, a fighter was a fighter. The details were unimportant. The only thing they cared about was matching up their element with the Disciple’s where possible.

Once the five fighters were assigned, the Second Elder placed two new sheets of paper on the table.

“These two have cultivation-related blessings.”

A glance at these sheets showed that one person had a blessing for enhanced qi control and the other claimed to have a broad boost to their cultivation comprehension. I expected the elders to fight over these two, but they all seemed entirely disinterested. So, the Second Elder left these papers in the middle of the table and added a third one beside them.

“DongHu, the Third Elder’s grandson, has received a logistics-based blessing. He must be trained to join the Department of State Affairs, and he may be a candidate for elder in the future.”

There was a lot more excitement at this statement, but everyone waited to hear about the final candidate before making a decision.

“SungXue, a remote member of the main branch, has received a blessing that should help her analyze facts and events. She must be trained to enter the Ministry of Justice.”

Once the remaining four elites had been laid out before us, YuanFei chose to accept DongHu as his disciple, YuanKong chose SungXue, and the other two Grandmasters reluctantly accepted the two with cultivation blessings.

These elders were planning out the lives of children based only on which blessings they had received. They had already decided to sell off ShouLi and the five ‘fighters’ to the Rising Sun Empire, and they had chosen the career paths of both DongHu and SungXue without so much as asking the two for their opinions on the matter.

It seemed like the reason no one was enamored with cultivation blessings was simply because such a blessing didn’t immediately tell the Grandmasters which job a person should be assigned. Likely, those two would also just be shipped off to fight for the Rising Sun Empire like the others.

After the elites had all been doled out, the Second Elder moved on to the next topic.

“This was a decent year for crafters. While we still didn’t have any—” The elder caught himself and glanced at me briefly before resuming. “While we have still not found anyone capable of replacing RuDi, three Disciples reported formation-related blessings, and one Disciple reported a blessing related to each of the other three professions. None of these blessings are overly powerful, so they have all been assigned as assistants, but this should lighten the workload of our existing professionals, especially the formation specialists.”

YuanFei looked at me. “You should know that the empire has standing orders to send all exceptionally talented professionals to them for further training. Some will eventually return to the clan, but we will not know who those are until after they come back. Therefore, we cannot allow you to recruit any of these Disciples.”

I nodded politely, and the Second Elder continued.

“None of the other Disciples show much promise. Those who can complete their training will be sent to the guard corps. Anyone recruited from this group by… outside forces, will not be any loss to the clan.”

I wanted to feel dissatisfied with the way the Su Clan was just assigning careers to their children, forcing them down specific paths simply because of their blessings, but was I any better? I had pulled Bao out of the Twin Mountains Sect and sent him to the Verdant Fields Sect simply because I felt that his blessing was more suitable to herbalism than it was to alchemy. I could tell myself that I had given him a choice, but given his mental state at the time, how much of a choice had it been?

Besides, YuLong and JiaQi had gotten fighter blessings and had focused on fighting. LiTing had gotten a refiner blessing and had focused on refining. When I ran a city in the sect, I placed Meng LuYao, Jin ZiHan, and Cai XiaoYu into specific positions based on their current or past blessings. A blessing was a person’s biggest trump card, and it only seemed natural to take advantage of it.

From the clan’s perspective, forcing their children down specific paths was only taking advantage of the blessings the clan had been given.

This raised an important question: How much did a blessing define who and what a person was?

I had defined people in terms of their blessings on more than one occasion, and I couldn’t say that I was entirely wrong for doing so. LiTing was a refiner, YuLong was a fighter, and Yan was a strategist. Their blessings might have directed them down these paths, but did that matter? And, with those like Mei and Emperor Li, people who had blessings that gave them seemingly clairvoyant abilities, how could I not define them in terms of their blessings?

I didn’t have an answer yet, but as I attempted to move forward and form my own clan, I would have to decide how best to navigate this situation. I wanted to give everyone the freedom to choose who they would become without pressuring them into becoming who I thought they should be. This was especially true for sixteen-year-olds who were just coming into their newfound powers. But I also wanted to make a clan that was powerful enough that I could use it to ascend to Sovereign, Spirit, and even Ancestor.

Only time would tell if I could do both at the same time.

After leaving the meeting with the Grandmasters, I initially headed back to my guest house.

I could have gone to see exactly how the Grandmasters were planning to train the clan’s elites, but I had little desire to do so. I wasn’t planning on recruiting anyone from that group, and I saw little point in studying the clan’s inept training methods.

As I walked, I thought about what I should do over the next few months. My goal was to better understand the new Disciples before choosing which of them would best fit into my plans for my new clan. Especially this early on, blessings and affinities didn’t matter. I needed diligent students with worthy characters. The hell of the Su Clan’s training would be a trial by fire to let me understand more about them as individuals.

This first week, I expected all the normal Disciples to stay holed up in their houses in the residential area, so there wouldn’t be much for me to see. Their first big test would be when their martial arts instructor came at the end of the week. However, there was no guarantee that things would go as I expected them to.

Deciding on a new course of action, I jumped to the top of the wall and walked to the residential area in open view of anyone who was watching. Then, I constructed a small shelter atop the wall where I could sit and observe the happenings below. I camouflaged this structure slightly so that it wouldn’t stick out to the Disciples below, but I did nothing to hide my presence from the elders and Grandmasters.

After settling in, I took out a metal ingot and focused on practicing various refining techniques.

As I worked, I kept an eye out for anything interesting going on in the courtyard, but it was entirely quiet that first day. The only movement came from a few servants delivering food and the Disciples taking turns to visit the outhouse to relieve themselves.

I noticed Su Heng and a few of the other Grandmasters spying on me from a distance, but they didn’t come close or interfere with my actions.

It wasn’t until the fourth day that something interesting happened. A young, emaciated boy wearing a ragged tan robe exited his house, went to a different one, and knocked on the door. When the person inside opened it, the boy gave a deep bow.

“Hello, I’m Su Liang.”

His voice was frail, and the deep, aggressive, masculine voice that responded to him was nearly enough to knock the boy down with a single word.

“What?”

“Senior Brother, I cannot understand the scroll I was given. Can you please assist me?”

The man inside the hut didn’t even bother answering. He just slammed the door in Liang’s face.

A quick check in my journal showed that Liang had displayed no affinities and had no known blessing. It also now seemed like he had zero talent for cultivation. Even if he couldn’t read, he should have still been able to use the diagrams in his scroll to learn the basics. Even I had been able to do that much.

Liang tried three more houses, and it was only after the person inside the last one decided to rough him up and leave him lying in a heap on the ground that he gave up and crawled back home.

I considered intervening at this point, but the boy was only injured. There was no threat to his life, so I allowed things to play out naturally.

At the end of the week, the Disciples gathered for their first martial arts lesson.

The instructor who greeted them was not Deacon Xu, who had always been my instructor, but there was little that separated the two men. Both Xu and this man gave me the impression that being the instructor for the new Disciples was a job that everyone hated.

As usual, the instructor started the ‘training’ by asking if anyone wanted to volunteer for his demonstration. When no one did, he selected Su Liang. The emaciated boy with neither talent nor affinity was an easy target for this first culling.

The instructor forced him forward and started beating him to death.

None of the Disciples surrounding this scene were willing to step in and stop it, and I didn’t judge them harshly for this unwillingness, but I carefully noted down those who reveled in Liang’s pain and those who looked like they would have stopped it if they could have.

As the instructor’s finishing blow was about to land, I raised a thin root from the ground and blocked it.

I didn’t have a way to speak to him directly, and I wasn’t willing to disrupt the normal training routine any more than I had to, but I also wasn’t going to let him kill this kid.

Hidden from view so that only the instructor could see it, I waggled the root in a ‘no’ gesture and formed it into an X. This must have been enough for him, or he might have just known to be cautious when facing someone who could control roots with such power and precision from so far away. Either way, he left Liang on the ground and continued on with his lesson as normal.

After the lesson was over and everyone had returned to their houses, I jumped down from the wall and approached the crumpled form of the boy who was barely hanging on to life.

Had it been cruel of me to leave him lying there for hours while others fought around him? Yes. Had it been wrong to ensure he stayed conscious and in pain the entire time? Yes. All I can say is that I was using the situation to teach him exactly how much the Su Clan cared about his life.

Upon reaching him, I threw a Rank 1 Healing Pill into his mouth. The vital energy from this pill raged through his body and quickly repaired the damage done by the instructor. Its healing wasn’t exactly instantaneous, but in less than five minutes, his most severe injuries had vanished.

However, even after the healing was complete, Liang didn’t move. He just continued to lay there.

“You have three options. One, return to your house and pretend none of this ever happened. Take this week to train, and at the end of it, see if you can survive your next lesson. Two, I will take you out of the clan and give you more money than you’ve ever seen before. You can start a new life for yourself and forget about the past. Three, you can follow me. You must sever ties with the Su Clan and acknowledge me as your new patriarch. I will provide you with opportunities that most people can only dream of, but what comes of your life will depend on you.”

Unmoving on the ground, Liang thought through my offer. When he finally spoke, I couldn’t help but smile at his answer.

“What about my parents?”

“That will depend on your choices and theirs. I won’t help them. I will only put you in a position to help them yourself. However, I will ensure that the Su Clan doesn’t do anything underhanded to hurt them before you are able to do so.”

Mustering the energy of his repaired body, Liang crawled to his feet and kowtowed to me.

“Please, teach me, Master.”

“No. I will neither be your Master nor your Teacher. I will only provide you with an opportunity to learn on your own. I will be your Patriarch.”

Liang kowtowed once more. “Thank you, Patriarch.”

I gave a short nod of my head to accept him as the first member of my new clan, and then pulled out a Nutrition Pill and flicked it into his mouth. While there was next to zero chance that Liang had any real understanding of what joining my clan meant, he would soon find out.

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Chapter 216 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After Liang decided to join me, I didn’t hang around the new Disciple’s housing area anymore. I grabbed the boy, jumped to the top of the wall, and quickly made my way back to my guest house.

I led Liang past the ornately decorated sitting room and into an empty secondary bedroom. After taking a few pillows out of my storage bag and throwing them on the ground for us to sit on, I guided the boy to kneel across from me.

“This will be your new home for the next few weeks. You can contact the maid for any furnishings you may need after I leave. For now, we need to discuss your future.”

The whiplash of going from nearly dying to being dragged across the complex’s ramparts and tossed into a fancy house had left the boy more than a little stunned.

“Senior… Teacher… Master..?”

I held up a hand. “Patriarch.”

He ducked his head. “Patriarch… what… am I supposed to do?”

“That is your choice. I am not your Master, so I will not guide your studies. I will provide you with resources, and I will offer guidance when necessary, but I will not choose your path for you. You must do that on your own. However, I would suggest that you start by learning how to cultivate.”

“Yes… Patriarch. I… I’ve tried to learn, but I wasn’t successful. Please, teach me.”

I nodded. “First, which element do you wish to cultivate?”

“I… don’t know. I don’t have any affinities. The elder assigned me an earth qi cultivation technique.”

I wave a hand in a cutting motion.

“Don’t worry about that. Which element do you wish to cultivate?” Thinking about the essence techniques available to me, I added a slight stipulation. “You may choose any of the basic five elements: fire, earth, metal, water, or wood. You may also choose lightning, but that could be a more difficult and time-consuming path. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

None of the children in the Su Clan had shown a dominant affinity for lightning. Some of them might have had it as a hidden secondary affinity, but the lack of anyone with it as their primary affinity showed that lightning essence was much rarer here than essence of the basic elements. I planned to create an Essence Gathering Formation to raise Liang’s affinity with whatever element he chose, but the limited amount of environmental lightning essence would make that process much slower.

Liang, however, didn’t care about such things. The moment he heard that it was possible for him to cultivate lightning qi, his eyes widened in shock. He didn’t even seem to hear my warning about the difficulty of doing so.

“Patriarch, please, allow me to learn to control lightning.”

I took a deep breath. “Liang, your growth as a lightning cultivator will be much slower than if you were to cultivate one of the other elements. You should think this through carefully.”

He bowed his head. “I understand, Patriarch, but I have only ever heard legends of cultivators able to control lightning. I never thought that I could—”

“Liang. Lightning is not some mythical element. Outside of the Wastes, while it is less common than the basic elements, it is still considered ordinary. It is no more powerful than any other element.”

“I… understand Patriarch.” He seemed chastened but not dissuaded. “I still wish to learn to cultivate lightning.”

It seemed there was no point in discussing it any further with him. If the boy wanted to cultivate lightning qi, then he could cultivate lightning qi.

I reached into my storage space, pulled out a simple Low-Yellow lightning cultivation technique, and placed it on the floor between us.

“You can start by learning this technique.”

Liang's happiness at getting a chance to cultivate lightning soured.

“Mast… Patriarch. I tried to learn from the scroll the elder gave me, but I couldn’t understand it at all. Please, teach me.”

I shook my head. “No, I want you to try to learn this on your own. Focus on the diagrams and replicate what they show you. You don’t need to cultivate ‘correctly.’ Just try your best and see what you can accomplish on your own.”

This might have been the wrong way to go about teaching him, but I wanted to try it out. Liang had shown no talent with cultivation, and he seemed to lack any and all ability to understand cultivation techniques. If I pushed him to learn like this, could he develop such a talent over time?

In the past, I had talked with Meng LuYao about people’s ability to comprehend skills and knowledge. Her blessing allowed her to see how ‘talented’ a person was in various areas, and she had told me that she had never seen a person’s talent increase. However, I had been able to purchase such talent increases from the System. If I could purchase such boosts with mere credits, then there should also be a way to increase a person’s talents naturally.

I couldn’t help but think back to when I had first been learning alchemy. I spent centuries slowly mastering Rank 1 alchemy. I had to have started with no talent for it at all, but I was still able to slowly learn and improve over time. Had I really not increased my natural talent at all during that time? I found that hard to believe.

So, Liang was to be a test subject.

His success was important to me because there was no way I was going to pay for the System to increase the talents of every member of my new clan. Either I found a way to increase a person’s talents naturally, or I would have to limit myself to only recruiting those with high innate talents.

After leaving the boy to study alone, I spent my time developing a basic Lightning Essence Gathering Formation. I wasn’t going to let Liang increase his affinity too early since I wanted to see if the struggle of learning to cultivate with zero affinity would help him increase his comprehension ability, but I would need to have the formation ready for him eventually.

At the end of the second week, I returned to the residential area to watch the Disciples’ combat training.

The instructor didn’t try to kill anyone this time, but none of the Disciples’ performances stood out to me, so I didn’t bother recruiting anyone else. I needed to find a training partner for Liang, but I wasn’t willing to rush this task.

At the end of the third week, the story was much the same. The only real difference was that several of the Disciples showed signs of having begun cultivating in earnest. It would still take them a while to complete their first breakthrough, but it was evident that they were making steady progress.

Liang, on the other hand, had yet to even figure out the basics of forming the simplest qi filter or vortex. He was frustrated with his lack of progress, and from his behavior, it appeared as if he had more or less given up on learning how to cultivate. Thankfully, even if his progress with cultivation had stalled out, he was still improving in other areas.

With nothing better to do, he spent a lot of time following the instructions in a basic exercise book that I had left for him. His frame was filling out, and he no longer looked as emaciated as he once had. He now looked more like a normal, slightly underfed teenage boy.

At the end of the first month, Su Heng came to visit me.

“Prince Fang, the monthly competition between the Disciples will soon begin. Do you wish to attend?”

I nodded. I had scouted out the venue the previous day and had already made a few preparations for the event.

“Yes, and let’s bring Su Liang with us.”

When the young man in question entered the room, he was wearing the same ragged, torn-up robes that he had nearly died in. A questioning look appeared on Su Heng’s face when he saw this. YuanFei, in an attempt to earn my favor, had sent a few sets of silk robes for Liang shortly after I brought him back with him. The maid had no doubt sent word that Liang had been wearing those robes, so seeing him back in his old clothing might have been a bit confusing to Su Heng.

“Right… Yes, he may follow you… but…”

I smiled and placed a hand on Su Heng’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I know what to do.”

This reassurance only seemed to make Su Heng more nervous.

Like with the blessing ceremony, Su Heng and I arrived before anyone else.

In the center of the courtyard was a large arena used for the fights. To the south was the entrance used by the Disciples, and to the north was the entrance used by the Grandmasters. The east held the platform where the ten elites would be seated, and the west held the balcony where the Grandmasters would use to observe the fights below.

After carefully observing everything, I pulled a large wooden platform out of my storage space and positioned it along the northern edge of the fighting platform.

Su Heng’s and Liang’s eyes widened in shock at the sight of a five-meter-long, one-meter-thick platform appearing as if from nowhere. Before Su Heng could respond, I took out two dilapidated chairs made from rotten wood and placed them down on my new platform.

I pointed to the chair on the left. “Liang, you will sit there during the competition. Don’t say anything.”

“Yes… Yes, Patri—” The sight of Su Heng made him cut off his words. “Yes.”

Then, I glanced at Su Heng. “Shall we?”

Without waiting for a response, I climbed to the top of the balcony meant for the Grandmasters.

The elites slowly filed in one by one. Whenever a new person entered the courtyard, their eyes landed on Liang. The sight of him sitting there made each of them want to shout in outrage, but after seeing me and Su Heng standing on the balcony, they looked away and quietly walked to their seats. They knew enough to hold their tongues and not question the actions of a Grandmaster.

After all the elites were seated, the Grandmasters came in as a group. Upon seeing Liang, disdain flashed in their eyes, but they didn’t say anything and headed straight to the balcony. Either a servant or a guard had already informed them of what I had done, and they had chosen not to make an issue of it, at least not publicly.

Upon joining us on the balcony, it was the oldest Grandmaster who decided to confront me about what I had done.

“Is that your new disciple?”

I glanced at him dismissively. “No. Su Liang is my first recruit. I am not his master.”

The old man gritted his teeth. “You should not be interfering with our training like this.”

“I am not interfering. I simply thought that it would be educational for my recruit to witness this competition for himself.”

The old man seemed like he wanted to say more, but YuanFei put a hand on his shoulder and looked at me.

“Prince Fang, we have no issue with you recruiting Disciples like Su Liang, and we can appreciate the way you did it. However, I cannot help but notice that you placed two chairs on your new platform. I hope that this does not indicate that you plan to intercede during the competition. A Grandmaster involving himself in fights between children would cause a loss of face for all of us.”

I studied his smiling face for a long moment and then glanced at YuanKong standing beside him.

“I agree. Any Grandmaster who feels the need to involve himself in these fights is quite… unseemly.”

As there was nothing else for us to say to each other, YuanFei led his group to the side where they discussed the upcoming competition in hushed tones. After only a few more minutes, the combat instructor led in the group of roughly four dozen normal Disciples.

The clan’s Eighth Elder gave his normal speech, and when he asked if anyone would like to challenge for a position as an elite, a brutish-looking boy with thick arms and a nasty sneer on his face stepped forward.

After challenging the tenth-ranked elite, the boy was quickly slapped to the ground and started bleeding out. The Grandmasters looked at me to see if I would intervene, but I showed no reaction.

The tenth elite walked forward, delivered a killing blow, and then returned to his seat.

While I certainly didn’t agree with the clan’s position on having children kill each other like this, that boy had not been on my list of potential recruits. During the first training session where Liang had nearly died, this boy had enjoyed watching him suffer. There was no way I would consider recruiting him into my clan, so I would allow nature to take its course. Involving myself in every random killing that took place would only get in the way of my mission.

After this death, none of the other normal Disciples had any desire to fight.

The elder then allowed the elites to challenge each other. Those who had been designated as ‘fighters’ chose to take the elder up on this offer, but these five only fought amongst themselves. They didn’t challenge ShouLi or the others.

After these challenges, the elder returned to the center of the arena and looked at the normal Disciples.

“Train hard. After one month, you will return here and have another chance to challenge for a spot among the elites. If you can defeat one of them, you will truly understand that the Su Clan values talent above all else.”

It seemed the elder was trying to wrap things up, but I wasn’t quite ready for that. Empowering my legs with qi, I jumped from the balcony and joined him in the arena.

The elder wasn’t sure how to respond, and with a quick glance, YuanFei signaled him to let things play out.

I looked at the group of children below me and gestured to the seat next to Liang.

“I am here to recruit a new Disciple. If you join me, you will no longer receive any training or support from the Su Clan. They will cut ties with you, and all you will have from then on will be what you earn through your own efforts. Is anyone interested?”

Nearly everyone in the courtyard wanted to laugh at this pathetic offer, and few of the Disciples showed any desire to take me up on it. However, as soon as I finished speaking, one young man rushed forward.

“Please, accept me as your disciple.”

I considered waiting to see if anyone else would try to fight the boy for a position in my clan, but I decided against it. I would reward him for his decisiveness.

I waved to the empty chair. “Go. Join Su Liang.”

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Chapter 217 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

With the competition between the Disciples over, I returned to my courtyard with Liang and Mo, my newest recruit. I gave Mo the same rundown about severing ties with the Su Clan that I had given Liang, and he readily agreed to accept me as his new patriarch. After that, I took both boys on a tour of the house and showed them the new rooms I had prepared for them.

First, I took them to a room that contained nothing but six granite discs. Three of these discs were lined up against the left wall, and three were lined up against the right wall. These discs were roughly five centimeters thick and had a diameter of one meter. Each disc had a single word carved into the center of its face.

I looked at the boys and gestured to the discs.

“These are formation plates that will allow you to raise your affinities.” I pointed to the one with the character for lightning engraved into it. “All you need to do is sit down on that disc, and your lightning affinity will slowly increase over time.”

I had decided not to recheck their affinities. Instead, I wanted them to choose whichever element they felt suited them best without worrying about what element they should cultivate based on their initial affinities.

However, I also didn’t want them to raise their affinities too quickly. I wanted to try and force them to improve their talent for cultivation by making them struggle at every step. So, these Essence Gathering Formations were only Rank 1, and they would only be actively gathering essence while one of the boys was sitting on them. This would allow them to steadily improve their affinities within the nine-star range, but it wouldn’t let them immediately jump to an eight-star or higher.

Still, any formation that could allow them to raise their affinities was like magic to the boys. They were both more than eager to sit on their respective plates, but I had up a hand to stop them.

“You are not allowed to use this place freely. You must earn the right to come here.” I gave the boys a slightly evil grin. “Once both of you have reached Martial Disciple 2, you may both come here for one hour. After you both reach Martial Disciple 3, you will be allowed another hour. The same will be true for Martial Disciple 4 and so on.”

I looked at Mo who was already nearing the threshold of Martial Disciple 2.

“If you wish to raise your affinities as soon as possible, you will need to assist Liang in learning to cultivate. He has fallen a bit behind.”

Liang had pretty much completely given up on learning to cultivate, and I could only hope that the prospect of raising his affinities would be the incentive he needed to take it seriously once more. If not, I might have to step in personally, and that would make what I was trying to accomplish here much more difficult.

After introducing them to the ‘Affinity Hall,’ I took them to the room I had dubbed my ‘Technique Hall’ which contained only a single bookcase that held 36 different scrolls.

“This bookcase contains Rank 1 cultivation techniques for each of the nine elements. It has a Low-, Mid-, High-, and Peak-Yellow technique for each element.” I gestured to Mo. “You have already started cultivating, but you haven’t yet broken through to Martial Disciple 2. You can still expel all the energy you have gathered and switch techniques if you wish to do so. You may select a new Low-Yellow technique of any element you desire.”

Again, he was shocked by the offer and stared at the scrolls with his mouth agape.

“But… my affinity…”

I waved that away.

“As you have seen, your starting affinities are unimportant. As long as both you and Liang can reach Martial Disciple 2, you will be able to improve any affinity you wish.” I gestured to the different levels of techniques available. “However, you must start with a Low-Yellow cultivation technique. After you reach Peak Disciple, I will give you a pill to abolish your cultivation base. Then, you may choose the Mid-Yellow technique of that same element or the Low-Yellow technique of a different element. With each technique you master, you will gain more time in the Affinity Room.”

Realizing a slight error in what I said, I motioned to the techniques on the bottom rows of the bookcase.

“These are for dark, light, and wind qi. I do not currently possess a formation to help you with these affinities, but you may still find practicing them worthwhile. I would encourage you to experiment with them, but you will likely find your future with these elements quite limited.”

I wanted them to experience a range of different cultivation techniques, and this setup was intended to incentivize them to do that without me having to guide them at each step along the way. There were still a few features I wanted to add, such as making the system fully automated and assigning them variable time in the Affinity Hall based on the quality of their breakthroughs, but the current setup was good enough for a trial run.

Next, I took the boys to the last of the new rooms I had prepared for them.

“This is a basic workout room. Do not use qi to reinforce your muscles while you are in here.” I pointed to a small bookshelf. “Those are guides to basic physical conditioning. Use them to improve your body as much as you can without qi.”

I gestured to a formation plate that I had attached to a wall. “Punch that plate, and it will register the power of your strike. As your strength improves, you will earn various rewards that will allow you to grow even stronger.”

While it had become clear to me that some kind of physical blessing or body cultivation was important to the Nine Rivers Sect, I hadn’t been able to learn much about the topic. The only books I had been able to find related to physical conditioning contained nothing more than mortal-level information, and the System refused to give me the price for purchasing such information.

Aside from the Master of the Nine Rivers Sect, the only person I thought might know something was Emperor Li. However, he would be limited in what he could tell me, both by Oaths and by his blessing. In any case, if his blessing had wanted him to tell me what he knew, it likely would have already had him send me a letter with the information. Since it hadn’t, I had to assume I was on my own.

So, again, I was using Liang and Mo as test subjects. I would encourage them to do regular physical training and observe their results.

Finally, I led the boys to the room where Liang had been sleeping which now contained an extra bed.

“Mo, Liang, I want the two of you to work together and help each other succeed. Liang, you have been studying physical training. I want you to teach Mo the basics. Mo, your cultivation is more advanced than Liang's. Pull him up with you. Understood?”

They both bowed to me. “Yes, Patriarch.”

Over the next couple of weeks, the boys’ physical conditioning steadily improved, but it didn’t show any signs of abnormal, cultivation-enhanced growth. It was nothing more than what should be expected from children who were now receiving steady meals and had started to exercise regularly. When they hit new milestones on my punching machine, I rewarded them with stamina pills that allowed them to work longer and harder without tiring, but this didn’t have much of an effect on their progress.

During this time, I did provide Mo with a Nutrition Pill, but it didn’t have much of an effect. Unlike Liang, he had never had to endure prolonged malnutrition, so there was nothing for the pill to fix.

As for their cultivation bases, while Mo had been able to reach Martial Disciple 3, Liang was still languishing at the initial stage of Martial Disciple 1. Even with Mo guiding and pushing him constantly, Liang hadn’t been able to take even the first step on the path of cultivation.

I considered letting this situation continue indefinitely to see if Liang would ever be able to figure something out on his own, but that wouldn’t have been fair to either of the boys. I needed to step in and help, but I needed to do so in a way that would remain viable as my fledgling clan grew.

One option was for me to personally train Liang and Mo. Then, when the next group of Disciples joined, the boys would train them, and then that group would train the group after them. This would be like how the Yellow Orchid Academy worked. The best students of one class would become the trainers for the next.

A system like this would no doubt be needed at some point, but it had a few flaws. For example, if some talented, blessed cultivator appeared, they might be able to easily learn everything that their seniors had to teach them. After that, they would likely be ignored by their teachers like I had been at the Academy.

I wanted such students to be able to learn everything that I had to teach them without me needing to step in. After considering this problem from a few different angles, I arrived at a solution that I thought might work.

At the end of my time in the Nine Rivers Sect, Jin had given me eight dozen memory orbs. I had already used a few of them, but I still had nearly 90 blank orbs sitting around in my storage space. While I could use them to carry someone’s memories back in time with me, there might be an even more valuable way to put them to use.

In the past, Meng LuYao had told me that she had absolutely no talent for either cultivation or refining. However, after absorbing the memories from LiTing’s memory orb, she had been able to cultivate to the level of Martial Emperor and gained the skills of an Artifact King. She still wasn’t able to learn any new skills, but she was able to use those that had been contained within the memory orb.

Could I train Liang to cultivate in a similar way?

While I had never used a memory orb myself, the basic idea had been explained to me. By focusing my thoughts, I could limit exactly which memory got recorded.

I took out a blank orb and focused on the Earth Heart Mantra. This was a Low-Yellow cultivation technique, and I had recently used it during my short stint in the Su Clan in my last life, so it was relatively fresh in my mind.

With my mind focused on this technique, I sent my qi to initiate the memory transfer. Energy flowed out of me and into the orb, and I kept my thoughts on nothing but the Earth Heart Mantra.

I maintained this focus for a full minute, but I couldn’t sense any memories being copied by the orb. Since I wasn’t sure what the process was supposed to feel like, this wasn’t too surprising, but I still felt that something wasn’t right.

I cut my qi flow and watched as the final dregs of my energy were used to recrystallize the orb’s jade matrix and fix my memories into place. It looked like the orb had recorded something, but I had no idea what.

Knowing that I had to test it, I reached out with my qi once more to absorb the memories.

A stream of information traveled from the orb and entered my soul, forming a small ball of knowledge much like when I had purchased information on talisman artistry from the System. However, when I tapped into this new ball of knowledge, all I got was a jumbled mess of random emotions.

I used a soul technique to destroy this bundle of knowledge and tried absorbing the memories again, thinking that I might have done something wrong the first time, but the result was the same. Then, after sitting down and thinking for a bit, I realized the problem.

Memory orbs couldn’t store information obtained from other memory orbs. While my memories of past lives weren’t exactly the same as memory orbs, they were more alike than they were different. I couldn’t store my knowledge of the Earth Heart Mantra in a memory orb because that knowledge was all from a past life.

Following that train of thought, what I needed to do was abolish my cultivation base and start over from scratch using whatever technique I wanted to record. After cultivating from Disciple 1 to Peak Disciple with the best foundation I could manage, I would then be able to create a memory orb containing everything a cultivator needed to know about the technique I was using.

This might be what I needed to do, but there was no way I was going to do that while I was living under the Su Clan’s roof. It would leave me far too vulnerable.

Instead, I took out the copy of the Earth Heart Mantra from my mental library and carefully read through it. While I couldn’t actually cultivate it, create qi filters in my body, or open acupoints, I could simulate such things.

As I read, I practiced each step of cultivating the technique. Then, I repeated this process two more times, actively thinking about all the nuances involved, such as filter positioning and vortex angles.

The moment I completed my third read-through of the technique, I pulled out a memory orb and focused on recording my thoughts about the technique.

I felt a gentle tug on my mind as memories were pulled from my head and entered the orb. As soon as that tug ended, I cut the connection.

When I absorbed the memories from this orb, I received knowledge about how to cultivate the Earth Heart Mantra. However, it was… blurry. As Yan had once told me, memories from an orb lacked the sharpness of written words. Even having practiced the technique three times and recording my thoughts immediately afterward, some of the information was still lost in the process.

This orb should work. Liang and Mo should be able to use it to improve their cultivation skills, but that didn’t mean it was ideal. I wanted to try one more time to achieve the sharpness that my System-purchased memories of talisman artistry possessed.

I abolished the memories from my soul and then took out the technique manual once more.

However, this time, I took out a memory orb and connected to it before I started reading the manual. As I studied the technique and went through the motions of practicing it, I sent my thoughts directly into the orb as I had them. After reading through the manual only a single time, I cut my connection to the orb.

When I absorbed the memories this time, I found that they were incredibly sharp and clear. There were a few random distracting thoughts added into the mix, and I would need to work on eliminating them, but that could wait for the future.

Orb in hand, I went and found Liang and Mo.

Mo had no problem using his qi to absorb the memories, and since the Earth Heart Mantra was the technique he had already been using, he was grateful for the extra assistance.

Liang was a different story.

First, he had no qi to absorb the memories with. I had to push my own qi into his energy body like YuanFei had done during the blessing ceremony. Then, I had to manually control it, pull it out through an acupoint on Liang’s hand, and push it into the orb.

This took a bit of trial and error, but I was eventually able to get the orb to transmit the memories to Liang’s soul.

The second problem was that Liang had no desire to cultivate earth qi. He had become fixated on the idea of learning to control lightning and wanted me to make an orb with a lightning technique.

I was able to convince him to start with this earth technique and use it to learn basic cultivation, but I sensed that a seed of resentment had been planted.

To be fair, I could understand where he was coming from. I had dangled the idea of lightning cultivation in front of him, done nothing to teach him, blocked him from increasing his lightning affinity, and then forced him to learn earth cultivation. From his perspective, I could see how he might have started thinking that I was toying with him. I could understand why he would be upset, but that didn’t mean I appreciated it.

Having the first member of my new clan unhappy with me after less than two months was less than ideal, but it was fine. This was all a learning experience after all, both for him and for me.

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Chapter 218 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

By the end of the second month, both boys had seen significant improvements in their ability to cultivate.

After absorbing the knowledge I had stored in the memory orb, Mo gained a deeper understanding of the correct way to use the Earth Heart Mantra, and he was able to fix dozens of minor errors in his use of it without my guidance. This didn’t affect his rate of advancement much, so he was still only able to reach Martial Disciple 4 during this period, but there was an all-around improvement to his cultivation base that increased the purity of his qi by a large margin.

Liang’s improvements, on the other hand, were a bit more limited in scope, but they were much more significant. Absorbing the information from the orb allowed him to finally comprehend the basics of how to manipulate and cultivate qi. Since the orb didn’t contain any explicit memories of me actually cultivating the technique, putting what he learned from the orb into practice took him a bit of time, but by the end of the second month, he was able to reach Martial Disciple 2.

For this achievement, both boys were rewarded with an hour in the Affinity Room. They both eventually chose to spend this time raising their earth affinities, but while Mo had done so directly, Liang had needed convincing. He had originally wanted to spend the time raising his lightning affinity, and it was only after a passionate argument from Mo that he begrudgingly decided to go with earth as well.

Absorbing essence in this Rank 1 formation for only an hour didn’t have any noticeable effect on Mo, but it granted Liang a low nine-star earth affinity. Seeing this, I couldn’t help but feel that some type of feedback mechanism was needed to show a person’s improvements. I could easily see Mo becoming discouraged if he came here several times and didn’t see any noticeable improvements to his affinities.

In any case, while this short time in the Affinity Room didn’t have much of an effect on Mo, it had a transformative effect on Liang. Using his new affinity, Liang started rushing his cultivation as much as possible and didn’t give any thought at all to the purity of his foundation. After only a couple of days, he was already on the verge of his next breakthrough.

However, before that could happen, the three of us left our house to attend the second round of challenges between the normal and elite Disciples.

Throughout the second month, I continued to attend the combat training for the normal Disciples, and I kept a log of anyone who I felt I might want to recruit.

During this time, the instructor targeted several Disciples who hadn’t yet started to cultivate and decided to ‘remove’ them from the class. I did nothing to stop him from carrying out these ‘lessons’ as normal, but at the last moment, I would always block the killing strike. I had already let one kid die this year, and I wanted to avoid more bloodshed if possible.

Still, I wasn’t willing to recruit all of these people into my clan. Maybe I should have, but I just didn’t have the infrastructure in place to support a large number of children with zero aptitude for cultivation. I was already struggling with providing a suitable training environment for Liang and Mo. Once this three-month training camp was over, I wouldn’t even have a place for them to live, so I couldn’t help but feel that recruiting too many Disciples too early was a bad idea.

Instead, I simply saved their lives, gave them a Healing Pill and some gold, and deposited them outside the walls of the Su Clan’s compound. I don’t know what happened to them after that. Maybe I should have done more, but I didn’t owe them anything. Saving their lives was enough.

At the second month’s challenge, I set up my platform on the north side of the arena again, but this time I didn’t add any extra chairs. I only left the places for Liang and Mo.

When Grandmasters saw my recruits, they were somewhat smug and dismissive of my efforts. Liang was a Martial Disciple 2, and Mo was a Martial Disciple 4. The elites were also all only Martial Disciple 4, but with their higher affinities and better techniques, they were able to achieve much firmer foundations than either of the boys.

As for the normal Disciples, they were a mix of everything from Martial Disciple 2 to 6. The lack of any Martial Disciples 1s was a clear indication that anyone who hadn’t been able to start cultivating by this point had already been culled from the herd.

When it came time for the challenges, two boys and one girl stepped forward. They were all either Martial Disciple 5 or 6, and they were all swiftly defeated. However, this time, the elites did not immediately kill their opponents. They first looked to the balcony to see what their elders wanted them to do.

In an apparent concession to my sensibilities, none of these Disciples were killed. However, immediately following their matches, two of them were exiled. On their way out, I not only slipped them a Healing Pill and a few gold, but I also forced an Energy Expulsion Pill down their throats to forcibly clear out their wrecked cultivation bases.

After these fights, the elites then fought against each other, and I got a better sense of the level of their combat proficiency. It wasn’t great, but it was clear to me that they were spending at least as much time learning to fight as they were spending on learning to cultivate.

Once all the challenges were settled, the Grandmasters looked to see if I wanted to offer anyone a position in my retinue, but I waved them off.

The following month, the growth of my Disciples rapidly increased. Using the knowledge from the orb and the help of a single boost to his earth affinity, Mo was able to climb to Martial Disciple 7 while maintaining a solid foundation. Liang, however, had given up on any pretense of maintaining even a semblance of qi purity and rushed all the way to Martial Disciple 8.

While this wasn’t the ideal way to cultivate, Liang was actually doing what I wanted him to do. I wanted the boys to rush and experience the problems that a weak foundation would create, but watching everything unfold reinforced the notion that I needed to tie the amount of time a person was given in the Affinity Room to the purity of their cultivation.

Not with Low-Yellow techniques, though. With Low-, and even Mid-Yellow techniques I wanted them to rush, but with High- and Peak-Yellow techniques, I would want them to take their time and learn to cultivate properly.

I didn’t bother teaching them any martial skills during this time, and I didn’t even teach them to move their qi around in their energy body when attacking and defending. I wanted them to focus on the basics of cultivation. However, they both continued working on their physical conditioning in the workout room, and this included several sparring matches a week. These bouts didn’t lead to either of them becoming particularly skilled at fighting, but they did teach the boys to throw a punch.

In the third and final challenge between the normal and elite Disciples, over half a dozen normal Disciples issued a challenge against an elite, but none of them succeeded. Again, none of these normal Disciples were killed, and this time, the Grandmasters appeared to be more than happy with this result. It seemed like the clan had deemed that anyone capable of surviving this long was worth the effort of keeping around.

After that, the elites challenged each other to lock in their final rankings amongst themselves. Then, before the elder in the arena could signal the end of the competition, something happened that I didn’t expect.

Liang stood up.

“I want to issue a challenge.”

The elder in charge looked to YuanFei who nodded in agreement. Then, the elder turned to Liang.

“Who do you wish to challenge?”

Liang’s eyes roamed across the faces of the elites, evaluating them. Eventually, they landed on the one who had shown the greatest potential during the previous challenges.

Liang pointed to the other boy. “Him!”

The elite smirked and walked into the arena.

The elder gave a quick speech about fists having no eyes and began the fight.

Less than three seconds later, the fight was over, and Liang was lying on the ground, bleeding out.

Before going in for the final blow, the elite looked up to one of the Grandmasters on the balcony.

After rubbing his chin in thought, the Grandmaster looked at me, and vindictiveness swelled up within him. Then, he turned back to the elite.

The Grandmaster started to move his head to nod for the elite to end Liang’s life, but I quickly flared my qi and used a technique to control a thin vine, pointing it directly at the Grandmaster’s heart. The railing of the balcony hid this from the view of the Disciples below, but my threat was clear to all the Grandmasters.

The man who was about to sentence Liang to death froze in shock.

Next to him, YuanKong snorted at me in derision.

“You shouldn’t interfere in a fight between juniors. It is disgraceful for a Grandmaster to act in such a fashion.”

My only response was a twitch of my finger that raised another vine pointed at his heart as well.

This broke the original Grandmaster from his stupor, and he quickly shook his head to stop his disciple from killing Liang.

Once both boys were back in their seats, I relaxed my hold on my qi and allowed the vines to drop back down and rest against the balcony railing.

This caused YuanKong to shake his head in disgust. “Disgraceful.”

I wanted to kill the man, I really did, but I held myself back. Killing him would serve no purpose, and it would only make accomplishing my goals more difficult.

With Liang’s challenge settled, the elder in the arena gave a closing speech about the glory of the Su Clan and how with their training now over, it was time for everyone to work toward the betterment of the clan. As the elder spoke, I kept a close eye on the Disciples and monitored their reactions to better understand how each person felt about what they were hearing.

Once the speech was over, I jumped down onto the stage.

“I have decided to recruit three more Disciples. If you wish to join me, step forward.”

In the past, I had gotten the sense that many of the Disciples considered Liang and Mo to be only one step removed from the elites. They might not be quite as good as a true elite, but they were still getting special training and had been placed on a pedestal above the normal grunts. However, Liang’s quick defeat had disabused them of any such notion. Many of them now saw my recruits as beneath even the normal Disciples.

Because of this, no one was quick to accept my offer, but after a long moment, a tall, broad-shouldered boy stepped forward. He glanced from the clan’s elders to me and gave a deep bow.

“I am willing to join you.”

The moment he said this, one of the girls rushed forward to stand by his side.

“I’ll join you as well.”

I didn’t signal my acceptance of them immediately. I wanted to see if any others would step forward first, but when none did, I waved for them to join Mo and Liang.

While I had wanted to recruit a total of five Disciples this first year, I wasn’t upset to leave with only four. There was still a lot I needed to do to create a proper training regime, so having one less recruit to worry about wasn’t a huge loss. At any rate, I wasn’t going to force anyone to join me.

Once both of the new recruits took up positions next to Mo and Liang, I turned and moved to retake my position on the balcony. Before I could, another shout echoed out and stopped me.

“I wish to join you as well.”

I turned around and looked in the direction the voice had come from.

ShouLi had stood from her seat and was staring at me with her hand firmly balled into fists by her side.

Just as I was about to respond, one of the elders interrupted me.

“What!”

I looked back to see that it was the elder who had originally chosen her as his disciple. He continued shouting something, but I didn’t pay it any mind. Instead, I carefully studied the girl in front of me.

Like everyone else here, ShouLi was 16 years old, but her blessing-enhanced skin made her look only 13 or 14. Unlike everyone else, she had been dressed in a tight, form-fitting robe and was wearing a thin layer of makeup to further enhance her natural beauty.

As she stood before me, she swayed slightly. At first, I thought that this might be because of the psychological pressure she was under, but I soon saw faint hints of bruising peeking out from her cuffs and neckline. A glance at her feet showed that they had been broken and bound to make them smaller and more delicate.

The man behind me had continued his shouting, so I flared my qi and used a heavy wave of energy to silence him. Then, I returned my focus to ShouLi.

“Why?”

Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Because I do not wish to be sold off like chattel to some man I’ve never even seen.”

I stared at her and assessed her mental condition as best I could.

Her answer wasn’t a complete lie, but it hid a deeper truth. The decision to stand up and seek refuge with me didn’t seem to be entirely her choice.

I turned and stared at YuanFei.

His nostrils were flared, and he was glaring at the girl, putting on a decent act of being angry, but I could tell that he was elated. The only person on the balcony who showed even the slightest hint of real anger was the man who had been berating the girl. The rest of them were only showing signs of happiness and greed.

Turning back to ShouLi, I knew that accepting her into my clan would likely mean placing a snake into my new garden, but even if she had ulterior motives, I still sympathized with her situation.

In any case, even if her presence stirred up a bit of a storm, it wouldn’t necessarily be a problem. My clan would need to face challenges and tribulations to forge them into a united whole.

Making my decision, I waved for ShouLi to take a position with the others, finalizing the first group of recruits for my new clan.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 219 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

With the three-month training period complete, my next task was traveling to the Su Clan’s main compound to pay for my recruits.

After dropping Liang, Mo, and the new Disciples off at my guest house, I went to the main gate and met up with Su Heng, YuanFei, and the Second Elder. Then, the four of us got into a fancy carriage and were swiftly carried down the mountain, into Dragon City, and to the front of the main compound’s gates.

There were three gates that led into the compound, so like before, I headed directly for the large one in the middle. Halfway there, Su Heng rushed up beside me and cleared his throat to get my attention.

“Prince… Prince Fang… we cannot enter through the central gate. Only the Patriarch may enter through there. Please, we must use the side gates.”

I stopped and turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow. I hadn’t known about this rule last time and entered through the central gate without much thought. This unintentional action may have added to the Patriarch's dislike for me, but considering that I had claimed his throne as my own, I doubted he cared overmuch which gate I had used to do so.

I was here for a negotiation this time, so using the proper gate might be a good way to show the man a little respect, but it would also be a sign of weakness. If I used a different gate now, it would mean that I had ‘learned my place.’

Without saying a word, I turned and headed straight for the central gate.

Su Heng’s eyes widened in shock, but he didn’t try to persuade me any further. He just silently headed for the gate on the left while YuanFei and the Second Elder took the gate on the right.

After passing through our gates, we entered an expansive courtyard and used our respective bridges to cross the small river that ran through it. On the other side, YuanFei and the Second Elder rejoined me, but Su Heng was nervous and maintained his distance.

Without breaking my stride, I walked straight up the marble steps and entered the compound’s main palace where the Patriarch and several Grandmasters were already waiting for us. Seeing this, I couldn’t help but smirk. The Patriarch had decided that he would rather wait here for my arrival than give me the chance to occupy his throne once more.

Upon entering, my three companions gave the man a deep bow, but I just stood straight and stared at him. I could tell that his hatred for me had only grown since our last meeting, but there were no signs that he was preparing to attack me. He must have not yet gotten what he would need from the Rising Sun Empire to feel confident in doing so.

The Grand Elder, who had been standing next to the Patriarch’s throne, stepped forward.

“Prince Fang, we have received word of the Disciples you have chosen for your retinue. We have no issue with the four commoners, but you must understand that recruiting the Patriarch’s granddaughter cannot be allowed.”

I stared at the Patriarch in silence for several moments. Then, I pulled a large wooden podium out of my storage bag and placed it on the floor in front of me. After that, I took out an ornate throne and placed it on top of the podium. Finally, I walked up and took my seat on the throne, placing me at eye level with the Patriarch.

“I do not believe that there is anything that ‘cannot be allowed.’ ShouLi has requested refuge with me, and I have decided to grant it. We are not here to discuss whether such refuge is ‘allowed.’ We are here to discuss its price.”

I reached into my storage bag and pulled out a large box containing several pill bottles.

“Su Heng!” I looked at the man and motioned for him to step forward.

He did so begrudgingly. Once he was at my side, I handed him the box and then turned back to the Patriarch.

“These are the pills that we have already agreed on for the normal Disciples. 40 Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pills and 4 Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pills. Now, we need only discuss the price of ShouLi and the land around the Rosehill Hot Springs.”

The mood in the room had gone from chilly to downright freezing. No one there liked me, not even the Grand Elder who seemed to be somewhat on my side. However, none of them were willing to start a fight with me.

After confirming the contents of the box of pills, the Grand Elder cleared his throat.

“Prince Fang, as I said, we have no issue with the four commoners, but we cannot—”

I held up a hand to cut him off. “Again, we are only here to discuss price.”

I looked the Patriarch squarely in the eye. “How much?”

The Grand Elder tried to continue. “Prince Fang, ShouLi has already been promised to Crown Prince Yangci of—”

I moved my hand in a slicing motion to cut him off once more.

“Since it seems like you are unwilling to negotiate with me, then I will tell you the price. ShouLi is a moderately talented Disciple. She has the potential to become a low-level Grandmaster in the future. She is your granddaughter. You plan to sell her to some prince to purchase whatever meager support he is willing to give you. Fine. How many Grandmasters is ShouLi worth to you?”

Finally, the Patriarch couldn’t hold in his anger anymore. He gritted his teeth and shouted at me. “Prince Fang!”

I flared my qi to silence him. Then I took out a large jade box and threw it at the Patriarch’s feet.

“10 Perfect Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills. 50 Perfect Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pills. 100 Perfect Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pills. That is the price I am willing to pay for both ShouLi and the land I am taking from you.”

The Grandmasters on the ground around us were enraged by my actions, but the energy rolling off of me, the Patriarch, and the Grand Elder kept them suppressed.

The Patriarch himself, however, was not so quiet.

“How dare you?! I will not—”

The Patriarch had made one stupid mistake during this meeting that far surpassed anything else. He had chosen to sit on his throne. While his throne looked like it was made of gold, that was only gilding. In reality, it was made from a high-quality Rank 3 wood.

Using several dozen strands of qi, I seized control of the Patriarch’s chair. Before he could react, I wrapped reinforced wooden shackles around his wrists and pressed a large wooden stake pulled from the chair’s backrest against his throat.

The moment I did this, the Patriarch’s anger fled and was replaced by shock and fear. The reactions of the others in the room were mixed, but I noticed hints of glee coming from four different directions: the Grand Elder and the Patriarch’s three sons.

“I consider my purchase of your Disciples to be paid in full. I will be back in nine months, and I hope everyone will have calmed down before then.”

Without waiting for a response, I stood, turned, and exited the throne room, leaving my fancy chair behind.

After my meeting with the Su Clan, I walked to the Blue Wind Pavilion where a carriage I had previously booked was already waiting for me. Pulled by Rank 3 wind horses, it was able to make the trip back to the training compound in only a few minutes.

When I entered the guest house, all five of my recruits were standing around, wondering what they were supposed to be doing, but I didn’t pay them any heed. Instead, I moved through the house and quickly collected all my belongings, leaving the place barren and empty.

The last room I visited was the sitting room, and after gathering up the last bits of furniture, I waved to my five Disciples.

“Follow me.”

Fitting six people into a single carriage was a bit of a squeeze, and it made me wish I had booked a second one, but we were able to manage it.

With everyone on board, I signaled to the driver, and we took off for the Rosehill Hot Springs.

Sitting in the coach, I looked around at my Disciples.

“I expect Liang and Mo have explained things to everyone? I am not your Teacher, and I am not your Master. Joining me means that you are severing your ties with your old clan and recognizing me as your new patriarch. Do not expect me to directly teach you anything. I may do so if I feel that it is necessary, but my role will be to provide you with the environment and resources necessary for you to learn on your own. Do you all accept these conditions?”

Without hesitation, the three new recruits, as well as Liang and Mo, all bowed their heads.

“Yes, Patriarch.”

I nodded. “Good. Know this. These are not empty words. My intention is to create a true clan. You all are free to walk any path you wish. You can travel the world, join a sect, or do anything else you desire, but no matter what, you will remain a part of my clan.”

I looked at ShouLi and the other girl whose name I didn’t even know yet. “I will not interfere with anyone’s relationships. You are both free to love and marry whomever you choose. However, I would like you to consider finding a partner who can be brought into our clan. I would prefer it if you didn’t leave and join someone else’s. This is entirely your choice to make, but it is something I want you to consider.”

The two looked at each other hesitantly before nodding in agreement. “Yes, Patriarch.”

“Next, blessings and affinities. The Su Clan placed you each into specific roles based on your lineage, blessings, and affinities.” I looked around at the group. “I do not care about such things. Your affinities can be raised, so you are free to practice techniques of any element you desire. You can choose to use your blessings to support you, or you can ignore them. And most importantly, none of you have a lineage anymore. You are all starting fresh as the founding members of my clan. Understood?”

Liang and Mo were both quick to agree, but the others, those who had yet to experience the Essence Gathering Formations for themselves, were a bit more unsure.

“This trip will take a few hours. Use this time to think about your future. What do you want to accomplish in life? What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of support do you need from me to make that happen? I won’t freely supply you with endless resources, but I can acquire nearly anything on this continent. If you support the clan, I will support you in return.”

Four hours later, we arrived at Rosehill Village in the center of the area known as the Rosehill Hot Springs.

This was a small resort town where many noble clans from around the Wastes had built private residences. It was not considered an important area for cultivators, but it was considered a top tourist destination.

I led my group of Disciples to the miniature palace that was the Su Clan’s residence. While this area was under the direct authority of a different noble family, the Su Clan still maintained a large presence in the city.

Without so much as announcing myself, I crashed through the palace’s gates. Before anyone had time to react, I guided my group to the palace’s central courtyard where I threw down a formation plate that served as the main node for a Rank 4 defensive grand formation. The moment I injected this plate with my qi, the formation inscribed into it bloomed to life, and a powerful shield expanded outwards to cover the main palace structure.

After that, I swiftly dashed through the small palace complex and hunted down all members of the Su Clan who had taken up residence here. Any time I found someone, I grabbed them and threw them out onto the streets.

Once the place was entirely cleared out, I placed several formation nodes just inside the perimeter wall of the complex. When everything was in place and positioned correctly, I fully activated the grand formation. The primary shield around the palace’s main structure remained in place, but a secondary shield appeared and surrounded the complex as a whole.

I didn’t want Su Clan spies to know what we were doing inside, but without a strong background as an illusionist, it was hard to create a convincing deception. Therefore, instead of trying to do anything complicated, I had designed the formation to simply infuse the shield with dark qi. From the outside, the complex would now look like nothing more than a black void.

With the palace secured, I returned to my Disciples and handed them each a pill.

“Eat this.”

None of them understood what I had been doing, and they all looked a bit afraid, but they all followed my orders and ate the pills. Only a moment after they did so, they all dropped to the ground, unconscious.

This allowed me to scoop them up and shove them into my storage space without needing to worry about them learning about it too early. The space still wasn’t what I would consider ‘livable,’ but it was stocked with enough fresh air to keep the five of them alive for an extended period of time.

Finally, I consumed a Shadowed Soul Pill, slipped out of the complex, and departed Rosehill Village.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 220 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

During my time in the Verdant Fields Sect, I did a bit of research on the Wastes. As I had learned long ago, excluding the ubiquitous Blue Wind Pavilion, there were only three major powers in this part of the world: The Su Clan, The Twin Mountains Sect, and the Verdant Fields Sect. However, what came as a surprise was that the Wastes appeared to possess five special locations where children were born with higher affinities than normal.

The first was Dragon Gate City. As I had noted in previous observations, Disciples in the Su Clan tended to have unusually high earth affinities. While Disciples with seven-star affinities might not be too unusual anywhere else in the world, such affinities were notable in the Wastes, and the Su Clan was able to consistently produce at least two or three people with a seven-star earth affinity every single year.

Next were the areas surrounding the two sects. Those born around the Twin Mountains Sect had surprisingly high fire affinities, and those born around the Verdant Fields Sect tended to have better than average wood affinities. As I had seen evidence of essence harvesting during my time in the Twin Mountains Sect, this wasn’t entirely surprising, but it was notable.

The fourth location that caught my attention was the Rosehill Hot Springs. Nearly every metal cultivator in the Su Clan was born in this area. Rosehill Village was more of a high-end vacation destination than anything else, and not many children were born here, so I didn’t have a large sample size to work with, but the trend was unmistakable.

This was the reason I had initially been interested in founding my new clan there. With my formations, we might not need to be as reliant on innate affinities as other clans, but being located in a place that had an abundance of metal essence would still have clear benefits. Not only would our children be born with higher natural affinities, but our Metal Essence Gathering Formations would also be far more effective.

Centering the clan around the Rosehill Hot Springs would allow us to create a large number of refiners with minimal effort. While the outside world might fear and persecute refiners, there was little that anyone would be able to do to me or those I wanted to protect while we remained within the Wastes. With no Rulers to bother us, we could quickly become the most influential power in the region and create a domineering refiner lineage.

However, after much consideration, I eventually decided to abandon this plan.

Rosehill Hot Springs was too open. Once it was clear what I was doing. Once it became evident that I was building a clan strong enough to dominate the Wastes, I didn’t expect the Su Clan or any of the other powers with vested interests in the area to play nice with us. Building our clan in Rosehill would make us easy targets for anyone who wanted to attack us.

While I wasn’t afraid of losing my life, and while I was certain that I would be able to create a defensive formation capable of safeguarding the clan from direct attacks, I had to consider the possibility of ambushes and sneak attacks. If everyone knew where my clan was located, then it would be much more difficult for my clan members to leave and operate independently in the future. I wanted them to be able to go outside and explore the world if they wanted to.

Therefore, I chose to settle in the final of the five special locations that I had identified: Mount Jiang.

Mount Jiang was located in the middle of a large peat bog with few permanent towns or villages anywhere nearby. Instead, the area was rife with small tent cities that were little more than bandit camps.

However, what made Mount Jiang truly special was that it was well-known as an exceptional place to gather wild herbs. Dozens of high-quality Rank 2 and 3 wild herbs were harvested from the peat bog every year. This drew Master- and Grandmaster-level treasure hunters from all the surrounding areas, and this drew thieves looking to steal them.

If we centered the clan around Mount Jiang, these cultivators would function as a shield to hide us from our enemies, there would be countless opponents for our clan members to temper themselves in combat against outsiders, and our children would gain the benefits of living in a region with elevated levels of water essence.

Everyone would still need to stay within the clan’s walls in the beginning since exploring the area around Mount Jiang as a Martial Disciple was a quick way to end up dead, but once they advanced to around Martial Master 5 or so, they should be able to survive on their own as long as they were careful to not offend any powerhouses.

When compared against the Rosehill Hot Springs, Mount Jiang was the superior option by far.

To reach the Rosehill Hot Springs, we had ridden west from Dragon Gate City for four hours. If we had ridden southeasterly instead, it would have taken us roughly five hours to reach Mount Jiang. That meant I was about nine hours away from my final destination. However, that would only have been true if I were planning to ride in a carriage pulled by Rank 3 wind horses. Alone and on foot, it would take me far longer to reach my destination.

I could have chartered another carriage to take me there, but the entire point of coming to Rosehill Hot Springs in the first place was to hide the location of my base from not only the Su Clan but also from all the other powers who were keeping an eye on the Wastes. Using the System to change my appearance might have been enough to hide my tracks, but I felt that any carriage being charted from Rosehill to Mount Jiang immediately after what I did to the Su Clan’s palace would be suspicious.

I considered purchasing a teleport from the System, but the price of teleportation as a Grandmaster was a bit high. While it was still well within my current means, it was a bit more than what I was willing to casually spend without good cause.

Left with no other option, I focused my qi into my legs and started running.

Where possible, I used techniques to speed my passage, but unfortunately, wood qi wasn’t known for having exceptional movement techniques. The ones I had were mainly focused on helping me move through forested areas a bit faster and stealthier than normal.

So instead of relying on techniques, I relied on pills.

Restoration Pills and Stamina Pills kept me energized, and Swift Movement Pills sped me on my way. I didn’t have many of these Swift Movement Pills since they required rare wind-based herbs to concoct, and their effects only lasted for a few brief hours, but using them allowed me to make the journey to Mount Jiang in only two and a half days.

Mount Jiang was a lonely mountain that appeared to be formed from a single dark blue stone. Little vegetation grew on its steep slopes, but its crown was a jagged plateau that held a small copse of thin, scraggly trees.

Around the base of the mountain were large mounds of peat covered in thick vegetation and dense forests. These peat mounds were in turn surrounded by a large, shallow lake. The banks of the lake were formed from more mounds of peat covered in trees and grasses.

To avoid destroying a natural ecosystem that was known for producing high-quality Rank 3 herbs, no structures had been built anywhere in the vicinity of Mount Jiang. There were a few scattered encampments in the area, but the closest village was several miles away.

The quality of the herbs that grew here was a product of both the energies present in the environment and the high quality of the peat that they grew in. As such, while there were always many Masters and Grandmasters roaming the area, few if any would ever venture to the peak of Mount Jiang. The ground there was far too rocky to grow quality plants, so there was simply never any reason to go up there. This made it the perfect place to establish my clan.

Wearing cheap robes allowed me to not stand out as I moved about the area, but after crossing the lake and approaching the base of the mountain, I found a secluded spot and consumed a Shadowed Soul Pill to disappear from sight. Then, I made my way up the mountain.

Mount Jiang didn’t have any ‘slopes.’ Instead, the sides of the mountain were composed of nothing but a series of near-vertical cliff faces. If I were an earth cultivator, this wouldn’t have posed much of a challenge. I could have shaped the rock of the mountain into a stairway and simply walked up the mountain. However, as a wood cultivator, the only techniques I had that could have helped me climb the mountain would have been far too noticeable.

So instead, I harnessed my Grandmaster-level qi to empower my legs and simply leap to ledges two dozen meters or more above me. There were still a few spots where I needed to slowly pull myself up the mountain one arm's length at a time, but by empowering my arms with qi, I was able to make short work of this.

When I finally reached the wide plateau that was the top of the mountain, I was greeted by both an amazing view of the surrounding landscape and the slightly elevated qi levels present at higher altitudes.

This location provided me with a sense of security and seclusion that had not been present in the Rosehill Hot Springs. However, as soon as we started constructing a large building complex up here, we would quickly attract unwanted attention.

To stop this from becoming a problem, I needed to establish a defensive grand formation. It needed to be able to protect us from any number of Masters and Grandmasters, but it also needed to project an illusion to prevent anyone from even knowing we were up here in the first place.

Making a decent defensive formation wouldn’t have been any problem for me. The blueschist of the mountain was more than good enough to serve as the base for a Rank 3 formation, and by strategically placing a few nodes made from high-grade stone, I would easily be able to create a solid Rank 4 shielding formation. However, I didn’t have anywhere near the skill level required to create a convincing illusion.

I might be able to create a good enough illusion to fool some people, but there was no way I would be able to create one good enough to fool every single Grandmaster who visited this place. We needed a formation beyond my abilities, and there was only one easy way to acquire it without anyone knowing about it.

“System, I would like to purchase a grand formation. It needs to cover this entire mountain, and it needs to be composed solely of formation plates and nodes that can be deactivated, removed, and then later placed back into position and reactivated. I want it to be a Rank 4 formation that no number of cultivators below the level of Martial Lord would be able to damage in the slightest without specialized blessings.

“It needs to be a combination defensive and illusion formation that is designed in such a way that anyone without an appropriate formation key will continue to see the mountain as it stands today. When a cultivator approaches the mountain, no matter how close they get, even if they are touching it, I want them to see the mountain as it stands right now. Any structures we build on top of it need to be completely hidden from anyone without an appropriate formation key.”

After that, I detailed exactly how I wanted the formation keys to work. I wanted the formation to have different access levels for different members of the clan so that certain areas would be accessible to everyone, and certain areas would only be accessible to the clan elders or the like. I also wanted a series of safeguards put in place so that we wouldn’t need to worry about these formation keys being lost or stolen.

“Finally, it should have at least a limited life-saving function. If the formation detects that someone is severely injured or at risk of death, it should put an emergency shield around them to protect them until they can be saved. This only needs to be as effective as what might be expected from similar formations in other sects on the continent.

“How much would something like this cost?”

Calculating… Cost 700 million credits.

The cost was a bit high from a Rank 4 formation, but not exorbitantly so, and I would much rather spend credits than spend the time that would be needed to design and construct such a formation myself.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 743,251,871,897 credits remaining.

The plateau that formed the crown of Mount Jiang was somewhat jagged, with the western edge rising 20 or 30 meters above the rest of the peak. Following my guidance, the System created the main node of the formation on top of this outcropping. This was where I planned to build my home, and placing the main node inside it would ensure the node’s protection.

Scanning the rest of the mountain, I found several additional formation nodes had appeared at regular intervals around both the crown of the mountain and its base. Even if over half of these were somehow destroyed, the formation should remain functional.

I took out the jade token that had appeared in my System storage and attached it to my waist. This was a master key that gave me complete control over the formation. After much thought, I had chosen to have the System inscribe it with the character for ‘Ancestor’ since while this token would always remain with me, I wouldn’t necessarily want to remain the Patriarch of the clan in the future.

After spending a solid two hours appraising the formation, I took out five blank jade tokens and placed them on top of the main formation node. An instant later, the character for ‘outer’ appeared on them. For now, these badges would grant full access to anywhere on the mountain except the areas immediately surrounding the formation nodes. That would change in the future, but until the clan was more established, there was little reason to set up any protected areas.

With everything in place, I took my five Disciples out of my storage space and placed them down on the ground in front of me. Starting with Liang, I drew a drop of blood from each Disciple and smeared it onto a jade token, binding the token to the Disciple and preventing the token from working as a formation key for anyone else.

Then, I placed a pill into each of their mouths and sent a surge of qi into their bodies to wake them all up at the same time.

As they sat up, their eyes roamed around the open landscape surrounding us. When they had fallen unconscious, they had been in the middle of a prosperous resort town, and now they were on top of a mountain in the middle of the wilderness.

I could tell they wanted to ask what had happened, but I didn’t give them the chance. Once everyone was awake and on their feet, I clapped my hands to get their attention.

“Welcome to your new home. This is where we will build our clan. It’s time for you all to get to work.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 221 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

I looked around at my group of disoriented, disheveled Disciples.

“First, look at the jade tokens in your hands. Those are your new identity badges. They mark you as members of my new clan. Attach them to your waist and make sure you wear them at all times. If you lose them or forget them somewhere, you will no longer be protected from the effects of the defensive formation around this mountain.”

They did as I asked, but I could see that only ShouLi really understood the importance of such things.

“This mountain will be our new home. While you are here, you will be protected, and no outsiders will be able to harm you in any way. However, you should notclimb down the mountain until after you ascend to Martial Master. The territory around us is swarming with dangerous cultivators, and right now, I am the only one who can protect you.”

I gave them meaningful looks to try and impress upon them the importance of this statement, but I didn’t expect it to be much of a real problem. To descend the mountain, they would have to climb down a series of sheer cliff faces. By the time they were able to accomplish that, they would be strong enough to defend themselves from most of the people who would randomly decide to cause them trouble.

“This mountaintop will be our home for the foreseeable future. As you can no doubt see, we are starting a new settlement from scratch. There are no buildings for us to live in, and there is no infrastructure in place to take care of us. We must construct everything ourselves. So, your first task is to build yourself a house.”

Reaching into my storage space, I pulled out dozens of large granite boulders that I had collected during my run from Rosehill.

“You are all currently cultivating earth qi, but this mountain is composed entirely of blueschist. You will not be able to do much with it until you are Martial Masters, and it won’t be easy to work with until you are Grandmasters. So, leave the mountain as it is and use this granite to build your houses.”

They all stared at me in shock.

Mo worked his jaw and tried to say something. “Patriarch…”

I pulled five copies of a basic earth-moving technique from my storage space and handed one to each of them.

“That will teach you what you need to know to do the job.” I pointed to the small plateau I had claimed for myself. “My house will be there, on the west side of the mountain. You should each look for a suitable location on the east side. Build your houses, and once you’re finished, come find me. I will evaluate your work and reward you with time in the Affinity Room based on its quality. The better the house you construct, the more time you will receive.”

I intended to leave my instructions at that, but ShouLi raised a hand to stop me.

“Patriarch, how will you evaluate our work? What qualifies as ‘good?’”

I blinked at her in thought. The question made me realize that I was doing to them exactly what the leaders of the Nine Rivers Sect had done to me. I was giving them a somewhat nebulous task and not telling them anything about how they would be evaluated.

Part of me wanted to shrug off the question and force them to try and guess what might appeal to me. I could see value in doing this as it might lead to them being more creative in their approach to the problem. However, a larger part of me wanted to reward ShouLi for asking the question by giving her a real answer. I just had to figure out what it was first.

This was a rather simple task, and I was mainly interested in helping them gain practical experience with using earth qi for something other than fighting.

“You will be graded on two factors. The first is the quality of the building itself. Is it sturdy? Are the walls straight? Does the roof leak? Is it a pleasing place to live? You don’t have to make it beautiful, but spending time on aesthetics will improve your score. You only need to build a single room, but you can make a large multistory complex if you so desire. The grander the building you construct, the higher my evaluation of it will be. There is no hard upper limit.”

I looked around to see if this explanation was sufficient for everyone. I wasn’t going to give them a complex breakdown of specific point values for different features or anything like that, but I wanted them to understand a bit of what I was looking for.

Satisfied with their apparent understanding, I continued.

“The second factor in my evaluation will be the level of skill with earth qi that you demonstrate during the construction process.” I used a thread of qi to cut a rectangular brick from one of the granite boulders and then carved it to have perfectly flat sides and nice, sharp corners. “How you demonstrate this proficiency is up to you. It can be through the precision of your cuts, or it can be by adding small accents throughout the entire house. Importantly, I will consider using a variety of skills to be more valuable than using the same one multiple times.”

Explanation complete, I turned to leave, but as I did, Liang shouted to stop me.

“Patriarch, what about my parents?”

I halted and turned back to face him. “I do not expect the Su Clan to do anything to your families in the short term. That would only be signing their own death warrants. However, you are right that your families need to be informed of your presence here. If you give me their names and locations, I will go and meet with them while you are all busy building your houses. I will also provide them with certain defensive measures so that they remain safe until you have the power to protect them yourselves.”

Everyone except ShouLi gave me a quick rundown on their family’s information and I noted it down in my journal. ShouLi was slightly worried about what her presence here would mean for her mother, but she did not ask me to provide her with any additional protection.

After handing out a few fasting pills and other essential supplies, I took my leave and departed Mount Jiang. I was a bit worried about leaving them alone, but I didn’t have a choice. There were several tasks I needed to take care of as soon as possible.

As Liang pointed out, I needed to visit everyone’s family and put some basic protections in place in case the Su Clan decided to target them. The Su Clan would gain absolutely nothing from such a provocation and would only incur my wrath, but there were more than enough crazies in the Su Clan that I couldn’t rule it out.

Aside from this, I also needed to gather a large number of basic supplies like food, lumber, and simple furnishings. I should have taken care of this during my months and years of preparation, but if we had stayed in Rosehill as I had originally intended, such supplies wouldn’t have been necessary.

I maybe should have done all this with everyone safe and unconscious in my storage space, but I didn’t want to keep them in that state any longer than necessary. In any case, with the sect-protection formation I had purchased in place, everyone should be relatively safe.

Still, I would do my best to hurry.

The boy and girl who joined me along with ShouLi were named Su GuiMing and Su GuiAi. They were twins whose parents lived in Dragon Gate City. Since that was also where Mo’s family lived, it was my first destination.

Along the way, I stopped by a few small villages and bought an assortment of supplies that I thought we might need, such as lumber, rice, and metal. The people who lived in these places didn’t have much to spare, but they were more than happy to sell what they did have to earn a bit of extra silver.

After reaching Dragon Gate City, I went directly to the city’s largest bakery which was located near the Su Clan’s main compound to find GuiMing and GuiAi’s parents. As this was a large commercial bakery that primarily shipped goods to restaurants around the city, my presence in the building filled with busy workers was a bit out of place. However, since I had donned a set of richly colored robes before entering the city, I was seen as a wealthy noble, so a well-dressed older man quickly ran up and bowed to me not long after I arrived.

“Hello, sir. What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for Su LianFu and Ma XinYi.”

His eyes darted around the room a bit before settling on two workers covered in a light dusting of flour.

“They are here, sir. May I ask what you need of them?”

“I just need to have a short talk with them.” I took out a few gold coins and pressed them into the man’s palm. “Alone.”

He smiled at me. “Of course, sir. Of course. Right this way.”

The manager took me to a small side room, and after I was seated, he left and gathered up the two people he had glanced at previously. After the manager left, the two of them sat down across from me and I examined them closely. While Su LianFu was a Martial Disciple 6, his wife, Ma XinYi, had never cultivated before.

“Hello, Mr. Su, Mrs. Ma. I am here to talk to you about your children, GuiMing and GuiAi.”

Their eyes widened in shock and Ma XinYi was quick to respond.

“What’s happened to them?”

“Nothing. They are quite well. They are currently learning to cultivate in my private compound. It might be some time before they can come here to visit you, but you do not need to worry about their safety.”

“But…”

Su LianFu placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder to calm her down and then looked at me.

“Mister…?”

“Fang.”

“Mister Fang.” He reached into a pocket, pulled out two gold coins, and slid them to me. “Two days ago, someone from the clan came by and gave us these coins. He didn’t tell us much. He only said the money was a reward for having good children. He also encouraged us to have more in the future.”

As he talked, I noticed a trace of bitterness in his words.

“Mister Fang, please, give this money to GuiMing and GuiAi. We don’t need it.”

I looked from the money and back up to the man. He seemed… solid. Life might not have always been kind to him, but from this short interaction, he seemed honest, and the calluses on his hands showed that he was hard-working.

I slid the coins back to him.

“Do not worry. Your children have no need for money. They are safe, and I will take good care of them. However…” I studied the pair and thought a bit about the situation on the mountain. “Mr. Su, Mrs. Ma, I would like to make you an offer. My… organization is new, and I need people. If you are interested, I would like to hire the two of you. It would mean moving to a new city, and there will be challenges along the way, but it would allow you to spend more time with your children.”

They both hesitated at this, and Ma XinYi looked to her husband for his thoughts.

“We… don’t have many skills. What would you need us to do?”

I smiled at him. “I need bakers. Bakers, cobblers, weavers, and everything else. I am mainly offering this position to you because of your children, but if you know any other trustworthy individuals, I can consider hiring them as well.”

“Mister Fang…”

I held up a hand. “Not right now. We are still establishing ourselves at the moment. For now, just think about my offer. I’ll be back here in one year, and you can give me your answer then. If you do decide to join us, prepare a list of anything that might be required for your ideal bakery, okay?”

“Ye… Yes…”

With that settled, I handed each of them a stone pendant that contained a Rank 3 defensive formation. If they were ever in danger, they could activate the pendant, and it would keep them safe for a short period. I also handed over a plate inscribed with a small defensive formation that they could place in their home for more long-term protection. I would still need to keep an eye out to make sure they weren’t targeted by anyone, but with these items, their lives shouldn’t be in too much danger.

In truth, these formations felt a bit unnecessary at this point. From what they had told me, it sounded like the Su Clan had firmly decided not to persecute the families of the children I selected. Instead, they were rewarding these families and even encouraging them to have more children.

This indicated the clan might be trying to form a long-term trade deal with me.

I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that. It was one thing for me to pay them when recruiting their Disciples, but for the Su Clan to breed children just so that they could be sold off as chattel? It felt… wrong. Was I going about recruiting people in the wrong way?

Still, as long as nothing was done through force, it should be fine, right?

After leaving the bakery, I went and found Mo’s father. He was a small-time official who gave me a greasy feeling when I talked with him, so I didn’t offer him a position in my clan. Instead, I just handed him a pendant and moved on.

Next, I visited the Blue Wind Pavilion and purchased a Rank 3 wind horse. It was well-trained, so I didn’t need to be a beast tamer to control it, and it would let me get around quite a bit quicker in the future.

Finally, I rode north to the small village where Liang’s parents lived. They were simple farmers, and after I explained things to them, I gave them pendants and set up a defensive formation around their house. I would have liked to offer them a position in the clan, but I held off. Building a bakery was one thing, but it would take time before we would be ready for large-scale farming operations.

With all the families informed of their children’s situation, I visited a few small towns and villages to purchase a variety of additional supplies and then returned to Mount Jiang.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 222 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

When I had left five young cultivators with poor foundations alone on top of a mountain for five days, I had known that there would likely be problems. The group might not mesh together well, and there might be arguments. With cultivation techniques in the mix, there might even be fights. However, based on who I had chosen to join me and the protections I had put in place, I didn’t expect anything to get too far out of hand.

When I returned to Mount Jiang and found Liang’s broken and unconscious body lying on one of the lower cliffs of the mountain, I had to admit that things had gone a bit beyond my expectations.

Upon reaching him, I popped a Rank 2 Healing Pill in his mouth and shoved him into my storage space. After climbing up to the plateau on top of the mountain, I took him out and carried him over to the area where everyone had been building their new houses.

These houses were in various stages of construction, but I didn’t waste time appraising them. I just walked to the rough center of the construction zone and started shouting.

“Get out here! Now!”

Only a moment after my call, three young cultivators rushed out to greet me.

“Where’s GuiMing?”

My tone was as frosty as I could make it, and they all backed up a step at my words.

Under the pressure of my presence, his sister, GuiAi, could only shakily raise a finger and point to the house that she had just exited.

I walked over, looked inside, and found the boy lying half-dead on the ground. I pushed a pill into his mouth and carried him back to the rest of the group.

Then, I took out a chair, sat down, and waited for both boys to regain consciousness.

GuiMing was the first to come around. When he sat up and tried to ask a question, his sister silenced him and pointed in my direction. He lowered his head to me and slowly stood up on shaky legs.

A couple of minutes later, Liang regained consciousness, and Mo pulled him to his feet.

When Liang saw me, he did not bow or lower his head at all. He just gave me a disdainful sneer.

I looked around at everyone and studied their reactions.

“Explain.”

My command was simple, but from the faces that greeted me, I could see that none of them wanted to be the first to speak.

Finally, it was ShouLi who stepped forward.

“Prince Fang—”

I gave her a thunderous look, and she corrected herself.

“Patriarch… After you left, we did as you asked and began constructing our new homes. Liang was the first to finish. With nothing else to do, he entered seclusion and spent all his time cultivating. After breaking through to Peak Disciple, he informed us that he intended to go down the mountain to explore.”

I nodded to her. This was a bit beyond my expectations. Liang had only been a Martial Disciple 8 when we arrived here, so I hadn’t expected him to be able to both construct a house and advance two levels in the brief time I was away.

Looking at him, I saw that the way he had achieved this rapid advancement was by completely ignoring his qi filters. The two acupoints he had unblocked filled with nothing but impurities.

“Fine.” I turned my attention from ShouLi to GuiMing. “That explains him. How did you get injured?”

“Pa… Patriarch…”

GuiAi stepped up to explain for him. “When Liang decided to head off into the wilderness alone, Ming tried to stop him. You told us not to leave, and Ming was doing his best to follow your orders. That… That bastard nearly killed him for it.”

Her eyes were red, and tears were running down her face.

I looked around the group. “Did anyone else try to stop him?”

They all shook their heads.

“Did anyone try to protect GuiMing?”

They all looked down and, again, shook their heads.

I turned to ShouLi. “You were trained as one of the Su Clan’s elites. You might only be a Martial Disciple 4, but you should have had the skills to stop Liang. You should have at least been able to protect GuiMing. Why didn’t you?”

“I…” Her eyes wandered around the scene, stopping briefly on both boys. She seemed both angry and confused. “It wasn’t my place to get involved. Liang ignored your orders, but he is your First Disciple. It wasn’t my place to stop him.”

I nodded at her and turned to Mo.

“What is your part in all of this?”

“I… just kept working on my home. There was nothing I could do…”

Seeing GuiAi, I could tell that she had been caring for her brother, so I skipped over her and focused on Liang.

“Why did you decide to leave?”

He snorted. “I wanted to challenge the cultivators below. You said they’re powerful, but I will prove you wrong.”

Nodding in agreement, I pulled out an Energy Expulsion Pill and flicked it into the boy’s mouth before he could say anything else.

Suddenly, energy burst forth from Liang’s body, and his cultivation base vanished.

He stared at me in horror. “What... What did you do?”

I smiled at him. “Tell me again. Why did you decide to leave the mountain?”

“Patriarch… I…” He stammered and looked around confused. His eyes darted everywhere around him. “I thought…”

I waved him to silence. “This is a good lesson for you all. I am encouraging you to advance as rapidly as possible so that you can experience what this does to your mind. Rapid advancement, especially advancement at the cost of qi purity, will drive you insane. I want you all to experience this. I want you to feel what it’s like, to understand these impulses, and to try to control them. Then, I will give you a pill to reset your cultivation to Martial Disciple 1, and you will start again.”

I gestured to Liang. “You have reached Peak Disciple with a Low-Yellow earth cultivation technique. You may now choose to practice a Mid-Yellow earth technique, or you may choose a Low-Yellow technique of a different element. I do not know which will be easier for you to learn, but you should take your affinities into account during this selection.”

Folding my hands together in front of me, I looked around at the group. “This will be your training cycle. Rise to Peak Disciple, destroy your cultivation base, and then start again. You may stop this cycle at any time, but I will only provide you with a Rank 2 technique if your cultivation base is pristine and free of impurities. If you are incapable of achieving this, you will remain a Martial Disciple for the rest of your life.”

This speech didn’t fill anyone with a desire to grow stronger like I hoped it would. Instead, it seemed to push them more toward despair. That being the case, I figured it was about time to hand out some rewards.

“If you have questions about cultivation, you come and ask me. For now, let’s look at what each of you have built.”

I stood and made my way to their houses.

Liang, GuiAi, and GuiMing all claimed that their new homes were ‘complete.’

Liang’s house reminded me a lot of his cultivation base. It was a simple stone hut with four walls, a roof, and a dirt floor. He hadn’t spent any time on niceties. He just got it done as quickly as possible. This showed me once again that he had no interest in learning anything to do with earth qi. His narrow focus was a bit problematic, but I would let him make his own choices. I just wouldn’t reward him for them.

GuiAi’s and GuiMing’s houses were nearly identical, and it was clear that they had discussed their plans with each other before and during the building process. These houses had a raised stone foundation that provided a solid, flat floor. The walls were sturdy and straight. As a whole, these homes were rather well-built. Like Liang’s house, these were small one-room cottages, but they showed much more care in their construction.

After reviewing the completed buildings, I looked at Mo’s.

The biggest reason why he wasn’t finished was because he had spent a lot of time compacting soil to create a solid stone floor that was flush with the earth around it. The layer of soil on top of the mountain was extremely thin, and Mo didn’t have the strength needed to flatten out the blueschist beneath it, so constructing a perfectly flat floor without raising it above ground level was a bit of an achievement.

This design would be a bit problematic during a rainstorm since water would easily be able to seep beneath the door, but it showed that Mo had put a bit of extra thought into how the earth-moving technique could be used.

Finally, looking at ShouLi’s house, it was clear to me that she was used to being a princess of the Su Clan. Having the best cultivation base and the most training of anyone here, she had been able to quickly construct a basic three-room house and had been spending most of her time carving intricate reliefs into every wall.

This showed a dedication to detail, but the method she used to create these reliefs was nothing special. It was the same action she would have used when initially cutting the blocks from the original boulders.

I appraised each of these houses but refrained from sharing my thoughts. Once I had a clear understanding of where things stood, I motioned to the western side of the mountain.

“Follow me.”

Upon reaching the base of the small, raised section of the plateau where I planned to build my house, I took out a large stack of lumber and placed it on the ground.

“Without earth qi, it is difficult for me to properly demonstrate the use of the earth-moving technique, but the Rank 1 wood-shaping technique shares many similarities with it. Anything that I can do with wood, you should be able to do with stone.”

I lifted a long, square beam and channeled my energy into it. The length of the beam shrunk, and its density increased by several times.

When it was only half a meter long, I threw it into the ground, and it embedded itself in an upright position. I did this several more times to create a square grid of evenly spaced poles.

Then, I threw a collection of beams and boards onto these poles and manipulated them to form floor joists, a floor, walls, and a roof. I didn’t fasten these various pieces of wood together with nails. Instead, I used my qi to merge everything into a single composite piece of wood. This process took a bit of concentration, but since I was only working with basic, mortal lumber it required almost no energy.

Once all the structural components of the building were in place, I walked up to the wall and ran a hand across it while channeling my qi. The wood darkened in places to form a simple geometric pattern. Then, instead of carving features into the wood, I pressed my hand into it to mold it into a somewhat pleasing design. I was no artist, and I was working rather fast, so the end result wasn’t anything exceptional, but it showed off what was possible with a basic Rank 1 technique.

After placing a few steps leading up to the door and adding a couple of finishing touches, I turned to the five Disciples who were watching in amazement.

“I intend to make our clan a dominant force on this continent, and we will have to look the part. This building doesn’t even come anywhere close to meeting such lofty ambitions. It is only an example piece that’s useful for showing off a few basic techniques, but for now, it’s good enough.” I waved at the doorway. “Enter.”

Once everyone was inside, I took the stone discs inscribed with Essence Gathering Formations out of my storage space and placed them around the room.

“This building will serve as our new Affinity Hall. In the past, I required Liang and Mo to advance together to earn time on these formations. That will no longer be necessary. Any time you advance your cultivation base, you will earn one hour in this room which you can use to raise any of the available affinities that you wish.

“Su Liang, you have advanced two stages, entitling you to two hours with any formation you desire. For constructing a substandard house, you are awarded one additional hour.

“Su GuiAi, you are a Martial Disciple 4 and did not have an opportunity to visit the hall when we were at the Su Clan, so you are entitled to an initial four hours. As you have built a decent house, you are awarded an additional two hours.

“Su GuiMing, you will also be given four hours for your cultivation base and two hours for your completed home. You will also be given an additional six hours for attempting to stop one of your clan members from killing himself.”

A wave of shocked gasps could be heard at this pronouncement, especially from Liang, but I didn’t stop.

“Su ShouLi, you are granted four hours for your cultivation base. However, you are deducted two hours for failing to assist your fellow clan members in any way when you had the ability to do so. Do not let it happen again.”

I tossed a pill bottle to ShouLi. “You are using a High-Yellow cultivation technique, but as you have seen, I would prefer you start with a Low-Yellow technique and work your way up. You may continue with your current technique if you wish, but it will slow the rate at which you can earn time in the Affinity Hall.”

I turned to Liang. “The new Technique Hall will be constructed shortly. You need to start thinking about which technique you want to cultivate next. Consider your choice carefully and use your time here to improve your affinity with the element that matches that technique. I know you want to cultivate lightning qi, but you need to think about if that is truly the right next step for you. Raising your affinity with lightning will take significantly longer than raising your affinity with any other element. I doubt you have enough time saved up to acquire even a low nine-star affinity with it.”

I looked around at each of them. “If you want advice, I will give it to you, but your choices are your own. I will not interfere with them.”

With that, I turned and left them alone to consider their options.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 223 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After leaving the Disciples alone to discuss things in private, I moved to a location roughly a dozen meters away and started work on a second building, a new Technique Hall. However, as I worked, I kept my focus on the Affinity Hall. The Disciples were no doubt unaware of how easily I could monitor everything that was happening in there, so I expected their behavior to be a bit more genuine than when I was looming over them.

Shortly after I left, Liang, who had been deep in thought, lifted his head and started walking toward the Lightning Essence Gathering Formation.

Mo moved to block him. “What are you doing? Weren’t you listening when the Patriarch said that was a bad idea?”

Liang ground his teeth together. “The Patriarch promised me I could learn to control lightning. Then, he forced me to push dirt around for three months. I’m done. I am going to learn to control lightning!”

“Liang–”

Liang was no longer listening. He walked forward and pushed Mo to the side.

Mo could have resisted this. He was a Martial Disciple 7, and Liang had just had his cultivation base entirely erased. Mo could have stopped Liang, but he didn’t. He simply turned away and gave up on trying to talk sense into the other boy.

To the side, ShouLi was biting her lower lip in thought.

“I’m supposed to help these fellow clan members, right?”

Her mutterings were barely audible, but nothing in the hall could escape my notice.

Staring at Liang, she let out a soft snort and straightened her back.

Just before Liang reached the formation plate, she rushed forward and tugged on his arm.

“Liang…”

He tried to pull free, but unlike Mo, ShouLi didn’t allow him to escape her grasp.

“Liang, look at me.”

He turned to face her. “What?”

She looked up at him with wide eyes and pouting lips.

“Liang, won’t you at least talk to us before making such a big decision? I’ve never had a chance to use these formations before. Can’t you tell me what it’s like first? Please?”

“I… I…”

ShouLi’s puppy dog eyes instantly turned Liang into a puddle of goo.

The moment Liang gave up on resisting, ShouLi took the hand she had been using to hold him in place, looped it through his arm, and carefully pulled him back to where the other Disciples were standing and watching the scene play out.

Patting Liang’s arm, ShouLi started talking with a somewhat affected voice.

“First Disciple Liang, please, tell us about how we can raise our affinities.”

“Uh… Right…” His cheeks turned a shade redder. “You… You just need to sit down on the plate and your affinities will go up…”

ShouLi gave him a bright smile. “Oh? How long does it take? I only have two hours in here. How high can that raise my affinities?”

“This…”

Mo stepped forward to help him out. “Liang has had eight hours on the formations. He was able to raise his earth affinity to low nine-star after about half an hour. Improving it to mid nine-star took another hour and a half. Since then, he’s spent all his time on the lightning formation, but his lightning affinity hasn’t increased at all.”

Liang winced at this. “Just a little more. I can feel it. Just a little more is all I need.”

ShouLi patted his arm playfully. “Of course.”

Then, she turned to Mo. “What about you?”

“My earth affinity didn’t increase at all until after a full three hours. I’ve already used up another four hours since then, but it still hasn’t improved any further.”

“So, it takes longer the higher your affinity is?”

Mo shook his head. “Yes, but no. I started with zero affinities, the same as Liang. It seems to take longer the higher your affinity is, but it also just seems to be different for different people.”

I knew that I had already made several mistakes with this group, and this conversation highlighted yet another one. It didn’t matter to me, personally, whether they had a nine-star, a seven-star, or even a one-star affinity. Their affinities wouldn’t change how I treated them, and I planned to give everyone equal access to resources regardless of their affinities. So, I hadn’t seen much value in retesting everyone to find out what their true affinities actually were.

However, while their affinities didn’t matter to me, I was asking them to make important decisions about which affinities to raise and which techniques to cultivate. Without a solid understanding of their current affinities, making informed choices in these matters was impossible.

I also felt that I needed to provide them with what little information I could about how long it would take them to raise different affinities. This would be difficult since exact times would fluctuate with ambient essence levels. For example, water essence should be more abundant here, so water affinities should rise faster than any other element. On the flip side, lightning essence seemed scarcer than normal, so it might take even longer than I would normally expect.

I didn’t know enough to be able to tell them how long they could expect each advancement to take, but I could give them what information I had. The cost of purchasing affinities through the System had to be connected to the amount of essence required. Even if there were other factors, I could provide these cost ratios to give them an idea of what they should expect going forward.

I needed to fix this mistake, and I wanted to do so before anyone used their limited time in the Affinity Hall in a way that they might later regret. However, I couldn’t just run over and explain things. That would make it obvious that I had been listening in on their private conversation. So, I did the only thing I could think to do.

Using the network of roots that I had established under the Affinity Hall, I sent a burst of qi into each of the Essence Gathering Formations, disabling them.

None of the Disciples noticed this, and their conversation continued unabated.

Eventually, GuiMing decided to try out the earth formation. When he sat down on it and nothing happened, everyone thought he had just done something wrong. Others tried, and ShouLi even tried using the water formation, but nothing they did worked.

After a few more minutes, they came to look for me.

“Yes, I have temporarily disabled the formations. I want you to spend today thinking carefully about how you want to spend your time there. Come back here at noon tomorrow. The Technique Hall will be ready by then, and you will all have the opportunity to switch to a new cultivation technique if you so desire. After tomorrow, you will only be allowed to change techniques upon reaching Peak Disciple.”

As they left, everyone looked a bit disappointed. I couldn’t really blame them, but I felt that it was better for them to leave disappointed than for them to make a costly mistake.

I had only given myself a single day to upgrade the Affinity Hall and construct a Technique Hall. I had several ideas for how I wanted these halls to function, and with enough time, I could have probably figured out a way to make it happen, but that would take months of research. I didn’t have time for that.

This was mostly because I wanted to integrate a multitude of complex formations into both halls to make the process of using them more intuitive and streamlined. At the moment, I had to manually keep track of how much time each person was allowed to spend in the Affinity Hall and which techniques they were allowed to study. With only five Disciples, this wouldn’t be much of a problem, but as the clan grew, this task would soon become impossible.

Therefore, I wanted to use formations to automate everything. The formation guides I had gotten in the Nine Rivers Sect included references that I could use to work out ways to implement some of my ideas, but it would take time to find and understand the necessary diagrams. However, unfortunately, most of what I wanted to do wasn’t included in these guides and would require countless hours of research.

I was certain that with my current knowledge, I could figure out a way to accomplish everything I wanted to do, but how much time was I willing to spend researching and designing formations? I wanted to focus on studying herbalism and learning to create a habitable environment within my storage space. Researching formations to help train Disciples felt like it would be nothing but a distraction.

After a bit of soul searching, I decided to concentrate my efforts on what was important to me and to take the quick and easy route with everything else.

“System, I would like to make a series of purchases. First, I want to upgrade the defensive formation surrounding the mountain to include a variety of features common to the grand formations that surround most sects. Most importantly, it needs to be able to keep track of how many contribution points a person has. Set everyone’s current points to zero and give me a way to change these values at my discretion.”

I then added a couple of additional features common to sect-protecting formations that I thought might come in handy.

Cost 150 million credits.

I took an affinity testing orb out of my storage space.

“Second, I want a pedestal in the Affinity Hall where I can place this orb, and I want a formation within that pedestal that will inject the orb with qi so that it always displays a person’s true affinities. If it makes it cheaper, the orb only needs to show the five basic and four secondary affinities. It also only needs to work for cultivators below the level of Martial Lord.”

Cost 10 million credits.

“Next, I want to purchase a formation for assessing a person’s qi purity. It needs to track a person’s cultivation level and store that information in the upgraded sect-protecting formation. Then, whenever someone advances, I want them to be able to come to this formation and have it check the quality of their breakthrough.

“If they advanced with 100% pure qi, they should be awarded 60 contribution points. Lower levels of purity should be awarded lower amounts of points. 57 points for 95% purity, 54 points for 90% purity, and so on. For 100% purity, give them an additional 60 points.”

I then went ahead and added a couple of security features to prevent fraud. I didn’t want anyone dispersing their cultivation and recultivating the same technique just to rack up points, after all.

Cost 50 million credits.

“Finally, integrate the Essence Gathering Formations into the new sect-protecting formation. These formations should only activate if a person has sufficient contribution points, and each minute they remain in a formation, one point should be deducted from their account. 60 points for one hour.”

Cost 5 million credits.

“Purchase all of that.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 215 million credits. 743,036,871,897 credits remaining.

I was certain there were loopholes I was missing and that things needed to be refined further, but this should be good enough for now. So, with the Affinity Hall taken care of, I turned my focus to the Technique Hall.

Using the same methods I had employed when building the Affinity Hall, I constructed another basic one-room building. In the future, I would want to have a place large enough to store all of the cultivation and martial techniques that I had gathered over the years, but for now, this was sufficient.

I took out the simple bookcase I had used in the Su Clan’s training compound and placed it in the center of the building. This bookcase still contained all the same techniques that it possessed while we were in the training compound, 35 different scrolls and a single memory orb.

Liang’s progress with the Earth Heart Mantra proved that my idea of using a memory orb to train cultivators was viable, but how far could I take it? If someone learned all the basics through memory orbs, would it hurt their future potential? If, say, a person learned everything from Rank 1 to 5 from memory orbs, would they be incapable of learning Rank 6 techniques on their own?

This was a slightly worrying possibility, but this was the perfect group to test things out on. It would be a long time before anyone in my new clan was able to earn karmic energy and ascend to Martial Lord, so it wouldn’t make much of a difference if learning everything through memory orbs limited their future potential.

I picked up the Low-Yellow Rank 1 fire cultivation technique from the bookshelf and pulled a memory orb out of my storage space.

“System, how much would it cost to create memories inside this orb for this technique equivalent to what I did for the Earth heart mantra.”

Cost 1,000 credits.

“How much would it cost to instead create detailed memories of everything a person should know to cultivate this technique properly? These memories only need to extend to the limits of my current knowledge, but they should include things such as information on stagnation and how to close one’s acupoints to limit the effects of cultivation madness.”

Cost 10,000 credits.

I picked up a Mid-Yellow technique.

“What about creating such memories for this one?”

Cost 25,000 credits.

Making my choice, I laid out 36 memory orbs on the ground.

“System, create detailed memories for each of the techniques in the bookcase and store them in these orbs.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,440,000 credits. 743,035,431,897credits remaining.

After replacing all the scrolls with their corresponding orbs, I made one last purchase to protect my investment and ensure the Disciples could only access the techniques they were supposed to have access to.

Purchase confirmed. Cost 8 million credits. 743,027,431,897credits remaining.

The credit cost for this new library was minimal, but I had already spent a total of 38 memory orbs to make it a reality. By the time I was done, I would almost certainly have to use several more. This expenditure of Rank 6 refined items was lavish, and maybe a bit wasteful, but this library was to be the foundation upon which I built my clan.

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 224 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The next day, the Disciples came to meet me in front of the Affinity Hall, and I guided them inside. As they entered, I gestured to the new pedestal that stood to the right of the entryway.

“You should all recognize this. It is an orb used to measure one’s affinities.” They all nodded, easily understanding why such a thing would be useful. “What you may not know is that the Su Clan uses these incorrectly. This may have led you to have certain misconceptions about your current affinity levels.”

Most of the Disciples took this news in stride. It meant little to them other than that they may have higher affinities than they thought. ShouLi, however, was a bit more shocked by the news. As an elite disciple and a member of the clan’s main branch, she likely had a better understanding of what this news could mean if the clan found out about it.

I gestured for Mo to step forward.

“You were told you have zero affinities, correct? Try again and see what your affinities actually are.”

Hesitantly, Mo stepped forward, placed a hand on the orb, and channeled his qi into it. After only a few seconds, two symbols appeared, a stone and a metal ingot.

Seeing that no one understood the symbology, I explained. “A mid nine-star metal affinity and a high nine-star earth affinity.”

Mo was elated by the news, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed. I was hoping his zero affinity had been hiding a true uncut gem.

After Mo, GuiMing stepped forward and was shown to have only the peak nine-star earth affinity he was already aware of. Then, GuiAi tried her luck and was rated as only having a high nine-star earth affinity. Following them, ShouLi stepped forward and gave the best showing of the lot. She had the low seven-star earth affinity that she was already aware of, but she also had a mid nine-star water affinity and low nine-star affinities for metal and wood.

Finally, Liang stepped forward and placed his hand on the orb, eager to see what his true affinities were. The result was disappointing. He only had the lone mid nine-star earth affinity he had gained from my formations. As he moved back to join the others with a sullen look on his face, I couldn’t help but frown.

The best hidden affinity anyone had revealed was only mid nine-star. That was far below what I had hoped to see. Was this why the Su Clan didn’t test affinities properly? Had they just decided that it wasn’t worth the effort?

In any case, while the results of this experiment were a bit unfortunate, they wouldn’t have too much of an impact on my plans moving forward.

With everyone having checked their affinities, I gestured toward another new addition to the hall.

“When you advance your cultivation in the future, come to this formation. It will check the quality of your breakthrough and award you points based on the purity of your qi.”

I gestured for GuiMing to step forward and showed him how the formation worked. When the test was complete, it showed his account had been credited 127 points based on having reached Martial Disciple 4 with less-than-ideal qi purity. I then increased his total to 420, 180 of which were for reaching Disciple 4 and 240 of which were for trying to save Liang previously.

“Today, I am going to give everyone a full 60 contribution points for their breakthroughs, but in the future, you will need to be careful with your qi purity or you will start to fall behind your peers.”

I then ran everyone through the formation and adjusted their contribution point totals. Then, I explained the rules for the Essence Gathering Formations and how they would cost one point per minute to use.

Finally, I gestured to a large tome on a table against a side wall.

“This is a ledger where I want you to record how much time you had to spend to increase your affinities. This will help us learn how much time we should expect such breakthroughs to take in the future.”

I then showed them the first page of the ledger where I had written down expected multipliers for how long each additional level of an affinity should take.

“As you can see, I expect that advancing from a peak nine-star to a low eight-star affinity will take approximately ten times as long as acquiring a new low nine-star affinity, but this is only an estimate. It needs to be tested. When it comes to raising affinities, there are still a lot of unknowns, and I want your help in figuring them out. As such, each time you correctly record the time you spent advancing one of your affinities, I will award you an additional 20 contribution points.”

As that was all I had to show them in the Affinity Hall, I guided everyone to the Technique Hall and showed them the bookcase that now contained 36 brand-new memory orbs.

“Liang, you don’t have a technique right now. Step forward and place your jade token on the side of the bookcase.”

He did so, and nine of the alcoves containing orbs lit up. Eight of them were for the Low-Yellow techniques of various elements, and one was for the Mid-Yellow earth technique.

“You may choose any of these nine techniques. Just touch the orb, inject it with your qi, and you will learn everything you need to know. You will then need to cultivate it to Peak Disciple. After that, you can return here, reset your cultivation base, and choose a new technique.”

I looked around at the group. “As I said before, if you wish to receive a Rank 2 cultivation technique, you must first advance to Peak Disciple with a perfect foundation. This can only happen if you are using a Peak-Yellow technique or better. Using these simple techniques will give you the experience you need to be able to cultivate the more complex ones. Also, cultivating them well will earn you time in the Affinity Hall which should help make things even easier.”

I took out a scroll for a Low-Profound technique and showed it to them.

“Once you do cultivate a perfect foundation with a Peak-Yellow technique, I don’t want you to rush to Rank 2 immediately. Instead, I want you to practice more complex, more powerful Rank 1 techniques. You will have to learn these techniques through scrolls, which will be more difficult, but if you have sufficient talent, you will have a chance to master Profound- and even Earth-Rank techniques this way.”

I then moved on to the second bookcase that had been placed on the opposite side of the room.

“This bookcase contains scrolls with a basic technique for each of the different elements. These are simple shaping techniques similar to the earth-moving technique you have already learned. If you choose to cultivate a different element, you should use these techniques to gain a better understanding of how to use the energies you are cultivating.”

I picked up a different scroll from the bookshelf.

“The shaping techniques are valuable, but they are not necessarily suitable for all elements, so I have also provided techniques to create simulacra elements. For example, this one lets the user create a simulated fire using nothing but fire qi.” I picked up a different scroll. “This one will allow you to create lightning. The earth, metal, and wood versions of these techniques are not very useful, but for fire and lightning, they are indispensable.”

I hadn’t created memory orbs for any of these techniques because my supply of blank orbs was severely limited. I only started with 90, and I had already used 40 of them on basic Rank 1 Yellow cultivation techniques. With the prohibitive cost of purchasing orbs from the System, buying them was impossible, so if I wanted more, I would have to return to the Nine Rivers Sect, and I didn’t plan on doing that any time soon.

After explaining a few more details about the techniques, I left the Disciples alone to make their decisions without my presence influencing them.

ShouLi walked up to Liang and placed a hand on his arm. “Are you certain?”

He nodded and gave her a wry smile. He didn’t look happy, but he was willing to follow her suggestions.

He stepped forward and absorbed the knowledge of the Low-Yellow fire cultivation technique.

This somewhat surprised me. Liang had never even mentioned wanting to cultivate fire, so this choice had to have been the result of ShouLi’s influence. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but at least he was no longer so dead set on only learning the lightning technique.

After Liang made his choice, ShouLi stepped forward and learned the water technique. Then, the two of them went to the Affinity Hall together.

Mo looked at the siblings. “What are you two planning to do?”

GuiMing gave a soft grin. “Before anything else, we want to get an eight-star earth affinity. We’ll look at branching out into the other elements after that. After all, concentrating on what we’re already good at seems like the best way to start racking up points, right? I figure that focusing on raising a single affinity as high as possible will let us advance faster and form better foundations.”

Mo nodded. “Makes sense. I need to finish up with my current technique, but after that, I want to try cultivating metal qi, but I’d also like to experience the other elements and see if there are any differences between them.”

---------------------------------------------------

The next few weeks were rather peaceful. I spent a bit of time building a small house for myself and then set up a new Cultivation Hall alongside the Affinity and Technique Halls.

For the moment, this new hall only consisted of five small rooms equipped with Rank 1 Qi Gathering Formations. These formations had no filters in place to limit the types of energy they gathered, so using them would make cultivating a pristine foundation significantly more difficult, but they would allow the Disciples to cultivate much faster than would otherwise be possible.

All this construction work made me wish I could change the cultivation technique I was using. I hadn’t seen any real benefit from cultivating environmental wood essence, and being locked into only using wood qi was far too limiting. I would have liked to have been able to use earth qi to lay foundations, wood qi to build large structures, and metal qi to add a variety of accents.

Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that I could risk resetting my cultivation base and switching to a different technique at the moment. If I did, it would take me more than a year or two to get back to my current level, and I needed to be a Peak Grandmaster when I returned to the Su Clan to recruit more Disciples.

So, since I couldn’t cultivate earth or metal qi myself, I started shifting this work onto the Disciples. They would take care of the stonework, and in return, I would give them contribution points based on how good of a job they did. In the future, I would need to expand the contribution point system so that they could buy more than just time on the Essence Gathering Formations, but for now, that was enough to satisfy them.

With the help of the new Qi Gathering Formations, their increasing affinities, and the deeper understanding of cultivation they gained from the memory orbs, everyone was cultivating at a rapid pace. In only three weeks, everyone had been able to reach Peak Disciple and reset their cultivation base at least once. Mo had been able to do so twice.

I had told them that if they had any questions about cultivation they could come and ask me, but with the help of memory orbs, that hadn’t been necessary. However, eventually, GuiAi did come to pay me a visit.

“Patriarch.” She gave me a deep bow as she entered my house. “I would like to ask a question.”

I gestured for her to continue.

“Can we… Can we take a break?”

I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

She shrank back a little, worried about upsetting me. “It’s just… we’ve done nothing but cultivate for four months now. I was wondering if we could… take a break? Go out and have fun?”

“That… What do you have in mind?”

She looked up, somewhat hopeful. “Can we go to a city? Go shopping? Go out to eat? We have food here, but none of us are very good cooks…”

I considered the request. I had moved the group out of Rosehill because I wanted them to be able to journey outside without being targeted by other forces. Mount Jiang would make that possible, but only once they were well into the Martial Master realm. Until then, they were basically trapped here, and that wasn’t what I wanted.

After thinking about it, I came to a decision. “25 points per person per day. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go and keep you safe, but it will cost you 25 points per day.”

GuiAi’s eyes widened at the price, but her face quickly broke into a grin.

“En. Thank you, Patriarch.”

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Chapter 225 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Upon leaving my house, GuiAi went to talk with the others about taking a trip down the mountain, and it quickly became clear to me that while a cost of 25 points a day was enough to deter long vacations, it wouldn’t stop anyone from taking a day off. Everyone was ready for a break, and they were more than willing to pay a couple dozen points to get one.

I had told GuiAi that I was willing to take them anywhere they wanted to go, and while this was true, leaving the Wastes would add a large cost due to the travel time involved. Also, after seeing how excited everyone became at the prospect of taking a day off, I realized that these trips might become a common occurrence in the future, so it would be best if we were strategic with our travel destinations.

Since I wanted the Su Clan to believe that our base of operations was located in Rosehill, we needed to make a show of visiting the town on a regular basis. With this in mind, I informed everyone of a slight change to the price of excursions.

If they wanted to visit Rosehill, I would only charge them 20 points per person per day. If they wanted to go anywhere else, I would charge them 30 points. As Rosehill was a semi-famous tourist destination with plenty of leisure activities to indulge in, no one complained about these new prices.

The very next day, I gave all five of the Disciples sleeping pills, shoved them into my storage space, and rode west to the Rosehill Hot Springs.

As it turned out, it wasn’t just my Disciples who were excited about this outing. After nearly a month trapped within the limited space atop Mount Jiang’s plateau, my horse was more than ready for a good run across an open landscape.

We made good time and arrived in Rosehill only eight hours later. Once there, I snuck into the city, entered the small palace complex that previously belonged to the Su Clan, and placed everyone’s unconscious bodies into separate sleeping quarters.

I spent that night scoping out the town and didn’t wake everyone up until the next morning.

A few dangerous-looking Grandmasters were lurking around the place, so I gave everyone a formation-inscribed amulet to keep them safe. Then, I handed everyone a few gold coins and disappeared, allowing them to roam the town freely without needing to worry about me constantly looking over their shoulders.

Of course, while I ‘disappeared,’ I didn’t go far. I stayed close enough to monitor everything they did. This was both to keep them safe and to keep an eye out for any questionable behavior.

Shortly after I left, they split up into three groups. GuiMing and GuiAi went off to explore the town together, Mo left to explore on his own, and ShouLi took Liang by the arm and gave him a guided tour. I did my best to stay close enough to Mo and the siblings to help them out if anything went wrong, but most of my focus was on ShouLi. If anyone was going to take this opportunity to betray us, I expected it to be her.

ShouLi acted nervous the entire day. She was constantly glancing at shadows, and her eyes would occasionally linger on random passersby for a bit too long, but she never did anything overly suspicious. If anything, her behavior seemed to indicate that she was worried about the Su Clan targeting her, not that she was working with them.

At the end of the day, I returned them all to my storage space and took them all back to Mount Jiang.

After this outing, everything returned to normal. The Disciples spent their time cultivating, and I focused on improving my skills as a refiner. While I wanted to learn more about herbalism, it had dropped down on my priority list. With the memory orb training system having proven to be a success, it was clear that I would need a considerable number of orbs in the future, and I didn’t want to have to rely on Jin for them all the time. I needed to learn to make them myself, so that was where I put my focus.

The Disciples remained diligent and hardworking for an entire month. Then, they asked me to take them back to Rosehill. This time, however, Mo didn’t join us.

After setting everyone free to roam the city and watching them each go their separate ways, I once again turned my focus to ShouLi. As she was now walking around on her own, I thought that she might take this opportunity to contact the Su Clan, so I wanted to keep a close eye on her.

I barely noticed it when Liang took a crumpled-up piece of paper out of his robe and tossed it into an alley.

As soon as the coast was clear, I appeared in the alley, picked up the note, and read it.

It contained a lot of basic information about our base, including details on the affinity testing orb, the formation for testing qi purity, and the Qi Gathering Formations. It also mentioned that I was teaching them techniques through the use of white stones, but it didn’t provide many details about the process.

Importantly, this note didn’t contain any information on where our base was located, and it didn’t mention anything about me helping them increase their affinities.

After considering the situation, I crumpled the note back up and returned it to the alley. Giving the Su Clan a bit of information about how I was training everyone wasn’t an entirely bad idea. If they knew a bit more about what I could do, they might be more eager to work with me. If they knew that I could easily raise a person’s affinities, they might go a bit too crazy, but there was little harm in them knowing that I could accurately test for affinities or that I had access to Qi Gathering Formations.

I would need to be careful about the clan planting more spies into my ranks in the future, but again, having enemy agents amongst my Disciples wasn’t entirely bad. Having someone trying to turn my recruits against me would be a good test to see who would remain loyal to me and whose real loyalty was to the Su Clan.

While I didn’t know much about the process of generating the karmic energy needed to ascend to Sovereign, I was working under the assumption that the clan needed to see me as their Patriarch. The fact that nominal city lords could generate Lord-level karma without actually managing a city likely meant that there was some amount of leeway with this, but if people in my clan were truly loyal to the Su Clan’s patriarch, then I doubted I would be able to draw energy from them.

That said, while I didn’t mind the Su Clan learning any of the information contained in this note, I was worried about Liang giving it to them. I would need to keep a closer eye on him in the future.

This pattern of work and relaxation continued for several more months, and our trips to Rosehill became somewhat routine, but eventually, GuiAi and GuiMing requested a trip to Dragon Gate City. They wanted to spend some time with their parents and tell them about everything they had been up to recently.

This visit led to their parents asking if they could join us on the mountain. They also mentioned several other small families that might be interested in moving there as well.

These additional workers were not members of the Su Clan, and I wouldn’t have any kind of bloodline connection to them, so I was hesitant to bring them along with us. However, they were skilled in a variety of mortal crafts like tailoring and pottery making that would be useful as our settlement continued to expand.

My ultimate goal was to create a true, thriving city inside of my storage space. That would require a large number of skilled laborers, and if I limited myself to only recruiting members of the Su Clan, I might have a hard time finding knowledgeable people who wanted to join me. In any event, expanding the gene pool of my city would only be beneficial, and nothing said that the children of these people couldn’t marry into the Su Clan in the future.

In total, four small families joined us, and I settled them all on the south side of the plateau. At first, they were a bit dismayed to find that they would be living on a desolate mountaintop, but watching the Disciples quickly construct a series of brand-new stone houses and workshops for them calmed them down.

While this expansion to our small community would no doubt be beneficial in the future, it did highlight a problem for the present. How were people supposed to be compensated for their labor?

Typically, bakers and weavers would make goods and sell those goods for copper or silver, but on the mountain, copper and silver were worthless. On our trips to Rosehill, I had been providing everyone with a bit of gold to have fun with, but none of the Disciples considered these coins valuable. Base metals weren’t important to them. What they cared about were contribution points.

So, after spending some time understanding how the formations I had purchased for the Affinity Hall interfaced with the sect-protecting formation to charge and award contribution points, I created a simplified version of these formations that could function as a point-of-sale system. These formations allowed everyone to sell their goods and receive contribution points in exchange.

Of course, since one contribution point equaled one minute on an Essence Gathering Formation, no one was crazy enough to pay an entire point for something like a loaf of bread. This forced me to implement a fractionalized point system so that people could pay as little as a hundredth of a point for simple goods.

My hope was that by allowing mortal laborers to spend these points in the Affinity Hall, I could increase the production of karmic energy from my clan and city in the future.

As time passed, the Disciples began to make significant advancements. As their affinities grew and they got more practice, they reached the point where they could regularly advance from Martial Disciple 1 to Peak Disciple in only a matter of weeks with even Mid- and High-Yellow techniques.

Their qi purity when advancing so rapidly wasn’t exactly impressive, and only ShouLi had gotten anywhere close to the pristine foundation I demanded of them, but they were all showing marked improvements in their cultivation skills.

However, they were developing a worrying tendency of rushing their cultivation a bit too much in order to earn contribution points from rapid advancement. So, I made a slight change to the rules. Previously, I had said that they could only earn points from a given technique a single time. If they advanced to Martial Disciple 2 with a weak foundation, they might only get 30 points for doing so, and the remainder of the points available for this advancement would be forever lost to them.

I changed this policy to encourage them to cultivate the same technique multiple times.

As an example, say that Liang advanced from Martial Disciple 2 to Martial Disciple 3 with a qi purity of 50% while using the Earth Heart Mantra. In the past, he would only be given 30 points, and he would never have a chance to receive points for advancing to Disciple 3 with that technique again.

The change I made was that if he decided to try cultivating the Earth Heart Mantra again and advanced from Disciple 2 to 3 with a qi purity of 60%, he would be able to earn the extra 6 points he had missed out on. Then, if he tried a third time and was able to cultivate it perfectly, he would get the remaining 24 points plus the 60 bonus points for having a pristine foundation.

This was to encourage them to acquire mastery of each technique instead of just rushing through as many as they could. Of course, since one needed at least a Peak-Yellow technique to achieve a pristine foundation, the impact of this change was somewhat limited, but everyone did begin practicing techniques multiple times after it was implemented.

Eventually, everyone was able to reach Peak Disciple with a Peak-Yellow technique. While no one had a solid enough foundation for me to consider letting them advance to Martial Master, I did add a bookcase containing 36 new scrolls with Profound-Rank techniques for every element.

Unfortunately, they struggled far more than I had hoped when trying to learn these techniques.

For most of them, I could attribute this to them simply not being very talented. Liang, for instance, had originally had a hard time learning even the most basic of cultivation techniques. ShouLi was different, though. I felt that she should have been able to learn a Low-Profound technique without too much difficulty, but after weeks of trying, she had only been able to advance to Martial Disciple 3.

This made me a bit worried that the process of learning to cultivate through memory orbs was doing long-term damage to their ability to learn normally. This was a cause for concern, but when most of the people I was recruiting lacked the ability to learn normally in the first place, it wasn’t something worth dwelling on. Still, it was definitely something I needed to keep an eye on.

Another change I made during this time was to my policy on Energy Expulsion Pills. Previously, I was handing them out for free whenever anyone reached Peak Disciple. I decided to instead start selling them for 10 contribution points apiece. This would allow the Disciples to reset their cultivation base at any time while also, hopefully, encouraging less rushing.

I would have liked to start everyone down the path of learning a profession so that they could make and trade pills amongst themselves without needing my involvement, but I didn’t feel they were ready for that yet. They needed to spend their time learning to cultivate better instead of trying to learn ancillary skills.

During this first year, while I spent most of my time mastering Rank 2 and 3 refining, I also spent time on my goal of turning my storage space into a viable ecosystem.

As I saw it, there were several things I had to accomplish before the space would be suitable for long-term habitation. It needed land, clean water, a day/night cycle, the ability to grow food, some type of sanitation system, and several other things.

Overall, my understanding of what it would take to create a habitable environment in a completely sealed-off space was extremely limited, and I doubted there were any schools in this world that specialized in teaching such things. So, I could only take things one step at a time and learn as I went.

I decided to first focus on something that was both important and something that I felt could easily be dealt with. I needed to find a way to ensure the space maintained a breathable atmosphere.

So far, I had done this by transferring copious amounts of air into and out of the space at regular intervals, but this was a huge hassle, and it wouldn’t work if I wanted to store a large population.

People consumed a lot of oxygen, and they produced a lot of carbon dioxide. Once the space was large enough and people got all their food from plants grown within the space, this might take care of itself, but it seemed like it would be best if I had a system in place to ensure the proper balance was maintained at all times.

What I needed was a formation. My idea was to design a formation that would pull CO2 from the air, break it down, and then release the oxygen back into the atmosphere while forming the carbon into a solid brick. Then, if CO2 levels needed to be increased to help plants grow, it could just burn the carbon to create more CO2.

After several months of work, I was close to figuring out a Rank 2 formation that could make this happen, but this only created a new problem for me to solve. The formation I was designing would require a large amount of wind qi to function, and I would need to find an efficient way of supplying it. I had a few ideas for how to handle this, but each one came with its own set of additional complications to work through.

With solid progress on several fronts, my first year with my new clan came to a close, and it was soon time for me to return to the Su Clan’s training compound.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 226 – Life 73, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Upon my return to the Su Clan, I went directly to the training complex without stopping in Dragon Gate City. Even though I had not informed the clan of my plans, Su Heng was already waiting for me at the gates when I arrived, and after a few pleasantries, he led me back to the same house I had used last time.

The place was just as I had left it, completely empty of furniture. With just a thought, I brought out all my luxury items and restored the place to its former glory.

This made Su Heng look at me with a tinge of envy.

“Prince Fang, my father would like to speak with you before the blessing ceremony. Would that be possible?”

“Of course. Bring him to see me whenever he is ready.”

“Thank you, Prince Fang.”

Su Heng gave me a quick bow and departed.

Once he was gone, I went around and prepared the rest of the house. Aside from arranging various pieces of furniture, I also set up several defensive formations, including a privacy formation that covered the back half of the house where I had previously trained Liang and Mo.

I did not, however, install any formations or other training tools in these rooms. Mount Jiang was only four hours away by horseback, so I saw little reason to keep anyone here. It would be far easier to just ship them back to the mountain and let them learn with the others. This privacy formation was just to keep anyone from the Su Clan from learning what I was doing.

A few hours after everything was in place, a maid announced the arrival of the Grand Elder. After greeting each other and sitting down together, he got right to business.

“You should be aware that the Patriarch is… conflicted about your presence here. He was not entirely satisfied with how our last meeting ended.”

I waved a hand, brushing aside his concerns. “Su TaiZong’s opinion of me is of little consequence. As long as he doesn’t offend me, he can remain the clan’s Patriarch, but he should be careful about pushing me too far.”

A glint of desire appeared in the Grand Elder’s eyes at my words, but the emotions he gave off were a bundle of contradictions. He didn’t seem overly happy with the Patriarch, but at the same time, he didn’t want to see the destruction of his clan.

“I understand, Prince Fang. However, I am here to inform you that the Patriarch and his council of elders have reached a consensus on how much to charge you for the use of Rosehill Hot Springs. Their… dissatisfaction with you has affected this price.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

I was glad they wanted to discuss the price of leasing Rosehill. My intention had always been to pay for everything I took from the Su Clan. I had no desire to feel indebted to the clan in any way.

My power play at the end of our last meeting left things a bit unfinished in this regard. I had thrown a bundle of pills at them, but the clan never officially agreed to the price I had paid them. I was more than happy to clear the books.

The Grand Elder nodded solemnly. “They are requesting 10 Perfect Rank 3 pills and 100 Perfect Rank 2 pills for each year you maintain possession of the hot springs. As you have occupied this land for a year without their consent, they are asking for an additional 50% in compensation. So, in total, if you wish to stay there another year, you will need to pay 25 Rank 3 pills and 250 Rank 2 pills.”

I blinked at the elder. “Do you know what you’re asking for? The market value of that many pills is over half a million gold, and you’d need a deep connection with a highly skilled alchemist to get them at that price. Perfect Rank 2 pills aren’t cabbages you can pick up on the side of the road. 250 of them to lease a single broken cottage for only a year? Are you insane?”

“Prince Fang…”

I held up a hand to stop him. “I am interested in working with the Su Clan, but I have no desire to be cheated by you. Be careful with what you say next.”

“Prince Fang, these are the Patriarch’s orders. I cannot contradict them. You have proven yourself more powerful than our clan, so we cannot stop you from taking whatever you wish, but that will cause the elders to request support from the powers surrounding the Wastes.”

I looked at him with narrowed eyes. The monetary value of the pills was of little import to me. I would gladly just hand them a spirit stone if that were all it would take to satisfy them, but making 250 pills was far too much of a hassle, even for me. Not only would I need to source the herbs, but I would also need to spend several days tediously refining them.

“I will pay you 5 Rank 3 pills and 10 Rank 2 pills a year. You can consider the pills that I have already paid you as compensation for requisitioning your land without consent over this past year.”

“Pri—”

I held up a hand to stop him. “This is my limit. In exchange, I will be granted full rights to the areas I currently occupy as well as their surrounding territories. Your nobles may continue to manage these lands as they do now, and I will not interfere, but the land and its resources will belong to me for the duration of this lease. Go back and discuss this deal with your Patriarch. If it is unacceptable, then I can only pursue other options.”

The Grand Elder ducked his head. “I understand, Prince Fang.”

After the elder left, I sat back down and drummed my fingers on my armrest.

I had certain suspicions about what might be hiding underneath the Rosehill Hot Springs and Mount Jiang, but I had been a bit hesitant to do anything since there was a chance my actions could significantly impact the Wastes as a whole. However, if this deal went through, that land would officially belong to me, and I could do anything I wanted with it.

Of course, while this satisfied my Legalist impulses, I still needed to be careful. I couldn’t allow my recklessness to bring serious harm to the ordinary people who lived in the Wastes.

The blessing ceremony took place the next day, and afterward, I entered the room where the Grandmasters were discussing which Disciples they had high hopes for this year.

There were two slight changes from the previous year. First, the Grandmaster who had been intent on sentencing Liang to death was missing. Second, unlike last year, this time, the Grandmasters warmly gestured for me to take a seat alongside them. It was clear that they had devised some kind of scheme, but I wasn’t yet sure what it would be.

Like the previous year, they spent a lot of time talking about the advantages of various scions, but this time, it felt less like they were proud elders bragging about their juniors and more like they were used car salesmen trying to offload an overpriced junker.

After all the testing was complete, YuanFei and the Second Elder came up and laid a stack of papers on the table, but they didn't begin introducing this year’s prospective elites. Instead, everyone just turned and looked at me.

YuanFei cleared his throat and gave me a brilliant smile. “Prince Fang, before we begin, there is something we would like to discuss with you.”

I said nothing and simply motioned for him to continue.

“Well, you see, we understand that you are here to recruit powerful cultivators for your personal retinue. We also know that my brother and father have been reluctant to part with our clan’s most talented Disciples.”

I nodded slowly.

“This is a true shame. Joining you would no doubt be the best thing that could happen to them, and it is heartbreaking to see their futures ruined by shortsighted fools.”

I held up a hand. “Please, speak directly. What do you want?”

YuanFei grinned. “If there are any potential elites that catch your eye, we would be more than willing to… set them aside for you and give their positions to someone else.”

“And what would you want in return for such… considerations?”

He gestured around at the other Grandmasters. “You may not know this, but everyone here has reached the limit of what they can achieve on their own, and we have all found it difficult to advance our cultivation any further. As my brother has significant influence over the clan’s resources, it has been difficult for us to change this situation. If you could help us with this, we would be extremely grateful.”

Looking at everyone in energy vision, I saw that he wasn’t wrong. The low-level Grandmasters had dantians that were shoddy at best, and even YuanFei’s had been severely damaged from the pressure build-up during his previous ascensions.

I tapped the table in thought. “Your problems aren’t simple. Even if I give each of you a dozen Perfect Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills, it won’t make any difference. You will still find it nearly impossible to ascend any further.”

They all dropped their eyes, knowing the truth of my statement.

“However, I am aware of a few pills that may be of use to you. Notably, the Calm Seas Pill. This pill will make the qi in your dantian less chaotic for a brief period, and it should be enough to help you to rise another level or two.”

The mood in the room changed instantly, and YuanFei was about to say something, but I held up a hand to stop him.

“However, if you want to be safe, if you want to reach Peak Grandmaster in the best state possible, you must raise your earth affinity.”

The Second Elder gave me a wry grin. “Prince Fang, we know such things are possible in the outside world, but not here.”

I took out a piece of paper and copied down an image from Emperor Li’s book on Rank 3 alchemy.

“This is an Earth Dragon’s Tongue Fruit. It is an extremely rare Rank 3 herb. Finding it may be impossible, but if you can locate it, I can concoct a pill that will temporarily raise your earth affinity.”

In the distant past, I had come in contact with a Fire Dragon’s Tongue Fruit and used it to temporarily boost my fire affinity. I had never encountered another such fruit since then, but I knew they had to be out there somewhere. If someone in the Wastes had been able to acquire the fire fruit, finding the earth fruit might be possible as well. If it was, I wanted its seeds.

The Grandmasters all looked at the image of the fruit with greed, and YuanFei carefully stored it away.

“Thank you, Prince Fang. We will look for this herb. In the interim, we would be grateful if you could provide us with the Calm Seas Pills. In return—”

“In return, I only request that you stop killing your Disciples during training. I understand that you see value in doing so, and I am aware that the Su Clan can only support a limited number of cultivators. So, if there are any Disciples who you feel are not suitable for your clan, you can allow them to join me directly. I will not force anyone to join me, though, so if they are not suitable for you, and they do not wish to join me, we will simply cut them loose and allow them to fend for themselves.”

My stance seemed to worry YuanFei a bit.

“But Prince Fang, the elites—”

“You are wrong about one thing. I do not need powerful elite warriors. I need numbers. The more the better. Last year, without a base of operations, I was reluctant to recruit too many Disciples at once. This year, I will take as many as I can get. If you want to give me all fifty, I will take them, though fifteen to twenty seems more reasonable. If your elites truly wish to join me, I will accept them and bear the consequences of doing so, but I see no need to recruit them discreetly.”

By accepting all the Disciples the Su Clan planned on killing, I was opening my new clan up to a multitude of new problems, and it would give the Su Clan plenty of opportunities to plant spies and traitors within our midst. This, however, was what I wanted. If everything proceeded too smoothly, people’s hearts and loyalties would never be put to the test.

“Let’s do it this way. If there are any Disciples you feel will be disruptive to the normal training environment, I will take them away directly. However, barring extraordinary circumstances, I would like everyone to stay here for the full three-month period. Give them the same experience you would normally give them. Just don’t kill them. Then, at the end, cut loose anyone you don’t want, and I will then offer them a place in my retinue. I will also accept anyone else who wishes to join me at that time.”

YuanFei nodded in agreement, not seeing anything wrong with this proposal.

“In exchange for these considerations, I will give everyone here one Calm Seas Pill every year.”

This made everyone grin in delight, and YuanFei pounded the table.

“It’s a deal.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 227 – Life 73, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After reaching a deal with the Su Clan’s Grandmasters, they got down to the business of deciding who would be this year’s elites. Even though I had told them I wasn’t interested in poaching any of their ‘top talents,’ they still glanced at me frequently during this process to see if anyone caught my eye.

While listening to their discussions, I was less interested in the Disciples themselves and more interested in their process of choosing who would be an ‘elite.’ As I had seen before, this was partly based on the level of a person’s affinities, but it was more based on how the Grandmasters expected them to use their blessings in the future.

Half of the slots for elites were directly given to those with martial or physical blessings. These Disciples were destined to either become future warriors for the clan or be shipped off to the Rising Sun Empire.

The other half were for people with blessings that made them suitable for a position within the clan’s bureaucracy. Anyone with a blessing that would be uniquely helpful to the clan in some way, such as ShouLi’s beauty blessing, was also considered for these slots. Any leftover slots would then be given to others with combat-related blessings.

One of this year's ‘disappointments’ was Su NiangBa. He was a descendant of the Seventh Elder and had a mid seven-star earth affinity. This should have been enough to be considered an extremely valuable member of the clan, but his blessing was an ability to change the colors of fabrics and textiles. With a blessing like this, he was destined to be nothing more than a simple mortal weaver, so the Grandmasters abandoned him.

This decision made almost no sense to me. Even ignoring everything else, from the way his blessing was described, he could have made an excellent scout or spy. The ability to change the colors and patterns of his clothing at will would allow him to seamlessly blend into nearly any environment. With a solid earth affinity added into the mix, he could easily become a powerful member of an elite strike force.

However, the Su Clan’s Grandmasters saw his blessing as nothing more than a ‘fabric blessing.’ This made him a weaver, and allowing a future weaver to become an elite would have been seen as disgraceful. Also, as this was a mere mortal profession, Su NiangBa wasn’t even qualified for the specialized crafter training.

While I could somewhat understand how they reached this conclusion, allowing themselves to see their new Disciples as little more than their blessings was so… shortsighted.

The Grandmasters would rather give an elite slot to someone with a low affinity and a weak blessing that made them slightly better at using a spear than give it to a talented individual with high affinities and a blessing for hardening leather. The situation was laughable, and it convinced me that I should never allow myself to define people based on my perception of what their blessing would allow them to become.

After all, Du XiongMing started life as nothing more than a simple boy with a weak blessing that allowed him to manipulate small quantities of water. From that modest starting point, he rose to become a powerful Formation Emperor who commanded the respect of nearly everyone on the continent.

If Du XiongMing could do that, what might someone with a ‘fabric blessing’ be able to accomplish given the right circumstances?

Once all the slots for elite Disciples were filled and the meeting ended, I perched myself on the compound’s walls to observe the training of the normal Disciples.

This first week proceeded as it usually did, and everyone remained locked away in their houses while trying to comprehend the basics of their assigned cultivation techniques. However, at the end of the week, when one of the Disciples would typically be killed off, the instructor only severely injured his target.

This resulted in the boy no longer being able to join in on the rest of that day’s training, and without medical aid, he would be in extreme pain for at least a month, but his life was not in jeopardy. He would survive, and he would be able to continue practicing his cultivation technique.

I considered intervening and giving him a pill to help him recover more swiftly, but in the end, I desisted. Yes, it was cruel to let him suffer needlessly, but this was a cruel world. In the long run, treating him with kid gloves wouldn’t be doing him any favors. Allowing him to suffer now would help better prepare him for what he would face in the future.

At the end of the first month, the normal Disciples were given their first chance to challenge the elites.

As soon as the elder opened the floor for challenges, one of the boys immediately stepped forward. He was the best-dressed normal Disciple by far and wore a richly dyed dark blue robe. With the way he looked and the way he carried himself, an outsider could be forgiven for thinking that he was one of the clan’s elites.

This boy was Su NiangBa, the disappointment with the ‘fabric blessing.’

“I challenge Su BoWen. Come and fight me!”

It was clear the two boys were familiar with each other, and NiangBa was confident he would be victorious. With his high affinity and natural talent, he had already raced ahead and reached Martial Disciple 5. This had come at a bit of a cost to his qi purity, but his foundation was still rather impressive.

BoWen’s qi might be slightly purer, but the difference was negligible. While BoWen had spent a lot of effort making his cultivation base as perfect as possible, NiangBa’s natural gifts gave him a huge advantage.

Unfortunately for NiangBa, while his cultivation base was more than enough to pose a challenge to BoWen, he had no understanding of how to fight as a cultivator. He didn’t control his qi properly, and BoWen easily defeated him.

However, following the agreement I had made with the elders, NiangBa was not killed. After the match, his broken body was simply tossed to the side and dismissed as unimportant. The rest of the challenges then continued on as normal.

After the matches were over, YuanFei approached me.

“Prince Fang, I need to discuss something with you.”

I raised an eyebrow and gestured for him to continue.

“It’s about NiangBa. The other Grandmasters and I feel that his continued presence here could be… disruptive. He has already started rushing his cultivation, and with his loss today, this problem is likely to only get worse. If he remains here, he will only cause problems for the others. So, as per our agreement, we would like to request you to take him away.”

I wanted to laugh. They were openly encouraging me to take away their most talented Disciple. It wasn’t exactly what I had planned on, but there was no reason to pass up such an opportunity. NiangBa might have some inner demons he would need to deal with, but he didn’t seem like a bad kid.

After agreeing to YuanFei’s request, I used a qi-powered leap to appear in front of NiangBa who was still lying crumpled on the ground where he had been discarded.

“I am Fang Su. Have you been told about me?”

He nodded wordlessly.

“The Grandmasters of the Su Clan have asked me to take you away. In their opinion, you have no value to the clan, and your presence here is only hurting the other Disciples. You may stay here if you wish and try to forge a path forward with the Su Clan, or you may forsake the clan and join me instead. Which do you choose?”

My words caused rage and helplessness to well up within the boy. He was only 16 years old, and his family was throwing him away. He was seen as nothing more than trash. He had known this from the moment he had been sent back to live with the other normal Disciples, and my words had only confirmed it.

He looked at me with all the anger he could muster.

“Can you make me stronger?”

I nodded.

“Then I’ll join you.”

I flicked both a healing pill and a sleeping pill into his mouth and carried him away.

While I initially carried NiangBa back to my guest house, as soon as we passed through my privacy formations, I stuffed him into my storage space, took a Shadowed Soul Pill, and left for Mount Jiang.

After waking the boy up from his pill-induced slumber, I gave him an identity jade and handed him off to Mo. I wanted to see if my recruits from the previous year were ready to introduce newcomers to my training regime, and Mo was the one I trusted the most to handle this properly. He had shown himself to be more deliberate than Liang, less scheming than ShouLi, and more dedicated to cultivation than either of the siblings.

I kept an eye on everything from afar for a bit, and once I was convinced that nothing would go too terribly wrong, I returned to the training complex. While it might have been better to hang around and ensure there was no repeat of last year’s incident with Liang, I had no reason to expect there to be any problems this time.

Mo, Liang, ShouLi, and the siblings were all well aware of what I expected of them by now, and they would have no difficulty in taking care of NiangBa if he tried to do something reckless. Instead, I was more worried about the Su Clan becoming suspicious of my prolonged absence. As far as they were concerned, NiangBa was tucked away in my guest house, and I wanted it to remain that way.

At the end of the second month, I returned to Mount Jiang, picked up NiangBa, and took him back to the training compound to watch the second round of challenges.

During the past month, he had been studying the contents of the memory orb for the High-Yellow earth cultivation technique. This was a different technique than the one the Su Clan had given him, so he had needed a significant amount of time to work out how all the information in the orb applied to what he already knew. As such, by the end of the month, he had only advanced a single time, reaching Martial Disciple 6.

When we arrived at the arena, he was initially confident in his progress, but after watching the elite Disciples fight against each other, this confidence crumbled to dust. He was intelligent enough to know that while his knowledge of cultivation had advanced significantly, he still didn’t have the skills necessary to compete with the others in martial combat.

After the competition, I took him back to Mount Jiang. Before I could leave, he bowed and spoke up to stop me.

“Patriarch, please, teach me how to fight.”

I looked at him in thought. I hadn’t started anyone on combat lessons yet because I wanted them to focus on mastering their cultivation techniques first. It was best to teach cultivation and combat alongside each other, but the Yellow Orchid Academy typically waited until the second year before beginning anyone on combat lessons. I had planned to follow a similar routine because that was what I was used to, but I didn’t know of any reason why such lessons couldn’t be started earlier.

If the boy wanted to learn how to fight, was there any reason to stop him from doing so? I had always learned best when studying things I was interested in. I might as well apply that same philosophy to my clan.

I waved to NiangBa. “Follow me.”

After entering the technique hall, I took out a pile of lumber and shaped it into a new bookcase. Then, I pulled out a memory orb.

I considered directly imbuing it with memories myself, but I wasn’t confident in my ability to do so properly. Until I learned to make memory orbs on my own, I didn’t want to waste any on needless experimentation.

“System, fill this orb with all my knowledge of basic cultivator combat skills. Do not include any martial techniques. Just have it contain everything I know about basic fighting styles and how to instinctively use qi when attacking, blocking, and moving.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,000 credits. 743,027,430,897 credits remaining.

I placed the orb on the shelf, manipulated the sect-protecting formation to ensure it couldn’t be stolen, and then turned to NiangBa.

“There you go. That orb will teach you what you need to know. I’ll set up a temporary fighting pit outside, and you can spar with the others.” I tossed him a free Energy Expulsion Pill. “I would recommend starting from Martial Disciple 2 and working your way up. If anyone else is interested in learning alongside you, I’ll give them a pill as well.”

After setting everything up, I disappeared, but I didn’t return to the training compound. While I had enough confidence in my recruits to leave NiangBa alone with the others to learn basic cultivation skills, I was a bit worried about what might happen with everyone learning martial skills for the first time. Even a small mistake at this stage could lead to serious injuries, and I needed to be on hand in case things got out of control.

Thankfully, my fears were unfounded, and everyone proceeded cautiously in learning these new skills.

While not everyone was as excited to learn how to fight as NiangBa was, after a year of nothing but cultivation practice, they were all ready to try something new.

To the annoyance of some, while NiangBa was the newest addition and had the least experience with controlling qi, his natural talents allowed him to quickly understand the intricacies of fighting as a cultivator, and he was easily able to hold his own against his older peers.

After overseeing their sparring for an entire week, I left a bottle of powerful healing pills for use in case of an emergency and returned to the training compound.

A note from G Tolley

Hello everyone,

I just want to give you all a heads up of what to expect in coming weeks. I will be taking the week of Christmas off, the 23rd - 27th, but will be coming right back on the 30th to continue pushing forward as we work our way through volume 4.

Thank you for your support.

G. Tolley

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Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 228 – Life 73, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster Peak

At the end of the three-month training period, I brought NiangBa to witness the final competition between the Su Clan’s Disciples.

Per my request, NiangBa was dressed in ragged, blood-stained clothing. His once immaculate, long, flowing hair was now dirty and shorn close to his scalp. By all appearances, his life over the past month had been brutal, and I doubted anyone would wish to swap places with him.

While NiangBa’s appearance was somewhat fabricated, it accurately conveyed the reality of his life over the past month. He had been ruthless to himself during training and had been relentless in his study of martial arts. The only others who showed anywhere close to his level of dedication were Mo and GuiMing, but NiangBa’s combination of focus and natural talent allowed him to improve much faster than either of them.

My hope was that after seeing NiangBa dressed in his bloody rags, only those Disciples who weren’t afraid of hard work would even consider joining me. If he showed up in fine silks, some might see my patronage as an easy path to a life of luxury, and I had no desire to deal with all the problems that would arise from recruiting such people.

Not long after we arrived, the arena’s courtyard started filling up. A quick peek at the elites showed that they were all either Martial Disciple 4 or 5. Their foundations weren’t ideal, but considering that this reflected their first-ever attempt at cultivating, they weren’t too shabby. They each showed definite improvements with every acupoint they opened.

In contrast, NiangBa’s cultivation base was a mess. To learn martial arts properly, he had taken an Energy Expulsion Pill and reset his cultivation base to Martial Disciple 1. He then spent two weeks as a Disciple 2 and one week as a Disciple 3 while slowly practicing the contents of the martial arts memory orb. Then, a week ago, I asked him to quickly raise his cultivation base to Martial Disciple 8 so that the Su Clan elders wouldn’t see anything amiss. With the help of pills and formations, he had been able to accomplish this, but his foundation had suffered in the process.

Normally, this level of corruption in one’s foundation would cause a person to have serious problems with cultivation madness. However, the cultivation technique orbs included information on how to deal with this by sealing one’s acupoints. NiangBa’s proficiency with this technique wasn’t perfect, so a few impulses leaked through, but he was still able to think rationally.

Once all the Grandmasters and Disciples had arrived, the competition proceeded as expected. A few of the normal Disciples, driven by their cultivation techniques and lacking in good sense, stepped forward to challenge the elites. Any who did so were quickly beaten down, and the facade of the elites’ dominance was maintained.

The elites then battled amongst themselves, and like the previous year, there was a clear delineation between the fighters and the auxiliaries. While there were no markings to indicate which group a person belonged to, the fighters only challenged the other fighters and the auxiliaries only challenged the other auxiliaries.

When everything was over, BoWen, the boy who had severely injured NiangBa during the first competition, was ranked second from last among the fighters.

With everything wrapping up and the time for recruiting Disciples approaching, I wanted to make an impression that would encourage as many of them to join me as possible. While NiangBa’s appearance would discourage anyone from thinking that joining me was an easy path to a life of luxury, I also needed to draw the interest of those who were willing to work hard to grow stronger.

I turned to YuanFei.

“How about we let NiangBa challenge one of your elites? It might help everyone understand the harsh truth of this world.”

YuanFei looked at me with a worried expression. “Prince Fang, while I have no objections to such a challenge, you must understand the dangers involved. These children are just starting to come into their power, and it can be hard for them to control it. Your disciple could end up seriously injured.”

I waved his concerns aside offhandedly. “A little pain is a good motivator.”

“Prince…” YuanFei let out a sigh and shook his head. “Very well, but please do not interfere in the fight. Aside from ensuring that no one dies, us Grandmasters must not involve ourselves in a competition between juniors, even if the results are… unpleasant.”

I wanted to snort at the man in disgust, but I held myself back. Instead, I just turned to NiangBa who had been looking in our direction and gave him a nod.

NiangBa confidently walked onto the arena stage and turned to where the elites were seated.

“I wish to see the true quality of the Su Clan elites.”

This pronouncement was met with mocking looks, both from the elites and from the Grandmasters.

NiangBa looked at BoWen. Just as the other boy started to move to accept the challenge, NiangBa grunted in derision and turned to look at the other elites. His gaze landed on the boy who had placed first among the fighters.

NiangBa opened his mouth to challenge this boy, but the moment he did so, a shout came from BoWen.

“You dare look down on me!”

NiangBa snorted at him and turned back to the first-place finisher.

This enraged BoWen enough that he leaped forward onto the arena’s stage.

YuanKong walked up beside me.

“Prince Fang, isn’t this a bit much? Su BoWen is my disciple, and while his results against the other elites were a bit disappointing, having a piece of trash like NiangBa treat him this way is a bit too disrespectful.”

I glanced at YuanKong and then shouted to the boys on the stage below.

“NiangBa, act properly.”

He gave me a quick bow of his head and turned to BoWen. He gave the other boy a deep bow and spoke in an even, measured tone.

“Su BoWen, I challenge you to a formal duel before these witnesses. I hope that we may exchange pointers and use this experience to improve ourselves.”

Bowen growled at NiangBa. “You piece of trash. Do you really think I want to learn anything from you? Get on your knees and beg for forgiveness. If you do, I might leave you with an intact corpse.”

I looked at YuanKong. “NiangBa’s previous performance might have been a bit disappointing, but don’t you think that treating him this way is a bit too disrespectful?”

YuanKong dipped his head slightly. “You must forgive BoWen. This is just the exuberance of youth.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw YuanFei wince at this response, but he didn’t speak up to condemn it.

Down below, the elder in charge finished explaining the rules of the match and signaled for the fight to begin.

NiangBa took up a guard stance, and BoWen just looked at him mockingly.

Behind me, I heard the Grandmasters muttering to each other.

“The trash is too afraid to even move. He’s frozen in place.”

Down below, BoWen started goading his opponent into action.

“Come trash. Try and attack me. I’ll give you one free shot. I won’t even move.”

NiangBa gave him a confused look. “Are you sure?”

“A man doesn’t back down from his words! You would know that if you weren’t so pathetic.”

NiangBa looked up at me, and I gestured for him to proceed.

Dropping his guard stance but maintaining his vigilance, NiangBa walked forward with a casual gait. After stepping in front of BoWen, he pulled back a fist and readied a punch.

“Are you sure about this?”

Again, I heard the Grandmasters muttering behind me.

“Too afraid to even throw a simple punch.”

“No wonder the Dao made him a weaver. He lacks the heart of a warrior.”

Shaking my head slightly, I could only watch as NiangBa punched BoWen in the solar plexus.

BoWen had been trained to concentrate his qi, and the purity of the energy in his chest far exceeded the purity in NiangBa’s fist. However, his ability to focus his energy was a bit lacking, and he didn’t even try to use qi from elsewhere in his body to steady himself.

As NiangBa threw his punch, he released the restrictions on his acupoints and flooded his body with qi. With pinpoint precision, he manipulated his muscles to produce the most powerful punch possible.

The moment NiangBa’s fist landed, BoWen was knocked ten steps backward and collapsed to his knees.

His breathing was ragged, but he was still able to force out a few curses.

“Damn trash. How dare you sneak attack me!? You’ll pay for that!”

Next to me, YuanKong clenched his fists on the balcony railing hard enough to shatter it.

“Prince Fang, such disgraceful behavior is beneath the dignity of this competition. I hope you don’t condone such actions.”

I didn’t even bother replying, I just kept my eyes on the competition below.

With his energy unleashed, the effects of NiangBa’s corrupted qi hit him at full force, and he lost himself to cultivation madness.

Seeing his opponent cursing at him, NiangBa rushed forward and started pummeling the other boy with all his strength. BoWen didn’t even have the wherewithal to surrender.

“STOP!”

YuanKong’s shout echoed across the arena, but lost in his madness, NiangBa didn't care.

As the boy readied himself for another attack, YuanKong threw himself down onto the stage and cycled his qi as he prepared to blast NiangBa with the full force of a Martial Grandmaster.

I turned and glanced at YuanFei.

His face had gone pale. He understood what YuanKong’s actions might mean, but he did nothing to stop him.

I waited until the last possible second to see if anyone else was willing to step in. When no one did, I cycled my energy and connected with a set of roots that I had prepared underneath the stage.

With an effort of will, I reached out, grabbed YuanKong, and forced him to the ground before he could unleash his attack.

“What is the meaning of this!? How dare you attack me!”

Using a root, I forced his mouth shut and jumped to the stage next to NiangBa. Then, with a slight exertion of energy, I sealed the boy’s acupoints, blocking the flow of his tainted qi.

With that, the boy collapsed to the ground, and I turned my focus to the Disciples who had been watching everything with wide eyes.

“My name is Fang Su. I am here to recruit any Disciples who wish to join me. If you work hard, I can turn you into a powerful cultivator. This is not an easy path, but as you can see, it is an effective one.”

I had originally intended to let the Su Clan expel the Disciples they didn’t want before I made my offer, but with YuanKong’s magnificent performance, I no longer felt that was necessary. Anyone who wasn’t interested in joining me after watching everything that happened on stage wasn’t worth my time, and I didn’t feel like recruiting any extra Disciples just because I was their only option.

In the end, eighteen of the Disciples chose to join me, including one of the elites. However, based on the impressions I had gotten of them over the past few months, I rejected three of them, including the elite.

With the competition over, I led the fifteen who were joining me back to my guest house to prepare for the journey ahead, but when we arrived, I was greeted by the Grand Elder.

I motioned for the Disciples to wait in the back of the house and then sat down to chat with the elder.

“Prince Fang, the elders did not wish to impose on you, so they sent me here to collect your payment for this year’s Disciples directly. This way, you will not need to go through the hassle of traveling all the way to Dragon Gate City.”

The corner of my mouth rose into a faint smirk. “What you mean is, the Patriarch would rather not meet with me again, correct?”

The Grand Elder gave a faint smile, but he neither confirmed nor denied this accusation.

I reached into my storage space and pulled out a large bag filled with several pill bottles.

“This contains everything we have agreed upon.”

The elder nodded in acceptance and didn’t bother checking to see if the amount was correct.

“There is another issue that has come up, and it would be best if we could discuss it right away.”

I motioned for him to continue.

“You have taken away a skilled member of our clan, his wife, and several of his associates. Su LianFu and Ma XinYi were talented bakers and vital employees of our clan’s largest bakery. While their associates might not have been members of the Su Clan, they still contributed to the stable functioning of Dragon Gate City. This has caused the elders—”

I waved him to silence.

He was talking about GuiMing and GuiAi’s parents along with the others who had accompanied them to Mount Jiang. I expected this to come up at some point, so it was good to get it taken care of.

“How much?”

The Grand Elder blinked at me.

“How much do you want? We both know that this is only a matter of price, so how much? And before you speak, remember that we are talking about mortals. Su LianFu might be a Martial Disciple 7, but his cultivation base has long since calcified.”

“Two Perfect Rank 2 pills each.”

“Two for the members of the Su Clan. I will give you one for each of their associates, but only because I am feeling generous. You have no claim on them, and they were free to join me at their discretion.”

The elder began to signal his agreement, but I held up a finger to stop him.

“We will maintain this price in the future, but you must pledge that no harm will come to the families of anyone I recruit if they decide not to follow me.”

“Prince Fang… I understand your need for skilled workers, but could you… could you please avoid recruiting too many of our adults? Too many absences will eventually cause problems, and we will not be able to provide you with young Disciples if there is no one to sire them.”

I thought about this for a second and then nodded. “Very well. Except in extraordinary circumstances, I won’t recruit any more adult members of your clan. If I need mortal laborers, I will look to the commoner families among your populace and pay the requisite price.”

Not being members of the Su Clan, these workers wouldn’t be of any assistance in generating Sovereign-level karmic energy, but they would add to the genetic diversity of the colony I was creating. This would hopefully alleviate any problems caused by focusing too much on recruiting people from a single bloodline.

With this agreement in place, the Grand Elder left. Once he was gone, I collected my new recruits, feigned a journey to Rosehill, and carried everyone to Mount Jiang.

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 229 – Life 73, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After returning to Mount Jiang, I handed my new recruits off to Mo, ShouLi, Liang, and the siblings. They had done an excellent job of raising NiangBa, and I was hopeful that I wouldn’t need to step in to help them too much with this larger group.

Once I was gone, everyone naturally divided themselves into three distinct camps. Mo teamed up with NiangBa, ShouLi with Liang, and GuiMing with GuiAi. Then, each pair took five of the new recruits and helped them get settled in.

Their first task was to build new housing for themselves.

I had already constructed a warehouse on the southern side of the plateau, and it held more than enough basic wood, stone, and metal for everyone to build anything they might want. They were free to use these materials in any way they chose, but as I had done the previous year, I would reward more thoughtful designs with extra contribution points.

By having children with no background or training in architecture design and build houses by themselves, there was a nonzero chance that things would go disastrously wrong. However, that was unlikely. These young cultivators were capable of using qi and specialized techniques to move and shape basic materials at will. As long as they strengthened everything properly, they didn’t necessarily have to follow the normal rules of structural engineering. They might not be able to build anything elaborate, but they should at least be able to construct a house without it collapsing on them in the process.

After splitting up, the three groups approached this problem from radically different directions. ShouLi’s group focused on building a single, massive, palatial structure that was capable of housing all seven people in their cohort. The siblings’ group, on the other hand, was constructing a series of smaller buildings that encircled a shared courtyard. Finally, Mo’s group had spread out a bit, and everyone was building their own individual cottages.

Aside from checking in on them every once in a while to ensure that none of these structures were on the verge of collapsing, I mostly left everyone alone to do their own thing while I shifted my focus to the northern edge of the plateau.

At first, I had been somewhat concerned about allowing NiangBa to train in martial arts too early, but his results proved the effectiveness of allowing the members of my clan to pursue whatever subjects they were interested in. As such, I decided to immediately expand the skills I had on offer and allow the Disciples to start studying a profession.

Cultivators on the Nine Rivers Continent only recognized eight professions, and each of these professions was typically associated with a different element.

Of these eight, I immediately ruled out providing any training for gu keepers and illusionists. This was partly because I didn’t have Essence Gathering Formations for their associated elements, but it was also because I knew nothing about what was required to learn these skills properly. I could easily make an alchemy workshop, but what would a gu keeper need?

In truth, this decision might have also been the result of my inherent fear of gu keepers. While I wanted my clan members to grow strong and study whatever interested them, the idea of having dozens of gu keepers capable of infecting everyone in the clan with nasty insects was horrifying. Before opening this profession up for others to learn, I needed to study it myself, but that would be difficult without first making myself vulnerable to a master of the art who was capable of teaching me, and that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

That left six professions, and after a bit of consideration, I also decided to eliminate herbalism and beast taming. For the moment, we simply didn't have enough room to practice these professions. Once I expanded the sect-protecting formation to cover the island surrounding Mount Jiang, this would change, but that would have to wait until I felt our position in the Wastes was a bit more secure.

That left me needing to construct workshops for alchemy, refining, formations, and talisman crafting. For the moment, there were only 21 Disciples in my clan, but with the expectation that this number would expand rapidly in the coming years, I went ahead and built four large, multi-story wooden structures with several dozen workshops each.

I then added a smaller building where the Disciples would be able to requisition crafting supplies and sell their completed products. I would need to charge contribution points for rare or high-Rank items, but I was willing to provide common Rank 1 supplies for free. This would allow Disciples to reach a point where their profession was profitable before needing to worry about how to pay to practice it.

While constructing this building was simple enough, getting it fully operational was a bit more complicated. Ideally, I would have a receptionist capable of appraising everything and awarding the appropriate compensation, but finding such a person was no easy feat. For the moment, the clan was small enough that I could take care of everything personally, but in the future, this might be another place where I would have to implement some form of automation.

After a few finishing touches, I was satisfied with the state of the workshops, so I went to the Technique Hall where I pulled out four blank memory orbs.

“System, I want one of these orbs to be imbued with the complete knowledge of Rank 1 alchemy that would typically be expected from an expert on this continent. I want the other orbs to contain similar information for formations, refining, and talisman crafting.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 4 million credits. 743,023,430,897 credits remaining.

My current level of alchemy was a bit beyond what would normally be expected from someone on this continent, and I did not doubt that what I had learned about refining and formations from Jin and Shen covered all the information contained in these orbs. However, I still decided to purchase memories from the System to ensure that the knowledge was of the highest quality possible. I also wanted to avoid the risk of accidentally imbuing them with any extra information that I preferred to keep secret.

Once these new orbs were ready, I placed them on the bookshelf next to the orb containing basic martial knowledge. Then, I went to inform the Disciples.

Aside from allowing my clan members to grow stronger and more knowledgeable, these orbs and workshops would also allow my recruits to help me make pills to pay off the Su Clan. While making Perfect Rank 1 pills was a rather simple process, making 150 of them to pay for my 15 new recruits had been rather tedious. By training up a few new alchemists, I could pass this task off to others and only worry about crafting the higher-Rank pills.

However, I made it clear that they would only be rewarded for concocting Perfect pills. Any pills of a lesser quality had to be destroyed. No matter what, I couldn't allow anyone to begin consuming tainted pills and absorbing toxins.

With the workshops built, the new orbs in place, and the Disciples informed of their presence, I allowed the children to take care of themselves while I focused my attention elsewhere.

Mount Jiang was a large mountain formed from blueschist that sat in the middle of a peat bog island encircled by a shallow, marshy lake. There were several oddities about this location, the most important of which being its elevated levels of water essence. However, this was far from its only notable feature.

For example, one thing I found strange was that Mount Jiang was an entire mountain formed from nothing but blueschist. From everything I understood, that shouldn’t have been possible. At a minimum, other forms of basalt should have been present.

Additionally, Mount Jiang was the only mountain in the immediate area. Lonely mountains weren’t entirely unheard of, but when combined with Mount Jiang’s unique composition, the lack of any other mountains in its surroundings was hard to ignore.

Then there was the peat bog at the base of the mountain. Not only did this bog cover hundreds of square kilometers, but it was also able to produce a variety of rare and powerful Rank 3 herbs. As I had learned during my experiments with herbalism, creating an environment suitable for growing high-quality herbs was no simple task, so this fact alone was enough to show that there was something special about this place.

I was certain that there was a secret hiding underneath Mount Jiang, and now that the land was officially my domain, I wanted to find out what it was.

However, there was one problem. I wasn’t cultivating earth qi, so I couldn’t directly manipulate the stone of the mountain. I could use my wood qi or a spirit fire to carve my way into it, but I would rather not do that if I didn't have to. Recklessly carving through the stone could destabilize the entire mountain and destroy our settlement atop its peak. So, I would need to wait until later to delve down into the mountain itself.

That being the case, I jumped down from the mountain to the peat bog that surrounded it and used my wood qi to tunnel through that instead.

As I dug, I did my best to stay close to the mountain.

Only 5 meters down, I ran into a problem. Water was seeping in through the walls of my tunnel at an alarming rate.

Focusing my qi, I compressed the decomposing plant matter of the bog into hardened walls capable of keeping the groundwater at bay.

While this didn’t consume too much energy, needing to strengthen the tunnel as I dug slowed my progress significantly.

After reaching a depth of slightly over 100 meters, the bottom of my tunnel burst apart and water rapidly rushed inside, filling it up and pushing me back the way I had come.

With a quick motion, I sealed the bottom of the tunnel and stabilized my position.

After ensuring there was no further danger of the tunnel collapsing on me, I took out and consumed a Rank 2 Water Breathing Pill that I had made for just this eventuality.

Then, I sealed the tunnel above me and opened a hole below.

Moving through the destroyed section of the tunnel and then through the remaining plant matter was a bit of a struggle, but after passing the 100-meter mark once again, the peat surrounding me disappeared, and I found myself in an expansive underground ocean.

What surrounded Mount Jiang was not a shallow marsh. It was a massive, ancient lake that had been choked out by an overabundance of dead plant matter. Not just the island around the mountain, but the entire bog that extended for several kilometers in every direction was floating on top of this hidden lake.

After swimming down roughly 200 meters and using tendrils of qi to probe my surroundings, I found the location where the blueschist of Mount Jiang was firmly embedded into the ordinary limestone of the lakebed. The line separating these two stones was stark, and nothing about the situation looked natural in any way.

This confirmed a few of my suspicions about Mount Jiang, but I wasn’t able to find what I had really been looking for. It had to be hidden within the mountain itself. From the outside, there were no clues as to why the area had elevated levels of water essence, and the source of both Mount Jiang and its surrounding plant life remained elusive.

While part of me wanted to blast my way into the mountain to search for my prize, I opted to remain patient. In a decade or so, I would be able to send Mo or one of the others to the Su Clan to recruit Disciples in my stead. That would give me the time I needed to safely change cultivation techniques without being targeted during my period of weakness. Then, once I made it back to Grandmaster and had access to earth qi, I would be able to pass through the stone of the mountain as easily as I had just been able to pass through its surrounding bog.

Giving up on my exploration for the moment, I looked around one last time and then returned to the surface.

The following two years passed with little fanfare. Everyone worked on slowly improving their skills, and all the Disciples, both new and old, were able to develop in a multitude of different directions.

ShouLi and NiangBa, being the two Disciples with the highest natural talent, were both able to cultivate a pristine foundation with a Peak-Yellow technique after practicing for only a little over a year.

At that point, I offered them the opportunity to cultivate a Low-Yellow Rank 2 technique, but they chose to try and learn a Low-Profound Rank 1 technique instead. I didn’t have enough memory orbs to spend them on Profound- and Earth-Rank techniques that few would ever use, so they had to learn these techniques from ordinary scrolls. This was more difficult, but with their level of talent, it wasn't too much of a challenge.

A year later, my other four original recruits followed suit. They also chose to try and learn a Profound-Rank technique, but they eventually decided that mastering such a technique was far too difficult. Instead, they settled on spending their time practicing techniques from the other elements to earn contribution points and raise their affinities before pushing themselves to learn anything more advanced.

During my third visit to the Su Clan’s training camp, I recruited 14 new Disciples. During my fourth visit, I recruited another 18. After being brought back to Mount Jiang, these new recruits quickly found themselves slotted into one of the three established factions.

I was happy with the way my clan was growing, but the plateau atop Mount Jiang was quickly filling up. Within only a year or two, we would need to start carving our way down into the mountain, or we would be at risk of running out of space to house everyone.

However, that problem wasn’t yet imminent. Instead, there was something else I was far more worried about. I had been gone from the Verdant Fields Sect for slightly over three years by this point, and I wanted to see how SuYin and Bao were doing.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 230 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

With everything stable in my nascent clan, I felt things were secure enough that I could spend some time away without the risk of anything terrible happening. So, I wanted to take the opportunity to check in on Bao and SuYin.

However, this trip wasn’t just about ensuring that the two of them were happy and healthy. I wanted to find out what they had learned about herbalism while I was away, and I wanted to spend some time practicing the craft myself.

I would need to be back in the clan for the next year’s training camp, but that was nine months away. I could spend the time in the interim with my disciples in the Verdant Fields Sect.

First, though, I needed to ensure that my clan was prepared for my absence.

Stuck on top of a mountain, what the people in my clan needed more than anything else was access to fresh food and clean drinking water. With a massive lake surrounding Mount Jiang, there was plenty of water readily available, and I just needed to set up a formation to draw it up to the plateau. Food, however, was a bit trickier to deal with.

In the end, I decided to leave a storage bag filled with dry goods in the warehouse. It contained more than enough rice, flour, beans, dried vegetables, and other assorted foods to keep everyone fed for years to come. While this might not be the most appetizing diet, no one would need to fear going hungry.

To keep everyone busy while I was gone, I added Low- to Peak-Earth Rank 1 cultivation techniques to the Technique Hall, and I gave Mo a storage bag filled with vast quantities of all the Rank 1 crafting materials I could get my hands on.

Once everything was ready, I had a final conversation with the original six members of my clan. Then, I hopped on my horse and rode north to the Verdant Fields Sect.

I didn’t know what would happen after I left. Perhaps someone would go mad and slaughter everyone. However, I placed my trust in those I had chosen to join me. I had given them all the advantages that I could, and it was time for them to prove themselves worth my efforts.

---------------------------------------------------

When I had left the Verdant Fields Sect, SuYin and Bao had been planning to enter the outer sect to further their knowledge of herbalism. As they were both powerful Grandmasters with solid foundations at that point, I had expected the sect to have a few questions for them, but I doubted there would be any real problems. After all, any sect should be more than happy to find strong cultivators and skilled herbalists hidden within their midst.

As I hadn’t left them any means to contact me directly, my first stop was at the Blue Wind Pavilion in the town that was located right outside the sect. Upon entering, I paid a small fee of a few silver and retrieved the letters that had been left for me.

Most of these were from SuYin. She didn’t go into much detail, but she gave me brief summaries of everything the two of them had been up to over the years.

When they entered the sect, their herbalism was still stuck at Rank 1 since they had spent all their time with me researching different ways to improve the growth of simple plants. So, even though they were Grandmasters, they still had to start at the bottom of the outer sect.

From there, they were able to purchase lessons from skilled Master Herbalists and learn the details of how to grow Rank 2 herbs. This was where the power of SuYin’s blessing shined through. After attending only a single lecture, she was able to remember everything, even the most minute of details. This allowed her to grasp all that the sect had to teach in only a matter of weeks.

Bao, on the other hand, ran into a few problems. The first was his lack of SuYin’s perfect memory. He did his best, but he had a hard time remembering technical details such as what time of year to plant which herbs, how best to sprout various seeds, what kind of lighting different plants required, and so on.

For the most part, these were issues that would be easy to solve through the use of a memory orb. By creating an orb filled with Rank 2 herbalism knowledge, I could lock these details into Bao’s soul so that he would never forget them.

However, there was a larger issue at play. His blessing gave him copious amounts of esoteric information about every herb, but according to SuYin, the information he got from his blessing was often at odds with the sect's teaching. I didn’t doubt the power of Bao’s blessing, but until he was able to completely comprehend the information he received from it, the contradictions between it and the sect’s methods would only cause him problems.

After a year in the outer sect, SuYin had the opportunity to advance to the inner sect, but she held back to give Bao a chance to catch up to her. However, after another year, Bao was still struggling, so they came to an arrangement. SuYin joined the inner sect, and Bao became her servant. This gave both of them access to the knowledge of the inner sect, and it allowed them to learn Rank 3 herbalism as a team.

I wasn’t overly enamored with the idea of Bao becoming SuYin’s servant, even if it was just in name, but this was their decision to make. I wouldn’t interfere in their personal lives.

All of these updates had come from SuYin. Bao had only left me a single hastily written letter, and it was the most recent one.

————

Master,

We’re in trouble. A disciple from the Verdant Forest Sect showed up, and he’s forcing SuYin to leave with him. She’s going to be taken away. We’re currently living on plot 3 of the northern section of the inner ring. Please come soon!

————

Upon seeing this, my vision turned red, but I took a deep breath to calm myself. I didn’t need to rush in blindly and attack an unknown opponent. I needed to understand the situation before taking action.

After thinking things through, I pulled out the jade token that identified me as a nominal disciple of the Verdant Fields Sect. I couldn’t use it to reach the inner ring, but that was an easy problem to solve.

“System, change this token to give full access to the Verdant Fields Sect. I want complete authority over its sect-protecting formation.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 5 million credits. 743,018,430,897 credits remaining.

It might have been possible for me to brute force my way through the formation, and depending on its quality, I might have been able to break it entirely, but I preferred to take a stealthier approach, at least for now. Besides, while the cost was slightly annoying, I now had a jade that would let me enter the sect at will in the future.

Token in hand, I got back on my horse and rode into the sect.

---------------------------------------------------

The Verdant Fields Sect was located in the middle of a seemingly endless plain. For hundreds of kilometers in every direction, the ground was incredibly flat and level, and all this land had been portioned off into a multitude of small farmsteads.

The layout of the sect was a simple three-ring structure. The outermost ring was for the nominal disciples. The land there was no different than anywhere else in the Wastes, and it was generally only good for growing simple Rank 1 herbs.

The middle ring was for the outer sect disciples. Partially because of the natural environment, and partially because of how the land had been managed over the years, the middle ring was capable of producing a large number of high-quality Rank 2 herbs, so it was an excellent place for Master Herbalists to practice their craft.

The inner ring was for the inner sect disciples. This was the smallest ring, and its environment was only slightly better than that of the middle ring. Here, Grandmaster Herbalists could attempt to grow Rank 3 herbs, but they would fail more often than not. Most of the herbs they did manage to grow were of low quality, and only a handful were good enough to meet the needs of a typical Grandmaster Alchemist.

This meant that while Rank 1 and 2 herbalists were rather common in the sect, it was exceedingly difficult to advance to Rank 3. There simply wasn’t enough land to go around, and even when a plot did become available, the cost to rent it was beyond what a normal Rank 2 herbalist could afford.

The fact that SuYin and Bao were able to reach the inner ring in only three years was more than a little impressive. It showed that they had gained a solid understanding of everything they needed to know to grow high-quality Rank 2 herbs. Based on the timing of SuYin’s letters, the fact that they were still there suggested that they had even been successful in growing Rank 3 herbs.

It wasn’t too surprising that such achievements had caught the eye of someone from the Verdant Forest Sect. I just had to hope that whoever it was hadn’t tried to do anything too reckless.

SuYin might not have been a Peak Grandmaster when I left, but after three years, she should be close. With everything I had taught her, she would be more than a match for any of the locals, and I doubted anyone who came here to recruit disciples would fare much better against her.

---------------------------------------------------

Using the directions Bao had left for me, I was able to quickly locate their farmstead. When I arrived, I couldn’t help but admire the quality of the herbs they were growing.

Their field was a riot of colors and hues from a diverse collection of plants that seemed to be growing in a haphazard manner. At first glance, it felt like SuYin and Bao had simply scattered handfuls of seeds at random and were letting the plants grow wherever they pleased, but looking at the scene in energy vision told a far different tale.

Qi and medicinal energy flowed between the plants in a strange pattern that was reminiscent of a formation. Various herbs contained energy from each of the five basic elements, and as energy passed between them, it strengthened the medicinal energy at the core of each herb and cleansed them of toxins.

The sight was impressive, and I wanted to study it in greater detail, but now wasn’t the time.

Rushing into the farmhouse, I found Bao deep in cultivation. He had already reached Martial Grandmaster 7 and was pushing hard to advance to Grandmaster 8.

It wouldn’t be good to interrupt this process, but I needed to understand the situation with SuYin before it was too late. So, I took out a Calm Seas Pill and forced it into his mouth. This settled the energy in his dantian, and he was able to maintain his progress without having to focus all his attention on it.

The moment I interrupted his cultivation, Bao looked up at me with wide, frightened eyes, but when he recognized me, he became excited.

“Master—”

I held up a hand to keep him from speaking more than necessary. “I got your message. Keep working on your breakthrough. Just tell me what’s happening with SuYin.”

Bao dropped his head and returned most of his attention to his cultivation.

“About a week ago, two Peak Grandmasters came here. They said that SuYin had caught the eye of Young Master Wang. Then, they took her away. They said that she was being given a fortuitous opportunity and that if she was lucky, she would be taken away to the Verdant Forest Sect.”

“Do you know where they took her?”

Bao shook his head. “No, just that they headed to the center of the sect.”

A pained expression crossed his face. “My cultivation wasn’t high enough to stop them.”

I patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure she’s safe.”

Saying this, I turned and hurried away. I trusted SuYin’s ability to handle herself, but she wasn’t an experienced fighter. If too many people ganged up on her, she might be overwhelmed.

---------------------------------------------------

One of the minor protections I had left in place on both Bao and SuYin was a small amulet with a formation that could guide me to them in times of trouble. I hadn’t activated it earlier because the excessive amount of energy it required to send signals over long distances meant that it would only work for a short time before burning out.

Now, as I headed swiftly toward the center of the sect, I activated my half of the formation and followed its lead.

As I approached SuYin’s location, the vibrant, fecund plant life that had been so abundant in the sect slowly disappeared. Green foliage turned into yellowed, withering weeds, and shortly thereafter, even the weeds disappeared. As I ran further toward my destination, the ground became dry and cracked. A dozen meters later, the earth began to darken until it became black as pitch.

When I reached the very center of the sect, I was greeted by a giant hole that drilled straight down through this black, dead soil. It was nearly half a kilometer in diameter. Taking in the scene, I noticed a small pavilion where half a dozen people were resting under an awning.

The moment I saw them, I popped a Shadowed Soul Pill into my mouth and disappeared from sight. My formation told me that SuYin’s amulet was located somewhere down below, within the massive pit, but before jumping down there to look for her, I needed more information. So, I approached the pavilion to listen in and see what I could learn.

“Young Master Wang, she’s been down there for days… should we send someone to bring her out?”

This question was addressed to a young man dressed in a simple green robe. After rubbing his chin in thought, this young man shook his head.

“No. Her defensive formation hasn't been activated, so she shouldn’t be in any danger. Absorbing enough essence to break through to a six-star affinity just takes time.” He looked at the man who had spoken and smiled slightly. “I won’t let anything happen to the girl. You don’t have to worry about losing your reward for producing a future Herb Lord.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 231 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The discussion amongst those in the pavilion made me question Bao’s interpretation of events. I needed to withhold judgment until I had more information, but before anything else, I needed to find SuYin and ensure her safety.

So, ignoring Young Master Wang and his lackeys for the moment, I walked forward and descended into the abyss.

In front of the pavilion was a path that led downward into the hole. This provided an easy, gentle way forward for anyone looking to brave the depths of the earth. However, since I was in a rush, I opted to take a faster route. Instead of following this path as it gently wrapped its way around the entire circumference of the hole, I leaped from ledges to outcroppings and swiftly descended.

From what Young Master Wang and the others had said, it sounded like this hole was dangerous in some way, and it didn’t take me longer to figure out what that danger was. As I dove deeper beneath the earth, the air and ground around me grew noticeably hotter. If this change in temperature had been caused by excessive fire qi, I could have used my affinities to block it, but instead, it was caused by natural heat, greatly limiting how much my affinity alone could accomplish.

After descending 50 meters, I began noticing veins of metal snaking their way through the walls of this hole. This silvery-colored metal could have been anything from iron to platinum, and all I was able to gather from a quick check was that it was a relatively malleable material. I wasn’t as familiar with metals as I was with stones, so all I could conclude was that it was a generic silvery-white metal. Unfortunately, that didn’t tell me much.

Upon probing the surrounding earth a bit, I found that countless small flecks of this metal were present in the surrounding soil. This was likely part of the reason why the land in the nearby area was so barren. The excessive heat had killed off most plants, and the heavy metals had taken care of the rest.

While this was interesting, it wasn’t my concern at the moment, so after making a mental note about it, I continued deeper into the hole.

Starting at a depth of 100 meters, small alcoves began appearing along the path as it winded its way down the hole. At first, I was a little confused as to their purpose, but not too long after first seeing them, the amount of wood essence in the environment began to reach noticeable levels. This suggested that these alcoves were places to rest while absorbing essence from the environment.

As I went deeper, both the temperature and the amount of wood essence surrounding me continued to increase. However, while this amount of essence was significantly higher than what was present in the outside world, it was only a drop in the bucket compared to the amount one would need for a four- or five-star affinity. Still, for anyone who didn’t know about the Nine Rivers Sect, this place might seem like a holy land.

The deeper I went, the more prevalent the silvery metal became. By the 200-meter mark, the walls were more metal than stone. At the same time, the heat of the tunnel had become so intense that it was nearly unbearable. To counteract this, I tried to use my wood qi to form a barrier around me, but the abundance of heat and metal in the surrounding environment made this extremely difficult.

Luckily, I didn’t have to go much further. Before even reaching the 250-meter mark, I found SuYin tucked away in a small alcove made almost entirely of metal.

When I saw her, I couldn’t help but let out a slight curse. While I was struggling with all my might to form a shield of wood qi to protect me from the heat, she was wearing a silver bracelet inscribed with a formation that was generating a barrier of water qi.

Having knowledge of what one would face down here in advance had made things far too easy for the girl.

Still, looking at her, I could see that she was barely holding on. The prolonged time she had spent in this torturous environment had worn away at her mind, and she was on the verge of collapse. When that happened, her bracelet would send out a pulse of energy to alert those waiting above.

If that happened, I was somewhat confident that Young Master Wang would act to protect her, but I wasn’t ready for that just yet.

After quickly surveying the situation, I pulled a tendril of spirit fire from the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire and infused it into my body. Then, I used this flame to inscribe a rudimentary Rank 3 defensive formation into the floor of SuYin’s alcove. Like her bracelet, this formation used water qi. While water qi was somewhat scant in this environment, it was still the best option given the circumstances.

With this barrier in place, the strain on SuYin’s psyche gradually relaxed.

Once she was able to gather her wits, she blinked, looked around, and then stared up at me.

“M… Master?”

I waved at her. “Hey.”

She leapt to her feet and gave me a big hug.

“Master, you’re finally back!”

After calming her down, I took out a couple of comfortable chairs and sat down across from her. Then, I told her about how I had come here, and she explained things from her perspective.

“Yeah… two guards came and took me away, just like you said. At the time, I was afraid because I didn’t know what they wanted from me. From the way they acted, it looked like they expected Young Master Wang to… well…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. When we arrived, he apologized for their behavior and promised me that he would make it up to me.”

I nodded at her story, but it was difficult to tell what had actually happened. Was it simply a misunderstanding on the part of the guards? Had they mistakenly expected Young Master Wang to act like a ‘young master?’ Or was Young Master Wang playing a bit of a trick on SuYin? He could be using this ‘misunderstanding’ to make her trust him more.

It was hard to say, but it didn’t matter too much. As long as we were more powerful than him, any plots he had were bound to fail, and if he was capable of appreciating the power we possessed, he would act to befriend us regardless of his previous motives.

“Is that why you’re down here? Is this part of him making up for his past mistake?”

She shook her head slightly. “No… He… He wants me to join the Verdant Forest Sect, and anyone they recruit is given the chance to come down here. I… I don’t know if I want to join them, but I didn’t think he would take ‘no’ for an answer.”

My expression hardened slightly. “Don’t worry. With me here, if you don’t want to join them, they can’t force you. The decision is entirely up to you.”

SuYin looked at me pensively. “It’s not that I don’t want to join them… Really, I was more just worried about you not being able to find us if we left. There’s just… There’s not much more for us to learn here. The amount of information this sect has is limited. I can’t say I’ve mastered it all quite yet, but thanks to my blessing, I do have it all stored away.”

I tapped my fingers on my chair's armrest in thought.

“There’s something else you need to consider. From what I overheard, this Young Master Wang intends to help you ascend to Martial Lord. If that happens, you’ll no longer be able to enter the Wastes. You’ll never be able to return to your hometown again, and you’ll never be able to visit any friends or family you leave behind.”

The shock that appeared on her face told me that she either hadn’t known about this or simply hadn’t thought about it.

“I’ll… never be able to see my family again?” Tears began to well up in her eyes. “No… Master, please help me. I can’t… I can’t let that happen.”

I looked at her and thought about how much I should say. There were dangers in her knowing too much too soon, but I would need to tell her everything eventually, and it would probably be better to do it now so that she could make an informed decision.

I placed a hand on SuYin’s shoulder to calm her down.

“Don’t worry. Like I said, if you want, I can take you out of here. No young master will be able to stop us. They won’t even know we’re gone. Instead, you just need to think about what you want for yourself and what you want to achieve.”

She nodded and steadied herself.

“First, consider what Young Master Wang has to offer. If you join the Verdant Forest Sect and he helps you become a Lord, you will likely gain a good measure of power and authority. While you won’t be able to return to the Wastes, you will be able to create a new home for your family in the sect. Not only will the conditions there be much better than where they’re living now, but you will also have the means to improve their lives far more than what’s possible if they remain here.”

This thought brought renewed life to her eyes, but unfortunately, I had to snuff it out.

“You shouldn’t rely too much on him, though. He might simply want to recruit you to earn merit from his sect, but he might also have ulterior motives. Until you know him better, don’t take anything he tells you at face value. While he might help you ascend to Martial Lord, he will almost certainly have his own reasons for doing so. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is something you have to be cautious of.”

A worried expression returned to SuYin’s face, but it wasn’t the near despair from earlier.

Knowing that I needed to explain things to her in full, I reached into my storage space, pulled out a memory orb, and showed it to her.

“Dealing with Young Master Wang will be dangerous. Neither of us knows his true motivations, but for every problem, there is a solution.” I hesitated slightly before continuing. “This might be difficult for you to accept, but please, hear me out.”

I then proceeded to explain to her the details of my resets and time loops. While Young Master Wang might have some tricky plan that would hurt SuYin in some way, she didn’t need to worry about it too much. She could try following him, and if it didn’t work, she would know to avoid him in the future.

Additionally, while ascending to Lord would prevent her from being able to return to the Wastes, after a reset, she would no longer be a Lord, so this restriction would no longer apply. If she wanted to, she could leave her family here where Rulers couldn’t get to them while she traveled outside and then return to them in her next life.

Of course, the existence of time loops didn’t solve everything. She still wouldn’t want her family threatened or murdered because of her actions, and playing around with young masters was a dangerous game.

While SuYin thought about her decision, I took out a large stone and inscribed a quick Rank 3 Wood Essence Gathering Formation into it. Then, I placed it under her chair and activated it.

The essence in the surrounding environment would have been enough to raise SuYin’s wood affinity to low six-star after only a few more hours, but if she was going to go to the Verdant Forest Sect, it would be best if she was as powerful as possible beforehand. So, why settle for a low six-star affinity when an extra day down here would be enough to raise it significantly further?

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 232 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Once SuYin was ready, I consumed a Shadowed Soul Pill and followed her out of the hole. While it was unlikely that Young Master Wang or the others would try to attack her at this point, I stayed close by her side to ensure that nothing went awry.

The moment we made it back to the surface, the whole group seated under the pavilion stood to greet us. SuYin walked forward and gave a deep bow to the young man who I had previously identified as Young Master Wang.

“Senior Brother Wang, I have returned. My mission was a success.”

Most of those who had been waiting for SuYin’s return appeared happy at this statement, but the young man had a slight look of worry on his face. This was likely due to the fact that he had detailed information on how long it should have taken her to acquire a low six-star affinity based on how far down the hole she made it.

Originally, she would have broken through to low six-star only a few hours after I had arrived, but she had remained down for nearly an entire extra day. To Young Master Wang, this delay must have made it seem like SuYin hadn’t gone as deep as she should have, and this might be an indication of some form of weakness in her.

However, he didn’t voice his concerns. He just nodded his head, reached into his storage bag, and withdrew an affinity testing orb.

Understanding his meaning, SuYin automatically lifted her hand and placed it on the orb.

A small tree appeared in the orb. It started as a dirty brown color, but this didn’t last long. It quickly changed shades and colors. At peak seven-star, these shifting colors paused slightly, but after only a moment, the tree took on a dull amber hue.

Young Master Wang let out a sigh, and the tension that had built up in his shoulders was released.

“Good. It’s good that you were successful.”

However, when SuYin didn’t drop her hand, he furrowed his brow.

“Junior Sister–”

At that moment, the image in the orb changed once more. The dull amber image of a tree brightened slightly. This caused everyone to freeze, and only a moment later, before they could react, the tree brightened a second time. At this point, SuYin dropped her hand.

Upon seeing this, the jaw of the old man who had been talking with Young Master Wang dropped in astonishment.

“High six-star? How far down did you go?”

This snapped Wang out of his trance, and he looked back at the older man and gave him a stern look of reprimand.

The old man looked down, abashed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.”

The old man’s shock wasn’t hard to understand. To gather enough essence for a high six-star affinity in only a week without a formation, SuYin would have needed to delve far deeper than what normally would have been possible. If she were a fire cultivator, this might be explainable, but to all appearances, she only cultivated wood qi.

In truth, I was slightly disappointed. If we had stayed down there longer, SuYin could have pushed her affinity even higher, but that would have taken far too long. My Essence Gathering Formation had only been active for a day, and the amount of wood essence in the environment had already dropped precipitously. Without delving to unsafe depths, a high six-star affinity was the best SuYin could have achieved in a reasonable amount of time.

Young Master Wang focused his attention back on SuYin and gave her a comforting smile.

“This is… good. Very good. We need to head to the Verdant Forest Sect immediately. Your success in this trial must be reported to the elders as soon as possible.”

SuYin’s expression turned pensive and fearful. “Senior Brother Wang…”

“Junior Sister, trust me. Your talent is wasted here. You need the opportunities the Verdant Forest Sect can provide you with if you want to truly shine.”

She winced and shook her head slightly. “Yes, I understand. It’s just… I have two servants. They have accompanied me for many years. They… Can they come with me?”

A crease formed on the young master’s forehead. “Junior Sister, it’s not that I don’t want them to come with us, but the sect has rules. Only members of the sect are allowed within its walls. Even if they come with us, if they don’t have the qualifications to join the sect, they won’t be able to enter.”

This made SuYin chuckle slightly. “This shouldn’t be a problem. Please, just give them a chance. I am certain they have the qualifications to join.”

He nodded slowly, but his skepticism was plain for anyone to see. “Since you have asked this of me, I will give them an opportunity, but I must tell you this. The sect master and I discussed matters of the Verdant Fields Sect in great detail during your trial. From what he has told me, there is no one else capable of joining us.”

The edge of SuYin’s mouth quirked up in a slight smile. “As long as you give them a chance, I will be satisfied.”

As SuYin and Young Master Wang began heading to her house, I raced ahead of them so that I would be there when they arrived.

After entering, I expelled the remaining energy from the Shadowed Soul Pill from my body, becoming visible once more. Then, I found Bao and gave him a quick explanation of the situation.

I placed a hand on Bao’s shoulder. “I understand your concerns, and we need to talk about them, but don’t worry. I’ll make sure you and your family are taken care of no matter if you decide to join us or not. This will need to be a long discussion, though, and we don’t have time for it at the moment. Right now, we just need to prepare ourselves for Young Master Wang’s inspection. We can handle everything else after he leaves.”

After quickly telling him what he needed to do, I sent Bao outside to make a show of tending to the growing herbs. Meanwhile, I moved to an open patch of ground next to the house, took out a wooden staff, and started practicing a few simple martial movements.

Moments later, a shout from SuYin echoes across the farm.

“Bao, Fang, attend me!”

Bao stood from where he was bent over a plant and clumsily made his way to the front of the house. At the same time, I leaned my staff against a post and followed after him with a graceful, measured gait.

As we arrived, we both gave SuYin a deep bow. This caused her to be somewhat flustered, but she quickly recovered before it became too obvious.

“Bao, Fang, Senior Brother Wang has invited me to join the Verdant Forest Sect. I plan to take the two of you along with me, but the sect requires that you both pass a simple test first.”

I bowed my head. “Of course, Mistress.”

SuYin’s cheek twitched slightly at this, and she turned to Young Master Wang to let him take over.

He reached into a storage bag and pulled his affinity testing orb back out.

“Your cultivation levels are impressive, but that isn’t enough for the Verdant Forest Sect. A person with low affinities can forcibly advance their cultivation base while destroying their future. As I do not have any way to check for this, we must use more roundabout methods. To start, show me your affinities.”

Bao stepped forward first, placed his palm on the orb, and displayed his mid seven-star affinity. This seemed to surprise the young man, but he didn’t comment on it. He simply turned to me. Noticeably, he didn’t inject his qi to display Bao’s other affinities. Either he didn’t care, or he didn’t know how to do so.

After placing my palm on the orb, I constricted my acupoints and blocked the signals for everything but my wood affinity. As my qi entered the orb, a brown tree instantly appeared, and it quickly changed colors, eventually settling on the ruddy amber hue that denoted a mid six-star affinity.

Ever since talking with SuYin, I had been considering what level of affinity to display. Showing Young Master Wang, and by extension, the Verdant Forest Sect, a seven-star affinity would have allowed me to fly under the radar, but it also would have ended up with me being assigned various menial tasks. We were headed to a powerful sect focused on herbalism, and I wanted to be in a position to learn from them. Thus, I decided to show an affinity a bit higher than what one would expect from a servant in the Wastes.

Seeing my affinity, the young master appeared shocked at first, but that quickly morphed into a look of sheer excitement. “Fang… Disciple Fang… you are a servant? Do you help SuYin with the herbs? Are you a skilled herbalist?”

I shook my head. “No, master. While I would like to learn more, right now, I only know the basics. I am here to serve as Mistress SuYin’s bodyguard.”

This caused the look on Young Master Wang’s face to fall slightly in disappointment. He clearly didn’t place too much value on my martial skills.

Looking to the side, the young man waved to one of the Peak Grandmasters who had been standing watch behind him.

“Zhao, test him.”

The man named Zhao nodded to the young master and then gestured for me to step off to the open area by the side of the house. I followed his lead, and as I did, a faint smirk appeared on my face.

Zhao was an earth cultivator with a very solid foundation. If I had fought him on top of Mount Jiang where there was little around but dirt and stone, I might have been at a bit of a disadvantage. Luckily, he was challenging me to a fight in a place filled with life. Still, I had never fought a proper duel against a skilled opponent while using wood qi, so I needed to be careful.

After reaching the designated sparring area, our duel didn’t begin. We just stood there, looking at each other.

Our fight had, in fact, started the instant Zhao had looked at me. At that moment, he had already begun sending earth qi into the ground in preparation for an attack.

At the same time, I began sending wood qi into the ground and attacking his energy with the expansive network of roots present in our surroundings.

By the time we were standing across from each other in the sparring area, we were already fighting each other at full force. However, to any outsiders, it would have looked like nothing at all was happening.

As we fought, Zhao created stone spikes beneath his feet and gently guided them through the earth to attack me. In response, I sent one volley of roots to crush these spikes and another to counterattack my opponent.

Zhao was a skilled warrior, and my lack of practice with wood qi and my inexperience with this form of combat hampered my efforts. In the end, I could only fight him to a draw. If I had picked up my staff and attacked him directly, things might have been different, but he didn’t move to attack me, so I didn’t move to attack him.

After five minutes of this tense back-and-forth, Zhao held up a hand to stop me and then turned to Young Master Wang.

“He passed.”

This caused the young master to raise an eyebrow in surprise. He no doubt understood the type of combat we had engaged in, but from where he was standing, unless he had five-star affinities in both earth and wood, there would have been no way for him to understand the true scope of our battle.

In truth, I was left somewhat shocked by Zhao’s proficiency with earth qi. While I was able to sense and counter his attacks directly, Zhao, not having a high wood affinity, had been relying on an earth-sensing technique to detect my attacks through movement in the surrounding soil. The precision with which he had been able to detect my roots showcased just how much time he had spent training his combat abilities.

After our duel, Young Master Wang then proceeded to test Bao’s herbalism skills. This was somewhat more straightforward. Wang just took out several herbs, and Bao gave him what information he could about them.

As an alchemist, I was more than familiar with all the herbs he was shown, and I would have been able to list their medicinal properties without any difficulty, but I had no understanding of how to grow them or how to enhance their effects. I wasn’t in any place to judge Bao’s results, but he must have done well because, after this assessment, Young Master Wang looked at Bao with far more respect than he had shown me after my duel with Zhao.

After a few parting words, Young Master Wang left SuYin, Bao, and me to get everything sorted and prepare for the journey ahead. Once he was gone, I set up a small anti-eavesdropping formation in SuYin’s house, and we sat down to discuss the situation in more detail.

Whether it was a lingering effect of the cultivation technique he had practiced in the Twin Mountains Sect, or whether it was just part of his natural personality, Bao had always been somewhat more emotional than most of the people I was used to dealing with. This could be seen most recently in his reaction to SuYin’s ‘abduction.’ I didn’t look down on him for this, but it did make me a bit worried about telling him too much sensitive information.

Therefore, after a bit of thought, I omitted any talk of memory orbs or time loops from our discussion. It didn’t seem like he was in line to get a lordship any time soon, so he didn’t need to be worried about being blocked from reentering the Wastes after he left. Instead, our discussion revolved around ensuring that he had the ability to return home whenever necessary.

As I would need to make frequent trips to Mount Jiang to look in on my burgeoning clan, taking him back with me wouldn’t be a problem. We just needed to ensure he had contingencies in place in the event of an emergency.

Once an outline of a plan was in place, Bao agreed to join us on our trip to the Verdant Forest Sect.

To reach the Verdant Forest Sect, our group exited the Wastes via its northern border. This trip lasted several days, and my biggest concern during this time was for my horse.

Even though I was rather certain that no one had any recollection of seeing me in the sect before, no one had questioned my position as SuYin’s guard, at least not openly. However, if they learned that I had a Rank 3 wind horse with me, they might start asking a few more questions. So, I had kept the beast tucked away in my storage space ever since exiting the hole.

I didn’t want to keep him drugged for days on end, but when he was awake, he was essentially trapped in a dark void with no way to escape. Without knowledge of beast taming, the best solution I could come up with was to feed him a few pills that calmed him down without putting him entirely to sleep, but that wasn’t a long-term solution.

Thankfully, our journey came to an end before I had to consider taking any more drastic measures.

After nearly a week of travel, we arrived in Green Leaf City, the gateway to Verdant Forest Sect.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 233 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Green Leaf City was located in the middle of a sprawling, ancient forest with trees that were over 100 meters tall and at least 20 meters in diameter. The forest canopy was so dense that hardly any light was able to reach the ground, creating an umbral environment where only small shrubs and mosses could survive.

However, there were no giant trees in Green Leaf City itself. Because of this, as we approached the city, the leaves and branches above us thinned out, and our surroundings began to take on an emerald-green hue. This created an odd terminator zone where dew drops were able to gather in the shadows of the trees but where an errant gust of wind could blow branches enough to let light poke through and burn them away. Because of this, the edge of the city had a persistent scent of petrichor.

Approaching the city, I couldn’t help but notice that it was surrounded by a wooden palisade, not a stone wall. Being made of a high-Rank wood, the strength of this palisade wasn’t much different from what would be expected of a stone wall made of comparable materials, but the problem was that wood was notoriously difficult to use in formations.

Setting up a grand defensive formation and channeling its energies through a wooden palisade would have been nearly impossible. The only reason I could think of for why they would use wood in their defenses despite this drawback was that the city lacked a strong formation specialist. Without anyone to set up a proper high-level formation, the city must have opted to just build fortifications from the most durable resource that was readily available, and being located in a forest, that was wood, not stone.

As we passed through the city gates, the canopy overhead disappeared, and we were bombarded with warm sunlight. While the buildings around us were made of wood, they were spaced out and painted in a variety of earth tones, making them feel connected to the surrounding forests, but also separate from it. It was almost as if we had exited a cave and stepped out into a bright green meadow.

As we walked, Young Master Wang told us a bit more about the place.

“Most sects prefer to recruit disciples in small towns, but the Verdant Forest Sect is a bit different. Green Leaf City is the capital of the Green Leaf Kingdom, the largest kingdom-level power under the sect’s aegis. As such, it’s a veritable metropolis.”

We passed by several shops and storefronts, and Young Master Wang gestured to him to make his point.

“In places where other sects do their recruiting, such as the famous South Gate City, everything is focused around preparing cultivators to enter the sect. Here, however, you can find a mix of stores catering to cultivators and mortals alike.”

The more shops we passed, the more SuYin’s brow wrinkled.

“That sign says the store is run by a Grandmaster Carpenter, and we just passed one that said it has pieces made by a Furniture Lord. What… what is going on? Are they just exceptionally skilled craftsmen?”

Young Master Wang laughed and shook his head. “Yes, but also no.”

Saying this, he led us on a slight detour to the shop with the Grandmaster Carpenter and pointed out some of the furniture inside.

“It’s all made from Rank 2 or 3 wood. Working with such materials is beyond the capabilities of mortals, so it must be crafted by cultivators.”

SuYin’s confusion only increased. “But, carpentry is considered a mortal profession. Wouldn’t most cultivators look down on it? Most cultivators seem to be rather… arrogant.”

SuYin blushed as she said this, realizing that not only was she surrounded by cultivators, but also that she was one herself. I could understand her confusion, though. Having lived her entire life in the Wastes, the quality of cultivators she had encountered was generally rather low.

Young Master Wang nodded and smiled at this, understanding the issue as well as I had.

“That might be the case for some people, and in a sense, taking up a ‘mortal’ trade might limit one’s future prospects, but there are countless powerful and wealthy Rulers out there who are looking for high-quality, elegant furniture. There were always those who didn’t want to fight, and not all these people will have a talent for herbalism. Being a master carpenter might not sound as impressive as being an Herb Lord, but there were enough people in the world willing to pay unreasonable sums of money for luxury furniture that it is still a viable path to fame and fortune.”

Hearing this I was reminded of a conversation that I had with Meng LuYao during my last life in the Nine Rivers Sect, and I suddenly wanted to try something.

Looking away from the group, I began subvocalizing.

“System, improve my comprehension of carpentry by 100 credits.”

Unable to purchase such an enhancement with credits.

As I thought through the implications of this response, Young Master Wang led us to a large building that abutted the western edge of the palisade where a constant stream of young cultivators could be seen entering one door and exiting another. Those who were entering had looks of hope and optimism. Those who were leaving wore expressions of loss and dejection.

While there was a long line snaking around the front of this building, Young Master Wang only needed to flash his sect token for us to be granted immediate entry. Once inside, he bypassed the front desk and took us upstairs.

The three of us were then split up and sent in different directions. SuYin was to be tested as a special recruit, and Bao was to be tested as an assistant herbalist. After a bit of discussion with Young Master Wang, I decided to be tested for a position as a servant disciple under SuYin with the dual roles of guard and assistant herbalist.

I was first led to a room on the second floor where a middle-aged man stood behind an affinity testing orb. As I had done with Young Master Wang previously, I showed him a mid six-star wood affinity. This time, the man checked for any hidden secondary affinities, but I completely blocked them from showing through.

The somewhat confused frown he gave me told me that this might have been a slight mistake. Most people who had a six-star affinity would also have a couple of other low-level secondary affinities. While I had known this, I had been reluctant to show too much without knowing more about what someone in this sect would expect.

When he asked me about my blessing, I only said that it had helped me learn martial skills. Even though I wanted to learn herbalism while in the sect, I still wanted to maintain the pretense of being SuYin’s guard, and this was a proper blessing for a guard to have.

After the man recorded my information, I was then taken to a room on the third floor where two people sat behind a long table that held a variety of fruits, leaves, and grasses. As I approached, the woman on the left gestured at this collection of random herbs.

“What can you tell us about these?”

This was a rather open-ended question, so I just approached it methodically.

I picked up the leftmost herb which was a sprig of a green-leafed plant that held several small white berries. After examining it closely for several moments, I set it back down on the table.

“This is white nightshade. It’s a potent Rank 2 herb that can be used in any number of poisons. However, when used in certain pills, it will have a chelating effect that can help remove certain metal-based poisons. This plant appears to have been grown by a talented herbalist, and it looks to have originally had a decent level of medicinal efficacy, but excessive inept handling has caused it to deteriorate. I would estimate that it now only has an efficacy of about 53%. A skilled alchemist could potentially restore some of its lost power, but it would be nearly impossible to raise its efficacy much beyond 70%.”

This analysis surprised my examiners, and the woman on the left gave me a quizzical look. She seemed to want to ask me a question, but she held off and just gestured to the rest of the herbs on the table.

I picked up the next one and gave it a quick examination.

“This is a red-veined ganoderma. It’s a Rank 3 fire-based herb useful in a range of healing concoctions. Like the white nightshade, it looks to have been grown by a competent herbalist, but based on its current appearance, I would judge that this particular specimen is little more than waste material at this point. Its medicinal energy has already been all but destroyed.”

The man sitting on the right cleared his throat.

“Yes, but what can you tell us about the red-veined ganoderma? What is its natural environment? What does one need to do to successfully grow such an herb?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I can only tell you the properties of these herbs. I don’t know how to grow them.”

The two examiners looked at each other and then jotted down a few notes. Without waiting for me to identify anything else, they sent me away.

I was then taken to a large room on the fourth floor to have my combat abilities assessed.

There was no examiner in this room. It appeared to be entirely empty. However, I easily detected a couple of Rank 4 formations blanketing the entire space. The first was a defensive barrier designed to contain attacks and prevent them from damaging the surrounding building. The second was an illusion formation.

Only moments after I entered, both formations activated, and I was suddenly attacked by a Rank 3 demon beast. It was a huge bear that swung at me with viciously sharp claws. Without even thinking, I charged forward and slammed a qi-empowered fist into its head.

After defeating three such beasts, the formations powered down, the door of the room opened, and I was escorted out.

I was then brought to the fifth floor where an older, white-haired man in a dark green robe carefully looked me up and down. I couldn’t be certain, but he was likely using qi vision to examine my foundation.

“You are qualified to become an outer sect disciple. Are you certain you wish to enroll as a servant? You should know that the restrictions that come from such a position are rather severe.”

“Will I be allowed to learn herbalism?”

The old man nodded slowly. “Yes. However, it is impossible for servant disciples to earn contribution points. You cannot accept missions, and you cannot sell items to the sect. This means that you will not be able to purchase any techniques, lessons, or supplies. Anything you wish to buy must be purchased for you by your master. You will serve her, and she will provide for you in return. Even then, you will still only be allowed access to items and knowledge one Rank below what she can access for herself. This is far from an ideal situation, and considering your abilities, I would recommend becoming a normal outer sect disciple instead.”

I bowed my head to the man. “Thank you for your concern, but I would like to continue as a servant.”

The restrictions placed on servant disciples might be a bit annoying, but in truth, I wasn’t too interested in the benefits of becoming one of the sect’s disciples. I only wanted access to a bit of their knowledge, and if I could get that by acting as SuYin’s servant, then that was the right path for me.

There were a couple of reasons for this, but the most important was that I had obligations in the Wastes that would require me to spend a significant amount of time outside the sect. If I were an outer sect disciple, vanishing for long stretches of time might be considered suspicious, but as SuYin’s servant, if she didn’t report me missing, who would even know that I was gone?

The old man let out a resigned sigh at my decision and handed me a small jade token marked with the symbol for ‘servant.’

“Very well. If that is your decision, then so be it. Place a drop of blood on this token to bind it to you.”

I did so and then attached it to my waist.

Finally, I was led to a small room on the seventh floor to wait for my master, SuYin.

After being tested, SuYin was given the token of an inner sect disciple. This showed that the sect not only valued her current knowledge, but also that it had high expectations for her future.

I had expected Bao to join me as one of SuYin’s servants, but after being tested on his knowledge of various herbs, the sect more or less conscripted him and directly made him an outer sect disciple. This created a bit of distance between my two disciples, but I was confident that it wouldn’t be long before Bao was able to advance and join us in the inner sect.

As we sat and waited for Young Master Wang, SuYin shared a little about what she had recently learned.

“As an inner sect herbalist, I’ll have access to all the sect’s information on herbalism up to Rank 3. I’ll also have access to their Rank 1 information on the other professions, but I’ll have to become a core disciple before I’ll be allowed to learn anything more than that.”

While I didn’t share these concerns, I could still appreciate them. Information was tightly controlled in this world. If the sect made high-level knowledge available to everyone in the sect, it would be all too easy for a portion of that information to find its way to outsiders.

“Did they tell you anything about what you would need to do to become a Lord?”

SuYin nodded.

“The sect controls 100 cities, and each city is run by a core disciple. Each year, five of these core disciples are replaced, and the inner sect disciples compete for the open positions. However, if I want to advance, I’ll first have to prove that I am both capable and loyal.”

I didn’t doubt SuYin’s abilities, but proving her loyalty might be difficult.

We chatted for a few more minutes, but soon enough, Young Master Wang found us and led us up to the roof of the building. At first, I thought that this was a bit strange, but when we arrived, we found a large rope bridge leading from the edge of the roof into the canopy of the surrounding forest.

Young Master Wang guided us across this bridge and up into the canopy. After passing through a wooden archway, the boughs of trees parted, and we beheld a sprawling city built into the tops of the trees.

The young man gestured with open arms.

“Welcome to the Verdant Forest Sect.”

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 234 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Young Master Wang dropped Bao off to be shown around the outer sect while he led SuYin and me deeper into the city hidden amongst the treetops. After showing us to the house assigned to SuYin, he gave us a detailed tour of the inner sect.

As we walked, SuYin stayed by Young Master Wang’s side while I followed behind as befit my position as a servant. However, as he showed us around, Young Master Wang focused more on me than he did on SuYin.

In a way, this behavior made a bit of sense. I would be responsible for taking care of SuYin’s daily necessities, so I would likely spend more time running around the sect than she would. However, it was a bit strange that Young Master Wang was showing me around himself. I had expected him to hand me off to one of his servants so that he could escort SuYin around privately. This young master had ambitions, and this behavior was likely tied to them, but I didn’t sense any hostile intentions from him, so I would let things play out naturally.

After completing a circuit of the inner sect, Young Master Wang then guided us back to SuYin’s house.

“Junior Sister, the herbalism skills you displayed in the Verdant Fields Sect are quite impressive, but I must warn you that you are still several steps below what is expected of an inner sect disciple of the Verdant Forest Sect.”

SuYin’s brow wrinkled a bit at this statement. “But…”

The young man held up a hand. “You will know what I mean soon. I only say this because there are two things you need to take note of. First, you are only a probationary member of the inner sect. You must master the proper skills to at least Rank 2 within one year. If you don’t, you will be demoted. As an inner sect member, you will have access to information and resources that will make this task possible, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy.”

SuYin nodded and glanced at me worriedly. I just smirked slightly and shook my head to try and dismiss her concerns. I didn’t know what knowledge she was missing, but I was confident SuYin wouldn’t have any problems mastering it in short order.

Seeing SuYin relax, Young Master Wang continued.

“This isn’t just a problem that affects you. Everyone will have gaps in their knowledge when they first join the sect. As such, one of the sect’s elders will be holding a series of lectures in the coming days on the basics of herbalism. This is to help fill in all those gaps and allow everyone a chance to learn what is needed. Typically, lessons from an elder would cost a significant number of contribution points, but this lecture series is free to all new inner and outer sect disciples.”

Young Master Wang glanced at me quickly and then turned his attention back to SuYin. “As a new inner sect Grandmaster, you were given ten thousand contribution points upon entering the sect. Su Fang is a servant disciple, so if you wish for him to join you, then you will need to pay for his admission. I would recommend that you do so. These lessons will be beneficial to him if he is to help you with your projects in the future.”

SuYin dipped her head slightly. “Thank you, Young Master Wang.”

He waved this away. “I told you. Just call me Senior Brother.”

---------------------------------------------------

SuYin and I spent the next few days adjusting to our new environment and making basic preparations. Most of this time was spent on trying to understand the sect’s economy.

As an inner sect disciple, SuYin’s house came with a basic garden where she could grow a small number of low-level herbs, but this wasn’t a great spot for growing high-value crops. This garden, like the house next to it, was built on a wooden platform high up in the treetops. As such, its soil was only half a meter deep, and plants wouldn’t have access to energy or nutrients in the surrounding earth, so we would have to supply it all ourselves.

If we wanted to grow large numbers of high-Rank herbs, it would be better to lease a plot of land in the surrounding forest. This not only meant paying a steep upfront cost for the land itself, but SuYin would also then need to pay guards to protect it from wild beasts. Once she was able to consistently produce high-quality, high-Rank herbs, such costs would become a non-issue, but raising the initial funds necessary for such a project was going to be a bit of a challenge.

To make the situation worse, we also learned that the herbs she had grown in the Verdant Fields Sect were considered ‘substandard’ and could only be sold at a steep discount. While I knew that SuYin’s herbs couldn’t compare to those that I had used in the Nine Rivers Sect, I still considered them to be quality products with high levels of medicinal energy.

The only real problem with them was that they had unfortunately high levels of toxic energy in them, but this just meant the alchemist using them would need to do a bit of extra work. This wouldn’t affect the efficacy of the final pill at all.

However, while marking SuYin’s herbs as substandard seemed a bit much to me, it did serve to show just how much she would need to improve if she wanted to remain an inner sect disciple once this first year was over. However, instead of letting this news upset us, we were both excited by what it meant for what the sect had to teach us about herbalism.

---------------------------------------------------

On our fourth day in the sect, SuYin and I met up with Bao to attend our first lecture on the ‘basics of herbalism.’

When Young Master Wang first mentioned these classes, I had expected the elder to focus on teaching us how to use a variety of important techniques. My expectations couldn’t have been further from the truth.

The first lecture was titled ‘Herb Theory.’

SuYin, Bao, and I arrived early and took our seats in the large wooden amphitheater, and over the following twenty minutes, people continuously poured in to join us. In total, there were over a hundred people in attendance with cultivation bases ranging from Martial Disciple 1 to Peak Grandmaster.

Looking around at the number of people who had come, I had a hard time believing that they were all new recruits. Instead, it seemed more likely that older members of the sect had joined us.

Once it was time, an old woman walked onto the stage below us. A quick check showed that she was a Peak Martial Lord, and based on her appearance, I placed her at over 350 years old. After reaching the center of the stage, she allowed her gaze to roam around the amphitheater and studied everyone in attendance.

When she spoke, her voice was light and soft, but a formation carried her words directly to everyone’s ears.

“Before we begin, I must give you all a warning. The information in these lectures has been gathered by our sect over the course of hundreds of years, and it has been tested and verified many times over. However, there are always deeper secrets in this world. While what you learn here will be both accurate and useful, there is always the possibility of new information coming to light that completely overturns our preconceptions about how the world works.”

I subconsciously nodded at this. As I had learned from the System, the cost of learning everything about Rank 1 herbalism that would be expected from someone on this continent was far different from the cost of learning the totality of everything there was to know about Rank 1 herbalism.

“Let us begin by discussing cultivation. As everyone is no doubt aware, cultivators draw in energy known as ‘qi’ to empower themselves and perform feats beyond the limits of mere mortals. Hopefully, most of you are also aware that this is not the only type of energy in this world. In fact, there are a multitude of different types, but aside from qi, the most abundant is the energy used by demon beasts. Most refer to this simply as ‘demonic energy.’”

This made me sit up a bit straighter. In Emperor Li’s books on Rank 1 to 3 alchemy, he had written about many experiments he had done on demonic energy, but all of them had been failures. He was no closer to understanding how to use it than I was. He had only found more dead ends than I had.

“There are many competing hypotheses about the differences between qi and demonic energy, and former sect members have donated dozens of tomes on this subject written by famed scholars from across the Central Continent. However, none of these books have any clear answers. They are all supposition and guesswork. Therefore, I cannot tell you exactly what demonic energy is or why it is different from qi. What I can tell you is how herbalists can make use of this energy to grow better plants.”

The elder took a simple blue peony out of a storage bag and held it up for everyone to see.

“There are three parts to a medicinal herb. The physical shell, the medicinal energy, and the toxic energy. While alchemists only care about an herb’s medicinal energy, as herbalists, we must focus on all three. What is the physical shell? What is toxic energy? What is medicinal energy?”

She paused to give us time to think, but no one had an answer to these questions.

“Again, all I can say is that we do not truly know. However, we do have some clues to help us. There are no pills to help demon beasts cultivate, but they can eat raw herbs to enhance their cultivation bases. Alchemists can create a powerful pill, called an Energy Expulsion Pill, which is said to be able to remove all the energy from a person’s body, but it has no effect on toxic energies absorbed from pills. Finally, herbs contain ‘medicinal energy,’ but medicinal energy is extremely scarce in the natural environment. The idea that herbs pull all their medicinal energy from their surroundings is simply not possible. What does it tell us?”

My knowledge of demonic beasts was extremely limited, but I did remember being told that there weren’t any pills that could increase a beast’s cultivation base. I didn’t focus on this fact too much at the time, but hearing it now, I could see where the elder was headed.

Herbs could help beasts advance, but not pills. Assuming that this was true and that it wasn’t just that alchemists hadn’t designed the right pill yet, then this meant that medicinal energy couldn’t help beasts advance. If not even Low-Purity pills could help them advance, then they couldn’t make use of toxic energies either. All that was left was the herb’s physical shell.

“In the Verdant Forest Sect, we refer to demonic energy by the term which has gained popularity on the Central Continent in recent years, ‘wu.’ In a sense, qi is energy, and wu is substance. Demonic beasts use wu to enhance their physical bodies while cultivators use qi to enhance their energy bodies. By consuming demon beasts, you can absorb a portion of their wu to enhance your own physical body, but this effect is ultimately limited.”

A faintly sad look appeared on the elder’s face.

“Finding a way to properly absorb wu is the dream of countless cultivators on the Central Continent, but to date, all that we have learned is how to use it to enhance herbs. By properly infusing soil with wu, we can ensure that an herb’s physical shell grows healthier, stronger, and faster.”

The elder held up the peony again and used her overwhelming wood affinity to rip out its energy without first destroying the physical shell. She then presented us with the wilting flower, a ball of toxic energy, and a ball of medicinal energy.

“An herb uses wu to grow and shape its physical form. It then pulls qi from the environment and converts it into medicinal energy. The herb’s ‘toxins’ are a byproduct of this process. They are a combination of wu and qi that was not properly integrated into the growing plant. This can sometimes be caused by excessive levels of energy from improper elements, but it can also be caused by an imbalance of qi and wu. To grow a blue peony, for instance, the soil needs five parts wood wu to one part of each of the other four basic elements. Qi then needs to be applied in similar proportions at a rate of two parts qi to one part wu. If this balance is off, then the excess energy will coalesce into toxins.”

I glanced at SuYin as I now understood what she would need to learn if she wanted to remain in the inner sect. Not only would she need to memorize the correct proportions of qi and wu needed for growing each type of herb, but she would also need to learn how to properly control the levels of all these different energies. Her blessing would help with the first part, but only practice would help her with the second.

A note from G Tolley

As a small note, since someone on Patreon asked about it previously, the distinction of qi and wu is not drawing from a traditional Chinese source. Qi is usually considered the energy that makes up all things, and what I am calling 'wu' (物) would be part of it. This distinction originated from a misremembering of the Chinese mythology surrounding hundun. However, while it started as a mistake, I think it has led to some interesting places in the background world building.

Join the discussion on Discord.

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Chapter 235 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The following lectures focused on various methods for altering the energy levels within a field and determining the correct balance for any given herb. The elder covered a few qi techniques that were useful for making small adjustments directly, but her primary focus was on how to make physical changes to a field to make large, long-term changes.

For wu, this mainly consisted of impregnating a field with energy from demonic beasts. The most common way to do this was by coating the field in a thin layer of beast manure, but a beast’s blood and viscera could also be used. Of course, even then, the energies in the manure had to have the proper balance of elements. If it all came from a wood-aligned beast, then wood wu would be too prevalent in the manure, and it would be difficult to grow high-quality herbs. So, an herbalist needed to source ‘energy’ from a variety of different beasts.

Balancing the qi levels of the field was far more straightforward and could be handled by common, everyday formations. The only somewhat difficult part of this was balancing the elements properly and maintaining them in the correct proportions. Most formation specialists wouldn’t have too much experience with this kind of work, so herbalists needed to seek out specialists who understood the complexities involved when purchasing formations.

In theory, this was all that was needed to grow the best herbs possible. Layer the ground with manure; use a formation to fill the environment with qi. However, there was one huge stumbling block: it was incredibly difficult to sense environmental energies with the precision necessary for making the minute adjustments that growing a ‘perfect’ herb would require.

The sect had techniques that could help an herbalist analyze the level of the various energies involved, but they were difficult to use well and were prone to misinterpretation. A better option was to use a specially designed formation plate capable of giving accurate, real-time information, but those were expensive and were sometimes of questionable quality.

To ensure our tools were of the highest quality, I wanted to craft our monitoring devices myself. However, after studying the problem, I found that while producing a formation capable of monitoring an area’s qi levels wasn’t too difficult, doing the same for wu levels was far more challenging. To make my own monitoring device, I would need to reverse engineer several inscriptions that were entirely new to me and then work on ways to improve them.

Since there were other projects that I had my eye on, developing enhanced monitoring equipment would need to wait for the future. For the time being, SuYin and I would need to rely on off-the-shelf devices instead.

After the series of introductory lectures was complete, SuYin turned her focus to the garden next to her house. This place wasn’t suitable for growing a lot of herbs at once, but it was perfect for performing small-scale experiments.

SuYin’s focus was on mastering the sect’s standard practices. While I considered joining her in this pursuit, my mind had already started wandering in new and unique directions. What I had learned of ‘wu’ filled in several of the gaps in my understanding of how pills and herbs worked, and part of me wanted to rush to see how the concept of ‘wu’ could be applied to alchemy. However, after stepping back and looking at the situation objectively, I decided to first investigate ways of helping SuYin with herbalism.

There was little I could do to directly assist her with growing herbs since her and Bao’s skills were already far above mine, but what she needed wasn’t the help of an herbalist. It was the help of a formation specialist. So, I focused my attention on designing formations capable of infusing the air and soil of her garden with precise quantities of the various energies necessary for growing high-quality herbs.

One of the formations that I had learned long ago, one that was a staple of any formation specialist's repertoire, was the standard Plant Growth Formation. When I first learned it, I had no real understanding of how it worked. I could watch the energy flows it created, but I didn’t have the theoretical framework to understand what it was actually doing to improve the growth of plants. Now, however, I had a pretty good idea.

The standard Plant Growth Formation didn’t use any energy filters, neither for qi nor for wu. Instead, it gathered all the energy from the surrounding environment and cycled it through a field in a complex pattern. It weaved the energy into and out of the ground several times before looping back and starting the cycle again.

As I had never seen or heard of a filter for ‘wu’ or demonic energy before, I had to assume that it did not exist, or at the very least, that it was so uncommon it might as well not exist. Therefore, the specialists who had designed the Plant Growth Formation had to find other ways of infusing the soil with wu. Thus, the purpose of this complex weave of energy was to deposit wu into the ground and qi into the air, bypassing the need for discrete filters.

I could appreciate the work of my predecessors, but this formation wasn’t nearly good enough. It amplified the amount of qi and wu available, but it did nothing to adjust their proportions. It could help plants grow faster, but it couldn’t help them grow better.

This formation needed to be completely redesigned, but making something better without wu filters would be challenging. As a rule, I didn’t like the idea of buying crafting knowledge from the System, but I felt compelled to do so in this case.

“System, I would like to purchase formation schematics for ‘wu filters.’ I want filters for each of the basic and secondary elements. How much would that cost?”

Calculating… Cost 1 shard.

I narrowed my eyes at this.

“How much for the schematics of just a wood wu filter?

Cost 1 shard.

This told me two key pieces of information. First, no one in this world possessed the knowledge I was seeking. Basic filter diagrams should not be considered ‘immortal knowledge,’ so the only reason they would cost a ‘shard’ would be because the knowledge didn’t exist in this world. Second, the fact that the System gave me a price in shards without asking for any credits first suggested that knowing this information wouldn’t do me any good.

Whether ’wu filters’ were immortal knowledge or not, whether anyone in the world knew about them or not, in either case, I arrived back in the same place. I had to design my new herb-growing formation without them.

After a day of research on the different formation schematics tucked away in my mental library, I was able to come up with two viable paths forward.

The first one was an incredibly complex formation consisting of countless subcomponents. My idea was to use my knowledge of fire qi filters and fire essence filters to create a more generic ‘fire energy filter.’ I could then use combinations of generic energy filters for each of the elements to adjust a field’s elemental energy to the correct proportions. After that, it would be a simple matter of using standard qi filters to raise the level of qi in the environment until the qi and wu reach a proper balance.

However, aside from needing to design an entirely new form of energy filter, this design would also require a significant amount of work to ensure that the energy levels within a field remained constant even as the levels in the environment surrounding it shifted. I was somewhat confident that this could be done, but making this plan a reality would take years of research and development.

The other idea I came up with was much simpler. Instead of relying on standard formations and filters, I could use spirit fires. As I had learned previously, certain fires were capable of transforming energy from one state into another. A carefully designed array of spirit fires should be capable of regulating a field’s qi and wu without the need for novel filter designs.

While this seemed possible, there were several details that needed to be addressed. The most important of these, though, was the question of whether spirit fires retained the conversion properties of their fire seed. If the only way of creating this form of conversion array was by utilizing fire seeds, then it wasn’t something that I could just leave lying around.

As this second idea seemed like the best short-term solution, this was where I directed my research. Even though this formation was simple in concept, it would still take time to design properly.

Over the following months, while SuYin worked on mastering her herbalism skills, I dove headfirst into my study of formations.

As it turned out, yes, spirit fires retained the conversion properties of their seeds, but their efficiency left something to be desired. Where the seed of the Profound-Rank Blazing Inferno Fire converted any and all energy that passed through it into fire qi, its spirit fire was only able to convert about 70% of this energy, and the amount of energy that could be converted at any one time was much lower. This led to me needing to cycle the energy through the spirit fire several times to purify it as much as possible.

In fact, as I later found out, the ability to use spirit fires to produce specific types of qi and wu was not unknown in the sect. Aside from using the methods discussed in the opening lectures, herbalists would also employ a variety of spirit fires to adjust the energies of their field when necessary. Since each person could only hold a single fire in their body at any given time, and since randomly waving a spirit fire around a bunch of medicinal herbs was a terrible idea, the benefit of using this method instead of more traditional techniques was somewhat limited, but it did provide an additional way for regular herbalists to adjust their fields when necessary.

So, the primary advantage of my planned formation was not that it did anything a normal herbalist couldn’t already do. Instead, it was that it would allow an herbalist to set and maintain energy levels at precise proportions throughout an herb’s growing cycle without the need for direct intervention. Also, by making the formation adjustable and allowing the levels of the different energies to be easily changed, an herbalist would be able to quickly prime a field for new herbs after each harvest.

To do this, aside from needing to design several key formation components from scratch, I also had to get my hands on spirit fires capable of converting energy and matter into the necessary forms of qi and wu. Since I only needed fires, not seeds, this was a bit easier than it could have been, but it still took time.

The first place I went in search of fires was Green Leaf City. As the capital of a kingdom, and as the primary location where young men and women trained their skills in the hopes of earning a place in the Verdant Forest Sect, it had several stores that catered specifically to cultivators, including a shop that sold spirit fires. Unfortunately, the shop’s level was too low, and I was only able to pick up a few Yellow-Rank fires.

The second place I went to was South Gate City. As the gateway to the Nine Rivers Sect, the spirit fire store there was of a much higher quality than the one in Green Leaf City. They sold a wide range of Profound-Rank fires, and they had copies of almost any Yellow-Rank fire I could want.

However, while these two cities were able to provide me with a range of fires for converting energy into qi, getting a fire for every element of wu was a bit more difficult. They were simply too rare.

This was where the Blue Wind Pavilion came into play. By putting in a request through the Pavilion, I could essentially put out a continent-wide bounty on the spirit fires I still needed. Of course, I could have simply gone this route from the very beginning, but visiting these other shops had allowed me to get a better sense of what fires were typically available on this continent and which ones I would need to be more careful about showing off in the future.

With the Pavilion’s assistance, I was able to collect a full suite of Yellow-Rank fires, but even they were unable to procure some of the rarer Profound-Rank ones. It didn’t help that, aside from qi and demonic energy, I was also trying to buy fires that produced medicinal energy. These medicinal fires were even rarer than the demonic ones.

Once I felt that I had hit a wall and that I wouldn’t be able to get anything else, I considered purchasing the remaining spirit fires from the System, but after a bit of thought, I decided to hold off. I already had a full array of Yellow-Rank fires, so it would be better to see if my idea was even feasible before spending precious credits on a dead end.

As I worked on creating my new formation, time flew by.

SuYin was able to master the sect’s standard method of growing herbs without much difficulty, and even though she still struggled with keeping the energy levels balanced throughout an herb’s entire lifecycle, her performance was enough to secure her spot in the inner sect.

Bao was still stuck in the outer sect, so I hadn’t heard too much from him during these months, but on the rare occasions when I saw him, it was clear that the sect’s knowledge was helping him finally understand the more esoteric information his blessing had been telling him. He still had a long way to go to memorize all the knowledge and master all the techniques that were expected of an inner sect disciple, but he was making solid progress.

As for myself, near the end of the year, I was able to complete a prototype formation for maintaining and adjusting the energy levels of an herb field. This protype could only affect an area the size of SuYin’s garden, and it could only provide enough energy to grow a crop of Rank 2 herbs, but it was a start. Once I better understood how it behaved and interacted with herbs, I would be able to refine it further.

This formation used the inscriptions from a standard Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formation to pull energy from the surrounding environment. Then, it split this energy in 27 different directions, one for each element of qi, wu, and medicinal energy. The qi the fires produced was directed into the air, and the wu was directed into the ground. Since I wasn’t certain what to do with the medicinal energy, or if it was even important, I made the formation adjustable so that it could be sent into the air or ground as desired.

The percentage of incoming energy that was sent to each spirit fire was fully configurable, so the operator could, for instance, set the fire qi flame to consume 50% of the energy input with only 2% going to each of the other flames. Unfortunately, this prototype wasn’t able to detect the real-time status of a field’s energy levels, so a skilled herbalist would still need to control the formation and constantly adjust its inputs if they wanted to maintain energy levels at specific levels.

Overall, the qi and medical energy sections of this formation weren’t too bad, but the wu part was a bit of a kludge. I couldn’t find any spirit fires capable of directly converting ambient energy into demonic energy. They could only convert matter into demonic energy. So, I had to first use something like the Cold Mountain Fire to convert energy into matter and then use another flame to convert that matter into demonic energy. With a fire seed converting 100% of the matter into demonic energy, this wouldn’t have been so bad, but with the low efficiency of the spirit fires, converting matter to demonic energy got messy rather quickly.

At first, I tried converting energy into a gas and then sending that gas to be converted into demonic energy, but this was a bit tricky. Not only was controlling a gas within a formation a bit difficult and energy-intensive, but its low density also affected the conversion process.

In the end, I settled on using the Flowing Metal Fire to convert energy into mercury. Then, I converted the mercury into demonic energy. This worked surprisingly well, but I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of large amounts of mercury being so near to a garden. If this formation proved to be successful, I would need to look for a fire capable of creating a less toxic liquid.

My prototype formation included a total of 36 spirit flames, 27 elemental flames and 9 copies of the Flowing Metal Fire. It was inscribed into a block of marble 5 meters long and 3 meters high. It was a massive beast of a thing, and I could only hope that it would prove to be worth all the effort that I had put into crafting it.

As the year came to a close, I handed off the formation to SuYin, taught her how to use it, and left the sect to return to the Wastes.

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Chapter 236 – Life 73, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

I had left a few weeks after one Su Clan training camp and was returning a couple of weeks before the next, this meant that I had been gone from my new clan for nearly eight months. While this was a pitifully short time for me, for the young members of my clan who had yet to even reach their second decade, these eight months probably felt like an eternity.

I was well aware that any number of problems might have cropped up while I was away, but this was, in essence, a test. Before leaving, I had provided them with all the resources they would need to survive while I was gone, and they had numerous activities to keep them busy. Aside from training the newest recruits, they could practice cultivation, martial arts, or their professions.

Yes, they were young, and yes, they were inexperienced, but if they couldn’t maintain at least the semblance of a stable society after only eight months alone, it was unlikely that they would be able to survive the years of seclusion that were required of cultivators.

So, my heart was filled with a combination of eagerness and dread as I returned to Mount Jiang to see how things had progressed in my absence.

Near the end of my climb up to the side of the mountain, I began hearing the sounds of yelling and battle above me. Worried about what might be going on, I hastened my ascent.

Upon cresting the edge of the plateau, the sight that greeted me was far different from what I had imagined. A large, wooden arena had been constructed in the middle of the plateau, and two young Disciples were ruthlessly assaulting each other atop it. Around the edge of this arena, others had gathered to cheer on these fighters.

As they fought, the Disciples didn’t hold anything back. They used their full strength and attacked each other with deadly intent. However, because their cultivation levels were both only at Martial Disciple 3, and because their skill levels were equally matched, neither of the boys were ever in any real danger of death.

I considered stepping in before things got too out of control, but I didn’t want to do so until I had a better understanding of what was going on.

The match ended with one boy lying on the wooden arena with a broken arm and severe internal injuries. The other boy was still standing, but his condition wasn’t much better.

I was ready to step in if this boy moved to finish off his downed opponent, but it didn’t come to that. Once it was clear that he had won, the victor backed off and headed out of the arena.

At this point, a slightly younger Disciple rushed forward and stuffed a pill into the downed boy’s mouth. The Rank 1 Healing pill did its job, and the boy slowly started to recover. However, it didn’t take long for me to see that this pill wasn’t nearly as effective as it should have been. This single pill wouldn’t be enough to heal the boy, and even with several of them, his recovery would take at least a week.

This made me frown. Martial contests were common in this world, and while this one might have been more violent than most, I felt that it was still within acceptable levels. However, if the clan’s alchemists were feeding people tainted pills, there would need to be a reckoning.

Still, I held back to observe a little longer. The boy wasn’t given another pill immediately, so I could gather a bit more information before taking action.

Once the injured boy was carried off the stage, a muscular youth with short-cropped black hair bounded up to take his place. With an evil glare, he homed in on another boy in the audience.

“XuLang, get up here and face me, you coward. If I don’t teach you a lesson today, then my name isn’t BieWang!”

The boy in the audience, XuLang, began backing away at this, but BieWang didn’t want to let him go.

“Grab him, throw him up here!”

The youths in the audience seemed intimidated by the boy on stage, but they didn’t move to restrain his target.

Just as BieWang moved forward, intent to haul the other boy on stage himself, a voice echoed out across the assembled group.

“BieWang, what exactly do you intend to do?”

The boy on stage froze, and a look of irritation and anger appeared on his face.

In a flash, a new person appeared on the stage, and even though he was filled with rage, BieWang still gave this newcomer a deep, respectful bow.

“Senior Brother NiangBa, you don’t understand. XuLang, he—”

NiangBa waved a hand, cutting the boy off mid-sentence.

“The arena has rules. You cannot force someone of a lower cultivation level to fight you. Not only are you two levels above XuLang, you are also cultivating a Low-Profound technique. If you wish to challenge him, reset your cultivation base and fight him properly. I will not allow you to use your cultivation to bully someone!”

A grimace appeared on BieWang’s face, but he bowed his head.

“Yes, Senior Brother.”

Seeing BieWang take a step back, NiangBa nodded his head.

“Good. If XuLang violated the clan’s rules, report him to the enforcers. If you simply do not like the man, then fight him honorably. I don’t want to have any more problems with you, understood?”

BieWang gave another reluctant bow. “Yes, Senior Brother.”

With this, NiangBa turned and was about to flash away, but I released a wave of qi and pressed down on him and everyone in the audience.

Everyone’s head turned immediately in my direction, and I strode confidently onto the stage. I could tell that several people wanted to say something, but under the pressure of the imposing aura I was projecting through my qi, no one could speak.

Upon reaching the center of the stage, I turned to the young alchemist who had given the injured boy a healing pill earlier.

“Step forward. Give me one of your pills.”

Her legs were shaky as she stepped toward me, but she didn’t stumble. After reaching me, she pulled a jade bottle from a bag at her side and handed it to me.

I opened the bottle and examined one of the pills.

Perfect Rank 1 Healing Pill. 31% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 2 contribution points.

I narrowed my eyes. Its quality was absolute trash, which was why it had so little effect on the boy earlier, but it was thankfully free of pill toxins. The pill might not be very good, but I couldn’t complain about people finding a use for it.

After placing the pill back in the bottle, I handed it back to the girl.

“Did you make this?”

She dipped her head. “Y… Yes, Patriarch.”

“What is your name?”

“Su—” She looked down, worried about having used the ‘Su’ surname. “RuLan, Patriarch. My name is RuLan.”

I nodded several times. “Good. Find me later, and I will share my insights with you.”

She gave me a deep bow, but I quickly put the girl out of my mind. There were more important issues to take care of at the moment.

I looked around at the gathered crowd.

“There will be no more fights today. Take this time to recover and cultivate properly.” I turned to NiangBa. “Gather the others for a meeting.”

Then, I leapt from the stage and headed toward my home at a speed that was only possible for a Grandmaster.

The ground floor of my house had been set up like a large audience hall. While it was big enough to hold dozens of people, for the moment, there were only enough cushions on the floor for seven people. Mine had been placed at the far side of the hall, and the others had been arranged in a semicircle around it.

Less than 10 minutes after I sat down, NiangBa, Mo, Liang, ShouLi, GuiMing, and GuiAi all arrived together. Seeing NiangBa take charge of the fighting arena, I could tell that he had solidified his leadership position within the clan, but until I saw this group arrive as a united whole, I hadn’t been sure if any of the others had stepped down or been replaced.

They walked toward me as one, but as they neared, ShouLi stepped forward and gave me a deep bow.

“Greetings, Patriarch.”

The others then walked up behind her and followed suit.

ShouLi’s behavior, and the lack of resentment from the others, told me that a clear leader had emerged to take charge of the clan in my absence. I wasn’t entirely happy about this leader being ShouLi, but I also wasn’t surprised by it. As a direct descendant of the Su Clan’s Patriarch, she would have had the most experience with command.

I gestured to the cushions in front of me.

“Take a seat. Tell me what’s been going on these last months.”

While watching the duels, I had considered not revealing myself so that I could spy on everything else that was happening on the mountain without anyone knowing about it. However, after seeing the brutality of the fighting and NiangBa’s reaction to it, I chose to reveal myself immediately and investigate things more deeply later.

ShouLi was the first to speak and try to explain things.

“Patriarch, after you left, things were calm for a few weeks, but it wasn’t long before some of our newer members started causing trouble.”

I nodded at this. During the previous year’s training camp, I had been a bit less selective with who I had recruited. This was both to increase the size of my clan at a faster rate and to give the older recruits a bit of a challenge in training them. There was no question in my mind that those who had been here for over three years would be able to handle brand-new Disciples in a fight. The challenge was for them to manage things without completely suppressing the troublemakers.

ShouLi continued. “At first, we each tried to handle things separately, sticking within our own camps, but this started causing tensions when Disciples from different camps had disagreements. We knew things had to change, so, after talking it over, we decided to implement a leadership model similar to the one used by the Su Clan.”

She gestured around the group. “Liang is the head of the enforcers, Mo is in charge of the workshops, NiangBa runs the arena, GuiMing manages the residential area, and GuiAi manages the mortal businesses.”

I cocked my head at her. “And you?”

She hesitated. “I… I’m in charge of coordinating these different groups.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest as I thought through the situation. It was clear that ShouLi had become the group’s leader, and if everyone was satisfied with this, I wasn’t going to rush in and change things, but that was only if things were working out as well as she implied.

My biggest worry was Liang and his enforcers. I could respect the need for some type of law enforcement, but who watches the watchers? Whenever anyone was placed in a position of power, it was all too easy for corruption to follow, and without strong guardrails in place, these enforcers could become nothing but thugs.

Still, I would give them a chance to prove themselves before rendering a verdict.

“I understand. Now, let’s talk about the specifics of the situation.”

During this initial meeting, ShouLi and the others laid out the various rules that the six of them had agreed upon. Most of these were based on instructions I had originally given them previously, such as not consuming non-Perfect pills, but others related to things that had not even existed before I had left, like the arena.

After getting the basic rundown of how things worked, I spent the next week skulking around the clan and watching how it operated.

NiangBa’s rule over the arena was somewhat ruthless. He had spent the last two years focusing only on cultivating earth techniques, and he had used all of his contribution points to boost his earth affinity as high as possible. With his affinities and natural talents, he had been able to cultivate a Peak-Earth technique to Peak Disciple, and he was by far the most powerful person on the mountaintop besides myself. He used this strength to enforce an iron law over what happened in the arenas, and no one was willing to question his judgment.

Mo’s rule of the workshops was far less tyrannical, but that didn’t mean anyone would question his rulings. Without clear guidance from me on how to handle formations, refined items, and talismans, he mostly encouraged these craftsmen to store their items until I had a chance to appraise them. Instead, Mo mostly dealt with assigning workshops and judging whether a pill could be used or whether it had to be destroyed.

GuiMing and Liang both seemed to be handling their jobs well, and I didn’t notice any problems during this brief observation period, but this was mostly because there were no real issues for them to deal with. Everyone was on their best behavior immediately after my return, so there was no need for law enforcement, and everyone had long since settled into their accommodations, so there wasn’t much to do in the residential block either.

GuiAi’s control of the mortal businesses was what gave me my first real shock.

I had stocked the warehouses with plenty of food before I left, but this food was mostly just an assortment of dry goods, such as rice and flour. While this was enough to keep people from starving, some of the residents wanted more variety in their diets, and since the rocky soil of the mountaintop wasn’t very good for growing plants, they had needed to come up with another solution.

So, after consulting the other leaders, GuiAi had worked with a group of wood cultivators to build a temporary stairway down the side of the mountain. The sect-protecting formation kept this stairway hidden from outsiders, but GuiAi still insisted that it be dismantled when not in use so that no one would stumble upon it by accident.

Using this stairway, a group of Disciples descended to the base of the mountain and set up a small, hidden garden. As the surrounding peat was filled with abundant energy and nutrients, these vegetables grew at an impressive rate, and GuiAi’s team was soon able to provide the settlement with an additional source of fresh food.

I commended her work, but this staircase made me worried about Disciples going out on ‘adventures.’ However, after a bit of consideration, I decided to just let it be. I had warned them all of the dangers of the surrounding territories, and I had no desire to keep anyone imprisoned here. If anyone decided to go off on their own, then that was their decision to make, and they would have to bear the consequences of it.

My only note was that we needed to make a rule to prevent this stairway from being deployed within the first two months of a new cohort of recruits joining us. I didn’t want anyone to have any accidents because they were new to the place and didn’t yet understand its dangers.

In any case, ShouLi and the others would soon be advancing to Martial Master, and at that point, descending the mountain would become commonplace. We needed to implement a few new relevant guidelines anyway, so we might as well figure out how to make this stairway both safe and useful while we were at it.

Still, looking at the pitiful Rank 1 formations that the Disciples had used to try and hide their garden made me scoff. With Grandmasters in the area, such formations would do nothing but draw unwanted attention. I wiped them away and then used my wood qi to move things around a bit so that the garden blended into the natural environment without the need for a concealing formation.

Once my inspection was complete, I began distributing contribution points.

I awarded the entire leadership team with 20,000 points for work they had done while I was gone. After the fact, in private, I awarded NiangBa an extra 10,000 and GuiAi another 5,000 for their work in their separate areas. I would wait until I had more information before giving any additional rewards to the others.

Even without any bonuses, 20,000 points each was already enough to shock them all into silence. It was enough to stay on the Essence Gathering Formation for nearly two weeks straight, and they would have needed to cultivate from Disciple 1 to Peak Disciple 200 times to earn so many points on their own.

They were all extremely happy, but their excitement made me want to chuckle evilly. 20,000 points was a lot for a Disciple, true, but their time as Disciples was almost over.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 237 – Life 73, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

A note from G Tolley

Hello everyone,

As a reminder, I will be taking next week off. Regular uploads will resume on December 30th.

Merry Christmas.

The Su Clan’s three-month training camp proceeded without any surprises. The elders were more than happy to receive the pills that I had promised them, and they ensured that no one was killed during the sparring sessions. Unfortunately, no one had been able to locate an Earth Dragon’s Tongue Fruit, but from their demeanor, I was sure that they were doing everything they could to find it.

When the camp ended, I recruited 29 new Disciples, the most so far. Unlike in the past, I hadn’t done anything special to recruit them. I just waited until the end of their training and made my offer. With so many volunteers despite my lackluster efforts, I had to assume that someone was pushing for them to join me behind the scenes.

This made it impossible for me to ensure any kind of loyalty or moral integrity in this group, but that was fine. With a firm leadership structure in place, outside agitators would find it difficult to cause any real problems for us. In fact, with all the benefits of joining us, many of them would likely switch sides in truth.

Upon returning to my guest house to prepare for the journey to Mount Jiang, I was greeted by Su Heng. After I handed him this year’s payment, he decided to explain the situation to me.

“My father… The Grand Elder wanted me to tell you… The clan has been investigating your background. They know that you are not a member of the Proud Mountain Kingdom’s royal family. At least… they know that you are not a publicly known member of that family. Many still believe you are a hidden prince.”

I looked at Su Heng with an impassive expression. “And? What does the Su Clan plan to do with this information?”

It didn’t surprise me that they had been able to learn this. It shouldn’t have been hard to get a list of all known members of a royal family. What did surprise me was how long it had taken for them to do so. Was this due to the clan’s incompetence or was it due to the effectiveness of Emperor Li’s smokescreen?

Su Heng looked around nervously. “We… They still aren’t sure who exactly you are. You could be a hidden trump card, but the current assumption is that you are a… an illegitimate child of one of their Rulers.”

I picked up a cup of tea and sipped it without comment, so Su Heng continued.

“Without more information, neither the Patriarch nor his allies in the Rising Sun Empire are willing to make a move against you. The current plan is to drain you of as many resources as possible as quickly as they can. If they can deplete your stockpile of resources, they will feel confident in moving against you. If they can’t… then that means you have a stronger backer than expected, so they won’t move against you directly.”

I nodded. “And what does your father want in return for this information?”

“Only… He only asks for your consideration at a future date.”

I tapped an armrest in thought. It was likely that Grand Elder TaiZu still wanted to play the field a bit. If things went one way, then he might end up in a powerful position in the Rising Sun Empire. If they went another way, then he might seek me out for protection from his enemies.

Of all the elders in the Su Clan, the Grand Elder was the only one I would consider ‘smart.’ However, that didn’t mean I wanted to work with the guy. I could consider giving him a chance, but I would need to do so in a way that protected my clan from the rot of the Su Clan.

I looked Su Heng in the eye. “I will consider his request, but I will make no guarantees regarding my response. I have no desire to make blind promises.”

Su Heng bowed and cupped his fists to me. “Thank you, Prince Fang.”

Upon returning to Mount Jiang, I sent the new recruits to get settled in. With GuiMing in charge of the residential area, and the three housing enclaves well established, I no longer needed to handle any of this personally, but I did lurk in the shadows to keep my eye on everything and ensure there weren’t any problems.

With the leaders of these enclaves now having defined roles, I had expected the divvying out of new recruits to somehow align with them in some way. For example, since Mo was in charge of the workshops, those most interested in professions might be sent to join his enclave. This didn’t happen. Instead, recruits drew lots and were assigned to different enclaves at random.

In a way, this did make more sense. Yes, the leader had taken on defined roles in the clan, but that was a small part of their daily life. Instead, like everyone else, they were mostly focused on training and advancement. The enclave a person joined wouldn’t have much of an effect on their life aside from determining who their neighbors were, so why did it matter so much?

Another reason for this random assignment was likely one of the rules I had personally laid down. People were allowed to change enclaves at will, and there were to be no tests or loyalty oaths upon joining a new one. I could see a benefit from having smaller communities that people could feel more connected to, but I didn’t want these communities to create factionalized infighting within the clan.

In any case, for whatever reason, the new recruits were randomly assigned to an enclave, and the enclaves worked then together to incorporate them into the clan and get everyone up to speed on how things worked around here.

These 29 new members represented a more than 50% increase in the size of the clan, so getting them all situated led to a challenging few days for everyone involved, but with the experience and skills everyone now possessed, it went as smoothly as I could have hoped.

A few days later, once everyone was settled in, I called for the original five Disciples plus NiangBa to come to my house for a meeting.

I examined this group upon their arrival. Aside from NiangBa, the others were all 20 years old, so the stagnation of their cultivation bases was on the horizon. Following the advice I had given them before I had left for the Verdant Forest Sect, they were all now Peak Disciples with pristine foundations.

Mo, GuiMing, and NiangBa were all cultivating earth qi techniques. Mo’s was Low-Profound, GuiMing’s was High-Profound, and NiangBa’s was Peak-Earth. While they all had access to the same techniques, Mo’s and GuiMing’s lower talent levels had ultimately limited how complex of a technique they were able to master.

ShouLi was cultivating a Mid-Earth water qi technique. This was somewhat surprising since her highest initial affinity had been with earth, but with the Essence Gathering Formation, that didn’t matter too much. She must have just decided that water was a better fit for her.

GuiAi was now cultivating a Mid-Profound wood qi technique. With her garden-related activities, this made sense. It left her a bit underpowered for the moment, but once herbalism knowledge was added to the library and access to the island around Mount Jiang was opened up, she would come into her own.

Liang, to his satisfaction, had been able to master a Peak-Yellow lightning qi technique. He had spent a significant amount of time mastering fire techniques to earn the points needed to increase his lightning affinity, and even after I had returned, it still wasn’t high enough for him to form a pristine cultivation base with a Peak-Yellow technique. However, over the past three months, he had used the 20,000 contribution points I had awarded him to boost this affinity further, and he had been able to properly advance to Peak Disciple just in time for this meeting.

I was more than happy with everyone’s progress. They had all started as the discarded refuse of the Su Clan. Even ShouLi, who had previously been considered one of the clan’s elites, had only been valued because she could be traded away to a hedonistic son of a foreign empire.

Now, they were all true elite warriors comparable to nearly anyone on the continent. They might not be able to compete against the few true geniuses who were out there, but they didn’t need to. Those geniuses were locked away in the Nine Rivers Sect, and they would only emerge in extraordinary circumstances.

It was time for this group to take their next step.

Reaching into my storage bag, I pulled out six scrolls containing Low-Yellow Rank 2 cultivation techniques and handed one to each of them.

“These will allow you to advance to Martial Master. Study them carefully and do your best to create the strongest foundation possible. I would suggest that you all work together to try and better understand what you need to do.”

They had looks of anticipation mixed with worry as they looked at the scroll. GuiAi was the first to voice everyone’s concerns.

“Patriarch… can we… use an orb for this?”

I chuckled ruefully. The memory orbs might have spoiled them a bit too much.

“Not yet. Do your best to learn from the scrolls first. After six months, I will evaluate your progress and award each of you contribution points based on both how far you have advanced and the quality of your cultivation base. You will get access to the new orbs after this evaluation is complete.”

GuiAi ducked her head. “Thank you, Patriarch.”

In the Yellow Orchid Academy, the test upon ascension to Martial Master was to see how far students could cultivate in only a single week. For these children, one week wouldn’t be nearly enough time to even understand the basics of forming meridians.

I could have accelerated this process by giving them access to memory orbs from the start, but I wanted to see if their cultivation talents had improved at all over the years. GuiMing being able to cultivate a High-Profound Rank 1 technique had been a bit beyond my expectations, and I was optimistic that he and others could perform similar feats in Rank 2.

After handing out the techniques, I gave them a bit of advice on what Rank 2 cultivation entailed and taught them all how to make practice meridians. While this wasn’t done at Yellow Orchid, most of the geniuses there would already know a bit of basic information about Rank 2 cultivation techniques, so I considered giving these children a bit of extra advice to be fair game.

When my short lesson was over, they all departed to begin work on their advancement.

While everyone else was working on improving their cultivation bases, I turned my attention to the island surrounding Mount Jiang.

The mountaintop was already getting a bit too crowded, and we needed access to more land. I also wanted to open up areas to practice herbalism and beast taming, and to do this, we needed to take firm control of the surrounding island.

This was a bit tricky, though. While I could simply erect a powerful defensive barrier to keep everyone away, such a formation would alert every faction in the Wastes that someone had taken possession of the island, and it wouldn’t take too much guesswork to figure out that it was us. If possible, I wanted to avoid this scenario.

After a couple of years of research and planning, I had been able to come up with an interesting solution to this problem.

Having had a chance to study the various formations I had purchased from the System, while I still didn’t have a firm grasp on how to make convincing illusions like the one that covered the mountain, I did gain a solid understanding of how to tie various kinds of formations into the greater sect-protecting formation.

To extend our reach across the island, I first laid down a grand illusion formation. While I wasn’t skilled in illusions, this one didn’t need to do anything complex. All it did was make the entire island look like it was covered in a dense layer of fog. Our activities on the mountain were still hidden by the illusion that I had purchased previously, and with this addition, as long as we didn’t build anything above the illusory fog layer, no one would know about our presence here.

So, what would people think once they found out the island was suddenly covered in dense fog? That a rare treasure had appeared. Given that the island was known for producing an abundance of rare Rank 3 herbs, most people would likely suspect that a powerful and valuable herb had appeared somewhere on the island.

This would draw a large number of treasure hunters here from around the Wastes, so the second formation I placed was a defensive barrier that would block any Grandmasters from stepping foot onto the island. This might be a little suspicious, but since Disciples and Masters would still be able to access the island freely, my hope was that this barrier would be seen as a natural formation.

Finally, before activating these two formations, I scattered a few precious Rank 2 and 3 herbs across the island. If there were no actual treasures to find, people might lose interest in the area. By hiding a few herbs around the place, I could ensure that these treasure hunters kept coming back.

Setting this all up and making sure that it all functioned properly took me several months of work. Not long after I finished, the six-month time limit I had given ShouLi and the others expired.

Upon seeing them all again, I was excited to find that they had all been able to successfully ascend. Liang had only been able to advance to Martial Master 1, and his meridians were about the shabbiest I had ever seen, but for a boy who had originally been completely incapable of cultivating, advancing at all was a major achievement.

After doling out a healthy amount of contribution points, I explained the task that now awaited them.

“As Martial Masters, it will take you longer to advance, and resetting your cultivation bases won’t be nearly as easy as it was when you were Disciples. So, while you will still be awarded contribution points whenever you reach a new level, these points will be much more difficult to obtain than they were in the past. Instead, you will need to focus on earning points in a different way.”

This made them all slightly anxious, but I didn’t keep them in suspense for long.

“If you are interested in mastering a profession, you will be able to make a significant number of points by making and selling Rank 2 items, but I know that at least a couple of you only wish to learn to fight. As such, I have set up a new challenge for you.”

I looked at them with a sinister gleam in my eye. “A number of Martial Masters will soon be invading the island surrounding Mount Jiang. You will receive contribution points for each one you defeat. No matter what they do or say, do not kill them. They are your sparring partners. If any of them are truly vile, you can cripple them as a warning to others, but for the most part, you should just attack and rob anyone who decides to invade our territory.”

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Chapter 238 – Life 73, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

With the first group of Disciples advancing to Martial Master, there were a few expansions that needed to happen to our settlement on Mount Jiang, and the first one I wanted to tackle was an extension to our Technique Hall.

At the moment, the hall was a rather empty single-story structure. It only contained the three bookcases with the Rank 1 cultivation techniques and one bookcase with the orbs containing basic crafting and martial skills. This limited selection of techniques had been sufficient in the clan’s early days, but I had hundreds of techniques filling up my mental library. There was no reason to let them go to waste.

However, there was one major problem. My mental library could only be used by me. If I wanted to make the knowledge it contained available to others, I would need to first write it all down by hand, and I had no desire to hand copy countless technique scrolls. So, I could only turn to the System for assistance.

After thinking through the problem, I came up with a few possible solutions, and while I doubted its feasibility, I decided to check out my most outlandish idea first.

“System, how much would it cost for me to gain the ability to project my mental library into the physical world so that anyone could read the books that it contains?”

Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

This answer wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it was still a bit disappointing. My second idea was no doubt doomed to failure as well.

“System, how much would it cost for me to gain the ability to automatically create memory orbs similar to those that I purchased for the Rank 1 cultivation techniques? I would want to be able to select an orb and technique and then have this ability fill the orb with all the information needed to use the technique properly. It only needs to work with Rank 1 techniques, and it only needs to include knowledge that I already possess, but I want the quality and breadth of information to match what is in the orbs I previously purchased.”

Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

Unfortunate, but I knew that I had been asking for a lot. That kind of ability would have needed to actively make decisions about what information to include, and such a feature went well beyond any of the abilities I had purchased previously.

“Alright, System, what about a similar technique that, again, only works on Rank 1 techniques, but this time, I just want it to be able to directly copy information from the technique scrolls in my mental library.”

Cost 1,000,000 credits.

That wasn’t too bad, and the cost should remain reasonable with higher-level techniques. There were enough advantages to learning techniques from memory orbs instead of scrolls that I saw a lot of value in this kind of ability, but I just didn’t have enough orbs to make it worthwhile for the time being.

“Okay, System, what about an ability that can copy information from my mental library directly onto a blank book or scroll? Again, it only needs to work on Rank 1 information.”

Cost 10,000 credits.

“How much if it works up to Rank 3?”

Cost 1,000,000 credits.

“Purchase it for Rank 3, then.”

Purchase confirmed. 743,017,430,897 credits remaining.

That would let me do the bulk of what I wanted to do, but I still needed to deal with the Rank 2 cultivation techniques. I wanted to provide new Martial Masters with easy access to all the information they needed to create a solid foundation, and that meant purchasing new orbs that contained the necessary knowledge.

Unfortunately, my supply of fresh memory orbs was quickly dwindling. I had less than 50 left by this point, and I needed them for more than just teaching people basic techniques. After running the numbers several times, I had to concede that I just didn’t have enough orbs to do everything I wanted to do. I would only be able to provide orbs for the most basic techniques, and everything else would need to be learned from scrolls.

I riffled through my mental library and found the 9 Low-Yellow Rank 2 cultivation techniques that matched up with the Low-Yellow Rank 1 techniques that I had previously purchased. Then, I took out nine orbs and placed them down in front of me.

“System, copy all the knowledge necessary to cultivate these techniques properly into these orbs, including information on training methods such as the use of practice meridians. I also want you to include information on how to deconstruct and disperse meridians to abolish one’s cultivation base. The orbs only need to contain knowledge I already possess.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 9 million credits. 743,008,430,897 credits remaining.

This would only provide the members of my clan with a starting point for Rank 2 cultivation, but it should be enough to give them a huge head start when compared to others on the continent.

Orbs in hand, I went to each of the six new Martial Masters and had them each absorb the memories from the proper orb. Then, sent them to cultivate in seclusion. After that, I ran over to Dragon Gate City, purchased a variety of supplies, and got down to redecorating the Technique Hall.

Designing and building the kind of library/Technique Hall that I envisioned was no simple task. It needed to be able to hold hundreds, if not thousands, of books and scrolls, and all these books needed to be sorted and arranged so that a person could quickly find what they were looking for.

If I tried to do everything myself, this was a task that could take me decades to accomplish. So, wisely, I didn’t do it. Instead, I simply built out the basic framework for a Technique Hall and placed a wide assortment of books and scrolls inside.

I expanded the bottom floor of the hall by a few hundred square meters and built a second floor for storing the Rank 2 techniques. On each floor, I created a single large bookcase for each profession and filled it with any techniques that seemed useful. Then, I filled several more bookcases with random cultivation techniques. There was one bookcase each for the Yellow-, Profound-, and Earth-Rank techniques of each element, for a total of 27 additional bookcases on each floor.

Later, I would need to talk to ShouLi in her role as head of the leadership council about designing a proper Technique Hall and finding someone to be a librarian, but I wouldn’t disturb her cultivation for such a mundane task.

With a basic library setup in place, I next expanded the number of professions that were available.

“System, fill 3 memory orbs with all the Rank 1 knowledge of herbalism, beast taming, and illusions that would be expected from someone expert on this continent.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 3 million credits. 743,005,430,897 credits remaining.

“Fill 7 orbs with similar Rank 2 information on each of the seven professions, excluding gu keeping.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 700 million credits. 742,305,430,897 credits remaining.

While I still didn’t know what kind of setup would be necessary for illusionists or beast tamers to practice their craft, with the knowledge in these orbs, the members of my clan should be able to figure it out for themselves.

However, I did have a solid idea of how to establish areas to practice herbalism. We could ape the Verdant Forest Sect.

The island around the base of Mount Jiang was perfect for growing all kinds of herbs, from Rank 1 to Rank 3. The only problem was that my barrier and fog formations had drawn the attention of countless treasure hunters. If anyone attempted to set up an herb field down there, it would likely be looted and destroyed before the seeds even had a chance to sprout.

This didn’t make setting up such a field impossible, though. Any herbalist who wanted to do so would just need to pay warriors and formation specialists to protect it. Rank 1 herbs might not be valuable enough to make this worthwhile, but since warriors would be down there fighting invaders to train their martial arts skills anyway, protecting an herb field while doing so would just be a way to make a few extra contribution points.

Since Mo had already taken charge of the workshops, I let him decide how to handle this. At the same time, I also told him to designate areas for private gardens, either on top of buildings or in open spaces around the plateau. This would give herbalists a place to do small-scale experiments without needing to worry about invaders.

With the library and workshops ready to go, I next worked on upgrading the Affinity Hall.

While I hadn’t yet seen any degradation in the rate at which people’s affinities were improving, I was still getting a bit worried about depleting the area’s ambient essence. The low affinity levels that people in the Wastes were typically born with showed that there wasn’t much free essence in the environment to begin with, and constantly running Essence Gathering Formations couldn’t be helping things.

Long term, I needed to set up gathering formations around the continent, store the essence they collected, and then bring it back for my people to use. However, that would require a significant amount of work to both set up and maintain.

A better option would be to find some type of essence spirit fire, but various inquiries to the System on that topic made me think that finding one wasn’t very likely. Not in the short term, at least.

Essence and affinities would no doubt become a problem in the future, but to settle things for the moment, I moved the Affinity Hall with the Rank 1 formations to the northeast corner of the plateau and built a new Rank 2 Affinity Hall in the southwest corner. I could only hope that this separation would be enough to delay any problems with essence depletion long enough to let me solve the problem for good.

Next to these halls, I constructed brand new Cultivation Halls with Rank 1 and 2 Qi Gathering Formations. While I wasn’t expecting any problems with qi depletion any time soon, I didn’t see any reason not to go ahead and separate these just in case.

Finally, I had to deal with creating a formation that could scan a Martial Master’s energy body and award them contribution points based on how well they had cultivated. The complexity involved in this was a bit beyond me. What criteria should I even use when determining how many points to award?

Ideally, meridian placement would be an important factor in such judgments, but if a person’s Rank 2 cultivation technique didn’t match up well with their Rank 1 technique, meridian placement became extremely difficult, and there typically wasn’t a ‘good’ way to do it.

So instead, I decided to just have the formation focus on the quality and regularity of the weave of a person’s meridians. This was only a small part of what it meant to cultivate as a Martial Master, but it should be sufficient for my purposes. Proper placement could then simply become a requirement for being allowed to advance to Grandmaster.

Unfortunately, I still didn’t have the necessary schematics for creating such a formation, so I could only turn to the System for assistance.

“System, I want a formation to test a Martial Master’s cultivation base. It should be similar to the one I previously purchased for testing a Disciple’s. Points should be awarded based on the weave and regularity of a person’s meridians, with a total possible reward of 1,000 points per level.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 5 billion credits. 737,305,430,897 credits remaining.

With that in place, I considered my upgrades to the clan’s infrastructure complete. So, I decided to take a bit of time off and take some of the kids to Rosehill for a day out.

At the start of the new year, I returned to the Su Clan’s training compound for the next round of recruiting.

Everything seemed somewhat normal at first, but I soon realized a problem. More than ninety children had shown up to participate in this year’s blessing ceremony. That was nearly double the usual amount.

When I confronted Su Heng about this discrepancy, he looked somewhat abashed.

“Prince Fang… As you may know… The Su Clan is a large family that has ruled the Wastes for centuries…”

I nodded slowly, but I kept my eyes locked on the man.

“Well, in that time… We often have to… cut away branch families.” He winced at the piercing glare I gave him as he said this. “Don’t worry. These are all still blood members of the Su Clan. They are just distant relatives. The clan just doesn’t have the resources to support them all.”

I chuckled slightly and did my best to impart a bit of menace into it. “So, the clan elders have decided to try and pass these discarded branch members off as true members of the Su Clan to drain more resources from me?”

“That… No… It’s just…” Su Heng dropped his eyes to the ground. “Yes.”

This situation went a bit beyond my expectations, and it brought up interesting questions about the nature of the ascension to Sovereign. Would karma generated from these distant branch members be good enough to allow me to ascend? Emperor Li had said that I needed to be related to the people I drew karma from by blood, but how close did that relationship need to be? Was a single drop of blood enough?

The only information I had on the Bloodline Tier came from guesswork, supposition, and cryptic hints. I didn’t have any strong reasons to believe that these distant relatives would be any better or worse at generating karma than members of the Su Clan’s main branch. In fact, as a descendant of a distant branch myself, some of these people might be more closely related to me than someone like ShouLi.

Making my decision, I focused back on Su Heng.

“As long as these trainees are blood members of the Su Clan, I can accept them. However, I will be checking this. Don’t even think about trying to cheat me.”

Su Heng dipped his head in a quick bow. “Of course, Prince, of course.”

In truth, I didn’t care too much about whether all my recruits were blood members of the Su Clan or not. Even if a few of them weren’t, they would be surrounded by true Su Clan members, so they would almost certainly marry into the clan anyway.

However, I didn’t want the Su Clan’s elders to think that I was an easy mark. I would have to make a show of checking everyone with a truth stone to verify their status.

Aside from this unusual spike in the number of children present, the three-month training camp proceeded mostly as normal. At the end of it, I walked away with 58 new recruits.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 239 – Life 73, Age 37, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After returning from the Su Clan, I gathered all the Disciples who had just turned 20 and gave them each a Rank 2 cultivation technique. I considered the trial run on Martial Master advancements that I had done with the leadership council the previous year to be a success, but I made a few changes for this next group.

This time, I abolished the six-month time limit. These Disciples could cultivate using only the information contained in the Rank 2 technique scroll for as long or as short of a time as they wished. The only requirement was that they had to reach Martial Master 1. Then, when they were ready, they could go to the Affinity Hall, have their cultivation base analyzed, and be rewarded based on how far they had advanced. For this initial advancement, they would earn ten times the regular amount of contribution points.

My hope was that this change would encourage them to push themselves as much as possible while not forcing them to waste their time on advancements that would never come. For some of them, Martial Master 1 would be all they would be able to achieve without the information stored in the memory orbs, and that was okay. I just wanted them to push themselves and test their limits.

With my obligations in the clan fulfilled, I wanted to head back to the Verdant Forest Sect and see how SuYin and Bao were coming along, but I didn’t feel safe leaving just yet.

With the island around Mount Jiang teeming with Martial Masters who were scouring the place for loot, the fighting down there was constant. While the members of my clan were safe up atop the plateau, if anyone decided to go down to the island to join this chaos, they would quickly run into trouble.

So, I decided to wait another year before returning to the sect. Neither SuYin nor Bao should be in any danger there, and if they needed my help for some reason, they could send me a message through the Blue Wind Pavilion. I had never been too good at checking for messages in the past, but recently, I made a special point of stopping at the Rosehill Pavilion every time I took the Disciples out on their day trips.

Considering the round-trip time to the sect was nearly two weeks, and that I usually only visited Rosehill once a month, if they did have any problems, it could take me up to a month and a half to get there to help them out. This wasn’t ideal, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. After the two of them learned everything that they could from the sect, I might need to ask them to return to the Wastes for a while so that I didn’t have to worry about things going wrong while I wasn’t around, but that was a discussion for the future. In the present, I just needed to make sure that my clan was capable of handling the dangers of the island.

Having been Masters for nearly a year by this point, my clan’s leadership council had started making a lot of strides in their studies of Rank 2 skills.

Mo, GuiAi, and ShouLi were all mostly interested in learning profession skills. Mo was focused on formations, GuiAi was learning herbalism, and ShouLi was among the first in the clan to try and learn beast taming.

I was easily able to provide Mo and GuiAi with everything they would need to learn their chosen professions, but I had no idea what a beast tamer might require, so ShouLi was constantly coming to me with procurement requests for items and resources that the clan didn’t yet have. The most important of these were requests for beast eggs.

There were a wide variety of demon beasts on the continent, but most of them were ill-suited for our current environment. After discussing the matter with the others who wanted to learn beast taming, ShouLi asked me to procure eggs for three types of beasts: cats, chickens, and boars. The demon cats would make solid companions for anyone who wanted to focus on martial arts, and the chickens and boars would be raised as livestock.

I didn’t stop to think about their requests for even a moment. I just went out, bought what they wanted, and handed it over. I was as eager to see what they were able to do with these supplies as they were.

As for GuiMing, he was more focused on secluded cultivation. He was already having difficulties with his Rank 2 cultivation technique, so if he wanted to cultivate a High-Profound Rank 2 technique to match his Rank 1 technique, he would need to put in a significant amount of effort.

Still, as a member of the leadership council, he had responsibilities to attend to, and he couldn’t just lock himself away all the time. The top of the plateau was getting more crowded with each passing year, and we needed to start building downward. As head of the residential areas, GuiMing was in charge of the project to design the plateau’s interior. He was working with a team of Disciples, a couple of whom had architectural-related blessings, but GuiMing was responsible for making the final decisions.

In the meantime, NiangBa and Liang were busy fighting.

The goals of these two were simple: learn to fight, earn contribution points.

While NiangBa remained in charge of the arena, he left one of the newer Martial Masters to oversee it on most days. As for Liang, his position as head of the enforcers had never taken up much of his time because there simply wasn’t much need for law enforcement in our small community yet. This gave both boys ample time to visit the island and fight against the invaders.

During their first few forays down to the island, the boys ran across members of the Su Clan and disciples from the Twin Mountains Sect. Even though these invaders outnumbered them, and even though the level of the invaders’ cultivation bases were higher than theirs, Liang and NiangBa were still able to easily defeat these invaders. With the boys’ strong foundations, pure qi, and years of training, they were far stronger than what could be expected from most cultivators in the Wastes.

These easy victories made the boys overconfident, and that was when tragedy struck.

The people invading our island weren’t just from around the Wastes. The powers that bordered the Wastes frequently sent in youths for experiential learning in the safe environment it provided.

On their fourth trip down to the island, NiangBa and Liang encountered a group of five young cultivators from the Rising Sun Empire led by a proper young master who had been given all the best resources and training ever since he was a child. He and his guards had all cultivated Earth-Rank techniques, and they all had affinities that far surpassed either of the two boys.

At the start of the fight, it had looked like NiangBa’s talent and training might have been enough to at least let him escape, but in the end, it wasn’t enough. NiangBa was swiftly defeated, and Liang’s defeat soon followed.

Just as one of the young master’s guards was about to send out a strike to end NiangBa’s life, I used a wave of qi to absorb the boys’ bodies into the island’s peat and transport them to safety.

The boys might have a hard time dealing with the mental blow of having been defeated so soundly, but I could only hope that it would make them stronger in the end.

Aside from occasionally saving Liang and NiangBa, there wasn’t much for me to do in the clan on a day-to-day basis. Until there were at least a few more Martial Masters capable of fighting against the invaders on the island below, I still needed to be around in case something went wrong, but thanks to the automated systems I had put in place, there wasn’t much that needed my personal attention.

So, to help pass the days, I turned my attention to herbalism and transformed the roof of my house into a large garden.

The soil of this garden came from the peat bog surrounding Mount Jiang and was rich in energy and nutrients. However, I had no plans to rely on only the natural energies in the environment.

Once the soil was in place, I then constructed a new prototype formation for balancing the garden’s qi, wu, and medicinal energy. Using the lessons I had learned during my work on my first prototype, I added a few extra features to make controlling the various energy levels a bit more intuitive.

After everything was all set up, I planted a batch of blue peony seeds to test it out.

These seeds sprouted and grew far faster than they should have, reaching maturity and blooming in only a few short months. However, while these herbs had grown fast and contained an abundance of medicinal energy, I still considered them to be failures as they were rife with toxins.

This made me question the energy proportions given to me by the Verdant Forest Sect. My formation should be pumping out exactly what the sect had said these plants needed, so why did they contain so many toxins?

Thinking that this might have just been a failure of my formation, I took out a device for measuring ambient energy levels and tested my garden. While these devices weren’t entirely accurate, they were considered good enough for most situations, and in any case, I was just double-checking my existing formation.

The result I got back was just as I had feared. The ambient energy in the garden was a close match to what the sect considered ‘optimal’ for blue peonies. The numbers were a bit off, but there were several possible explanations for this, and none of them would explain the elevated levels of toxins in my plants.

Without any better ideas, I uprooted all the plants and started again from scratch. This time, instead of relying on my formation so much, I did my best to follow the sect’s teachings for monitoring and regulating a garden’s energy levels.

As I worked, I began to get a sense of what had gone wrong with my formation. It wasn’t so much that the sect’s numbers for ideal energy proportions were wrong. It was more a problem of these flowers being living organisms, not machines. The energies they needed were in constant flux, so no one set of numbers would ever be entirely accurate.

In the end, I had to concede that my formation was pretty much a failure. It still had its uses, especially since it enriched the soil with wu without the need for demon beast ‘fertilizer,’ but the expenses involved in creating it, both in time and resources, were hard to justify. If an herbalist would need to be heavily involved in managing the energy levels of a garden anyway, I didn’t see much value in this formation over the more standard Plant Growth Formation.

Still, I wasn’t ready to throw the entire idea out just yet. I had only had enough time to run two tests, and there might have been variables that I had overlooked. I needed to wait until I returned to the Verdant Forest Sect to get SuYin’s opinion on the matter.

At the start of the new year, I attended the Su Clan’s training camp once again, and like the previous year, there was an overabundance of new Disciples to choose from. I had to wonder just how wide of a net the Su Clan was casting to try and find more Disciples for me to recruit.

Overall, there weren’t any real differences between this year’s training camp and the previous ones, but I did notice the Grandmasters were starting to take the normal Disciples a bit more seriously than they had in the past. At several points, I caught them actively discussing which ones were worth an investment of time and resources.

It didn’t take me long to figure out the source of this change. With the number of Disciples I was recruiting each year, the clan now had an overabundance of Perfect Rank 1 pills. What was once a precious treasure was now becoming a standard commodity available to even the regular members of the Su Clan.

Surprisingly, this change in the value of Perfect pills had little effect on how the Grandmasters treated me. Instead of lowering their valuation of me as their need for pills lessened, they increased their valuation of Disciples they had previously disregarded.

I was happy to have made the lives of these normal Disciples slightly better, but it did come at a risk to my plans here. If the Su Clan started valuing them too much, they might try to renegotiate our deal. While I didn’t mind paying a little more, capitulating to any demands for more compensation would set a bad precedent.

In any case, these were just random fears for the future. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be something I would need to deal with. In the present, the shifts in the Su Clan’s behavior simply meant that I was able to walk away from this year’s recruitment drive with 57 new Disciples.

After returning to Mount Jiang, I called for a gathering of every Disciple who was now 20 years old to introduce them to the process of ascending to Martial Master. Unfortunately, this year, we had our first failure. One of the Disciples hadn’t been able to create a perfect foundation in time and was thus not allowed to learn the Rank 2 cultivation technique.

The foundation of the young man in question wasn’t terrible. He had only made mistakes on two out of nine acupoints, so part of me wanted to go ahead and give him the Rank 2 technique, let him advance to Martial Master, and then have him fix his Rank 1 foundation later, but I couldn’t.

The criteria I had set for being allowed to advance to Martial Master was a flawless foundation as a Martial Disciple, and I had to be firm about sticking to this rule. In the future, I would hand off the responsibility of judging who was allowed to advance to others, and if there weren’t firm requirements, the quality of the cultivators in my clan would begin to decline over time.

However, while I didn’t want to let the standards of my clan slip even the slightest bit, I also didn’t want to ruin the future of the boy standing in front of me. So, I gave him a chance.

He needed to reset his cultivation base and start over. If he could advance to Peak Disciple with a pristine foundation within the next few months, he would still have time to advance to Martial Master before turning 21. If he couldn’t, then stagnation would inevitably set in.

Sadly, I couldn’t stick around to watch this kid develop. There were other things I needed to deal with.

I hadn’t heard any word from Bao or SuYin in over two years, and I wanted to check in on what was happening in the Verdant Forest Sect. So, as she was the head of the leadership council, I handed off judging the boy’s qualifications for advancement to ShouLi. While her qi vision was still rather limited, she could use the formation in the Affinity Hall to assess the boy’s cultivation and check if he should be given the Rank 2 technique.

After that was done, I went around the clan, ensured that there were no issues that I needed to handle personally, restocked the various warehouses, and then left for the Verdant Forest Sect. There was a danger that something would go wrong while I was away, especially down on the island, but the clan now had enough Martial Masters that they should be able to handle any problems without me.

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Chapter 240 – Life 73, Age 38, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After leaving Mount Jiang, I headed directly for the Verdant Forest Sect, and as soon as I arrived, I went straight to SuYin’s house.

When I had left, SuYin’s position in the sect had seemed stable. She didn’t have any enemies, and there wasn’t any reason for anyone to cause trouble for her. She was simply a rather talented herbalist worthy of nurturing. I had been gone for two years, but none of that should have changed. She shouldn’t have run into any serious problems, but the moment I saw her house, I couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong.

It could have been something in the glances of the people as they passed by. It could have been the overly thick coating of dirt on the windows that showed they hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. It could have been the undisturbed layer of pollen on the ground around the front door that showed no one had used it for several days. I wasn’t sure what it was, but something about SuYin’s home gave me the feeling that it had been abandoned.

As I neared, I looked through a window and saw that the inside of the house was a disordered wreck. This made my heart leap up into my throat, but just as I was about to force my way in and investigate, I heard sounds coming from behind the house.

Without hesitation, I dashed around the house with all the speed I could muster.

The sight that greeted me was beyond my expectations, but it allowed me to relax, if only just a little.

Bao was running around a garden in a ragged, dirt-stained green robe.

As I watched the young man frantically rush from place to place, I couldn’t help but notice the plants that surrounded him. Every one of them was vibrant and full of life. The greens of their leaves and stems showed no hint of disease or infestation, and the reds, blues, and yellows of their fruits and flowers possessed an indescribable luster that made me feel like I was looking at precious gemstones.

A short tree in the back corner of the garden caught my eye. Its branches held a small crop of nine-pointed starfruit. While a normal starfruit would be about the size of my fist, the ones on this tree were larger than my head.

As he moved through the garden, Bao used a series of techniques to pull thin streams of qi from the air and guide them down into the soil in complex patterns reminiscent of formation inscriptions. At the same time, he pulled wu from the ground and forced it to dissipate in the air next to the leaves of specific plants.

Following the streams of qi Bao was using back to their source, I saw that the massive formation stone I had provided SuYin was sending energy into the garden at full blast. When I had first arrived, it had been set up to send out significantly more water and earth qi than anything else, but Bao was constantly darting back to its controls to shift its output. Sometimes these changes were subtle, sometimes they were dramatic.

His actions, the way he was controlling various energies, raised several questions about the nature of herbalism, and I wanted to ask him about it, but this wasn’t the right time. SuYin was still missing, her home looked like it had been ransacked, and Bao was running around the garden like a madman. There were far more important issues to deal with.

I ran forward and grabbed Bao’s shoulder.

Startled out of his state of deep concentration, he spun on me like a frightened animal.

“What…. What are you doing?”

I maintained a firm grip on his shoulder. “Bao. Look at me.”

He swerved his head several times, and even though I kept him locked in place, his eyes continued to dart around the garden.

I placed my other hand on his other shoulder and forced him to look at me. When his eyes finally focused on me, his mouth dropped open in shock.

“M… Master?”

I nodded and gritted my teeth. “Where’s SuYin?”

He blinked and cocked his head to the side. “She… she left.”

His statement was matter-of-fact. If anything, it felt like he was questioning why I didn’t already know this. This heightened my anxiety, but I didn’t feel any panic or sadness from the boy, so I tried again.

“Where did she go?”

Finally, a surge of fear gripped him. “Oh… oh no…”

With a shaky hand, he reached into his robe and pulled out a dirty, somewhat crumpled letter.

“SuYin… I was… I was supposed to send this to you. It’s just…” Bao looked pleadingly at the garden surrounding him. “Master, these plants. That formation. You have to fix it though. It doesn’t work right. There’s so much to do…”

As he looked around, still trapped by my firm grip on his shoulders, he began sending out tendrils of qi to continue with his work with the plants.

To take the letter from the young man, I had to release my grip on one of his shoulders. The moment I did so, he wriggled free from my grip on his other shoulder and started wandering the garden again, lost in his own little world.

I wanted to stop him, to pull him back and ask him more questions, but first, I needed to deal with the letter.

Upon opening it, I saw that it had been written by SuYin. Most of it was general information about her daily life, but the important bit was at the end. About six months ago, Bao had been promoted to inner sect disciple, and she had been promoted to core disciple. After receiving this new rank, she had to leave the sect and serve as the deputy leader of one of the nearby cities in preparation for taking up a position as a city lord and advancing to Martial Lord. She had reluctantly accepted this appointment, but she wanted to talk to me about the situation with her family before she risked advancing to Lord and being blocked from returning to the Wastes.

I needed to chase after SuYin and have a long conversation with her, but looking at Bao as he roamed the garden, I knew that would have to wait. Something was wrong with this young man, and I had to fix it before worrying about anything else.

When I had simply grabbed him and held him in place, Bao had been too agitated to speak with me properly. Knowing that it would be difficult for us to have a rational conversation with him in this state, I decided to let him continue with his work. He would run out of energy and need to rest eventually, and I could only hope that would give us a chance to talk.

Several hours after sunset, Bao went to the formation, made a series of adjustments to turn down the flow of qi and wu, and then collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

Before he could drift off to sleep, I walked over and sat down next to him.

“Bao, what’s going on? Why are you so focused on these plants?”

He left out a soft whimper. “Master, there’s… there’s just so much to do… They won’t let me go. They need my help. They won’t stop screaming.”

“Who is ‘they?’ The plants?”

Tears welled up in Bao’s eyes as he nodded. “Yes.”

“Bao, help me understand. What’s going on? Does it have something to do with your blessing?”

Again, Bao gave sorrowful nods. “At first, it was like I told you. When I looked at an herb, basic information about it popped into my head. After you took me to the Verdant Fields Sect, this ability got stronger, it told me more things, but that was it. After coming here… things began to change. When I reached Peak Grandmaster, I started hearing whispers from the plants, and I knew what I needed to do to help them.”

Small rivulets of tears began to flow down Bao’s cheeks. “After SuYin left, I came here and started working in her garden. Using your formation, I was able to help the plants more than ever before, but as they grew stronger their voices became louder and louder. I can’t… Even now… They’re sleeping, but they aren’t silent…”

I placed a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. “I understand. Don’t worry, I’m here to help.”

Voices from a blessing… Voices from plants… How did that work? Where were the voices coming from? How could I make them stop?

While I didn’t know the answers to the questions, there had to be some kind of connection between Bao and these plants. As long as I could sever that connection, the voices should stop.

I pulled out a formation plate for a Rank 4 defensive barrier. It was incredibly effective at blocking both physical and qi attacks. I placed it on the ground and activated it. Then, I turned to Bao.

The young man showed no reaction. It was clear that he was still hearing voices.

How? How could the plants be talking to him?

It was possible that they had formed some kind of karmic connection with him and were communicating through that bond. It was also possible that blessings from the Heavenly Dao were ineffable and that I had no hope of blocking it. If either of these were true, then there was little I could do to save Bao, but there was another possibility.

I hunted around in my storage space until I found a small bag of ziethanite powder. Then, I pulled a tendril of spirit fire from a Profound-Rank earth-based fire seed and absorbed it into my body.

Using every bit of focus that I could muster, I used this spirit fire and my earth affinity to slowly transform the ziethanite into a Rank 5 formation.

Crafting a Rank 5 formation as a Grandmaster was challenging, and doing so without using earth qi was pretty much impossible. Thankfully, I had something to assist me with this. The massive plant growth formation I had built could create pure streams of qi in each of the nine elements. After cranking up its output of earth qi to 100%, I had more than enough energy available to me.

Even with this assistance, crafting a formation that was both powerful enough to do what it needed to do and small enough to hang on a chain around Bao’s neck took me hours. This entire time, Bao was moaning in pain. With the formation focused on providing me with the energy I needed, the plants weren’t getting the sustenance they required, and they were making their displeasure known.

The moment my work was complete, Bao shot to his feet and ran to the formation. He slammed his hand on it to abruptly cut off the majority of the earth qi that it was outputting and redirected it to begin making a mix of the other elements. Then, he ran into the field and started moving energy around in a complex weave of qi and wu.

As he did this, I added the finishing touches to my new formation and attached it to a thin metal chain. Then, I stood and walked over to him.

Without saying a word, I draped the formation around his neck and activated it.

The moment I did, Bao froze.

“What… what… they’re gone… I can’t…”

He turned to me with a look of fear. “Master, I can’t hear them anymore… What happened?”

I nodded slowly and then tapped on the formation, reducing its effects slightly.

This caused Bao to suddenly look around, still somewhat fearful, but calmer.

“They’re back… but… it’s like they’re just whispering to me now…”

I patted him on the shoulder. “Alright, do what you need to do. We’ll talk in a bit.”

Bao stumbled away and got back to work. As I looked at him, I couldn’t help but feel a torrent of anger surge through me.

The formation I had given him was designed to protect someone against soul attacks. I didn’t know how it all worked, but from what I could tell, his ‘blessing’ had made his soul incredibly sensitive to soul attacks from plants. As the plants around him grew stronger, the intensity of these attacks only increased.

After letting him work in the garden for a few hours to calm his nerves, I tapped on his formation necklace again and increased the power of its barrier. This caused Bao to become agitated, but I just wrapped an arm around his shoulder and guided him to the house.

“Go inside. Get some sleep. These plants can survive for a few hours without you.”

He glanced around nervously, but he didn’t fight me. Without the constant voices in his head pleading for attention, Bao was much more willing to listen to my advice.

After settling Bao down for a proper rest, I went back outside and investigated the garden he had spent so much effort on. When I looked at the plants, when I really saw them, I was stunned. Before, I had been captivated by their color and beauty, but now, looking at them in both normal and energy vision, I couldn’t help but be shocked by the amount of energy they contained.

Most of the herbs looked somewhat familiar, but they looked so different from what I was used to that I had a hard time identifying everything. My eyes were inexorably drawn to the herb I was most familiar with. The blue peony.

The blue peony I was used to was a bright blue flower that grew from a rather normal-looking green shrub. Unless a person knew something about herbs, there wasn’t much that differentiated a blue peony from any regular, mortal flower. It contained a purified form of medicinal energy that could be used to help people cultivate, but the flower itself didn’t look like anything special.

The blue peonies in Bao’s garden, however, were different. The shrubs looked like they were carved from jade, and the leaves looked like large emeralds. The flowers themselves were translucent crystals with only faint hints of blue in their petals.

Just looking at these flowers, I could tell that they were something special. In energy vision, I didn’t see even the faintest hint of toxin. They were pure medicinal energy, and the structure of their energy was flawless.

I reached out a hand and plucked one of these flowers. The moment its connection to the shrub was severed, the flower fractured and broke apart into small crystalline shards. These shards then turned to dust and dissipated into nothingness.

I couldn’t help but frown. The medicinal energy in Rank 1 herbs was usually rather robust. The energy in these peonies was far too fragile. It felt more like what I would expect from a Rank 4 or 5 herb.

Reaching out, I plucked another peony, but this time, I used my wood affinity to hold the flower’s energy in place.

I didn’t bother with melting its physical shell or trying to remove non-existent toxins. I just attempted to form a pill directly from the raw flower.

Using just a small fluctuation of my affinity, I compressed it into a small, clear blue pill. Then, I examined it with my pill analysis ability.

Perfect Rank 1 Basic Qi Gathering Pill, 200% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: —

The System hadn’t even been able to give it a value.

What had Bao done?

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Chapter 241 – Life 73, Age 38, Martial Grandmaster Peak

While the formation necklace I had given Bao wasn’t a long-term solution to his problem, it was enough to keep him stable. I wanted to spend more time with him, but before I could do that, I had to check in on SuYin.

When she had left the letter with Bao, SuYin hadn’t known which city she would be stationed in, so she hadn’t been able to include such information in her letter. Since then, it was possible that she had sent Bao other letters, and it was even possible that she had come to visit him in person, but having been trapped in a blessing-induced daze, Bao couldn’t remember too many details about what had happened over the past few months.

I poked around the sect a bit to see if I could find out any information about SuYin and where she had been sent, but as I was a servant disciple, no one was particularly interested in telling me much about a core disciple. Eventually, I ended up in the very place I should have started, the Blue Wind Pavilion in Green Leaf City. If she was going to leave a message for me anywhere, it would be there.

Upon arriving at the Pavilion, I simply asked the attendant if there were any letters for me. She returned after only a couple of minutes with a single letter. Thankfully, it was from SuYin.

After paying a small fee, I stepped into a private room to read the message.

————

Master,

I’m being sent to Golden Sap City. The sect has been paying close attention to me recently, and I know you value your privacy, so I didn’t want to risk letting anyone know that I’ve been contacting you. I don’t think that they would do anything to harm you, but I didn’t want to take the risk.

I’ve tried to talk to Bao and leave messages with him, but, Master, he’s not in good shape. Please, help him.

If you need to contact me, you should do so through the Pavilion. Lord Ling, the city lord training me, may not be happy if you contact me directly.

—SuYin

————

After reading the letter, I folded it up and placed it in my storage space.

Then, I left the Pavilion and rode my horse straight to Golden Sap City.

Upon my arrival, I activated the tracking formation that I had left with SuYin. Now that I was close enough, it could take me directly to her.

Unsurprisingly, the formation guided me straight to the city lord’s mansion. However, while there were protocols in place for requesting a meeting with the city lord, there was no such process for requesting a meeting with his deputy. Not wanting to wait around any longer than I had to, and not wanting to be targeted by Lord Ling, I consumed a Shadowed Soul Pill and vanished.

Making my way through the city lord’s mansion was a bit tricky. Not only did I have to avoid being seen by any Lords, but I also had to make sure that I didn’t trip any of the myriad detection and defensive formations that had been set up to guard the place.

If I had needed to journey into the depths of the mansion, this wouldn’t have been possible. The closer one got to the city lord’s personal residence, the more defenses there were, but thankfully, SuYin was being housed in a small outbuilding, not the main structure itself.

When I found her, she was locked away in a small study and was pouring through mounds of paperwork. A quick check told me that these were reports detailing the economic prosperity of Golden Sap City over the past few decades.

Seeing this, I only wanted to shake my head. I knew that such information was valuable, but I had always relied on other people to deal with it for me. For Lord Ling, it looked like SuYin was ‘other people.’

Standing near the doorway, I expelled the energy from my Shadowed Soul Pill and returned to visibility.

As I did, SuYin’s eye shot toward me, and she jumped to her feet in a defensive stance. Once she recognized me, though, a smile broke out on her face, and she ran over and gave me a hug.

“Master! How did you get here? Why did you sneak in?”

I patted her on the head. “I wanted to talk with you as soon as possible, and I didn’t want to have to jump through any official hoops. How have you been?”

SuYin let out a weary sigh. “I’m… fine. It’s been a busy few months. When Lord Ling found out about my blessing, he started sending me countless reports on the city's finances. He wants me to look for any inconsistencies and check if anyone has been skimming money from the city’s taxes. It’s tedious work, but he’s treated me fairly.”

I nodded. “SuYin, I need to talk to you about Bao.”

She widened her eyes. “You’ve seen him already? Can you help him? When I left, it seemed like he was getting worse every day. I’ve paid for a few healers from the sect to look at him, but they weren’t able to find anything wrong with him.”

“Yes… I can help him, but the situation is complicated. I need to take him back to the Wastes. If he stays in the sect, it will only cause problems. Aside from his mental problems, I’m afraid of what might happen if one of the sect’s higher-ups takes too close of a look at his garden. The herbs he’s growing… They shouldn’t be possible.”

SuYin dropped her head, and tears began to form in the corner of her eyes.

“I understand, Master.”

“SuYin, I need to know. Do you want to stay here? I can take you back to the Wastes with us, and you don’t need to worry about the sect causing any trouble. The only thing is… it would mean giving up the chance to become a Lord or learn Rank 4 herbalism, at least for now.”

This left her conflicted, but eventually, she shook her head.

“No, I’ll stay. There’s more to learn here than back in the Wastes, right? If you need my help, I’ll go back, but if it’s just to keep me safe, then I’ll stay here and keep pushing forward. It’s just… my family…”

I gave her a soft smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of them. I’ve already put a few protections in place, and my settlement should soon be stable enough to pull them in and give them a better place to live. I can even look at helping some of the younger ones become cultivators, if that’s what they want. It would be good if you were there for that, though. Maybe make a trip home before your ascension?”

She nodded and smiled as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Sure.”

“Oh… and you should keep in contact through the Pavilion in Rosehill. You don’t need to worry about anyone becoming suspicious. They can’t do anything to me, and I doubt they will care about any connections you have to people in the Wastes… at least not for now.”

As I thought about what might lie ahead of us, I pulled a blank memory orb from my storage space.

“There may be trouble in the future, either for you or for me. I want to go ahead and safeguard your memories, just in case anything goes wrong.”

I was running low on memory orbs, so I didn’t have any to waste, but there was a real danger that something might happen to SuYin after I left. Using an orb to safeguard her current memories was worth the peace of mind that it would bring me.

After she injected her memories into the orb and we said a few parting words, I took my leave, slipped away, and headed back to the Verdant Forest Sect.

Once I got there, I focused my mind on Bao’s garden and transferred the entire thing into my storage space. All that was left behind was the dirt-stained wooden platform on which it had rested.

Then, I gave Bao a sleeping pill to knock him out and stuffed him in my storage space. Unlike the recruits from the Su Clan, I wasn’t worried about Bao knowing about the space. I just thought that it would be better for his mental health if he were unconscious for the journey ahead. Not only were there no lights in the space, but I was sure that the lack of qi and wu in there meant that the plants in his garden were screaming in agony. Even if he had the formation necklace to protect him, I didn’t want him to have to deal with that kind of trauma.

Upon returning to Mount Jiang, I first took Bao to my house and settled him down in a guest room. Then, I went to my roof and swapped my garden for his.

Sadly, spending over a week in my storage space had caused significant damage to Bao’s garden. Because of the low-energy environment in there, some of the plants were missing leaves and flowers, and others had died off entirely. This was a bit unfortunate, but I hadn’t been willing to leave the garden sitting around for others to find, so I either needed to damage it by stuffing it into my storage space or simply destroy it completely.

After giving Bao a few hours to calm his mind, I called a meeting of the leadership council.

I had only been gone for less than a month, and nothing exciting had happened in that time, so the council didn’t have much to report. Once the routine matters were dealt with, I introduced everyone to Bao.

“This is Grandmaster Bao, an old friend of mine. I have offered him a position as a clan elder, and he has graciously accepted.”

There were a variety of reactions to this news, most notably from ShouLi and Liang. Neither of them seemed happy that an outsider they had never met before had been placed in a position of authority over them. However, wisely, neither of them said anything about it.

“Elder Bao will not be involved in the mundane affairs of the clan. He is a Grandmaster Herbalist, and his time is far too valuable for that. However,” I looked at GuiAi, “you should know that Elder Bao’s herbalism knowledge far surpasses what you will find in the memory orbs. While most of his time will be spent on his own projects, he will help around the clan where he sees fit. You should listen closely to whatever he tells you.”

GuiAi bowed her head. “Yes, Patriarch.”

These words seemed to mollify ShouLi and Liang, and for her part, GuiAi just seemed excited. Her knowledge of herbalism wasn’t yet deep enough for her to feel any sense of arrogance or superiority over it, and she was more than happy to learn from someone with a bit more experience.

Once the meeting broke up, I took Bao to another room for a private discussion.

“Bao, we need to talk about your blessing.”

He bowed his head. “Yes, Master.”

“From what I can tell, your blessing is allowing you to communicate directly with plants through your soul. The way they ‘talk’ to you is almost like a spiritual attack, and right now, you can barely withstand the attacks of Rank 2 and 3 herbs. I’m worried about what might happen if you even get near a Rank 4 plant.”

Bao’s head dropped, and he looked miserable. “What… what should I do?”

“The formation necklace I gave you will help, but if I’m right, it will interfere with your blessing. It isn’t a good solution. Instead, you need to strengthen your soul.”

I took a thin book from my storage space and placed it on the table between us.

“We talked about soul cultivation years ago, and I gave you a technique back then for strengthening your soul. Do you remember?”

Bao nodded. “Yes, Master. I’ve been doing my best to practice it, but…”

“No need to explain. I’ve explored the sects enough to know some of the problems you would have faced there.” I tapped a finger on the book. “The technique I gave you previously is considered one of the best soul cultivation techniques on the continent, but it is only a Yellow-Rank skill. This one is different. It’s called the Path through the Silent Night. It is a Profound-Rank technique.”

This statement didn’t cause any kind of greed or desire in Bao, just curiosity.

“Beyond strengthening your soul, this technique will build defenses around it, and it should help with the problems your blessing is causing. I can’t be certain about that though, and this technique has other effects that you may not like, such as making changes to your soul far more difficult than normal. I do not know if this technique will help you, but it is the best solution I have. I would like you to consider focusing on cultivating this technique for the next few years, but this is entirely your choice. You need to decide what is best for you.”

Bao accepted the book and gave me a seated bow. “Thank you, Master.”

I held up a hand to stop him. “Never tell anyone about this technique. From what I have been told, it is a technique that should not exist in this world, and I’m worried what might happen if word of it spreads.”

Bao dipped his head one last time. “Yes, Master.”

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Chapter 242 – Life 73, Age 38, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After leaving Bao to get settled in, I went outside to begin work on a new building. Bao was going to need to do a lot of work on soul cultivation, and for that to happen, I first needed to build a Soul Cultivation Library for him.

The plateau was nearly stuffed with buildings by this point. GuiMing and his team were already hard at work building down into the mountain, but they were only Martial Masters, and the mountain was made of Rank 3 blueschist stone. It would still be months before the first habitable areas would be opened up, and even then, I wasn’t sure how many people these limited areas would be able to house.

Luckily, there was still a bit of open space on the northwest corner of the plateau, between my home and the workshops.

To conserve as much space as possible, I built a long, narrow, four-story structure that wrapped around the edge of the plateau. Each floor consisted of only a single, large room, and each of these rooms was packed with bookcases. I wanted to add reading rooms to each floor where people could study in private, but with space at a premium, I decided to hold off. Bao would be the only one using this place for the next few years, so setting up a simple desk and reading area on each floor was sufficient for the moment.

Each floor of this library was dedicated to one of this world’s four primary philosophies: Universalism, Traditionalism, Legalism, and Daoism. While this library wasn’t nearly large enough to hold all of the books I had pilfered from the Yellow Orchid Academy and the Nine Rivers Sect over the years, it was able to hold a good number of them, and with the scribe ability I had recently purchased, I was able to quickly fill up the library’s shelves.

After a bit of internal debate, I also decided to include the various philosophical texts I had purchased from the System. If a knowledgeable outsider knew about these books, they might become suspicious or greedy, but I didn’t think that would be too likely. This would not only require a member of my clan to talk about the books they had read in incredible detail, but it would also require a listener who knew and cared enough about the topic to even notice that anything was amiss. Even then, protected by the shield of the Wastes and my ability to reincarnate, there was little risk in spreading this knowledge around.

Instead of being worried, I was just interested to see what might happen if focusing on these books led to my clan having subtly different outlooks than the rest of this world. With an expanded perspective on what was possible, they might be able to open entirely new avenues of advancement.

Once everything was set up, I manipulated the sect-protecting formation to block anyone from accessing the library other than Bao or myself. I wasn’t yet ready for any of the younger members of my clan to begin actively cultivating their souls.

At the Yellow Orchid Academy, students weren’t allowed to begin soul cultivation until after they turned 25. This was to allow them to develop their own sense of self before submerging themselves into the morass of different drives and impulses that could come from soul cultivation. While I didn’t know if 25 was the proper age for this or not, I understood the value of prudence here. If something went wrong during qi cultivation, it was easy to fix with an Energy Expulsion Pill. Fixing a problem caused by improper soul cultivation wasn’t so simple.

After my work on the Soul Cultivation Library was complete, I spent some time visiting various places around the plateau and checking to see if anything needed my direct intervention.

There were a few batches of formation stones and refined weapons in the workshop that needed my appraisal, and there were a few buildings that needed minor repairs, but overall, things were running smoothly. The only real problem I found was that all the high-level herbs I had seeded around the island to draw in treasure hunters had already been found and taken away, but that was easily fixed.

I took out another dozen Rank 3 herbs, spread them around the island, and then turned my focus to more personal pursuits.

After giving him a couple of days to relax and adjust to life on Mount Jiang, I visited Bao to talk about what we should do with his garden. It had suffered significant damage in my storage space, and as he had not been tending it, the damage had only continued to mount.

Initially, he wanted to go up and take a look at it to see what he could do to save it, but after a long discussion, I convinced him that this wasn’t a good idea. The plants were in bad shape, and I was worried about how seeing them like that would affect him. If he had insisted on trying to save the garden anyway, I would have taken a step back and done my best to support him, but thankfully, he backed down first.

Instead, Bao agreed to spend a few months working on his soul cultivation and practicing the Path through the Silent Night. Then, he would spend some time practicing a few soul techniques. After some basic soul defenses were in place, hopefully, he wouldn’t be nearly as susceptible to the influences of random plants and herbs.

This meant that it would be a long time before Bao was able to take care of his garden again, and by that time, most of the plants would have likely died off. While I or one of my clan’s herbalists could attempt to save them, we didn’t have Bao’s skill, knowledge, or blessing. If we tried to save them, we would likely only do more harm than good.

That being the case, after Bao left to spend time in the Soul Cultivation Library, I went to the garden and harvested everything that I could. In hindsight, I should have done this from the start instead of trying to take the entire garden with me, but even if I had, I can’t say how much of a difference it would have made. The blue peonies had broken apart into nothingness the moment they were harvested, after all. It would have been impossible to store something like that long term.

After collecting everything that was still viable from the garden, I noticed an unusual pattern in what herbs had survived.

The lack of any blue peonies wasn’t a surprise, but I felt that it was a little strange that there weren’t any astragalus roots or schisandra berries either. None of the ingredients needed for the Rank 1 Superior Qi Gathering Pill had survived being transported from the sect. After a bit of checking, I realized that none of the herbs needed to make a Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pill or a Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pill had survived either. It was possible that Bao just hadn’t planted any of these herbs, but that seemed incredibly unlikely.

On the other hand, not a single herb needed for a Rank 1, 2, or 3 Healing Pills was missing.

Some of them did look a bit strange, though. For example, the speckled ganoderma, a wood-based herb used in the Rank 1 Healing Pill, was typically a black mushroom with small white spots. At first, I thought that this herb was missing. However, upon using energy vision to examine a few of the herbs I hadn’t recognized, I found a jet-black herb with a medicinal energy structure that matched the speckled ganoderma almost exactly. Unlike some of the others, its energy was broken and disjointed, but it was still clearly recognizable. What had thrown me off was that instead of having white spots, this ganoderma was pockmarked with small craters across its entire surface.

While some of them were in worse shape than others, I had been able to collect a wide variety of herbs used to make various healing pills, and none of them broke apart upon being harvested. In contrast, not a single herb used to concoct a cultivation-related pill had survived the journey from the sect intact. Why?

I had my speculations, but I wasn’t ready to form any hard conclusions just yet. Instead, I took my gathered bounty and headed to an alchemy workshop.

Once inside, I gathered the herbs needed for a Rank 1 Healing Pill and started work.

The first thing I did was try to melt the physical shell of the herbs, but as expected, this didn’t do anything. Likewise, there were no toxins to take care of, so I moved on to combining the herbs’ energies.

This step was a bit trickier than usual. Typically, with most herbs, the structure of the medicinal energy would be broken up into small shards, and all one would need to do was mush the various energies together. The energy shards in the different herbs would then naturally separate and combine together to form a greater whole.

With Bao’s herbs, this didn’t work so well. The medicinal energy in them formed something akin to a monocrystalline structure. Even damaged and broken apart as they were, the medicinal energy was still lumped together in large chunks instead of the normal small shards. This kept the energies from merging together properly.

If I wanted to rely on Bao’s herbs in the future, I would need to learn how to use them properly, but for the moment, I decided to just brute force the matter. I slammed the energies together, shattering apart their large energy structures, and forced them to combine. Once the energy of all three herbs merged into a united whole, I forced the energy to condense into a pill. Then, I examined it with my analysis ability.

Perfect Rank 1 Healing Pill (damaged), 137% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 0 contribution points

This was the first time I had seen the ‘damaged’ notification. This might have been caused by my rough handling of the medicinal energies, but I doubted it. That should have only lowered the pill’s efficacy. Instead, I felt that the damage had to have been the result of what had happened in my storage space. The herbs remained mostly intact, but that didn’t mean certain parts of them hadn’t been destroyed.

A more important question was what did ‘damaged’ mean? Would it still work as intended, or would it have some kind of deleterious effect? Without human trials, it would be hard to say. Unfortunately, I wasn’t willing to let anyone else try this pill, and I wasn’t anywhere near ready to die myself, so the question would need to go unanswered for now.

However, the process of concocting this pill, everything from the herbs not having a physical structure to burn away to the notification that the pill was damaged, had given me enough information to reach a tentative conclusion for why certain herbs had been able to survive in my storage space while others had not.

Why did pills need to be stored in jade bottles? Why did high-quality herbs need to be stored in jade boxes? Why did spirit stones tend to lose their energy when left in my storage space?

As I had learned long ago, if the energy in an item was denser than the energy in the surrounding environment, then that item would slowly lose energy over time. However, this energy loss was significantly reduced if the item had a strong physical structure. Pills were basically just condensed balls of energy, so they would rapidly lose their energy if left outside of a jade bottle. Refined weapons, on the other hand, could be left out in the open for years without any loss of energy at all.

So, what did that tell me?

I tried to burn away the physical shell of the speckled ganoderma, but there was no physical shell to burn away. The entire thing was pure medicinal energy. The only conclusion that I could draw from this was that the physical shell of the ganoderma had been entirely incorporated into its energy structure.

It all came back to what I had learned at the Verdant Forest Sect. Demonic energy. Wu. The elder in the sect had said that wu was ‘substance.’ The physical shell of an herb was, thus, solidified wu.

What was medicinal energy? The sect’s elder had said that it was structured qi, but I no longer believed that to be true. It was a mixture of qi and wu, and that mixture was different in different herbs. In the blue peonies, an herb used for cultivation, the medicinal energy was almost pure qi, so it had very little structure to it and broke apart easily. In the ganoderma, an herb used for healing, the balance was closer to pure wu.

Why was the medicinal energy in the pill I had made damaged? Because the ‘qi-centric’ medicinal energy in the herbs had dissipated. The ganoderma was pockmarked instead of speckled because those speckled parts of the herb had been destroyed in my storage space.

At this point, this was mostly just speculation, and there was still an open question about what it meant that various spirit fires could make pure medicinal energy, but nearly everything fit, and it was all leading me down a path to answering a far more important question that I had been wondering about for a while now. How can parts from demonic beasts be used in alchemy?

A note from G Tolley

Cultivation is Creation - A Plant-Based Xianxia

Ke Yin has a problem. Well, several problems.

First, he's actually Kane from Earth.

Second, he's stuck in a cultivation world where people don't just split mountains with a sword strike, they build entire universes inside their souls (and no, it's not a meditation metaphor).

Third, he's got a system with a snarky spiritual assistant that lets him possess the recently deceased across dimensions.

And finally, the elders at the Azure Peak Sect are asking why his soul realm contains both demonic cultivation and holy arts? Must be a natural talent.

Chapter 243 – Life 73, Age 38, Martial Grandmaster Peak

My working theory was that medicinal energy was not a unique form of energy. Instead, it was simply a blend of qi and wu. This blended energy was then shaped into specific structures to give medicinal herbs their unique properties.

If this was true, then learning to grow and tend herbs might be entirely unnecessary. If I could fully memorize the correct structure of an herb, then I should be able to create it from nothing but pure energy.

While this opened up some intriguing possibilities, I doubted there would be any way to exploit this knowledge in practice. Aside from the difficulty involved in fully memorizing an herb’s energy structure, the time and effort required to recreate it from scratch would be hard to justify. How long would it take me to meticulously reconstruct the energy pattern of a blue peony? Also, why do this myself when I can have a plant do it for me?

Still, while there may or may not be a way to exploit this knowledge directly, it potentially gave me the information I needed to finally make a breakthrough in learning to use parts from demon beasts in alchemy.

The key was that medicinal energy wasn’t a unique form of energy. It was structured qi and wu.

When I had attempted to use beast parts long ago, I had focused on the parts of the body that had the highest concentration of demonic energy. For demonic flame chickens, these were the claws and beak since those were what they used for attack and defense. However, just because these were the parts with the most abundant energy didn’t mean that these were the parts with the most structured energy, and structure was what I needed.

To test this, I needed access to demon beast carcasses. While a few members of my clan had begun raising animals to learn beast taming, it would still be some time yet before our herds were large enough that we could slaughter them for research purposes.

In my mind, ideally, I would use Peak Rank 1 demon beasts when concocting a Rank 1 pill, but after a bit of looking around, I found that such beasts were extremely scarce in the Wastes. While there were farmers who raised livestock for food, these were all simple mortal animals.

As I soon found out, the lack of true demon beasts wasn’t a function of the animals the farmers raised or the environment in the Wastes. Instead, it was because the farmers ruthlessly slaughtered any animal that showed signs of absorbing demonic energy.

The reason for this was rather simple. If a farmer’s chicken somehow advanced to Mid-Rank 1, it would be powerful enough to kill an entire village of normal mortals. If it advanced to Rank 2, then only a Martial Master would be able to stop it.

That being the case, I needed to look elsewhere for my research materials.

Fortunately, Mount Jiang wasn’t too far from the eastern border of the Wastes, and I was able to reach the Red Sun Kingdom, part of the Rising Sun Empire, in less than a day. After crossing the border, I searched the various villages in the area for farmers with high-quality livestock.

Unfortunately, the average farmer in the Red Sun Kingdom felt the same way about their animals turning into demon beasts that the farmers in the Wastes did. While cultivators were more common in the kingdom, and while these cultivators tended to have deeper cultivation bases, the majority of the people in these villages were still normal mortals who were unable to deal with even Mid-Rank 1 demon beasts. So, even in the kingdom, allowing one’s livestock to cultivate was not just reckless, it was a crime.

Therefore, I needed to find a farm that specialized in rearing demon beasts. I needed a farm owned and operated by trained beast tamers. I needed the Red Hen Farms.

While there weren’t any other alchemists out there attempting to source demon beasts for alchemy purposes, the fact that consuming meat from a demon beast could improve one’s constitution meant that anyone who had sufficient money would do their best to dine on demon beast meat as often as possible. More powerful, wealthier patrons preferred to dine on the meat of wild high-Rank beasts, but such meals were far out of a normal person’s price range. Instead, they relied on various beast tamer-run farms to produce ample, low-cost meals that even a moderately wealthy mortal could afford.

Red Hen Farms was the largest supplier of such beasts for Red Sun City, the capital city of the Red Sun Kingdom.

After meeting with one of the farm’s representatives, I chose to start by purchasing 15 Peak Rank 1 flame chickens, 10 hens and 5 roosters. They had a few other animals for sale as well, but I held off for the moment as I didn’t want to spread my attention too thin.

The farm offered to slaughter and prepare these chickens for me, but I declined. Aside from any concerns with spoilage, I didn’t want to risk the energy in these animals being depleted. Without knowing which parts were important or how to preserve them, it was better to keep the animals alive until I was ready to use them, so I brought them back and left them in the care of my clan’s beast tamers.

Finally, with ‘ingredients’ in hand, I got to work.

To keep things from getting too messy, I didn’t go directly to an alchemy workshop. Instead, I went to a nearby village and paid a few coins to commandeer a mortal’s slaughterhouse.

Then, before beginning my work, I took some time to closely examine the flame chicken as it moved about and ate some grains. As I had seen in the past, most of its energy was contained in its claws and beak, but this energy didn’t have the rigid structure that I had come to associate with most medicinal herbs. It could be used to send out gouts of flames, but it felt raw and uncontrollable.

With this thought in mind, I ‘put the bird to sleep,’ and then started dissecting it while looking for anything that more closely resembled what I would expect from a medicinal herb.

Most of the chicken’s internal organs had trace amounts of demonic energy coursing through them, but like with the beak and claws, none of it appeared to be structured in a usable form. The more I cut the bird apart, the more disappointed I felt. Nothing I found, from comb to cloaca, none of it looked usable in alchemy.

However, just as I was about to give up, I stumbled upon exactly what I was looking for.

After cutting open the bird’s gizzard, I found several small stones. The energy contained in these stones was extremely limited, but it had the structure I was looking for.

Later, when talking to one of my clan’s beast tamers, I found out that the chickens used these stones to grind up their food. After they became true demonic beasts, these stones would help them convert the demonic energy in their feed into a form that could be more easily absorbed by their bodies.

Gizzard stones in hand, I wanted to rush to an alchemy workshop and see what I could do with them, but I held myself in check. I had found one potential ingredient, but there might still be others hidden away somewhere.

However, after cutting open and searching every organ, I still didn’t find anything else that looked usable. I thought I was out of luck, but that was when I noticed a few puddles of dried blood.

I had already noticed that chicken blood had a decent amount of demonic energy in it, but it was no more structured than any other energy. What I hadn’t realized, though, was that as this blood congealed, the energy it contained transformed into a state that looked like it might be usable.

With no other potential demon beast herb in sight, I collected the gizzard stones and a small bucket of blood and headed to an alchemy workshop.

As a preliminary test, I took one of the gizzard stones and tried to use it to create a pill on its own.

I first burned away its physical shell, leaving only faint traces of demonic energy behind, and then used my fire affinity to condense this energy into a pill. To my surprise, the energy did condense, but the final product was a worthless pebble without even the faintest hint of medicinal energy.

I next tried doing the same thing with a portion of chicken blood, but the result was the same, a worthless pebble.

Then, I tried combining the two energies together. However, the energies from the chicken blood and gizzard stones resisted fusing in any way. When I used my high affinity to overpower them and force the issue, the structure of these energies simply broke apart.

After a few more basic experiments, I began to get a sense of what was going on.

The medicinal energy in pills was a blend of qi and wu. This was true even of Basic Qi Gathering Pills. The blue peonies cultivated by Bao in the Verdant Forest Sect were weak and fragile from a lack of wu in their medicinal energy, but they still had to have had some amount of wu in them. Otherwise, when I condensed the energy into a pill, it would have evaporated. The energy needed a portion of wu to retain its physical form.

Making a pill out of pure qi wouldn’t work.

Likewise, if I tried to make a pill out of pure wu, there would be a problem with its energy. It would want to completely solidify instead of staying in a usable form. So, while the highly concentrated wu found in demonic beasts might be usable, I needed to pair it with other ingredients that contained a modicum of qi.

With this in mind, I turned my attention to finding herbs that I could combine with chicken blood to form a viable pill, but this was far more difficult than I thought it would be.

Typically, if I encountered a new herb, I could get a good sense of what other herbs might mix well with it just by looking at it. I might not know exactly what an herb did, but healing herbs, for example, had a particular feel to them based on the mix and structure of their medicinal energy. If I saw a new herb with healing properties, I would be able to identify it pretty easily, and then, I would just need to try matching it up with other healing herbs.

Dealing with this chicken blood was a different story. Its energy structure was entirely new to me, and I had no clue what it could be used for, so I had no idea which herbs would pair well with it. All I could do was try random herbs and see if anything worked.

Over the next several months, I performed countless experiments. I tried combining chicken blood with every Rank 1 and 2 herb I could get my hands on, but nothing worked. The demonic energy in the blood simply refused to combine with the medicinal energy in the herbs. I could sometimes force the issue, but the result was never a usable pill.

I was still missing something.

By this point, Bao had completed the initial phase of cultivating the Path through the Silent Night technique, and he was eager to return to his work with herbalism. In a vain hope that his blessing might be able to save me, I showed Bao the gizzard stones and chicken blood, but as expected, he wasn’t able to pull any information from them.

I was nearing my wits end, and I was about ready to give up. Purchasing the information Rank 1 beast alchemy from the System would cost me nearly nothing at this point, and it was looking like that might be the only way I would ever learn what I was doing wrong.

I didn’t want to give up. I wanted to figure this out on my own. But it was starting to look like that wasn’t going to happen.

However, with Bao coming out of seclusion and returning to his study of herbalism, I had an excuse to step back and focus on other topics for a time. Instead of allowing my alchemy studies to consume me, I shifted to help Bao with herbalism.

While Bao was starting to get his soul under control, I didn’t want him to put it under too much pressure too soon, so I asked him to focus on perfecting Rank 1 herbs instead of growing anything more powerful.

In a flash of inspiration, I remembered the stock of rare and valuable seeds that I had collected over the years. There weren’t many Rank 1 seeds in the bunch, but these seeds, most of which focused on the secondary elements, might provide new and interesting challenges for Bao.

After planting these Rank 1 seeds, Bao worked with me to improve my plant growth formation. He had multiple complaints about what I had put together earlier, and he requested several changes that could help him maintain the plants without needing to exert himself so much.

As we worked on the formation, the days began to slip by, and the plants in his garden quickly grew.

Most of these were common enough herbs, but one stood out to me. It wasn’t that this herb was rare or unusual. It was that it was a common weed found nearly everywhere in the Wastes with no medicinal properties to speak of. I had no idea why I even had the seeds for such a plant. When had I collected it?

After checking the various bags in my storage space, I found that this seed had come from an old, tattered canvas sack. It wasn’t a bag of seeds that I had collected myself. It was a bag that had been given to me by SuYin at the end of my time in the Eight Flower Kingdom.

Looking at the weed in Bao’s garden, I noticed that he had been able to impart a faint wisp of medicinal energy into it. While I was certain this herb didn’t usually have medicinal properties, its energy in it felt faintly familiar. It was somewhat similar to the energy found in red lichen, a common fire-based herb used in certain healing pills.

On a hunch, I harvested this weed, ran to an alchemy workshop, and attempted to combine it with a portion of red lichen and a block of congealed chicken blood.

My heart was pounding in my chest when the three ingredients combined to form a small red pill.

At that moment, an alarm sounded in my mind.

System Alert: A novel pill recipe has been created.

Rank 1 Strengthening Pill. Would you like to submit this recipe to the Dao?

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 244 – Life 73, Age 38, Martial Grandmaster Peak

A novel pill recipe. This wasn’t entirely a surprise, but the message served as absolute confirmation that no one had been able to perform alchemy with parts from demonic beasts before.

Did I want to submit the recipe to the ‘Dao?’ What did that mean?

In the past, I hadn’t cared too much because I had only been submitting somewhat worthless cultivation techniques that were likely only important to myself. This pill recipe, on the other hand, had the potential to revolutionize the way people thought about alchemy. Before handing it over to anyone, Dao or not, I needed to do my best to understand the implications.

“System, what does it mean to ‘submit this recipe to the Dao?’ Aside from giving me a small discount, what impact will this have?”

Calculating… the cost of the information is… cost paid for by external entity… Purchase confirmed.

A novel recipe is one which is entirely new to a given domain. The recipe for a Rank 1 Strengthening Pill is novel to the world in which you reside. Submitting this recipe to the Dao serves as proof that this world has progressed to the point that it is capable of independently devising such a recipe. Further release of relevant information will no longer be considered interference.

As a reward for initiating this advancement in the local Dao, you will be rewarded energy, in the form of a System discount, and will be provided enlightenment on information relevant to this breakthrough, including all knowledge which this advancement has unlocked.

I narrowed my eyes.

‘Further release of relevant information will no longer be considered interference.’What did this mean?

Blessings. By submitting this information to the Dao, the Earthly Dao would be able to start handing it out in blessings. There might be more to it than just this, but this was enough to give me my answer. An enlightenment on beast alchemy would be nice, but it wasn’t worth the cost of making the information freely available to everyone in the world.

Of course, the fact that I could have simply bought said information from the System suggested that the Earthly Dao had figured out ways to bypass whatever restrictions were in place long ago. If I chose to never share this information, it would almost certainly have ways of spreading the knowledge without my consent. Even so, the offer of a discount and an enlightenment wasn’t enough to make me open the floodgates prematurely.

I looked up to the ceiling of my workshop and stared at the unseeable entity that was looking down on me.

“No, I do not wish to submit it.”

As soon as my answer left my lips, an invisible presence vanished from my workshop.

With a new path of alchemy mastery open to me, I decided to focus my efforts on expanding my knowledge as much as possible, and to begin this pursuit, I used my analysis ability on my newest creation.

Perfect Rank 1 Strengthening Pill, 27% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: –

The low medicinal efficacy wasn’t a surprise. I had no doubt that my harvesting and storage of the chicken blood had been inept at best, and even if I had done the job perfectly, it was likely that the animal hadn’t been raised properly for use as a medicinal herb.

Additionally, while the weed and herb I had used to complete the pill had worked, they weren’t necessarily the best possible ingredients. Small discrepancies in their energy signatures could have caused the medicinal energy in the chicken blood to deteriorate more than it should have.

So, if I wanted to deepen my understanding of beast alchemy, there were three paths forward. I needed to research more suitable herbs, I needed higher-quality materials, and I needed to find better ways to harvest and store these materials.

These were no small tasks. With a common, overlooked weed being a key component to the pill I had just crafted, I now had to consider that any random plant could potentially be an invaluable hidden gem. Nothing could be entirely ruled out.

To make matters worse, I couldn’t just pluck any random plant and use it directly. Each plant would need to be grown under the care of a trained herbalist who was skilled enough to understand the needs of an unknown specimen and could infuse it with as much energy as possible. Bao was able to do this, but if I had to rely on him to personally grow a copy of every single plant in the world, then these experiments would take centuries. I needed to hope that he could train my clan’s herbalists to take up his mantle.

As for raising and harvesting better demon beasts, I was at a complete loss.

Using the orbs that I had filled with System-granted knowledge of beast taming, members of my clan had been able to gain a basic understanding of how to raise animals. However, the knowledge in these orbs only concerned information available on this continent, and raising beasts to serve as alchemy ingredients was a skill unknown to the entire world. While the knowledge in these orbs might help lead our beast tamers down the right path, I couldn’t help but worry that relying on System-purchased knowledge too much would stifle their innovation.

I needed a ‘Bao’ for beast taming, but I didn’t know where to even begin looking for such a person. JiaQi had studied taming in the Nine Rivers Sect, but she had never been overly interested in it. Besides, with LuLu being unable to enter the Wastes, it would be difficult to pull JiaQi in as a member of my clan.

It might be a good idea to head off to the Nine Rivers Sect or a specialized beast taming sect to see if there was anyone worth recruiting, but I didn’t want to do that immediately. Finding someone worth investing a significant amount of time, effort, and emotional capital into would be a challenging task. For the moment, I would just wait and hope that the Earthly Dao gifted me someone with a powerful taming blessing.

For that to happen, though, I might need to break the Su Clan’s blockade on giving me anyone with a profession-related blessing.

In any case, I had more than enough to keep me busy for decades to come. I still needed to completely master Rank 3 refining, I needed to improve and redesign my plant formation, I needed to research beast alchemy, and in my spare time, I needed to learn what I could about herbalism.

Aside from these personal projects, I needed to continue growing my clan, assist Bao with soul cultivation, and do my best to stay in contact with SuYin during her trials in the Verdant Forest Sect.

So, yes, I had more than enough to keep me busy.

During the following months, while I worked on my various projects, GuiMing was hard at work establishing the first residences within Mount Jiang itself.

The final design that the leadership council had come up with split the mountain into eight equally sized regions. Each region was then assigned to a different member of the clan’s leadership.

The western region, where my house was located, was assigned to me. The northwest, where the Soul Cultivation Library was, was assigned to Bao. Mo was assigned to the north, which held the workshops, and Liang was given the northeast, which held the Rank 1 Affinity Hall. GuiMing was given the east, with the cultivator residences, and GuiAi was assigned the south, with the mortal residences. NiangBa was assigned to the southeast, though his responsibilities lay in the center, with the arena. Finally, ShouLi was assigned to the southwest, where the Rank 2 Affinity Hall was.

I couldn’t help but notice that by assigning themselves regions equal to me and Bao, they were making themselves de facto elders. Also, by ShouLi taking the position next to me, opposite Bao, she was claiming a role equal to his.

This might have all been unintentional. After all, if we were building our residences, then someone would need to take charge of them, and the current leadership council had been running things since the very start of the clan, making them the default choice.

Still, I didn’t like the idea that the current six members of the council were permanent and unchanging simply because they were the first people I had recruited. I needed to start looking at ways to implement a more meritocratic system of governance.

However, aside from that one caveat, I agreed with the gist of their proposal.

So, each member of the council was put in charge of one of these eight regions and was given full authority to build five floors of apartments in their respective sections. The top floor, the one directly beneath the plateau, would primarily be for the leader’s residence, though close aides and supporters would likely live there as well. The apartments on the lower floors would be much smaller and would hold the various members of the leader’s faction.

With the size of the plateau, each leader had enough space to build roughly 12 small rooms on each level. By fully utilizing the plateau’s interior, they would have been able to expand this number by quite a bit, but at my insistence, apartments were only built around the outside edge of the mountain, giving everyone access to a view outside. The interior space was to only be used for workshops, storage areas, and the like.

Once all six members of the leadership council fully built out their sections, there would be enough space to house everyone in the clan, but at the rate we were growing, that wouldn’t be the case for long. We would need to keep building down the mountain.

However, as we did, our leadership team would need to expand as well. With each set of five floors, I intended to add eight new nominal elders to our number. This would hopefully limit the extent of the original six’s influence while also rewarding other valuable members of our clan with official positions of leadership.

As building out these apartments was a high-priority task, I allocated each member of the council 60,000 contribution points to pay for workers to construct the new dwellings. I even went as far as personally crafting dozens of Rank 2 pills to give everyone something valuable to buy with this new wealth other than time on an Essence Gathering Formation. I considered making a few luxury goods available for purchase as well, but for the time being, I didn’t want anyone wasting their money on such frivolities.

I worked on mastering various crafts, the members of my clan worked on building out Mount Jiang, and time quickly passed.

After a year and a half of work, I was finally able to create a Strengthening Pill with over 90% efficacy. At this point, I started allowing members of my clan to take them and see what effect they had.

The results were, unfortunately, somewhat underwhelming. As the name implied, the pill strengthened a person’s physical body, but it did so in the same way that eating meat from a demonic beast would. Not only that, but the pill also had the same upper limit to how much it could enhance one’s strength that eating meat had.

After the first results came in, I had hoped that it might have a different effect on people with physical blessings, but after several tests, this didn’t seem to make a difference.

The only person whose reaction to the pill differed in even the slightest way was ShouLi. For most people, the effects of the pill were permanent, but for ShouLi, the effects slowly wore off over the course of a month.

While this difference might seem inconsequential, or even detrimental, to me, it was a clear sign as to why the Earthly Dao kept sending me people with ‘beauty’ blessings.

ShouLi’s beauty blessing was consuming the wu the pill injected her with, further strengthening and purifying her skin. None of the other physical blessings had any such effect. This made me convinced that if some type of cultivation for the physical body was possible, then it would need to start with the skin.

Like everything else, developing an entirely new cultivation system would take time, but I had been given more than enough clues to get started.

As the end of our ninth year on Mount Jiang approached, the radius of my storage space reached 250 meters. I was finally ready to take the next step.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 245 – Life 73, Age 40, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Several years earlier, I had decided that having my storage space be the shape of a sphere wasn’t ideal. If my storage space continued to grow evenly in every direction, then there would eventually be too much ‘up,’ and it would be difficult to make efficient use of all the space. Additionally, if the space’s land was built upon a spherical base, it would constantly shift and move as the sphere’s radius expanded.

To alleviate these problems, I had long ago decided to try and turn the space into a cylinder with a fixed height and an ever-increasing radius. With this shape, while there might still be earthquakes and landslides around the edges as the space grew, most areas would be stable.

However, to figure out how to make this happen, I had to turn to the System.

“System, I want to purchase a complete mastery of my spatial fire seed.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 10 billion credits. 727,305,430,897 credits remaining.

Knowledge flooded my mind.

As soon as I had absorbed this torrent of information, I turned my focus inward and gazed at the seed of the spatial spirit fire residing in my soul.

In the past, I had avoided using this flame for alchemy because of a lack of affinity, a lack of understanding of how it worked, and a lack of desire to draw attention to myself. With the new understanding that I had just gained, I knew that this had been the right choice.

A spatial spirit fire was inherently destructive. If I tried to use it to burn away toxins in medicinal herbs, it would have created small pockets of expanded space with each bit of toxin it destroyed. Without supreme control and an overwhelmingly high affinity, I wouldn’t have had any chance of stopping these pockets of space from ripping the medicinal energy to shreds.

The mastery I purchased also gave me a deeper appreciation of why I had lost consciousness when I first acquired a space affinity.

As the spirit fire grew my storage space, it was putting a massive strain on my soul. By purchasing a space affinity, I had relieved a great deal of this strain, allowing the space to rapidly expand, but everything happened too quickly, causing my soul to violently convulse. This, essentially, caused a kind of whiplash effect.

I had been worried about further improving my space affinity while the seed was in my soul, and this knowledge told me that I had been right to worry. If I tried to immediately advance my space affinity from eight-star to six-star, the same thing could happen again, and if I went too far all at once, this pressure could end up ripping my soul apart. However, as long as I took things one step at a time, there wouldn’t be any problems.

In fact, by improving my affinity and reducing the strain my storage space placed on my soul, I could greatly increase the rate at which the space was growing.

“System, permanently improve my space affinity to low seven-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 billion credits.

I took a deep breath and felt my soul for any disturbances. Everything seemed to be good, but I still spent an hour in deep cultivation before continuing.

“System, improve it to mid seven-star.”

…

“Improve it to low six-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 100 billion credits. 611,305,430,897 credits remaining.

With each increase in my affinity, the space began to grow more rapidly.

When I now looked into my soul and gazed at the fire seed, I felt a much deeper connection with it.

Reaching out with my mind, I twisted the seed’s spirit fire into a ring and forced it to circulate around the bottom of the storage space.

By repositioning the spirit fire and concentrating my intent on how I wished it to grow the space, I forced it to start adding volume to the bottom, flattening it out into the base of a cylinder.

The process of adding enough volume to my storage space to turn it from a sphere into a cylinder would take years, but with my new mastery and enhanced affinity, it would happen far faster than I had expected.

With my storage space growing in a direction that I was happy with, I headed to the workshops on the northern edge of the plateau to meet with Mo. He had asked for a moment of my time, and while it would typically be customary for him to come to me, I wanted to get a better feel for how the areas around the clan had been developing, so I went to meet with him instead.

The inside of Mo’s office was a mess of paperwork. As the head of the workshops, Mo was not only in charge of scheduling, but he had also taken over responsibilities related to the sale and pricing of various products. Seeing this scene, I was a bit worried about how much work he was putting into managing everything.

When I entered, Mo was attempting to craft a Rank 1 attack formation. This particular formation wasn’t anything too special, and after years of practice, it shouldn’t have given Mo many problems, but he appeared to be having significant difficulties with even some of the more basic aspects of it. By teaching the professions through memory orbs, I had hoped to avoid any problems with low natural talents, but it appeared that Mo hadn’t been able to absorb the lessons in the formation orb as thoroughly as I thought he would.

I had entered silently so that I could watch him while he worked, but as I sat down across from him, I cleared my throat to get his attention.

Mo’s head jerked up, and he stared at me with wide eyes.

“Pa… Patriarch.” He stood and bowed. “P… Please…”

I waved a hand to dismiss any concerns he might have about propriety.

“What did you wish to speak with me about?”

“Ye... Yes.” Mo fumbled around on his desk and produced a stack of papers. “Patriarch… There’s a small problem with the workshops that I wanted to discuss.”

I motioned for him to continue.

“Well… It’s about contribution points… Several of our professionals are starting to get upset. Alchemists and herbalists have easy ways to earn a significant number of contribution points by supplying people with pills and herbs. The other professions are somewhat… lacking. Refiners and formation specialists, for example, need to put in just as much work as alchemists, if not more, but they aren’t earning anywhere near the same number of contribution points for their efforts.”

I nodded in understanding. “And the others?”

“They feel the same. Beast tamers, illusionists, talisman artists… none of them are happy with the current situation.”

I folded my hands as I started thinking.

“Let’s take things one step at a time. First, talisman artists.” As I spoke, I accessed the knowledge on Rank 1 to 3 talisman artistry I purchased from the System. “We can set up a simple exchange system with talismans, similar to what we have for pills and herbs. There will need to be restrictions, and the sect will end up purchasing a lot of worthless talismans, but that’s fine. Appraising talismans shouldn’t be too difficult, and I can teach someone from your team how to do it properly.”

Mo nodded quickly and made a note of this, but his mind seemed to be elsewhere.

“As for beast tamers…” I smiled. “Consider them our new herbalists. I’ll give you the details later, but they will need to start producing alchemical ingredients for us. They can still raise animals as pets, companions, or livestock if they wish, but most of their points will come from producing high-quality medicinal ingredients.”

This caused Mo to pause, but I pushed on.

“As for formation specialists, this is a bit more complicated. I have plans that will need their assistance, but I will need you to work out the specifics of how to compensate everyone. I will provide you with a list of different ideas, and I want our specialists to start researching the most efficient ways to make them a reality. For example, creating an illusion formation we can place on a ceiling to make it look like the sky.”

If I was going to be paying people to study formations, there was no reason not to have them contribute to finding ways to make my storage space more habitable.

“As for refiners and illusionists... I’m not sure. They might be able to contribute to the tasks I give the formation specialists, but ideally, they would have ways to earn points on their own. Talk to them to see if they have any ideas. It would be nice if refiners had ways to make points without needing to make an endless supply of useless weapons. In the worst-case scenario, I will authorize you to just purchase whatever they make, but if someone can come up with a creative idea for how to earn points, give them a bonus.”

“I… understand, Patriarch.”

At the beginning of the conversation, Mo had been extremely nervous, but as it went on, he had calmed down significantly. However, as I stood up to leave, he twitched. I could tell he wanted to say something, but he was afraid to do so.

“Is there a problem?”

Mo took a deep breath and bowed his head.

“Patriarch, I need your help.”

I just stood there stoically as I waited for him to continue.

“Patriarch, can you… Can you take me to Dragon Gate City? I need to talk with my parents.” A look of embarrassment and pain appeared on his face. “And… can you take me to Red Blossom Village to meet with LanLan’s parents?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

Mo began kneading his hands in concern. “Uh… RuLan… I… want to ask her parents for permission to marry her.”

I moved back and took my seat.

“Are you sure?”

Mo nodded. “Patriarch, we’ve been talking about it for months now. We would like your blessing to wed.”

Unwilling to admit that I had no idea who RuLan was, I quickly opened my mental journal and flipped through the list of people I had recruited over the years. While I had mostly stopped caring about who everyone was, I still kept a basic list of who joined us, but all this told me was that Su RuLan joined during the third cohort, making her two years younger than Mo.

“Mo, you don’t need my permission to marry, but if you want my blessing, you have it. The same is true of your families. They cannot stop you from marrying whomever you wish. You are a member of my clan now, not theirs. I can take the two of you to meet with your families, but know that no matter what, I will support you.”

Mo gave me a seated bow. “Thank you, Patriarch.”

After arranging a time to take Mo and RuLan to meet with their parents, I stood and left. NiangBa had requested a meeting with me as well, and I could only hope that he had something different to ask about.

I met NiangBa in his new apartment on the top floor of the mountain. This was my first time visiting one of these rooms, and I was astonished by the colors and patterns created by the natural blueschist walls.

To make the place feel less like what it was, a mountain cave, the builders had installed light wood flooring and an intricately carved wood-paneled ceiling. To offset the gloom caused by the dark colors predominant in the blueschist, large, brightly colored tapestries had been hung on nearly every wall.

NiangBa was a member of the clan’s leadership council, so his apartment was likely leagues above what others could expect, but if the standard apartment was anywhere close to what they had done for his room, I was more than pleased with the effort of GuiMing’s team.

After welcoming me inside, NiangBa offered me a seat and made his request.

“Patriarch, I wish to go down the mountain. I want to leave Mount Jiang and explore the outside world.”

I took a sharp breath and looked at him closely.

“Are you sure?”

NiangBa nodded, resolute. “I have found it difficult to cultivate these past years, and if things continue like this, I won’t have any chance of creating a solid foundation as a Martial Master before stagnation sets in. Something needs to change. I want to spend time outside to better understand who I am and what my purpose is.”

I turned on energy vision and looked at him closely.

He was a 23-year-old Peak Martial Master, which should have been excellent, but there were several problems with his foundation. Aside from the technique he was using only being Mid-Yellow, I could see problems with both the weave and placement of his meridians. More than anything, this showed a lack of care and concentration.

Part of me wanted to blame him for not taking his cultivation seriously enough, but I had seen the dedication he had put in when learning to cultivate as a Disciple. He was the only one so far to perfectly cultivate a Peak-Earth technique. So, I had to concede that it was possible that being cooped up on Mount Jiang for nearly a decade had simply worn away at him. Maybe he needed some time to relax and recharge.

“Will you be going alone?”

“No. With your permission, I would like to take four brothers with me. With us supporting each other, we can ensure nothing goes wrong.”

I drummed my fingers on my armrest in contemplation, thinking through the implications of this excursion, and then nodded at him.

“Very well. You have my blessing, but be careful. With your cultivation base, there aren’t too many people in the Wastes who will be able to hurt you, but there are Grandmasters out there, especially in the immediate area. Do your best not to offend them.”

I reached into my storage space and pulled out a small, palm-sized stone.

“Once you leave the mountain, I won’t be able to help you if something goes wrong. This contains a Rank 3 defensive formation. It can save your life a single time. I hope you won’t need it.”

NiangBa accepted the stone with two hands. “Thank you, Patriarch.”

“The five of you should visit the workshops and stock up on pills and talismans, but you must leave any refined items behind. They will only make you a target. Also, make sure you have someone take over your duties in the clan while you’re gone.”

NiangBa bowed. “Understood.”

I held up a hand with my fingers splayed. “Five months. Be back in five months, that’s when the new cohort of recruits will arrive, and that’s when I plan to initiate the next phase of your training. I want the entire leadership council to be here for it.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 246 – Life 73, Age 40, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Roughly a month later, I gathered up Mo and RuLan and took them to meet their parents.

RuLan was from a distant branch of the Su Clan that might have already been pruned from the family tree if I hadn’t stepped forward and started paying high prices for any Disciples with a Su bloodline. So, even though they were part of the Su Clan officially, all this meant was that their children were forced to endure the Su Clan’s training camp. The clan did nothing to support them.

Like most people in the Wastes, RuLan’s family lived in a small, unnamed farming village that focused on growing blue peonies and other simple Rank 1 herbs.

After dropping Mo and RuLan off on the outskirts of the village, I stepped back and watched from the shadows. I would intervene if I had to, but this wasn’t something that I had any desire to be a part of. My presence would only make the situation more tense and awkward.

As the two approached the home of RuLan’s family, I studied it closely.

It was a modest, one-room house with a living space on the ground floor and a sleeping area in the loft. Its small size and lack of ornamentation showed that RuLan’s family wasn’t very well off, but the home was clean and well-maintained. All the clay shingles on the roof were in good order, and fresh white paint had been applied to all the exposed wooden beams. Her family might be poor, but this home gave me the sense that they were honest, hard-working people.

Like when he had first asked me to bring him here, Mo was extremely nervous. When RuLan introduced him to her parents, he stumbled over his words and had a hard time expressing himself, but her parents were gracious and didn’t speak a word of criticism.

After the initial introductions were made, RuLan’s mother took her daughter out into the village to buy some vegetables, and RuLan’s father took Mo to a pair of wooden chairs behind the house that were positioned to give a good view of the expansive fields beyond.

Father and son-in-law had a good talk, and when RuLan and her mother returned, everyone sat down for a nice meal.

As things seemed to be stable, I took this opportunity to duck away and take care of a few random tasks, such as gathering food and supplies for the people back on Mount Jiang. A couple of hours later, I collected the two young lovers and carried them to Dragon Gate City to meet with Mo’s family.

The house Mo’s family lived in stood in stark contrast to the place that we had just left. Mo’s father was a minor official in Dragon Gate City, and it was clear to me that he wanted to use his home as a way to signal the importance of his position.

Dragon Gate City was a mélange of various districts mixed together into a single, messy whole. There were poor districts where people could barely afford a bowl of rice, and there were rich districts where wealthy Grandmasters secluded themselves while practicing crafts such as alchemy and talisman making.

Even though he had reached the rank of Martial Master, as a public official, Mo’s father wasn’t wealthy, but he had purchased a home adjacent to one of the wealthy areas. This allowed him to bask in the light of reflected glory.

When Mo first arrived, his father seemed unusually excited. When he saw RuLan, his mood soured a bit, but he didn’t say anything and chose to ignore her.

As Mo was working on mustering the courage to tell his father that they were planning to get married, his father pulled him away into a side room and sat him down for a private conversation.

“Mo, you shouldn’t have brought that girl here with you. It will only cause problems later. You needed to remember to maintain the dignity of our household.”

Mo winced at this. “Father–”

“Let’s not talk about that anymore. Instead, we need to discuss your future.”

“But–”

“Over the last few years, I’ve had several discussions with high-ranking members of the Tong family of Prosperous Gulch. They know that you have joined Prince Fang’s retinue, and they are very interested in forming a connection with him.” A tone of avarice entered Mo’s father’s voice. “This is a chance for our family to finally rise to prominence.”

“What–”

“It’s an open secret that you hold some position of importance in Prince Fang’s retinue. The Patriarch of the Tong Clan has agreed to marry his youngest granddaughter to you. As part of her dowry, our family will receive ownership of several shops in Prosperous Gulch. All you need to do is wed her and introduce her to the prince.”

“Father–” Mo’s father tried to cut him off again, but this time, Mo kept on. “No. I intend to marry RuLan. I brought her here to meet you.”

Mo’s father’s face twisted with a hint of anger, but he held it in.

“Child, you are too young to understand the importance your marriage holds to your family. Have your fun with that peasant, but don’t let the Tong Patriarch hear even a word of her existence. You will be marrying his granddaughter, and I won’t hear another word otherwise. I have already contacted a master astrologist, and he has provided me with a list of several auspicious dates on which your marriage can be held. All you need to do is tell me which one you will be here for.”

Finally, Mo had heard enough. He dropped his head, took a deep breath, and stood.

“Goodbye, father.”

Then, he started heading out the door.

“Unfilial child! Stop right there! Don’t think you can ignore me just because you are hugging the thigh of some foreigner. I am your father, and you will do as I say.”

Mo just kept walking.

Enraged, his father used his qi to pull a stone from the wall and fling it at Mo.

While Mo had a solid foundation and was doubtless many times stronger than his father, he hadn’t spent much time learning to fight, and this attack caught him by surprise.

The stone slammed into Mo’s shoulder, sending him sprawling to the floor.

His father loomed over him.

“I don’t know what madness that foreigner has put into your head, but I will teach you to respect your elders. If you are so committed to that whore, then she can serve as an example of what happens to people who don’t know their place.”

A tear trickled down Mo’s cheek.

He didn’t say anything. He just pushed himself to his feet, turned, and started walking away again.

“You dare!?”

Mo’s father tried to fling another stone at him, but this time, Mo was ready. He used his qi and redirected it, forcing the stone to land harmlessly on the ground.

Mo’s father began to shout, but Mo didn’t listen. He just took RuLan’s hand and left.

Outside, I was already waiting for them.

RuLan hugged Mo tightly as tears streamed down his face.

“Patriarch, is he… Do you think it’s cultivation madness? Can you help him?”

I closed my eyes as I tried to think of the right answer.

“I don’t know. His cultivation base might have been what started it, but this might just be who he is now. You can try to change him. You can try erasing his cultivation base and seeing what happens, but I don’t know what will come of it.”

Mo’s head fell in sadness, and only RuLan’s support kept him upright.

After the new year, the Su Clan’s training camp went on as normal, and our clan welcomed 61 new recruits. A week later, NiangBa returned from his expedition.

When they had left, NiangBa and his four companions had a gleam of excitement in their eyes. They had been more than eager to go down the mountain to prove themselves.

When they returned, all five of them were a bloody mess. Their hair was ragged, their clothes were torn, and everyone had at least one deep wound somewhere on their body. The only thing keeping them standing was a combination of stamina pills and bandaging talismans.

However, while they looked to be in terrible shape, there was an undeniable confidence in the way they moved, and as they walked across the plateau, everyone just stopped and stared at them as they passed. People’s eyes were drawn both to their haggard condition as well as the massive demon beast that two of the men were carrying.

The group headed directly to the workshops where they were greeted by an over-excited receptionist.

“Whoa, are you here to sell that? I don’t know if I can take it. I’ll have to ask the leader.”

NiangBa shook his head. “We’ll leave it here for the Patriarch to take care of. For now, we just need the best healing pills available.”

Seeing the state everyone was in, the receptionist nodded hurriedly. “Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Man, you guys are in rough shape. What happened to you?”

The corner of NiangBa’s mouth twitched in a mix of bemusement and irritation. “The pills, please.”

“Oh, yeah, right… One second.”

Before the receptionist could dash away, I walked in and stopped her. Then, I took a close look at the demon beast they had brought me.

It was a Low-Rank 3 brown bear. At a brief glance, its skin looked to be as hard as iron, and its fur seemed more like the quills of a porcupine. From what I could tell, it had been killed a couple of weeks ago, so its energy had started to deteriorate, but there was still some potential research value in the specimen.

I turned and looked at NiangBa.

“The corpse of a Low-Rank 3 demon beast. I’ll pay you 500,000 contribution points for it.”

The eyes of everyone in the group lit up in excitement.

I held up a jade bottle. “5 Perfect Rank 3 Healing Pills with 136% efficacy. I’ll sell them to you for 100,000 contribution points each.”

This made everyone wince in pain. They had likely used a good number of items to take down this bear in hopes of a big payday, but if they wanted to use these pills to heal themselves, they would be left with nothing.

NiangBa looked around at his group, his brothers, and sighed in resignation.

“We’ll take the pills. Thank you, Patriarch.”

I nodded, pulled the beast into a storage bag, and passed him the pill bottle.

“In the future, be more careful when choosing your enemies. No fortune is worth losing your life over.”

Then, I tapped my jade token and distributed points to everyone.

“For choosing the correct option and purchasing the pills, I will give each of you 20,000 points. This time. However, I do not want to see this happen again. Understood?”

NiangBa dropped his head, both remorseful and excited. “Yes, Patriarch. Thank you.”

With everyone back in the clan, I brought ShouLi, Liang, Mo, NiangBa, GuiMing, and GuiAi to the Soul Cultivation Library.

“This year you have turned 25 years old, so it is time for the next step in your training.” I looked at NiangBa. “You are a year younger than everyone else, but since you have assumed a position of leadership, it is only right to include you in this. Still, I recommend you take things here a bit slower than the others. Don’t rush anything.”

NiangBa dropped his head wordlessly.

“This is a library that will help you cultivate your soul. By reading the books here and thinking about the knowledge they contain, you will learn more about yourself and who you wish to become.” I gestured to the soul cultivation techniques near the entrance. “These techniques will allow you to grow and strengthen your soul. Only use them when you are actively studying or doing something that you wish to make a core part of who you are.”

I looked around at the confused faces and grimaced slightly. “This is complicated… As you read and study these techniques, things will become clear. Just take your time.”

I went on to explain the various paths of cultivation in this world, giving them a brief summary of my understanding of each one. Then, I gestured to a certain bookcase that held otherworldly knowledge.

“Some of these books will contradict what I just told you. Yes, Daoists are usually regarded as aloof cultivators who only strive to better themselves and ascend while letting the rest of the world do what it will without them, but that is not necessarily true of everyone. There are opposing viewpoints that you should also consider during your studies.”

I took a step back and motioned for them to explore. “Take your time here. Read, and learn.”

Over the next several months, these six young cultivators each chose the path that was right for them.

ShouLi and Liang chose the path of Legalism.

GuiMing and GuiAi chose to follow the path of the Traditionalist.

NiangBa and Mo both chose to focus on Daoism.

These decisions were shaped by their pasts and what they had experienced up to this point.

These decisions shaped their futures and who they would become.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 247 – Life 73, Age 42, Martial Grandmaster Peak

A year after starting everyone down the path of Soul cultivation, I received an important letter from SuYin. She had passed her training and had earned the right to become the lord of one of the Verdant Forest Sect’s outlying cities. As she only had a few months left before she would be raised to Martial Lord, she planned to return to the Wastes for one last visit.

When the time came, Bao and I went down the mountain to meet her in the small, nondescript village where she grew up. Once she ascended to Martial Lord, it might be an entire lifetime before she could see her family again, so she wanted to take this opportunity to say goodbye.

After explaining her situation to her parents, we all worked together to move SuYin’s entire extended family to a small city north of Mount Jiang. I wasn’t yet comfortable moving a large number of mortals to the mountain all at once, but I also wasn’t comfortable with her family being so far away that I couldn’t help them if they ran into trouble. Moving them to a nearby city and giving them a basic communication formation so that they could call for help if needed was the best solution I had.

I only had a few of these communication formations left from my time in the Nine Rivers Sect, and I had found that they were nearly impossible to make without a Martial King’s will-lock, so I had been hesitant to hand them out to my clan members or their families. I only did so now because I felt that it was the only way to give SuYin true peace of mind. Once she rose to Martial Lord, she would be locked out of the Wastes and unable to help her family in any way. If she wasn’t confident that they were safe, she might face difficulties maintaining the mindset needed for proper cultivation.

After moving her family, SuYin stayed in the Wastes for nearly two full months, but eventually, she had to leave. Before she did, she pulled me into a side room for a private discussion.

“Master, do you remember Young Master Wang?”

I had to think for a moment. “The guy who recruited you from the Verdant Fields Sect?”

SuYin nodded. “Yes, he… I… Once my training to be a city lord was complete, he came to talk to me. He… He told me why he was so insistent on recruiting me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Aside from you being a skilled herbalist?”

“That… It’s more… He told me why he wanted to recruit a skilled herbalist.” SuYin paused briefly before continuing. “Master, have you heard of the Nine Rivers Sect?”

I nodded slowly. “Yes, but they only accept Martial Grandmasters.”

“That’s… not entirely true. The Verdant Forest Sect, all emperor-level sects, can send Martial Lords to join the Nine Rivers Sect as long as they are younger than 60 years old. If a person they send does well, then the sect is rewarded. If they fail, then the sect is punished. So, it’s not something that happens unless the elders are confident in a person’s success.”

“So, Young Master Wang recruited you because he thought you would be a good fit for the Nine Rivers Sect?”

SuYin shook her head slowly. “Not exactly… He’s the one that’s been chosen to join them. The elders have been grooming him for that role ever since he was first blessed. I… He wants me to be part of his retinue. To join the sect under him and help him succeed.”

I nodded in understanding. It was the same system that the Yellow Orchid Academy employed. The only difference was that instead of focusing on Grandmasters, the Verdant Forest Sect was focused on Lords.

“Master… He wants you and Bao to join him as well. Since you disappeared, he hasn’t been able to contact you, so he asked me to make the offer in his place. What should we do? Should we join him?”

I looked at her and gave her a soft, comforting smile.

“I need to stay here. I can’t go with you, but you don’t need to worry too much. The Nine Rivers Sect has its dangers, but you are well equipped to handle them. You just need to make sure to come back and visit me in a couple hundred years. As for whether you should join Young Master Wang or not, I can’t tell you. You know him better than I do, so you will have to rely on your own judgment.”

SuYin dropped her head, and it looked like she was on the verge of crying. The reality of her situation, of being entirely cut off from everyone she knew for hundreds of years was starting to sink in.

“What about Brother Bao? Can he come with me?”

“I… don’t know. We can talk with him and explain the situation. The past few years of soul cultivation have helped stabilize him, but I don’t know if he’s ready for the challenges he would face in the sect. Also, I haven’t told him about the situation with the time loops and memory orbs, so he probably won’t want to leave. Bao is still a bit too open at times, and I’m worried he would let too much slip.”

“I understand, Master.”

As a tear rolled down SuYin’s cheek, I stepped forward and gave her a hug.

“Remember, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. If you want to stay here, spend time with your family, and help me with my projects, you can. There’s a lot you can learn from the Nine Rivers Sect, but there’s no rush. You’ll have all the time you need.”

This seemed to calm her down, so I opened the door and pulled her outside.

“Come on, let’s go talk to Bao.”

In the end, as I had guessed, Bao chose to stay in the Wastes. He was broken up at the sight of SuYin leaving, but at the same time, he wasn’t willing to trail behind her.

Before she left, SuYin handed me a banner of white silk.

“If you need to meet with me after I become a city lord, show this to my guards. I’ll make sure they know to bring you to me right away.”

A year after my meeting with SuYin, NiangBa came to me and requested permission to head out on another expedition. He had spent the time since the last one in deep cultivation and had been able to reach Peak Master with a Peak-Yellow technique. With this extra strength, and with the knowledge he had gained from his previous outing, he was far more prepared this time.

Six months later, his group returned to the clan in good health and carrying the carcasses of several Peak-Rank 2 demon beasts.

This made me slightly confused. It was strange to encounter so many high-level beasts in the Wastes. When I asked them about it, they admitted that they had ventured into the Rising Sun Empire. This worried me, but the territory at the edge of the Wastes wasn’t too dangerous. Small villages were still able to survive out there, after all. Still, I gave the warning to be careful in the future.

The next year, Liang brought a group of his enforcers to meet with me. The sight of NiangBa’s triumphant return had filled them with jealousy, and they wanted a chance to go out and prove themselves.

Three months later, Liang stumbled his way back to the mountain. Only two of his companions had been able to return with him, the other two had been killed by an enemy Grandmaster.

I was upset at the loss, and I wanted to chastise the group for provoking a powerful foe, but I held back. The loss of their companions had already left them feeling bitter, and anything I said would only make the situation worse.

I could punish them for their mistakes, but that would only stop others from following their example in the future. After the loss of their friends, any punishment I gave them would at best be meaningless and at worst be counterproductive.

The fact was simply that nothing I could do, aside from a System-based intervention, could fix the root of the problem: NiangBa was a better cultivator than Liang. He was able to build a more powerful cultivation base, and he was more skilled with fighting techniques. Liang would just need to learn to accept that there would always be someone better than him.

I could tell him all of this, but I knew that it wouldn’t help. I would just have to do my best to mitigate the damage until he accepted it naturally.

The next year, thanks to the rapid expansion brought about by my enhanced space affinity, I was able to fully expand my storage space into a complete cylinder with a height of 500 meters and a radius of 250 meters. With this core complete, I shifted the spatial fire seed to begin expanding its radius while leaving its height locked in place.

Finally, I was ready to start turning my storage space from an enlarged storage bag into a proper world.

Along the bottom of the space, I constructed several large domes made of Rank 4 metal and lined with jade. Once my clan took up residence here, I would no longer be able to leave my personal possessions just lying about. I planned to use these domes as my treasure vaults. Trapped deep underground and sealed in Rank 4 metal, I would be the only one able to access their contents.

Next, I ventured out of the Wastes and visited the territory of the Flowing Mountain Sect.

There, I found a few desolate mountains with no one nearby. Using my wood qi, I sliced these mountains into large chunks and placed them into my storage space to serve as a bedrock. I wanted to fuse these chunks together into a larger whole, but that would have to wait until after I had access to earth qi again.

Unsure of exactly what kind of landscape would be ideal for growing medicinal herbs, I simply copied the topology of the land south of the Wastes and added various layers of gravel, sand, and dirt to cover the bedrock. I would eventually want to take Bao inside and get his opinion on how to improve this, but it was good enough for the moment.

These layers of stone and soil covered most of my storage space, but I chose to leave the center of it empty. The clan was spending a lot of time and effort carving out Mount Jiang, and if possible, I wanted to preserve it for future generations. Pulling an entire mountain into my storage space was a bit beyond my current capabilities, even with my expanded space affinity, but by cutting it up into smaller pieces, it should be manageable.

In total, 150 meters of earth sat between the bottom of the space and the topsoil. This would hopefully be enough for people to use for whatever purposes they might have while also leaving plenty of sky above them.

While taking a last look at the landscape where all this soil had come from, I could only wonder what the Flowing Mountain Sect would think when they found a giant hole in a remote corner of their territory.

With the ground complete, my focus shifted to the sky.

I had previously tasked the formation specialists in my clan to work on ways to simulate a sky, but their results had been somewhat mixed. At first, they had naively thought to just use a formation to make the entire ceiling blue, but this didn’t work out so well. The excessive blue light just made the entire room blue. They tried to fix this by adding a ‘sun’ that shone with a bright white light, but the effect they were able to achieve was dubious at best. Our clan needed better illusionists.

Still, their experiments seemed to confirm my earlier suspicions. I was somehow going to have to find a way to attach a formation to the ceiling of my storage space. I just had no idea how I was going to make that happen.

During these years, while my focus was on improving my storage space, I also spent a lot of time on alchemy experiments.

I had hoped that my breakthrough with the recipe for the Strengthening Pill would allow me to quickly unlock all the secrets of beast alchemy, and it had, to an extent, but there was still so much that I didn’t know. Each new ingredient represented a whole new world of possibilities, and each one took time and effort to understand.

In four years of work, I had only discovered a single new recipe.

Using a flame chicken’s gizzard stones, I was able to concoct what I dubbed the Rank 1 Feasting Pill. This pill allowed a person to extract wu directly from the food they ate. The effects of this pill only lasted for 24 hours, but the total amount of energy one could gain from it was far more than what a Strengthening Pill could provide.

The only drawback was that the total wu a person’s body could contain was extremely limited. The Feasting Pill allowed one to draw more energy into their body than the Strengthening Pill, but their body wouldn’t be able to contain this excess energy, and it would all dissipate into the aether.

For ShouLi, though, the Feasting Pill was revolutionary. It allowed her blessing to draw in energy from food directly, and none of it was lost. This allowed her to ‘advance’ far more rapidly than she had by relying on Strengthening Pills.

However, I still wasn’t sure what this energy was doing. In energy vision, her skin was glowing with power, but it didn’t seem to do much. It might have further affected her appearance, but if it had, the changes were too subtle to notice. As a young Martial Master, she retained the looks of a youthful 16- to 20-year-old, and that wouldn’t change much until she passed the age of stagnation.

It was likely that this additional energy had some kind of defensive effect, but if so, it was limited. Any attack that could break through ShouLi’s Master-level qi defenses wouldn’t be stopped by her blessing-enhanced skin. So, in the end, I could only wait and watch as things continued to develop.

While my progress in some areas was limited, I enjoyed this slow life of watching my clan develop.

With each year that passed, we welcomed dozens of new cultivators into our ranks. This put a bit of pressure on our leadership structure, and after talking things over with the council, we implemented a few changes.

I officially promoted ShouLi, Liang, Mo, NiangBa, and the twins to inner elders. Then, I promoted sixteen others to serve as outer elders. The top five floors of Mount Jiang were renamed the ‘First Ring’ and remained under the control of the inner elders, and the outer elders were divided into two groups with each group gaining control of a set of five floors each, the Second and Third Rings.

This gave us a leadership structure capable of managing nearly a thousand cultivators. Not only would this be sufficient for several more years, but we would also be able to expand and modify it as needed to keep things organized for the foreseeable future.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 248 – Life 73, Age 47, Martial Grandmaster Peak

When GuiMing had first started building apartments into Mount Jiang, I had instructed him to only build them along the outside edge of the mountain. Even if it meant the mountain wouldn’t be able to house as many people as otherwise, I didn’t want the people in my clan to feel trapped and claustrophobic. I wanted each of them to have a view of the outside world.

This was nice and all, but it left us with a bit of a problem. If we weren’t going to build apartments within the mountain’s interior, what were we going to use it for? Was it just going to be wasted space?

When GuiMing was building out the original five floors for the inner elders, the leadership council, the answer they came up with was about what I had expected. They turned the interior of the mountain into a series of cultivation and crafting rooms. This gave their most valued followers places to work and study without needing to deal with the overcrowded public areas atop the plateau.

Later, when the outer elders were designing their floors, the group on the lower floors, the Third Ring, followed in the inner elders’ footsteps. Not only did this help alleviate the congestion above, but it also allowed their disciples convenient access to important facilities.

However, the outer elders on the higher floors, the Second Ring, came up with a different plan entirely, one that I hadn’t quite expected.

They had GuiMing turn the entire interior area under their control, all five floors of it, into a single, massive atrium. They created a massive cave with only four evenly-spaced reinforced stone pillars left behind to support the rest of the mountain above.

This area didn’t look like a cave, though.

The elders contracted the formation specialists and illusionists who were working on designing a sky of my storage space to make the place look like it was sitting at the top of the mountain. The effect of these prototype illusions was rather weak, and it wouldn’t fool anyone into thinking that they were actually outside, but they were enough to give the cave a somewhat ethereal feeling, especially when they added streaks of reds and pinks into the mix.

Unlike the other two groups, these elders had chosen not to create a place for work and study. Instead, they designed this cavern to be what they felt the mountain needed most, a place to relax.

While I could see the value in this, it had the potential to create a whole host of new problems. Thankfully, I wasn’t the one who would have to deal with them. ShouLi was the head of the leadership council, and she had been studying Legalist doctrines for several years by this point. Creating rules and regulations for operating this leisure area fell squarely on her shoulders.

I did make my stance clear on a few items though. Bars and stage shows were ok. Brothels and the like were not. If someone wanted to visit such a place, they could do so away from the mountain. These decisions were easy enough, but when I heard that a couple of the elders planned to start a gambling hall, I was a little more conflicted.

I didn’t want people gambling away large sums of contribution points. It would be better for both me and the clan if they spent those points on self-improvement instead.

However, after experiencing the games for myself, I gave the elders permission to move forward with their plans. As it turned out, none of the games relied on luck.

The elders building the gambling hall intended to focus on dice and card games. Unfortunately for them, with a powerful enough soul, these games were easy to manipulate. All one needed to do was determine what was showing on the other side of a card or what side of a die was face up while it was sitting underneath a cup.

Thus, the games became a battle of souls. The gambler would use their soul to cheat, and the croupier would have to use their soul to block them.

This seemed like an excellent way to train the use of one’s soul, so I was more than happy to let the gambling halls be built. I just made sure that ShouLi created several rules to keep the competition fair.

In only a few short months, this giant leisure hall had a profound effect on the clan. People were happier and more relaxed. A few used these bars and gambling halls as a way to slack off, and I was certain that this would cause the number of people who were able to advance to Martial Master to drop off, but that was fine. I provided them with opportunities, and they decided what to do with them.

Still, while this leisure hall was nice, it wasn’t enough to satisfy the entire clan, and I still took groups on the occasional trip to Rosehill.

On one of these trips, only a few months after I turned 47 years old, I had an encounter that was destined to shape the course of my clan for centuries to come.

Like normal, I snuck into Rosehill with the unconscious forms of those who had traveled with me tucked away inside my storage space.

While the space had changed dramatically over recent years and could now be considered partially habitable, I still kept everyone unconscious because I didn’t want them to be aware of its existence. By now, everyone in the clan knew that I had some type of storage treasure capable of storing humans, but there was no way they understood the true scope of it.

After taking everyone out and waking them up, I guided them to the exit of the compound that I had commandeered from the Su Clan and allowed them to leave on their own. One or two of them might choose to pass on information about the status of our clan, but as long as they didn’t reveal the location of our base, I was fine with that.

There were more than a few spies in our ranks by this point, and I was more than willing to let them play whatever part they chose. If they wanted to abandon the Su Clan and join us in truth, then I would let them. If they wanted to spy on us and reap whatever rewards the Su Clan had promised them, then that was fine as well.

I was hoping that these spies would start trying to tempt members of my clan to rebel and turn on us. While we remained in the Wastes, my clan and I were safe, but once we left, the dangers involved in someone betraying us would increase by several orders of magnitude. My hope was that these spies would help us clean house a bit before that day came.

As this group left the formation and entered the city, I detected several pairs of eyes watching them from hiding.

While it wasn’t unusual for there to be one or two lookouts stationed to track our comings and goings, this time, there were closer to one or two dozen. A few dozen Disciples and Masters were not much of a concern, but the sudden change in the Su Clan’s behavior was a bit worrying.

As my clan mates departed, a couple of these watchers left to follow them, but most of the eyes stayed locked on the compound’s exit.

Wondering what was going on, I decided to provoke them a bit to see what happened.

Wearing a simple, plain blue silk robe, I stepped out of the formation and walked into town.

The moment they saw me, the watchers became frantic. Half of them stood and began following me, ensuring they didn’t lose track of me, and the other half ran off somewhere.

Those who left were no doubt headed to alert someone of my presence. I wasn’t sure who it would be, but I had a few guesses.

Less than five minutes later, a haggard-looking Su Heng ran up to me and bowed deeply.

“Prince Fang, I’ve finally found you.”

I nodded to him in greeting but didn’t say anything.

“Prince… Prince Fang, my father, the Grand Elder, he needs to talk with you. It’s urgent. Would it be possible…”

I cocked my head to the side. “Oh? Why didn’t he come to see me himself?”

This question made Su Heng extremely nervous.

“He… can’t be seen coming here. He has to stay in Dragon Gate City.” Su Heng took a folded piece of paper from his robe. “The place marked on this map is a safe house where he can meet you without drawing undue attention.”

Su Heng dropped into a low bow and didn’t rise. “Please, meet with my father as soon as possible. It’s a matter of life and death.”

I glanced at the paper and then returned my focus to the man in front of me. If this meeting was as urgent as Su Heng said, then one of only a few things must have happened, and none of them were good. It was likely that the Su Clan’s use as a recruitment tool might soon be coming to an end.

I slid the map into my storage bag and nodded.

“Very well, tomorrow at two hours past noon.”

The designated meeting point was a block to the west of the Su Clan’s Dragon Gate City compound. I arrived there a few hours early to check it out, and I was slightly surprised to find nothing amiss and no ambushes waiting for me.

Fifteen minutes before the appointed time, an old man in ragged clothes stumbled down the street and entered the building I was keeping an eye on.

A moment later, I followed after him.

After going down a flight of stairs and entering the building’s basement, I was greeted by the sight of Su TaiZu, Grand Elder of the Su Clan. He was made up to look almost like a servant, but he still possessed the unmistakable aura of a person used to being in a position of authority.

Upon seeing me, he gave a deep bow.

While the Grand Elder had never possessed the Patriarch’s haughtiness, he had always contained an air of self-assurance and confidence. The face he presented to me now seemed far too humble.

“Prince Fang, thank you for meeting with me. I am sorry that I needed to request your presence here, but it was the only way. If anyone were to find out that I had left the city to meet with you, it would be disastrous.”

I held up a hand to stop him. “Elder Taizu, please explain. What is happening?”

He dropped his head and spent a moment ordering his thoughts.

“Prince Fang… How much do you know about the Su Clan’s history?”

I furrowed my brow in thought. “I’ve read several books about this region, so I have a general understanding of the wider politics at play, but I must admit that my knowledge of the Su Clan is somewhat limited.”

Su TaiZu winced slightly. “You should disregard most of what you have read. Unless they were the private histories of the rulers of the surrounding areas, it’s likely that most of them are filled with falsehoods.”

He looked down as he kneaded his hands together. “You might not know this, but while the Su Clan is an old family, its rule of the Wastes is a relatively recent phenomenon. My father, Su HongYi, worked with the Rising Sun Empire to subjugate the other clans in the Wastes and turn the entire region into our private domain. That was only a little over 200 years ago.”

I nodded and waited for him to continue.

“After a century as the Su Clan’s Patriarch, 80 years of which he spent ruling the Wastes, my father stepped down and allowed my brother to take control of the clan. He became the new Patriarch, and I became the new Grand Elder. My father and the previous Grand Elder retired to the clan’s Hall of Ancestral Worship. As Peak Grandmasters with powerful combat blessings, they served as our clan’s ultimate hidden trump cards, but they cut themselves off from the clan’s day-to-day affairs.”

I waved for him to continue. “What is your point?”

He cleared his throat, embarrassed. “By tradition, my brother was only supposed to remain the Patriarch for a century before retiring and allowing one of his sons to take over. However, he did not do so. He has held onto the reins of power for over 120 years. My nephews haven’t been too happy about this, but there hasn’t been anything they could do about it. Last month, though… Last month, my father passed away. My brother’s strongest supporter is gone. He will soon be forced to step down from his position as Patriarch.”

“And?”

“According to tradition, at that time, YuanFei will take over as Patriarch, and his brother, YuanFeng, will become the new Grand Elder while I retire to the Hall of Ancestral Worship with TaiZong.” The elder took a deep breath. “However, YuanFeng has already approached me. He plans to seize the position of Patriarch and has offered me the opportunity to stay on as Grand Elder if I support him.”

“Elder TaiZu, I understand your clan is facing problems, but why have you come to me with them?”

“Prince Fang… I wish to request asylum. I wish to leave the Su Clan and join you. I wish to bring a select group of Disciples, Masters, and Grandmasters with me to support you in your endeavors. The Su Clan is destined for years of turmoil, and I do not want to be consumed by it. Instead, I wish to spend my final years guiding the members of my clan who have already chosen to join you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“You wish to join me?”

“Yes, Prince Fang.”

“How many others do you plan to bring with you?”

“Three dozen Disciples, eight Masters, and four Grandmasters, including my son.”

I had considered pulling in certain powerful Grandmasters and elders from the Su Clan to be part of my clan, but this was a bit too early. Even then, recruiting Su TaiZu and his supporters was a bit beyond the scope of what I had originally envisioned. I wanted to test the loyalties of the people who had chosen to join my clan, but involving TaiZu in such a test would add several additional layers of complications to it.

While he might work to integrate himself at first, I saw little to no chance that TaiZu or the Grandmasters who followed him would be willing to listen to the orders of the young Masters on my leadership council. Bringing this group in would destabilize everything I had built.

However, if I rejected TaiZu’s request now, there likely wouldn’t be another chance to recruit him or any of his followers. If I wanted to do this, it had to be now.

I had thought that this test wouldn’t come until the Su Clan’s destruction several decades in the future. Were the members of my clan ready for it? Some of them were, but most of them? Probably not.

Even if they weren’t, the time had come.

I nodded to Grand Elder TaiZu.

“Very well, you may join us.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 249 – Life 73, Age 47, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Allowing Grandmasters from the Su Clan to join us on Mount Jiang held countless hidden dangers, but these dangers were what I hoped would allow my clan to improve and develop further. However, letting them in unchecked would simply be reckless.

Would the Su Clan’s Grand Elder be able to convince people to betray me? For most people, I felt that this was unlikely, but in any large group of people, there would always be those looking to gain benefits by switching sides.

I needed to keep an eye on these newcomers, and I needed to keep an eye on the members of my clan to see how they reacted to their presence. Thankfully, as a wood cultivator, I had the tools needed to do that.

Under my house, I created a small, secret chamber. Then, I started the process of spreading roots from this chamber and connecting them to various important locations throughout the mountain. Using these roots, I would be able to actively observe everything that happened and ensure that these Grandmasters didn’t do anything too inappropriate.

One week later, I met Su TaiZu and his entourage outside the gates of my Rosehill compound. This time, he didn’t try to sneak around or hide his presence. His disappearance from the Su Clan would be obvious soon enough, so instead, he chose to openly display his change of allegiance for all to see.

Of those who came with him, the ones I paid the most attention to were the four Grandmasters. Su Heng, who was following behind his father, displayed his standard nervous expression, but the other three were far more stoic and gave me an impression reminiscent of Ning ChenKun’s deathsworn. I doubted the former Grand Elder of the Su Clan possessed the means of creating true deathsworn, but through the use of carefully tailored cultivation techniques, he might have been able to craft a close facsimile.

When I led this group inside the formation, the Grandmasters sent out their qi to probe their surroundings, but no one seemed overly surprised when they discovered that the complex was entirely empty.

I looked at TaiZu with a raised eyebrow. “You already knew the Disciples wouldn’t be here?”

He chuckled slightly. “Prince Fang, you have recruited hundreds of children over the years. Housing them all in this one estate would be… challenging. We knew that you were taking most of them elsewhere. We just didn’t know if you took them all away or if you left the newest ones here for basic training.”

I nodded in acceptance, but considering the number of spies I had recruited, I wasn’t quite willing to attribute everything to TaiZu’s brilliant deductive capabilities.

I reached into my storage bag, pulled out several jade bottles, and passed them out to the group.

“Since you were able to work out that the Disciples aren’t here, then you must have been able to figure out that we aren’t staying here either. Each of you needs to take one of these pills. They will put you to sleep, and when you wake up, you will be in your new home.”

This made the three unknown Grandmasters narrow their eyes at me, but the TaiZu waved his fingers to flick away their concerns.

“Take the pill. We have no reason to distrust Prince Fang.”

Su Heng gave his father a wary look, but the others immediately followed the elder’s command. Only a moment after consuming their pills, the three Grandmasters dropped to the floor unconscious. Following this, TaiZu took his pill along with the various Masters and Disciples.

The last man standing was Su Heng. He squeezed his eyes shut, gave a quick prayer to the Heavenly Dao, and swallowed the pill.

The moment he fell unconscious, I stowed everyone in my storage space and took off.

I chose to revive everyone in ShouLi’s old house within the residential area on the eastern side of the Plateau. It was the most impressive-looking building around, and it was more than large enough to hold TaiZu’s entire retinue.

Once everyone was awake, I gathered them all in the primary sitting room.

“I’ve temporarily adjusted the sect-protecting formation to prevent anyone from entering or exiting this building without my permission. I would ask that none of you try to break it. I need to take Grandmaster TaiZu for a meeting with my leadership council. While you wait, you should read through the booklets in your rooms. They contain the information we typically provide to any Disciples who join our ranks. They should allow you to begin familiarizing yourself with the situation here.”

No one seemed thrilled at the prospect of being trapped here, but TaiZu just walked forward and nodded.

“Please lead the way.”

I gestured to the door, and we stepped outside. The moment we did so, the elder’s genial countenance shattered, and a look of genuine shock appeared on his face.

“Mount Jiang? You hid your entire retinue on Mount Jiang? How?”

I gave him a slight smile.

“I mentioned a sect-protecting formation, didn’t I? It is… quite good.”

TaiZu looked around with wide eyes. “Yes… It seems that it is.”

As we walked, I introduced him to the surroundings.

“This is the old residential area. It was where everyone lived when we first arrived here, but in recent years, we’ve carved out several layers of rooms within the mountain, and everyone has migrated down there. That has caused this place to fall into a bit of disuse. It needs to all be torn down and replaced with something new, but our builders are currently a bit overworked with everything going on inside the mountain.”

As I continued talking and introduced the arena and workshops, TaiZu just walked along and silently nodded as he took everything in. If I had introduced him to the Affinity Hall, I was certain that his reaction would have been a bit more exaggerated, but I left that task for others to deal with.

After a brief tour of the plateau, I took him down to the large meeting room that had been carved into the dead center of the top floor of the mountain. Inside, the leadership council was already gathered.

While I had called for them to assemble, I hadn’t told them the reason. When I walked into the room with the elderly TaiZu by my side, there were signs of shock on everyone’s face. However, no one was nearly as stunned as ShouLi. From her position near the center of the council’s horseshoe-shaped table, she stared at TaiZu with a mix of astonishment and confusion.

Before anyone could talk, I gestured to the man I had entered with.

“This is Grandmaster TaiZu. He has chosen to join our ranks and has brought several other cultivators along with him. He has no understanding of what joining us means, and he knows nothing about how things are structured here. Treat him as a new recruit, teach him about the mountain, and integrate his group into our settlement. You may handle this however you wish. If you need additional identity jades, let me know.”

With that, I turned around and left.

TaiZu didn’t even know that he was joining a clan, not a retinue. It would be interesting to see how the council dealt with this situation.

As soon as I left, I quickly retreated to the secret chamber beneath my house and connected to my new root network to observe everyone’s reactions.

With Grandmaster TaiZu standing in front of their table, the leadership council could only stare in silence. None of them wanted to be the first to speak.

Sensing the awkward atmosphere, Taizu gave a slight chuckle and looked at ShouLi.

“Is that Little Li I see? Prince Fang decided to make you part of his leadership team? It’s good to see you’ve been doing well here.”

ShouLi dipped her head in acknowledgment. “Yes, uncle… Hello.”

Before silence could return to the room once again, TaiZu cleared his throat and clapped his hands.

“So, I am to be told about the mountain and integrated into Prince Fang’s retinue. What do I need to know?”

These words broke the council out of its stupor, and they looked around at each other, a bit confused. Sensing that they were in for an extended conversation, ShouLi gestured to GuiMing who ducked into a side room and pulled out an extra chair, giving TaiZu a place to sit.

Then, ShouLi began a brief overview of the clan.

“Uncle Zu, I’m not sure what the Su Clan knows about what’s going on here, but we aren’t a part of a Lord’s retinue. The P… Prince Fang isn’t creating an army. He’s creating a clan. He is the Patriarch.”

TaiZu appeared to take this information in stride. The fact that I was only recruiting people from the Su Clan had likely already led him to consider this possibility, but from his reaction, I doubted he knew enough about Sovereigns to know why creating a clan was so important.

ShouLi gave him an overview of the clan’s leadership structure, placing me at the top, the inner elders as my direct subordinates, and the outer elders as subordinate to the inner elders. As for Bao, she only said that he was a guest elder outside of the clan’s hierarchy and uninvolved in its governance.

Once the basics were covered, ShouLi addressed the problem in front of them.

“Uncle Zu, Grandmaster TaiZu, as you can see, it is a little difficult to know how to integrate your retinue into the clan. As a new recruit, you should be placed into the care of one of the outer elders, but as a Grandmaster…”

TaiZu nodded and remained silent, allowing the council to decide what to do without trying to influence their decision.

GuiMing, as the head of the residential areas, spoke up to give a bit more context.

“At the moment, the clan occupies three rings within the mountain, with each ring consisting of five floors. The First Ring, the top levels, is controlled by the inner elders. There are two unused sections here, but…”

ShouLi stepped in to explain. “Those are reserved for the Patriarch and Elder Bao. They aren’t in use, but it isn’t our place to request access to them.”

TaiZu nodded in acceptance of this statement, but I felt that it was a bit off. If they wanted to, they could have asked Bao for the section in the First Ring that he had been allocated, and he would have undoubtedly let them do whatever they wanted with it.

I couldn’t help but feel that ShouLi refused to consider this because she didn’t want to give TaiZu a position that rivaled her own. For the same reason, any talk of allowing the elder to remain in a building on the plateau was quickly quashed since that would have put him on equal standing with me and Bao.

Finally, GuiMing made the only suggestion that seemed acceptable to everyone involved.

“Let’s build a Fourth Ring. The mountain is tall enough for a dozen more, so there’s no reason not to continue expanding downward. The Third Ring isn’t full yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go ahead and get started on the Fourth.”

ShouLi wrinkled her brow at this. On one hand, it would make TaiZu a de facto elder of the clan from the moment he entered, but on the other, it would solve the sticky situation that they were dealing with. By placing him in the Fourth Ring, below even the outer elders, they were signaling that while he was an elder, he was the lowest of them.

Considering his cultivation base, this could be seen as an insult, but considering his lack of seniority within the clan, it was the best option available.

Eventually, ShouLi nodded. “We’ll do that then.”

TaiZu just smiled in acceptance.

They spent a while longer working out various details, but eventually, Taizu left to arrange everything with his retinue.

With the Grand Elder having departed, ShouLi slumped in her chair and covered her face with her hands.

“What is the Patriarch thinking? Why did he do this?”

Most of the group had worried expressions on their faces, but Mo just looked contemplative.

Liang reached over and put a hand on ShouLi’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. The Patriarch is a bit of a bastard, but he isn’t crazy. If he brought that guy here, then he’s confident he can control him. From where I was sitting, it looked like the elder knew this as well, so I don’t think he’ll stir up any trouble.”

To the side, Mo nodded.

NiangBa just shook his head. “The Patriarch might be able to control him, but not us. My boys and I are strong enough to take down a Low-Rank 3 demon beast without too much trouble these days, but I felt a strong sense of suppression from that old man. He has to be at least a Grandmaster 5.”

ShouLi let out a wry chuckle. “He’s a Peak Grandmaster. That was Elder TaiZu, the Grand Elder of the Su Clan. Aside from the old ancestor, he’s probably the strongest person in the entire clan. The Patriarch might be able to handle him, but he could crush the rest of us with nothing more than a thought.”

This caused Mo to furrow his brow in concentration.

GuiAi was starting to get worried. “Is the Patriarch thinking about replacing us? Is he going to start letting elders from the Su Clan take everything over?”

This question caused everyone to tense up, and silence descended on the room. The one who broke it was Mo.

“No. Something else is going on… This…”

Mo closed his eyes and thought through the situation.

Suddenly, his eyes shot open, and he quickly looked from one person to the next.

“We all have people with questionable loyalty among our subordinates. Talk to them. Tell them that it’s time for them to decide whose side they’re truly on.”

After saying this, Mo stood and hurried out of the room.

Once he was gone, the others just glanced around at each other.

Finally, GuiMing stood up and patted some dust off his robe.

“I have work to do. If the ‘Grand Elder’ is so powerful, he can build his own damn rooms, but there’s no way I’m letting him take control of designing the Fourth Ring’s layout. I need to get my crew on that before he gets any ideas.”

With GuiMing’s departure, the rest of the meeting broke up as well, and everyone headed back to their factions to tell them about the clan’s newest elder.

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Chapter 250 – Life 73, Age 47, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After returning to his temporary home on the plateau, TaiZu explained the situation with the clan to his entourage and encouraged them to do their best to blend in. Then, he sent the three Grandmasters to evaluate the lower levels of the mountain and determine what they would need to do to make the place livable.

Not long after these people left, one of my clan’s outer elders arrived and gave TaiZu a deep bow.

“Grand Elder, you’ve arrived. Please, let me know how I can assist you.”

TaiZu smiled at this, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“YiPo, why have you come here so soon? It will make both of us look suspicious.”

The young elder, YiPo, quickly shook his head in negation.

“Grand Elder, it was the leadership council that sent me here. They instructed me to give you a tour of the mountain.”

Taizu stroked his beard in thought. “Is that so? That’s fine then. Tell me about the place. What have you learned? How does this outpost compare to the environment in the Su Clan?”

“Grand Elder… this… there is… there is a place I need to show you. I believe it holds the secret to Prince Fang’s strength.”

TaiZu looked at the young man askance. “Just tell me. Why must you show me?”

YiPo dropped his head. “There are some things that need to be seen to be believed, Grand Elder.”

The Grand Elder waved his hand. “Fine. Take me there.”

YiPo gave another deep bow, led the elder outside, and took him directly to the Rank 1 Affinity Hall.

Though I had expanded it somewhat, this was still the same building that I had used to demonstrate wood shaping to the Disciples when we first arrived on the mountain, so it didn’t look like anything overly special. GuiMing’s team had been doing a lot of work to make the mountain’s interior as beautiful as possible, and the original buildings on the plateau had suffered by comparison. So, when the Grand Elder saw where he was being taken, a look of skepticism appeared on his face.

When he entered the hall and found that it only consisted of a couple dozen small rooms with simple stone floors, his doubt only increased.

Undeterred, YiPo gestured to the pedestal to the right of the entrance.

“Grand Elder, this is an affinity testing orb.” TaiZu snorted at this, but YiPo pushed ahead. “It can detect all your affinities, not just your highest. Many of the children the Su Clan thought had zero affinities actually had multiple affinities. The orb we used just couldn’t detect them.”

TaiZu waved this away. “I’ve heard of such high-level orbs existing elsewhere. There is value in such things, but it is limited. The clan might have missed out on one or two good seedlings, but if they were truly exceptional, their blessings would have prevented them from fading into obscurity.”

Cheek twitching at the Grand Elder’s attitude, YiPo stepped forward and placed his hand on the orb. When he did so, it lit up in an array of different colors.

When the Grand Elder saw this, his breath froze.

“Peak nine-star affinities in wood, metal, and fire? Low eight-star water? High eight-star earth? Why were you sent here? With these affinities…”

YiPo shook his head and gestured to the empty rooms behind him.

“The stone floors in those rooms… They are formation stones. Prince Fang possesses affinity-boosting formations. The more time you spend in there, the higher your affinities will climb.”

TaiZu’s mouth opened slightly as he turned to study the empty rooms carefully. He likely didn’t want to believe what he was hearing, but with YiPo’s affinities, it would be hard to deny.

“Why is no one using them? If Prince Fang has such magical formations, why are they just sitting empty.”

YiPo’s cheek twitched again. “It’s not that no one wants to use them. It’s that they cost contribution points to use. Even with hard work, it is difficult to earn more than one or two hours in here a week.”

“But with the number of cultivators Prince Fang has accumulated, I would think there would still be people here all the time.”

YiPo shook his head. “This is the Rank 1 hall. There is a Rank 2 hall on the other side of the plateau. It costs a hell of a lot more to use, but it's worth it. Most people would rather save their points and spend an hour there instead of an entire week here.”

The Grand Elder bobbed his head slowly as he thought.

“Do rooms in the Rank 2 hall ever sit empty?”

YiPo nodded.

“Alright, this is what we’ll do. Start casually questioning why these miraculous formations are allowed to sit here unused. Suggest that the elders and the more powerful members of the clan should be allowed to access them freely. Don’t push, though. Just plant a seed of doubt.”

YiPo gave a slight bow. “Yes, Grand Elder.”

The next day, Elder TaiZu was welcomed into the clan by a gathering of the outer elders and a group of our oldest Masters. While Elder TaiZu ostensibly held the lowest position among those gathered due to low seniority, his aged appearance and greater strength caused the youths surrounding him to defer to him at nearly every turn.

For the most part, this gathering simply served to introduce TaiZu to the clan’s upper echelons, but as they discussed the details of how the clan operated, TaiZu would occasionally ask seemingly innocuous questions that caught my attention.

As a Peak Master who served as an elder in the Third Ring explained how he had been chosen for his position, TaiZu stroked his beard in thought.

“But you are a Peak Master, are you not? You’re one of the most powerful people here. Why were you not given a position on the Second Ring or even the First?”

The youth grinned weakly. “I earned my position as a member of Elder Liang’s enforcers. After considering our relative contributions, Elder Liang felt that others were more worthy of being placed in the Second Ring. As for the First, that is occupied by the leadership council.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure that with your skills you will be able to earn a higher position in short order.” Taizu gave the young man a comforting smile. “By the way, what would you need to do to become an inner elder and join the leadership council?”

“This… isn’t possible.”

TaiZu looked concerned. “Not even if you advance to Grandmaster while they are all still Masters? Not even if you are more capable?”

The young elder’s eyes held a look of reluctance, but he didn’t respond.

TaiZu patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m sure the council has things well in hand. They won’t let a talent such as yourself linger in obscurity."

After a few parting words, Elder TaiZu left to have similar discussions with others.

I had expected TaiZu to stir the pot, but I hadn’t expected him to do so as soon as he arrived. I had thought that he would wait until he was more firmly established here before doing anything that might be considered suspicious.

However, seeing so many high-level Masters among my ranks had thrown him off. He had likely come here thinking that most of the people in my ‘retinue’ would be relatively weak due to their lacking affinities. He would have then been able to use his Grandmaster-level cultivation base as a pretext to claim a greater level of authority over a group of mere Disciples.

However, after seeing more than a dozen Masters at or near the peak of their realm, he had to be thinking that his time as one of only a handful of Grandmasters among my ranks was limited. This likely pushed him to be far more active than he had originally planned.

What he didn’t yet know was that these Peak Masters would have their entire cultivation bases abolished by the end of the week. Some of them might not drop all the way down to Disciple 1, but not a single one of them would remain a Martial Master. Our clan likely wouldn’t see the rise of its first native Grandmaster for at least another five years, so his position was far more secure than he might have imagined.

Still, I was more than pleased with this development.

It meant that the intentions behind Elder TaiZu’s actions would be far more apparent than otherwise. The members of my clan would have plenty of warning signs signaling them that working with Elder TaiZu was dangerous, and if they did so anyway, they would only have themselves to blame.

It took less than a month for the seeds of doubt that Elder TaiZu had sown to bear fruit.

If he had spoken out against me, or against the clan as a whole, then he might not have been so successful, but his comments had been directed toward the leadership council. While no one was necessarily unhappy with the job they had done, there were more than a few ambitious people who wanted to move up in the clan.

This led to an emergency meeting between my six inner elders to discuss what should be done.

After ShouLi laid out the situation, GuiMing was completely apathetic.

“What’s the big deal? The extra contribution points we get from managing things are nice and all, but I wouldn’t mind stepping back and letting some of the others take over. It would give us more time to relax and cultivate in peace.”

ShouLi gave him a sharp look. “Ming, we have a duty to manage things properly. The Patriarch has given us a lot of benefits over the years, and we must do our best to support him in return.”

GuiMing just shook his head. “Yes, we need to support the Patriarch. He is the head of the clan, so that’s only proper, but that doesn’t mean we need to hold onto control. If others are able to do our jobs better than us, we should step aside and let them do it. At first, we took control because we were the only ones who could. That isn’t true anymore.”

ShouLi pounded a fist on the table. “We cannot allow insurrections within the clan!”

NiangBa just snorted. “ShouLi, look, I hear what you’re saying, but really, what’s the big deal? I took over the arena because I was the only person strong enough to ensure the Disciples didn’t start killing each other. If someone out there is stronger than me, then they can challenge me. If they win, I’ll gladly step aside and let them deal with the headaches involved in managing that place.”

ShouLi clearly wanted to argue with him, but seeing that GuiAi and Mo seemed to agree with these two, she dropped her head in defeat.

Liang looked at her and then cleared his throat.

“Letting the most capable person manage things makes sense, but there has to be rules. Otherwise, things will just devolve into chaos. We can’t let random people constantly challenge the authority of the clan’s leadership.” Liang looked at NiangBa. “You said that if someone challenges you, you will step aside, right? Do you stand by that?”

NiangBa nodded. “Sure. Seems only right that the most powerful person should be in charge of the arena.”

“Fine, then we can hold a competition. Anyone who wants your position on the council can challenge you for it. It will be ordered and structured. It won’t be people simply running around and insulting us.”

NiangBa smiled at this, happy with the decision. After considering it, GuiMing and GuiAi also signaled their agreement.

ShouLi steepled her fingers. “Alright. I can agree with this. This is better, actually. In the past, we built ourselves up as leaders, and the Patriarch just went along with it. That wasn’t right. Liang is correct. We need rules. We need laws that state who is in power and how they can be replaced.”

To the side, Mo spoke up for the first time. “I don’t mind handing the workshops off to someone. If I’m being honest, managing everything there has felt like it’s been nothing but a distraction, and I’d be happy to let others take charge of things. I don’t want to have to deal with challenges all the time, though. If you’re going to implement some kind of tournament where people can compete with us, we need to have at least five years between them, preferably more.”

Everyone looked to be in agreement with that sentiment.

ShouLi, now much calmer, looked around at the group. “Alright then, start thinking about what kind of competition would be most appropriate for each of your positions. For the arena, fighting prowess might be sufficient, but that’s less important when it comes to managing the workshops and residences. If we can develop clear rules for how to replace a member of the clan’s leadership, we can stand strong against this criticism.”

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Chapter 251 – Life 73, Age 47, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The leadership council spent a month talking to their people to work out ways of choosing new elders that were considered broadly acceptable by nearly everyone. Once they were done, they requested my presence at a council session to discuss the matter.

After guiding me to my seat at the head of their horseshoe-like table, ShouLi got down to business.

“Patriarch, certain members of the clan have recently been agitating for changes to our leadership structure. After a series of lengthy discussions, we have agreed to implement a new system to address their concerns. We would like your blessing to move forward with these changes, and we would like your assistance in implementing them.”

As I had been spying on their meetings, I already had a good understanding of what they would ask for, but I refrained from mentioning this. I simply smiled and gestured for ShouLi to continue.

“What do you have in mind?”

“First, we feel that a new rank needs to be created for certain members of the clan. We would like your consent and support in raising a few people to be deacons. Where the clan’s disciples would be focused only on their personal cultivation, and where the elders would mainly be concerned with the clan’s management, the deacons would be a transitional step. This would be for those who are ready to step back from focusing only on their own power and are willing to spend more time helping others.”

I nodded. “That’s simple enough. I will provide you with the necessary tokens to make this official.”

ShouLi dipped her head. “Thank you, Patriarch. We have also each developed new methods for choosing elders connected to our respective divisions. Each year, there will be a contest to replace one of the inner elders and all of the outer elders who report to them.”

I furrowed my brow in feigned confusion. “The deacons and elders will fight, and the strongest will become the new inner elder?”

ShouLi shook her head. “No, each of us has developed a method for selecting our replacements which we feel will result in the most qualified person being given the job.”

She gestured to Mo.

“Patriarch, from my experience, the most difficult part of running the workshops is needing to be able to appraise everything that a person might make. So, I figure that’s how we should choose our elders. The outer elders can be specialized in a specific field, such as pills or formations, but the inner elder needs to have a broad base of knowledge that spans all the professions. The deacons and elders who choose not to participate in this competition can select the items to be appraised, and whoever does the best job gets the position.”

I nodded and turned to look at NiangBa.

He just shrugged. “We’ll just fight. Strongest person wins.”

I wanted to snort in amusement, but I held it in and turned to GuiAi.

“Ming and I have both decided to use written tests that will evaluate both a person’s practical skills, such as knowledge of feng shui, as well as their theoretical knowledge, such as why certain buildings need to be designed in certain ways.”

I tapped the table in thought. “Who will write and grade these tests?”

“Former elders. Ming and I have both decided to step back from our leadership roles and will be the ones to administer the first set of tests.”

I bowed my head to them slightly. “Thank you for your sacrifice.”

GuiAi was happy with the praise, but from a twitch in his expression, it looked like GuiMing didn’t think that he had sacrificed anything at all.

I turned to Liang who gave me a slight bow of his head.

“Positions within the enforcers should be earned by merit. Each deacon will be graded by their elders. The outer elders will be graded by the inner elder. The inner elder will be graded by the head of the council. If anyone is unhappy with their grade, they can make an appeal to the inner elder, then the head of the council, and finally to the Patriarch. Your decision will be final. Those with the highest grades advance. However, one cannot rise or fall more than a single level with each assessment.”

I didn’t like that Liang’s system would place me in the position of ultimate authority, but I doubted it would ever be an issue. One would have to be filled with either righteous conviction or sheer recklessness to try going over the head of the council.

Finally, I turned to ShouLi.

She looked pensive. “Deciding upon a new leader… is difficult. Ultimately, the leadership council is here to support the Patriarch. From everything I had read while studying in the library, the head of the council should be chosen by the Patriarch as it is the Patriarch’s will that they are carrying out.”

I shook my head. “No. My ‘will’ is for the clan to govern itself. I will assist when necessary, but I want you to be able to govern yourselves without my involvement.”

ShouLi bit her bottom lip, closed her eyes, and forced out a reply. “That’s not how a Patriarch is supposed to act. Patriarchs are supposed to actively manage their clans.”

I nodded to her, took the jade token from my waist, and showed her the symbol engraved on it.

“This is my role.”

She sighed and dropped her head. “I understand.”

She withdrew a scroll and placed it on the table. “This is my proposal. As the head of the council exists to serve the Patriarch, then the Patriarch may personally appoint anyone he chooses to this position. If he refrains from exercising this right, then the remaining five members of the leadership council will select someone for this role, but the person they choose must not be one of their direct subordinates.”

ShouLi passed me the scroll, and as I unrolled it, I saw that she had listed a series of contingencies for if this vote ended in a tie, if the head of the council passed away unexpectedly, if they were incapacitated for a prolonged period, and several other eventualities.

I studied it carefully and then looked back at her. “This will work.”

After a brief pause to consider the situation in the clan, a faint smile appeared on my face.

“I will write up everything we discussed today. After you review it, we will publish the news and make sure everyone is aware of these changes.”

Two days later, I watched as Elder TaiZu approached the foot of the small outcropping on the west side of the plateau where I had constructed my home. A large granite stele had recently been erected at the base of this outcropping, and the elder had felt the need to read its words personally.

————

A clan must be led by those who are most capable.

Anyone who wishes to be a leader must prove themselves worthy of such a position.

This will provide all members of a clan with confidence in the ability of its leaders.

————

The stele went on to lay out the new rules for how elders would be chosen, but TaiZu didn’t pay any attention to them. He was solely focused on those first three lines, and as he reread them multiple times, I could almost feel a palpable sense of satisfaction rolling off of him.

To the side of the stele, there was an announcement concerning the first competition to select a new inner elder. One month before the start of the new year, the clan would hold a martial arts tournament, and the winner would replace NiangBa as the Arena Master.

When TaiZu read this notice, he only scoffed. The highest cultivation base allowed in this first competition was Martial Master, so his subordinates wouldn’t be able to participate. He might try to drum up unrest over this point, but I doubted anyone in the clan would take the bait. After all, his Grandmasters could simply disperse their cultivation bases if they really wanted to join.

In any case, I had already given TaiZu more than he could have hoped for. He wasn’t greedy enough to keep pushing after he had already won.

Once the tournament to decide the new Arena Master was announced, a sense of celebration overtook the clan. The possibility of jumping over the Dragon Gate and suddenly becoming one of the clan’s inner elders was too tempting of a proposition to pass up, and dozens of young warriors quickly applied to enter.

Seeing this, the leadership council contacted me, and we expanded both the scope of the tournament and the prizes on offer. While only the champion would become the new Arena Master, everyone who did well in the competition would still receive rewards worthy of starting a small war over.

For the ‘Disciple Division,’ the top ten finishers would each receive five common Perfect Rank 1 pills of their choice, and the top five would each receive a piece of high-quality refined Rank 1 equipment. The champion would receive a pill that I had personally concocted using Bao’s best ingredients. It was an enhanced Rank 1 version of a Meridian Builder Pill that could greatly simplify a person’s advancement to Martial Master.

While this pill wasn’t nearly as valuable inside the clan as it would have been outside, it still offered a significant advantage to whoever consumed it. By advancing to Master more smoothly and with a firmer foundation, a person would be able to reach higher levels sooner and earn contribution points more quickly.

For the ‘Master Division,’ the top ten got Rank 2 pills and the top five got Rank 2 equipment, mirroring the rewards given out to the lower division. Additionally, the top five would be awarded their choice of a spirit fire from among a variety of Yellow-Rank flames that I had purchased while working on the herbalism formation. The champion would be allowed to select a Profound-Rank spirit fire from among those produced by my various seeds, excluding the space seed.

I had previously made the flames of the Cold Mountain Fire available for purchase, but its power and utility were somewhat limited. This competition would be the first time anyone in the clan would have access to potent spirit fires like the Profound-Rank Dual Phoenix Fire, which excelled at cutting through physical defenses and could instantly vaporize any Rank 3 materials that hadn’t been enhanced by a refiner.

Of course, the winner also had the option of selling these fires to crafters who might see more benefit in them. In the heat of battle, it was all too easy for a warrior to lose control of a spirit fire and allow it to dissipate, so trading it for a more tangible boost to one’s personal strength could be seen as a wise move. For a pure fighter, the boost to one’s affinities that a million contribution points could provide might outweigh the value of a Profound-Rank spirit fire.

As the tournament approached, the only person in the clan who appeared entirely unhappy with the situation was NiangBa. As the current Arena Master, he was in charge of organizing the event, and even with ShouLi’s assistance, this was a task beyond his capabilities.

Still, working as a team, they managed to pull everything together in time.

The inaugural tournament to select the clan’s Arena Master arrived with much fanfare, but its results had been obvious before the fighting even started.

NiangBa, who had spent over a decade focused on nothing but honing his combat abilities and who had personally fought against multiple Rank 3 demon beasts, easily defeated anyone who challenged him. The ones who placed second to fifth and became outer elders were those who had accompanied him on his hunting trips.

Of more interest to me was the young woman who won the competition between the Martial Disciples. She had only been in the clan for a single year, but by exploiting a blessing that allowed her to control her hair as easily as she could control her arms, she presented a challenge that even the veteran Disciples hadn’t been prepared to deal with.

From what I could see, if she could continue training with the same intensity she had shown thus far, she would have the potential to unseat NiangBa as the clan’s most fearsome warrior in only a decade or two.

On a more important note, during the tournament, Elder TaiZu sat next to Heng and calmly watched from the sidelines as everything unfolded in front of him. He had been lying low in recent months, but from what I saw of his reactions while watching the fighting, that wouldn’t be the case for much longer.

Not everyone took losing well, and the elder’s gaze always lingered on anyone who appeared bitter after being defeated. I was interested to see if the elder would be able to use this anger as a lever to recruit them into his faction.

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Chapter 252 – Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Not long after the conclusion of the tournament for Arena Master, the start of the new year came and passed, and it was soon time for me to return to the Su Clan to pick up my next batch of Disciples.

As this was the first training session after I had poached the clan’s Grand Elder, I expected to face some form of retaliation. Even if TaiZu and the Patriarch weren’t on the best of terms, as the leader of the Su Clan, the Patriarch couldn’t be happy about me stealing away five of his Grandmasters.

So, I wasn’t at all surprised when I detected a contingent of several dozen Martial Masters hiding out in the forests surrounding the Su Clan’s training compound. The idea that anyone would send Masters into a wooded area to ambush a Grandmaster wood cultivator was a bit baffling, but I had never given anyone in the Su Clan much credit for their strategic foresight.

However, to my surprise, I was able to enter the training compound without any of these Masters moving to stop me or running off to inform their superiors of my arrival.

With Heng now living on Mount Jiang, no one from the Su Clan was present to greet me, but my normal guest house had already been prepared as normal, and it was waiting for me empty and in good order. No one had even attempted to so much as plant an eavesdropping formation inside.

Frankly, I was becoming somewhat disappointed in the Su Clan’s lacking thirst for revenge. It almost felt like no one even knew their Grand Elder had gone missing.

Aside from the absence of Heng, there was little difference between this year’s training session and what I had become accustomed to. There was a slight uptick in the number of Disciples this year, with over 100 children present during the blessing ceremony, but that was easily explained.

This was the sixteenth year since I had recruited my first batch of Disciples, and the Su Clan’s plan to encourage increased birth rates was beginning to materialize. This place would no doubt be packed with Disciples in a few years as this policy came into full effect.

Of course, that was assuming that the clan’s training regime continued as normal. At this point, it was hard to predict what might unfold over the next few years.

During the three-month training camp, YuanFei had seemed on edge the entire time, but he never spoke to me about what was bothering him, so I did my best to ignore it.

Finally, on the last day, just as I was preparing to head to the final competition between the elite and normal Disciples, YuanFei came to visit me. After giving a martial salute and a slight bow of his head, he got to business.

“Prince Fang, my father, the Patriarch, has requested your presence at a banquet. It is to be held tonight at the pavilion on Swan Goose Lake.”

I smiled faintly and nodded in acknowledgment. “I see. Did he explain the purpose of this banquet?”

YuanFei’s eye twitched almost imperceptibly. “He wishes it to be a secret, but I have learned that it is to welcome a delegation from the Red Sun Kingdom.”

I nodded in thought. Were they planning to lay a trap for me? Had those Martial Masters been waiting in the forest all this time just to make sure I didn’t disappear before this feast?

If so, then the Patriarch’s plan had been a complete failure.

I had barely spent any time in the training compound this year. After making my presence known, I had discreetly returned to Mount Jiang to keep an eye on Elder TaiZu to make sure that he didn’t find some way to take advantage of my absence.

Deciding on a course of action, I smiled at YuanFei. “Tell your father that I’ll be there.”

Later that day, after packing 76 new Disciples away in my storage space, I made my way to Swan Goose Lake. I did not, however, approach the lake too closely. There were too many unknowns in this situation for my liking.

This wasn’t because I was afraid of losing my life.

Even if the Patriarch had the assistance of a Sovereign-level clan, it would be incredibly difficult for anyone to threaten my life as long as I remained within the Wastes. I had enough tricks from my time in the Nine Rivers Sect that if someone attacked me, even if I couldn’t win, I wouldn’t have much of a problem escaping.

Instead, I refrained from entering this obvious trap because I saw little value in doing so and because escaping from it might have required me to show more of my trump cards than I was comfortable with.

Also, by not attending the banquet, I displayed a lack of courage. While I had done my best to not show any weaknesses in front of the Su Clan in the past, appearing weak now would lead to the exact results I was hoping for. After all, if I appeared unbeatable, how would I ever be able to convince anyone to send an attack against Mount Jiang, and if they didn’t attack, how were our traitors supposed to come to their aid?

At any rate, while I had no intention of joining in the night’s feast, I did want to watch and see what happened.

I doubted that the entire banquet had been prepared only for my benefit. As dense as he was sometimes, the Su Clan’s Patriarch had to know that it was unlikely I would participate.

Swan Goose Lake was a large body of water to the east of Dragon Gate City. In the center of this lake, a team of earth cultivators had constructed a massive marble pavilion large enough to hold over a hundred people.

Dozens of dining tables had been set up around the pavilion in preparation for the night’s festivities, and even though I arrived over an hour before the banquet was set to begin, nearly all the chairs were already occupied by richly dressed nobles. The only seats that were still available were those that surrounded a small square table that sat on a raised platform at the center of the pavilion.

As I surveyed the place, I couldn’t help but notice that all the tables and chairs had been constructed from stone, and all the utensils were made of metal. Not a scrap of wood was anywhere in sight.

Seeing this, I couldn’t help but feel that whoever had set this banquet up had no desire for me to attend. If they had truly wished to entrap me, they wouldn’t have been so blatant about ensuring there was nothing I could use to defend myself.

The nobles in the pavilion, however, didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. They sat and talked happily with each other while they waited for their host to arrive.

At the appointed time, a carriage arrived, and four men stepped out. While I didn’t recognize two of these men, I was plenty familiar with the other two. Su TaiZong, Patriarch of the Su Clan, and his second son, Su YuanFeng.

Shortly thereafter, two more carriages arrived, and a small contingent of guards poured out of them. After quickly surveying their surroundings, the guards moved to form a protective wall around the four nobles.

Once everyone was assembled, the group walked down to the shoreline where they got onto a barge and were rowed out to the pavilion in the middle of the lake.

Upon stepping onto the pavilion, no one in this group spared any of the assembled nobles even the slightest glance. They simply strode forward and took their places on the central platform while their guards surrounded it to prevent any of the nobles from approaching.

Su TaiZong took the south-facing seat, the seat of the host, and YuanFeng took the north-facing seat. The two strangers took the east- and west-facing seats.

My eyes were drawn to the man facing east, as he sat in the position of the honored guest. From my distant position at the edge of the lake, it was hard to see anything clearly in normal vision, but with energy vision, I was able to see everything with crystal clarity.

This man was a Martial Grandmaster with an impeccable foundation. If he hadn’t been trained by the Yellow Orchid Academy, then he had to have been taught by one of its former students.

However, it wasn’t just his personal strength that was impressive. It was his wardrobe.

He was wearing a Rank 2 refined robe, and he had on three different pieces of jewelry that contained Rank 4 formations, two defensive and one offensive. Whoever this man was, someone had done everything possible to ensure his safety.

From so far away, the discussion between these four individuals was completely inaudible. I would have liked to extend a root to eavesdrop, but even if the pavilion hadn’t been a block of stone sitting in the middle of a lake, I doubted I would have been able to sneak a qi-controlled root near these strangers as easily as I had with the members of the Su Clan.

So, I could only watch.

When they first sat down, everyone in this group was wearing a serious expression on their faces, but as time passed and they started eating and drinking, the solemn atmosphere faded.

Eventually, the young man in the seat of honor called one of his guards over.

After saying a few words, this guard gave a deep bow and started walking around the platform with a rhythmic gait. With each step, he swung an arm out toward the crowd and let loose a burst of fire that swirled around the pavilion.

After circling the entire platform once, he sped up.

By the end of the second circuit, he was dancing and waving his arms so fast that it would be difficult for a mortal to track his movements.

Near the end of the third circuit, just as he walked behind the Patriarch, he flung his arm out, but this time, it wasn’t toward the crowd.

A burst of flame shot from the guard and struck Su TaiZong in the back.

Before he could even register what had happened, Su TaiZong was engulfed in flames.

Only a moment later, he was dead.

Su TaiZong, Patriarch of the Su Clan had been murdered in plain view of all the gathered nobles.

As soon as his body turned to ash, Su YuanFeng stood up, walked around the table, swept the ash from the south-facing chair, and sat down. Then, he continued talking to his two guests as if nothing had happened.

Having sensed the trap, YuanFei had chosen not to attend the banquet. Instead, he had used his time to rally his supporters from within the Su Clan.

However, it didn’t take long before word spread that the unknown man who had accompanied YuanFeng to the Swan Goose Lake Banquet had been the Third Prince of the Rising Sun Empire. Once YuanFei’s allies learned of this, they began discreetly slipping away one after another. Everyone knew that YuanFei and anyone who supported him would have targets on their backs.

Ultimately, YuanFei could not stand against the might of the Rising Sun Empire. His only choices were to capitulate and swear allegiance to YuanFeng, leave the Wastes entirely, or find a strong backer who could protect him.

So, less than a week after the Swan Goose Lake Banquet, a group of a dozen Grandmasters, two dozen Masters, and nearly a hundred Disciples arrived in front of my Rosehill compound. As I had been keeping a close watch on everything happening around the Wastes during this time, I was there to step out and greet this group the moment it arrived.

Upon seeing me, YuanFei and two of his companions walked forward and gave me a deep bow.

“Prince Fang, I request asylum within your ranks. Please, help me protect those who have been loyal to me. In return, we shall serve you faithfully.”

I looked at him with an impassive expression and then studied the people he had brought with him. I waved to the two people by his side.

“Who are they?”

A smile crept onto YuanFei’s face as he pointed to the man on his left. “This is Su JianPei. He is one of the best warriors in the Su Clan.”

I wanted to laugh. The Su Clan had sent all their best warriors to the Rising Sun Empire. If JianPei remained in the Su Clan, it meant that he wasn’t skilled enough to join the empire.

Holding back my laughter, I turned to the man on YuanFei’s right. Something about him seemed oddly familiar.

YuanFei’s smile widened. “This is the most talented alchemy prodigy the Su Clan has produced in decades. He has spent years training under a Grandmaster Alchemist from the Twin Mountains Sect, and I am confident that he will be of great service to you.”

The man stepped forward and bowed deeply. “Greetings, Prince Fang. My name is Su RuDi.”

I nodded and smiled in satisfaction.

“Su YuanFei, if you pledge your loyalty to me, I can protect you. I can even give you a chance to become more powerful.”

A sense of relief began to well up within the man, but it quickly turned into apprehension with my next sentence.

“There is only one thing you need to do for me first.”

YuanFei bowed his head. “What do you need of me, Prince Fang?”

I pointed at Rudy.

“Send him away, and make sure YuanFeng knows of his plan to defect.”

A note from G Tolley

Culture Note:

The Swan Goose Lake Banquet is directly inspired by the Feast at Swan Goose Gate.

If you are familiar with xianxia/chinese culture, you might know this as the Hongmen Banquet. Hong for Swan Goose(a type of bird), men for gate.

Part of me feels that placing this at "Swan Goose Lake" is a bit too on the nose, but I doubt many people are familiar with the English translation of Hongmen, so hopefully it feels okay.

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Chapter 253 – Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak

As soon as I returned to Mount Jiang, before waking YuanFei and his entourage up and getting them settled, I called an emergency meeting of my leadership council. After adding 76 new Disciples from this year’s training camp, adding over a hundred more was bound to cause headaches, but I was confident that my team would be able to handle it.

Once everyone was assembled, I addressed the room.

“I told you previously that another batch of recruits would likely be joining us soon. Well, they’re here, and we need to deal with them.”

Most of the people around the table showed little reaction to this news, but GuiMing slumped in his seat.

ShouLi took a calming breath and then faced me.

“How many?”

“A bit over a hundred in total… Twelve of them are Grandmasters, and they are led by YuanFei, the eldest son of the former Patriarch of the Su Clan.”

ShouLi was stunned speechless, but opposite her, on my left, Liang was a bit more animated.

“Patriarch, you can’t keep doing this! The group you brought last time was trouble enough. Their Disciples didn’t want to accept the enforcers’ judgments since they were ‘under Elder TaiZu’s protection.’ We finally got them in line, but that was just a small group, and we were only able to do so because we had the elder supporting us. If one of these new Grandmasters refuses to listen to an enforcer, we won’t be able to control them.”

I gave Liang a stern look. “You are not supposed to control them. You are supposed to treat them as you would anyone else. The six of you created the rules. Follow them. If these new Grandmasters want to become enforcers, let them. If they break the rules, punish them, but I don’t want to hear any stories about your enforcers abusing their power. As long as you follow the rules, I will be there to support you.”

Liang looked like he wanted to respond, but before he could, I turned and looked at the dispirited GuiMing.

“GuiMing, I know your people are being pushed to do too much too quickly. I’m sorry about that, but we can’t change the situation. However, most of the new Grandmasters are earth cultivators. Try recruiting them to help you. They might not understand your construction methods, but they should have the strength needed to easily shape the mountain’s stone however you desire. Use them as laborers and put someone you trust in charge of them to make sure they do the job right. You have my permission to hand out as many contribution points as needed to get this situation sorted as soon as possible.”

He puffed out a short breath of air and looked resigned, but it was mostly an act. The mention of unlimited funding had been enough to satisfy him.

I placed both palms on the table and looked around at the group.

“The only reason any of this is a problem is simply because you are all too weak. You don’t have the strength to stand up to Grandmasters.”

NiangBa narrowed his eyes, but I pushed forward.

“As such, in the coming months, I will be adding a third floor to the Technique Hall. Anyone who has a pristine Peak Master foundation and wishes to ascend to Grandmaster may go there. I know many of you still wish to improve your Rank 2 techniques, and you may do so if you wish, but I would recommend advancing to Grandmaster instead. You can use the excess qi it gives you to enhance your practice and then go back and improve your previous cultivation techniques later.”

I tossed a scroll to each of them.

“This is a Low-Yellow Rank 3 cultivation technique. None of you are quite ready to ascend, but you should start studying it. If you can ascend to Grandmaster without using a memory orb, I will give you a special reward.”

I turned to Liang and pulled a stack of papers out of my storage space.

“These are Rank 4 Restriction Talismans. Place one on anyone up to Peak Grandmaster and they will lose control of their qi. They will be no stronger than a mortal. These talismans aren’t perfect, but they should help you restrain anyone who tries to cause trouble.”

Through testing, I had found that these talismans could easily be defeated with sufficiently powerful soul attacks, and if someone tried to place one on me, I could simply send the talisman into my storage space, negating its effects. However, since I was likely the only person in the Wastes capable of such feats, I didn’t feel the need to share the specifics of how they could be defeated. After all, giving people access to weapons capable of neutralizing me seemed like a decent way to root out traitors.

Liang nodded stoically and accepted the talismans.

I looked around at the group one last time.

“I will say this again. I am here to support you. If you need my help, let me know.”

After leaving the meeting with the leadership council, I went to the residences on the eastern edge of the plateau and arranged temporary housing for YuanFei and his group. Then, I disappeared and allowed the council to take care of things. As I told them, I would help if asked, but they needed to prove that they were worthy of being leaders, both to the clan and to themselves.

Still, while this situation was a test for both the council and the clan as a whole, I wanted it to be a fair one, so I kept an eye on YuanFei’s activities. When I saw him use an earth technique to stealthily descend to the Fourth Ring and enter TaiZu’s chambers, I paid close attention to ensure that nothing exceeded my expectations.

Just as YuanFei was about to breach the ceiling of TaiZu’s sitting room, the elder shot to his feet and took a defensive stance while circulating his qi.

YuanFei dropped to the floor, and upon recognizing the invader, the elder returned to a more neutral stance. He didn’t drop his guard entirely, though.

“Fei, what are you doing here?”

YuanFei gave the elder a half-bow. “Uncle, Feng has allied with Prince Yangci of the Red Sun Kingdom and Third Prince Yang of the Rising Sun Empire. They assassinated father and have spent the past week trying to track me down. I can’t fight back on my own. I need your help.”

A sneer appeared on TaiZu’s face. “TaiZong was a fool. He underestimated Prince Fang. He underestimated Prince Yangci. He underestimated his own son. His death was inevitable. If you think I can help you fight back against an empire, then you’re a bigger fool than he was.”

A look of pleading appeared on YuanFei’s face. “Uncle, I know the difficulties involved, but if we can wrest control of Prince Fang’s resources, we can build a power capable of rivaling Feng’s. He has the support of the Third Prince, but not the empire as a whole. If I can prove that I’m stronger than him, then I can gain the Emperor’s approval.”

TaiZu snarled at the younger man. “You will not make a move against Prince Fang. If you try to do anything against him, I will do everything in my power to stop you and ensure that you are punished as severely as possible. I have spent an entire year working to gain just the barest modicum of power here, and I will not allow you to jeopardize it.”

“Uncle—”

“Enough! Forget about Feng. He isn’t important any longer. Take a look around this mountain. This is the real Su Clan. Except for its lack of Grandmasters, it is already more powerful than the branch in Dragon Gate City. Allowing someone with the surname Fang to continue ruling over it as Patriarch is a farce that cannot be allowed to continue, but he is far more dangerous than you know. Without absolute certainty, we cannot make a move against him.”

YuanFei gave a bow. “I understand, Uncle.”

TaiZu snorted. “No, you don’t, but you will. After a week here, you will see how ridiculous our vaunted Su Clan was. I will never allow an outsider to claim the position of Patriarch of the Su Clan, but if Prince Fang can bring us out of the Wastes and help us rise to greatness, then we will bow down to him as King.”

Elder TaiZu’s conversation with YuanFei gave me a lot to think about. If those were the arguments he would use to turn my clan against me, I would want to be more careful when grading everyone’s actions during this test I had set for them. If someone turned against me because they felt that was what was best for the clan, then I might be able to forgive them.

However, while the elder’s words had indicated that he only cared about what was best for the Su Clan, they didn’t make me forget the lust for power I had seen from him. Elder TaiZu was ambitious, and I could never allow myself to forget that, but ambitions weren’t necessarily bad. They were just something that I would need to channel properly.

With this in mind, I went to visit ShouLi and asked her to give Elder TaiZu a proper introduction to cultivating one’s soul as a Legalist.

Events with TaiZu, YuanFei, YuanFeng, and the Rising Sun Empire were quickly coming to a head. A missing heir and a traitorous Grand Elder were threats to YuanFeng’s reign, and he would eventually be forced to make a move. I had to be ready before that happened.

As such, I handed off most of my side projects to others who had the time needed to pursue them properly. I gave ShouLi all the notes I had made regarding Jin ZiHan’s and Cai XiaoYu’s ‘beauty’ blessings, and I gave Bao all the seeds I had gathered over the years for him to do with as he pleased. As for beast alchemy, I gave my notes to Mo and let him delegate tasks as he saw fit. I wasn’t sure how much progress would come from this, but it would be good to get others’ perspectives on matters.

In the meantime, I turned my full attention to making my storage space habitable as soon as possible.

Size and land were taken care of. The place could be bigger, and the soil could be more fertile, but it was more than good enough to house my current clan.

Food was a bit of an issue, though. It would be hard for my clan to do enough farming to feed itself while still having enough land to grow medicinal herbs. However, for the moment, I could live with that. I could make regular food purchases in the outside world and ship them inside. This wasn’t ideal, but it was workable.

As for air quality, the constant consumption of outside food would eventually cause problems with CO2 buildup, but the photosynthesis formation I had developed previously would help with that. However, I still needed to develop a solid formation for tracking the precise levels of atmospheric gases so that I could ensure that everything stayed stable and that I had advanced warning of any problems that might come up.

That said, from what I could tell, I only had three major problems that needed to be addressed before opening the space up for long-term habitation. I needed to finalize a formation to give the space the illusion of having a proper sky, I needed a source of fresh water, and I needed a way to deal with heat buildup.

The heat buildup was the easiest problem to solve. A simple heat pump formation was enough to transfer the heat energy out of the air and into a spirit fire where it could be turned into qi or raw materials. Such a formation needed fire qi to work, but I solved this by embedding a spirit stone into a flame of the Blazing Inferno Fire. The spirit fire would convert the raw energy of the spirit stone into pure fire qi and feed it into the formation, and the formation would pump heat from the air and send it back into the spirit fire, turning it into more fire qi.

Using spirit stones and spirit fires to power such a basic formation could be seen as extravagant, but nothing was really lost. The energy from the spirit stones would simply become ambient qi in my storage space. In a way, this was more useful than having it locked up in spirit stones that were providing me with no real benefits.

The solution I came up with for providing people with fresh drinking water was a bit more elegant.

When we first arrived on Mount Jiang, we had encountered a problem. What were we supposed to do with our waste? Bodily waste, food waste, material waste, it all had to go somewhere, and simply dumping it into the lake surrounding the mountain would have been an awful idea.

At the time, I had solved this problem by dumping it all into a spirit fire. The fire converted our waste into demonic energy which then dissipated into the surrounding environment. In my soul space, we would need to rely on a similar system, but why just let all that energy dissipate? If I could channel it into the right spirit fire, then our waste could be transformed into pure, clean water. A spirit stone or two might occasionally be needed to supplement this energy, but this setup would essentially take care of two problems at once.

While I didn’t actually have a flame capable of creating water, I was pretty confident I knew where to find one. I would just have to find an opportunity to go retrieve it once the situation with YuanFeng was settled. It was located within the lands that I had already purchased, after all.

This just left dealing with the space’s sun and sky.

The illusionists and formation specialists in my clan had done a lot of work designing the best illusory sky they could, but it still looked artificial. Unfortunately, to design a better formation, they would need better affinities, and possibly a better training environment. I had a plan to make that happen, but it would have to wait until after the test was complete. For now, I would work with what I had.

So, using the small-scale designs created by my clan as a template, I began working on designing a grand formation powerful enough to cover the entire sky of my storage space while also being modular enough that I could expand it as the space grew.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 254 – Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak

During this time, I kept an eye on the leadership council and watched for any progress with the Rank 3 cultivation technique I had given them.

Learning a basic Low-Yellow cultivation technique should have been rather straightforward as there was little additional theoretical knowledge needed to ascend from Master to Grandmaster. All one really needed to be able to do was weave a strong dantian, and while the shape of a dantian introduced additional complexities, the foundational principles involved were the same as those used when crafting one’s meridians.

Getting the weave 100% correct might be a challenge, but with the amount of practice everyone had as Martial Masters, I felt that they should all be able to create a dantian that was good enough to at least make the initial advancement to Grandmaster. Unfortunately, the world didn’t care about my feelings.

After three months of effort, ShouLi, Mo, and the siblings had all made solid progress. They had each spent a considerable amount of time creating and dispersing partially-completed dantians within their bodies, and they would be ready to try ascending before the end of the year. NiangBa and Liang, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky.

For NiangBa, this was because he had avoided even looking at the Rank 3 scroll. After our last meeting, he had handed all his responsibilities off to his deputies and secluded himself to push for mastery of a Peak-Earth Rank 2 cultivation technique.

To assist him, I had subtlety boosted the Earth Essence Gathering Formation whenever he used it, but this didn’t make much of a difference. His affinity was already at peak seven-star, and it was unlikely that he would be able to absorb the copious amount of essence needed to break through to six-star any time soon.

As for Liang, according to the clan’s rules, I shouldn’t have even given him the Rank 3 scroll, and he knew it. He had been trying to master a High-Yellow Rank 2 technique for years, and he was still struggling to form high-quality meridians with it.

So, in order to do things properly, he had dispersed his High-Yellow meridians and recultivated using the Low-Yellow technique he had learned from a memory orb. This took him over two months of hard work to accomplish, so he hadn’t had much time to spend on mastering the Rank 3 technique. However, while it was still early yet, it was already looking like he wouldn’t be able to succeed.

Even though the Low-Yellow Rank 3 technique didn’t require much knowledge beyond what he already possessed, Liang could barely understand even the most basic information contained in the scroll. He was only barely able to make small amounts of progress by constantly repeating every single step countless times.

His low lightning affinity wasn’t helping him, but that wasn’t the real issue. The bigger problem was his low level of talent. It was like something was actively blocking him from learning knowledge he wasn’t supposed to have.

I could make a System purchase to help him with this, but that would only help Liang, and this was a problem that countless members of my clan would face in the future. The only reliable, repeatable way I had found around these mental blocks was to inject people with knowledge via memory orbs. For whatever reason, knowledge from orbs didn’t seem to have the same restrictions that knowledge from scrolls had.

I would give Liang a bit more time to try and learn the technique on his own, but neither of us had much hope that he would succeed.

With one group nearing their ascension to Grandmaster and Liang losing hope of being able to succeed without the help of a memory orb, I temporarily switched my focus from working on the illusory sky formation to upgrading various buildings around the mountain.

First up was the Technique Hall.

This was the easiest one to tackle since all I needed to do was add on another floor and construct a few bookcases. Once this was complete, I filled its shelves with all manner of different cultivation, martial, and profession techniques.

Finally, I pulled out 16 memory orbs. I was running low on orbs by this point, but as Liang had shown me, without these orbs, some people would find the path to Grandmaster forever beyond their reach.

I then selected one Low-Yellow Rank 3 cultivation technique from my mental library for each element. These techniques all had the same effect. They would reduce the mental effects of a cultivator’s previous techniques while also reducing the cultivator’s overall strength. These were basic techniques that a person could use to begin learning how to cultivate as a Grandmaster.

“System, imbue these memory orbs with all the information needed to be able to cultivate these nine techniques. As before, the orbs should contain all the knowledge I possess that could help a person master the given technique as well as any relevant ancillary knowledge.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 900 million credits. 610,405,430,897 credits remaining.

Then, I motioned to the remaining seven orbs.

“System, I want these orbs to contain Rank 3 knowledge for herbalism, alchemy, formations, refining, beast taming, talismans, and illusions. They should contain all the information that would be expected of an expert from this continent.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 70 billion credits. 540,405,430,897 credits remaining.

After adding the orbs to the shelves and installing formations to protect them, the final upgrade to the Technique Hall was complete.

While expanding the Technique Hall had been rather simple, building the equivalent of a Rank 3 Cultivation Hall was far more challenging.

Over the past few years, formation specialists had constructed dozens of Rank 1 and 2 Qi Gathering Formations throughout Mount Jiang. The ambient qi in the Wastes was already less dense than in other parts of the world, and these formations had only made matters worse. It had gotten so bad that the leadership council had stepped in and stopped the practice of building private formations in people’s apartments.

This is all to say that placing a half dozen or so Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formations anywhere near Mount Jiang would not have been a good idea.

To get around this, I considered spacing the new Rank 3 formations out in a large circle surrounding the mountain. If they were placed in fortified locations an hour’s run from the mountain, then they should be able to operate at full power without causing any additional problems.

However, after a bit of thought, I dismissed this idea. Even if these formations were only an hour away, I didn’t like the idea of my people going out into the wilderness alone to train.

As Martial Grandmasters with solid foundations, they shouldn’t run into any trouble out there, but for the time being, I wanted to keep everyone together as much as possible. After all, if people started spending long stretches of time away from the mountain, how were they going to join in on Elder TaiZu’s machinations?

Considering this, I decided to eschew the standard Qi Gathering Formation. Instead, I created a new style of formation that used spirit fires to convert spirit stones into pure qi. By controlling the flow of energy through these formations, I was able to maintain a qi balance on the upper end of what would normally be expected from a Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formation.

Using spirit stones for basic cultivation like this was not viable in the long term. The cost of producing the qi needed to ascend just a single level was astronomical. Because of this, I would have to put strict limits on how often someone could use these formations, and with any luck, I would only need to maintain them for a year or two. By then, the situation with Elder TaiZu and YuanFeng would be settled, and keeping everyone in one location wouldn’t be as important.

The last building I had to upgrade was the Affinity Hall.

The existing Affinity Halls were facing the same problems that the Cultivation Halls were dealing with. There wasn’t enough essence in the surrounding area.

Because of this, I decided against building a full Rank 3 Affinity Hall. There simply wasn’t much of a point to it. However, I had promised the council a special reward if they managed to break through to Grandmaster without using a memory orb, and for everyone but Liang, it was looking like I would have to follow through on that promise.

So, in order to do this, I first traveled to Dragon Gate City and found a secluded location a bit north of the Su Clan’s main compound. Once there, I constructed several Rank 3 Earth Essence Gathering Formations and set them up to direct the gathered essence into large bricks of quartzite.

After testing a variety of different stones, quartzite had been the best material I could find for storing earth essence. While it wasn’t anywhere close to being as good for earth essence as beryllium oxide was for metal essence, all that meant was that I needed to haul around large blocks instead of small ingots.

With the elevated levels of earth essence in Dragon Gate City, these blocks would quickly gather enough essence to allow my people to break through to six-star in their earth affinities. The only problem was that the formations would completely drain Dragon Gate City of all its earth essence.

I had been hesitant to do this previously because of what it would mean for the people living there. Without access to earth essence, they would be born without any affinity for earth. From what I had observed, this wouldn’t have much, if any, impact on ordinary people, but it would radically change the destiny of those born into the Su Clan.

I would have preferred to avoid this, but with the situation in the Wastes rapidly devolving, I had to take certain measures to advance my clan before it was too late. The members of my leadership council needed to get their affinities as high as possible for what would come next.

The earth essence I took from Dragon Gate City would allow Mo, NiangBa, GuiMing, and GuiAi to all advance their primary affinity.

Unfortunately for Liang, there wasn’t much I could do to help him. I didn’t have a good material for storing lightning essence, and even if I did, I didn’t know of a suitable location to harvest it. He would just have to deal with using a standard Rank 3 formation and accept that his affinity would grow far more slowly than the others.

For ShouLi, though, Mount Jiang was already an excellent source of the water essence she needed, so I had GuiMing open up a cultivation cave for her lower down the mountain where the essence was a bit denser. With the abundant water essence available down there, a single Rank 3 formation wouldn’t have too much of an impact on our activities above.

Once everyone advanced to Grandmaster, I would give them access to these formations as their reward. That would hopefully be enough to set them up for long-term success.

After everything was ready, I called for a meeting of the leadership council. I didn’t bring up the essence formations, and I didn’t tell them about the Cultivation Hall being powered by spirit stones, but I gave them a brief overview of what would be available to them after ascending to Grandmaster.

The news of these additions excited everyone, but the most important part was what came next.

“These improvements should allow you all to advance to Peak Grandmaster with solid, powerful foundations. As long as you work hard, you will quickly become stronger than anyone else in the Wastes, and you will have enough knowledge of the various professions to rival any Grandmaster on the continent.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then, I looked at everyone with a serious expression.

“This is all I can do for you. If you want to advance further, if you want to attempt to rise to the realm of Martial Lord or beyond, you can only rely on yourselves. As a Grandmaster myself, I have nothing that can assist you with that journey. I can only say that I hope we can work toward that goal together.”

I felt a mix of emotions from them when I said this, but thankfully, no one immediately turned hostile. I could only hope the rest of the clan would respond the same way.

Chapter 255 – Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Near the end of the year, the clan held its second annual competition to select new elders. This time, however, the atmosphere surrounding the event wasn’t nearly as lively as it had been the first time. This was because the positions up for grabs were for the workshops.

The reason for this muted enthusiasm wasn’t because there was a lack of interested participants. Nearly everyone in the clan was skilled in at least one profession, and the workshops were considered an important hub of activity on the mountain. There were more than a few ambitious youths who were looking to use this competition to make a name for themselves.

Instead, the lack of enthusiasm was because the method Mo had settled on for choosing the new Master of the Workshops wouldn’t be nearly as exciting to watch as the tournament for Arena Master had been.

Mo had decided that the most important ability for an elder of the workshops to possess was the ability to properly analyze the items people produced. So, each person vying for a seat as an elder would be shown a series of items and be asked to appraise them. Those who did the best job would become elders. Unfortunately, while this might be a good method for choosing elders, it didn’t easily lend itself to the spectacle that people were craving.

Low entertainment value aside, there was an important problem that Mo had to address for this competition to even be feasible.

Each contestant would be shown the same series of items, and a panel of deacons from the workshops would then have to judge who had given the most correct, complete appraisal of each item. For this to work, these judges needed correct, detailed information about every item that was going to be appraised. This was a bit of a problem since the only people who were qualified to produce such detailed information were the competitors themselves.

How was this panel supposed to judge the appraisals of people who possessed more knowledge and understanding than they did?

After failing to find a solution to this problem, Mo eventually came and asked me to solve it for him.

While I wanted to help, my knowledge of most professions was only superficial. Outside of pills and formations, I would have as hard of a time appraising things as anyone else in the clan.

I did have an extensive knowledge of herbs, but nearly everything I knew came from the perspective of an alchemist, not an herbalist. I might be able to estimate an herb’s potency and list its medicinal properties, but I was sure that a proper herbalist would care about things I had never even considered before.

Also, while I had purchased knowledge of talisman making and had spent over a decade studying refining, my knowledge of these topics wasn’t much different from what the members of my clan had gained from the memory orbs. I simply didn’t have the exhaustive experience needed to be able to give detailed analyses of such items.

So, in order to help Mo out, I made a few purchases from the System. They weren’t too expensive, and I would eventually want them anyway, so there was no reason not to go ahead and buy them.

“System, I want to purchase detailed analysis abilities for Rank 3 herbs, talismans, beasts, refined items, illusions, and gu.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 600 million credits. 539,805,430,897 credits remaining.

“Also, upgrade my Rank 3 pill appraisal ability so that it gives me more detailed information.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 50 million credits. 539,755,430,897 credits remaining.

With these abilities in place, I made a trip to the Blue Wind Pavilion in Dragon Gate City and made a series of purchases for random items from Rank 1 to Rank 3.

While most of what I needed was available there, illusion formations were a bit more difficult to come by in the Wastes. Not only that, but I was also told that finding the variety of Rank 3 illusions formation plates I was looking for would be pretty much impossible in any of the surrounding empires. I could hire a team of illusionists and formation specialists to make them for me, but that would require time I didn’t have.

To get the formation plates I needed before the end of the year, I was forced to special order them from the headquarters of the Blue Wind Pavilion in Blue Wind City.

Special ordering formation plates wasn’t exactly cheap, but to me, the cost of a few spirit stones for half a dozen Rank 3 formations was rather insignificant. However, the cost of hiring a Martial Lord to deliver them to the edge of the Wastes on a Rank 5 wind horse was simply extortionate.

I wasn’t exactly a master of planning myself, so it was difficult for me to place too much blame on Mo for not foreseeing the need for these formations ahead of time, but I would need to have a talk with him about requesting necessary supplies in advance in the future.

Once I had everything in hand, I used my various analysis abilities to write up a detailed description of each item.

Without the aid of a blessing, there was no chance that anyone on the entire continent would be able to match the level of detail provided by my new abilities. For example, the enhanced pill analysis ability not only showed the efficacy of the final product, but it also gave a pill’s theoretical maximum efficacy based on the herbs involved and the processes used while concocting it.

To ensure the competition’s fairness, I placed the descriptions of each item into a sealed envelope which the judges would only be allowed to open after all the competitors had submitted their final answers.

On the day of the competition for Master of the Workshops, the arena at the center of the plateau was converted into a stage for professionals to display their skills for everyone to see.

For some of the professions, such as alchemy and herbalism, this was bound to be rather boring. An herb would be placed on a table, the competitors would write down everything they could about it, and then the judges would review their answers. There simply wasn’t much to see.

Acknowledging this, the council had arranged things to try and make things as entertaining as possible.

Key to this were the illusion formations I had purchased. None of them had any offensive components, so spectators were free to visit and experience them throughout the day.

On the flip side, the demon beasts I had purchased for the beast taming portion of the competition had been seen as a disappointment. The only beasts easily purchased in the Wastes had been farm animals, and no one cared much about getting to see a few cows and pigs.

As for the format of the competition, one outer elder would first be chosen for each of the seven professions represented in the clan. Then, these seven would compete against Mo for the position of inner elder. If one of the outer elders was victorious, then the person who had placed second in the previous competition would be elevated to outer elder and Mo would step down from his leadership duties.

I watched each of these competitions, but I wasn’t too invested in them. It didn’t make any difference to me who the new outer elder for the herbalists was, and I felt like I had never even seen most of the people competing for the spot of the refining elder before.

When it came time to select the elders for the illusionists and formation specialists, I was a bit more interested since I had worked with many of the competitors while designing the illusory sky formation, but I wasn’t invested in any one particular person winning.

However, when the alchemy competition began, I was shocked when I saw one of the competitors.

The first person who stepped forward to compete was RuLan, Mo’s wife. On its own, this wouldn’t have been too surprising, but upon seeing her…

While I had used roots to burrow through the entirety of Mount Jiang and keep track of everything that was going on, I made a conscious effort not to spy on anyone’s private lives. I made slight exceptions for YuanFei and TaiZu, but in general, I had no interest in being some kind of voyeur. This was especially true when it came to any bedroom-related activities.

So, when RuLan stepped forward for the alchemy competition with a bulging belly, my jaw dropped as I realized that Mo was about to be a father.

This wouldn’t be the first baby born on Mount Jiang. Every year, the number of young mothers in the clan had only increased. However, this was the first time in any of my lives that someone I felt any connection to was going to have a child.

Seeing this, I wanted to get Mo a gift, but more importantly, I wanted RuLan to win the competition.

As it turned out, the judges for the alchemy competition ignored pretty much everything I had written on the answer sheets. They only focused on who had labeled the most pills correctly and whose listed efficacies were closest to correct.

This wasn’t because they didn’t care about the rest of the details. It was because the competitors hadn’t been able to deduce any of it.

In the end, RuLan secured a narrow victory and became the new outer elder for the alchemists.

After all the individual competitions were over, the new outer elders competed against Mo.

Mo lost to every single one of these experts.

He wasn’t as knowledgeable about alchemy as RuLan, and he wasn’t as informed about formations as the young man who had won that competition.

However, after all the results were calculated, Mo came out as the ultimate victor. He wasn’t as knowledgeable as these specialists in their particular field, but the breadth of his knowledge spanned all seven professions, something that no one on stage could compete with.

With the competition for Master of the Workshops complete, everything returned to its normal routine, and several weeks passed by without incident. The start of the new year came and went, and it was soon time for the Su Clan’s annual training camp.

After YuanFei’s departure, I wasn’t sure if everything would still proceed as normal or not, and even if it did, I wasn’t sure if I would still be welcome. With YuanFei under my protection, YuanFeng couldn’t be too happy with me, after all. However, since my goal was to stir the pot, I went ahead and visited the training compound to see what would happen.

To my surprise, YuanKong, third son of the former Patriarch, stepped in to fulfill the role of his brother, and everything proceeded as if nothing had changed.

YuanKong was even more inept at controlling his qi than YuanFei had been, and there were far more children present this year than I had ever seen before, so the blessing ceremony was a small catastrophe. YuanKong’s improperly directed energy caused more than one child to scream out in pain, and I was certain that most of the children past the first couple of rows hadn’t been awakened at all, but I held my tongue and let the clan handle things as they saw fit. If YuanKong couldn’t manage the training camp properly, it would only make my job of recruiting Disciples easier.

To my slight dismay, while YuanKong had done a terrible job of replacing YuanFei, the clan’s Second Elder was the same old man who had been there for decades, and he kept everything running as smoothly as it always had.

So, at the end of the three-month training camp, I was only able to convince 89 of the 134 Disciples to join me.

During all this time, neither YuanKong nor YuanFeng made any moves against me, and I was almost starting to think that they had decided to write off any plans to punish me for sheltering YuanFei and the Grand Elder. However, just as I was about to leave, YuanKong paid me a visit.

After taking a seat in my sitting room, he got right to the point.

“Prince Fang, the Su Clan has benefited greatly from the pills you have provided us over the years, and this has kindled a great love of alchemy in the Patriarch. Because of this, he has recently invested a considerable number of resources into training our Disciples in the hope that we will be able to nurture several talented alchemists of our own.”

I stroked my chin as I considered YuanKong’s words.

“Are you suggesting that the Su Clan no longer needs the resources I can provide?”

“Not at all. We are more than happy to continue our partnership. All I am saying is that we have begun nurturing several promising young alchemists.” YuanKong gave me a predatory smile. “As such, we would be interested in an exchange of pointers. Growth comes through competition, so the Patriarch has suggested that our clan’s alchemists should compete with the alchemists in your retinue.”

I furrowed my brow in confusion. Why would they think they would be able to compete with a group of alchemists who could make Perfect Pills?

“Are you sure?”

YuanKong nodded. “Yes, but to make things interesting, the Patriarch has suggested that this should be a competition between the members of the Su Clan who have joined your retinue and those who have stayed behind. This way, we can test both the skill of the individuals as well as the talent of their teachers.”

I wanted to laugh, but I restrained myself. Instead, I narrowed my eyes in feigned suspicion.

Just as I was about to respond, YuanKong held up a hand.

“Don’t be too quick to reject. The Patriarch has also suggested that we make a small wager on this competition that you might be interested in.” A glint appeared in YuanKong’s eyes. “If the Su Clan wins, you will hand over the traitors Su YuanFei, Su Heng, and Su TaiZu.”

“And if the members of my ‘retinue’ win?”

YuanKong clapped his hands, and a servant walked in with a large jade box.

After taking this box from the servant, YuanKong held it up to show me what was inside.

“If you win, you will get the very thing that you came all the way to the Wastes to find. You will receive an Earth Dragon’s Tongue Fruit.”

I couldn’t hold back my laughter any longer, and a hearty chuckle escaped from my lips. After wiping a tear from my eye, I nodded in agreement.

“Deal. Let’s compete.”

Chapter 256 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Since Mo was the newly reconfirmed Master of the Workshops, I sent him to Dragon Gate City to negotiate the details of the alchemy competition with YuanKong. By doing this, I showed my trust in the clan’s appointed leaders, sent the message that YuanKong was beneath my station, and proved to everyone that I was afraid of the potential traps that might be waiting for me at YuanFeng’s base of operations.

Overall, I was happy with how my actions would be interpreted, but I was a bit worried about Mo’s safety. As a newly ascended Grandmaster, he would be able to defend himself against most threats in the Wastes, but the Su Clan had more than enough high-level Grandmasters who were capable of suppressing him.

To combat this, I sent Bao to act as Mo’s bodyguard during these negotiations. While Bao had never spent much time on martial arts, he was a Peak Grandmaster with a foundation that could rival anyone on the continent. Also, his ability to control plants and wood qi made him a far deadlier threat than most might assume. If he had to fight against the combined might of both the Su Clan and the Rising Sun Empire, Bao might not be able to win, but only someone with exceptional skills would be able to keep him from escaping.

So, it came as no surprise at all when one week after departing, Mo and Bao safely returned to the mountain.

The agreement they reached with the Su Clan was that the alchemy competition was to be held in Dragon Gate City three months before the start of the new year. The competition would have three rounds, one between Disciples, one between Masters, and one between Grandmasters, and all competitors would need to be members of the Su Clan by blood. Whichever side won two of these three rounds would be declared the victor.

This format put us at a slight disadvantage since we didn’t actually have any Grandmaster Alchemists in our clan, but since Mo had agreed to it, I would trust his judgment.

Six months later, I arrived in Dragon Gate City with a small entourage following behind me.

First, were Mo and ShouLi, who were there to represent the council.

Behind them were our three competitors. I wasn’t familiar with the Disciple- and Master-level participants, Hong and Chang, but our Grandmaster Alchemist was someone I had met several times by this point, Elder RuLan, Mo’s wife.

Not long after the start of the year, RuLan had given birth, and while managing a newborn had to have taken up a lot of her time, she had still managed to push forward and ascend to Grandmaster. With only a few months of experience as a Grandmaster, I wasn’t sure how much of the Rank 3 alchemy knowledge from the memory orb she would have been able to internalize, but as the only Grandmaster Alchemist in the entire clan, she was the only person eligible for that slot in the competition.

Finally, at the rear of our procession were TaiZu and YuanFei who were flanked by a couple of their loyal Grandmaster bodyguards. Neither of them had been too happy when they had learned about this competition, but there was nothing they could do to stop it. If they didn’t follow my lead in this, then they would have to leave the mountain, and neither was willing to do that.

After entering the city, our group slowly made its way to the large public square where I had once watched warriors fight during the Dragon Gate Festival. A large stage had been placed in the middle of this square, but only two small alchemy workbenches sat atop it.

Large wooden bleachers had been constructed along three sides of this stage. These bleachers had been formed from roughhewn wooden boards that had been sanded down enough to remove any risk of splinters but not enough to keep clothing from snagging on them. In more prosperous cities, even poorer members of society would have turned their noses up at such austere accommodations, but the well-dressed spectators who were packed in tight to watch the competition didn’t seem to mind.

Along the fourth side of the stage, an opulent, colorful viewing platform had been erected. This platform was draped in red silks that had been embroidered with golden threads. Small golden figurines adorned the tops of each pole that held up a silk awning that protected those on the platform from the harsh rays of the sun.

In contrast to the tightly packed bleachers, this large platform held only three chairs. Each of the chairs had been made from high-Rank wood and carved with various fantastical designs, but the chair in the center of these three was far more extravagant than the other two. It was formed from a Rank 5 wood that even a Martial Lord would have difficulty manipulating, and thin lines of a silvery metal coiled around each piece of exposed woodwork.

Not only would this metal prevent wood cultivators from turning the chair against the person who sat in it, but it would also provide a means of attack and defense as long as the person who occupied it was a metal cultivator.

By the time my group arrived, the three chairs on this platform had already been occupied. YuanFeng, the Su Clan’s new Patriarch, sat off to the left.

A soft growl escaped from ShouLi the moment she saw YuanFeng. In the past, ShouLi had referred to YuanFei as ‘uncle,’ so I had assumed YuanFeng was her father. Since then, I had learned that she was actually his granddaughter, and from the way she reacted upon seeing him, it was clear there was no love lost between the two of them.

Setting the family drama to the side, I looked at the others on the platform.

The chair on the right was occupied by the man I now recognized as Prince Yangci of the Red Sun Kingdom. Between them, sitting in the position of the host, was Third Prince Yang of the Rising Sun Empire.

The Third Prince’s presence here wasn’t much of a surprise, but I wasn’t entirely sure of his purpose. He clearly wanted to support YuanFeng, but his motivations might go deeper than that. There was a chance that he aimed to expose my title of Prince of the Proud Mountain Kingdom as fraudulent, but there was also a chance that he was politically opposed to the Proud Mountain Kingdom and wanted to use this opportunity to attack it through me.

In the end, though, none of this made any difference. If the Third Prince opposed me, I would fight back against him. I didn’t need to know what his true motivations were.

After appraising the situation, I had an important choice to make.

YuanFeng and the Third Prince hadn’t prepared anywhere for me to sit. The group of competitors from the Su Clan had taken up a position along the base of the arena beneath the Third Prince’s viewing platform, and a similar waiting area had been set up on the opposite side of the arena for my team. From the way everything was laid out, it appeared as if they intended me to stand next to my competitors at the side of the arena.

This was a slap in the face, and I had to decide how I was going to respond to it.

An argument could be made that I should barge my way onto the viewing platform and take a place alongside the princes, but doing so would mean either assuming a position subservient to the Third Prince or challenging him directly.

Another option was to do something similar to what I had done in the Su Clan in the past. I could use my qi to push aside the bleachers opposite the prince’s platform and construct a new viewing stand of my own. However, this wouldn’t just be challenging the Third Prince, it would be a direct insult to both him and the Rising Sun Empire.

After thinking through my options and considering what I was trying to accomplish here, I decided to take the path of the coward and assume the position that I had been given next to my clan members by the side of the arena.

When Elder TaiZu saw this, he couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose in disgust. When surrounded by hicks in the Wastes, I had been bold and domineering, but when confronted by someone from the empire, I tucked my tail between my legs. Hopefully, this convinced him that I wasn’t nearly as ferocious as he had thought.

Once our group was in position, YuanKong stepped onto the stage and played the role of announcer.

“Welcome, everyone. Under the guidance of Patriarch YuanFeng, our Su Clan has made great strides in mastering the art of alchemy. Today, we have gathered you all here to witness what our clan has accomplished.”

The spectators in the audience clapped politely at this, and YuanKong took the opportunity to give them a slight bow, accepting their praise.

Once the place quieted down, he motioned to the side of the stage where a small platform with a simple wooden chair had been placed.

“Please allow me to introduce the judge for this competition who has graciously agreed to lend his expertise in evaluating the pills both sides produce. The head manager of Dragon Gate City’s Blue Wind Pavilion, Manager Chen WuJing.”

As WuJing walked out from behind the Third Prince’s viewing platform and headed to his position at the side of the stage, the crowd burst into uproar. The head manager of the Pavilion was not someone who just anyone could see, so having him preside over this competition was a huge coup for the Su Clan.

After sitting down, WuJing silently surveyed his surroundings and took in the competitors from both sides. As he looked at the Su Clan’s alchemists, he did his best to maintain a stony expression, but I could see hints of scorn in it. In contrast, when he turned and looked at the competitors on my side, his brow furrowed in contemplation.

However, when he saw me standing behind them, his expression froze. After so many years, he likely wouldn’t be able to recognize the youth who had presented him with the token of a Sovereign, but the way his blessing recognized me was likely unmistakable.

Gripping the armrests of his chair, WuJing started to stand, but I gave him the slightest shake of my head possible.

Realizing what he was doing, WuJing sucked in a sharp breath and quickly diverted his attention back to the center of the stage.

Not noticing this interplay, YuanKong gave WuJing a bow and then motioned to the areas next to the arena where both groups of competitors were waiting.

“Let us all welcome the Disciple Alchemists on stage for the first round of the competition.”

On the Su Clan’s side of the arena, a young man quickly jumped up and walked to his workstation. On my side, Hong, who had only been in my clan for a little over a year, looked at Mo with a frightened expression. Mo gave him a smile of encouragement and patted him on the back, forcing him forward and onto the stage.

Once both young men were in place, the competitor from the Su Clan cupped his fists in a martial salute and bowed to WuJing.

“I am Su JinHai, a 28-year-old Disciple Alchemist, and a personal disciple of Grandmaster Alchemist Su RuDi.”

Across from him, Hong tried to mimic his movements, but his nervousness made this look a bit unnatural.

“I… I’m Hong. 17.”

A ripple of laughter spread among the crowd at this.

YuanKong gave Hong a disdainful glance and then returned to the matter at hand.

“The primary task of a Disciple Alchemist is to make as many pills as possible to train their abilities. As such, for this first round, the competition will focus on speed. Each alchemist will be given 30 minutes to concoct as many Rank 1 Basic Qi Gathering Pills as possible. The quality of these pills does not matter. The only goal is to make as many of them as you can.”

Two servants walked forward and placed large crates of blue peonies next to each competitor.

Then, YuanKong activated a formation set beneath each workbench.

“As I’m sure everyone is aware, performing alchemy demands a great deal of focus and attention, making concocting pills in front of a large audience exceptionally difficult. As such, these formations will block out all sights and sounds from the surroundings, allowing both alchemists to fully focus on their craft.”

I quickly checked the formations using energy vision, but despite my skepticism, they looked legitimate. There was nothing that would give any kind of edge to the Su Clan.

Once everything was ready, YuanKong raised a hand and then sliced it down with a sharp cutting motion.

“Begin!”

Both young men immediately set to work.

Hong carefully picked a blue peony from his crate, placed it into his alchemy furnace, melted its physical structure, and burned away its impurities.

From the scrolls and memory orbs in the Technique Hall, he would have learned several ways to maximize the efficacy of a pill, but he didn’t use them. Such techniques would take time, and this was a competition focused on speed.

As quickly as he could, Hong burned away all the flower's impurities while using his wood affinity to manipulate the herb’s medicinal energy to reach the toxins hidden inside. Then, he condensed the energy into a pill. Once it was ready, he took the pill out of his furnace and placed it onto a jade plate that was sitting on his workbench.

As Hong was doing his best to move as quickly as possible, the efficacy of the pill he made was slightly substandard, but for someone who had only been practicing alchemy for a year, his level of skill was incredibly impressive.

Opposite Hong, Su JinHai was taking a far different strategy.

As soon as the competition started, he grabbed a flower from his crate at random and threw it into his furnace. Then, he melted its physical structure, made a quick job of destroying a few impurities, and condensed the energy into a pill. From his actions, it almost seemed as if he had a blessing for knowing the maximum amount of toxins that medicinal energy could contain while still being able to be condensed into a pill.

Pills quickly began to accumulate on the jade plate in front of Su JinHai, and I couldn’t help but feel that this was partially my fault. For years, I had instilled the message that only Perfect pills were acceptable into every alchemist in my clan, so the thought of purposefully concocting a Low-Purity pill was anathema to them.

If Hong had been able to see what Su JinHai was doing, he might have realized his mistake and changed his strategy. However, with a formation in place to block him from seeing anything in his surroundings, Hong could only focus on working as fast as possible.

As soon as 30 minutes had elapsed, YuanKong waved a hand and disabled the formations.

“Stop! Competitors, back away from your workstations.”

Four pills sat on the jade plate in front of Hong. Eighteen were on the plate in front of Su JinHai.

Seeing this, YuanKong smiled and motioned for them to take the plates to where WuJing was seated.

“Please, allow our esteemed judge to determine the victor of this round of the competition.”

The winner was clear to everyone, but Hong and Su JinHai did as commanded.

Upon inspecting the pills presented to him, WuJing’s upper lip curled in disgust.

He looked at me, and I gave him a slight shake of my head.

Then, he turned to look at the two boys.

“Disciple Alchemist Hong has crafted four Perfect Rank 1 Basic Qi Gathering Pills. Su JinHai has crafted eleven Low-Purity Basic Qi Gathering Pills and seven trash pills. The winner is Su JinHai.”

Chapter 257 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Grandmaster Peak

With his victory secured, Su JinHai walked back to his place beneath the Third Prince’s viewing stand where his fellow competitors were waiting for him. Upon arriving he gave a deep bow to the Su Clan’s Grandmaster Alchemist, Rudy.

As he accepted the bow, Rudy looked rather self-satisfied. After signaling for Su JinHai to rise, Rudy turned and gave me a smug smile, and I nodded my congratulations to him.

When Hong returned to our side of the arena, he lowered his head toward Mo.

“I’m sorry. I failed.”

Mo just laughed at this. “Don’t worry so much. You proved yourself a far better alchemist than that idiot over there. That was worth throwing away one round of this competition.”

To my side, I could feel that TaiZu and YuanFei strongly disagreed with this sentiment, but they kept their silence.

With both competitors back in their designated locations YuanKong retook center stage.

“Let us welcome the Master Alchemists on stage for the second round of the competition.”

Like before, the Su Clan’s competitor quickly jumped up and walked to his workstation.

On our side, Chang bowed slightly to Mo who patted him on the shoulder.

“Do your best.”

Chang nodded and turned toward the stage. Before he could leave, I spoke up to stop him.

“Listen to the rules of the competition carefully. If there is anything you are unsure about, ask for clarification before the match begins.”

Chang bowed his head to me. “Yes, Patriarch.”

With that, he walked on stage and took up his position at his workbench.

Then, the competitor from the Su Clan introduced himself.

“I am Su WuLong, a 49-year-old Master Alchemist, a personal disciple of Grandmaster Alchemist Su RuDi, and a nominal disciple of Pill Lord Fu HaiBo of the Rising Sun Empire.”

Chang let out a small snort at this and turned to WuJing.

“I’m Chang.”

There was a slight pause as everyone expected him to say more, but nothing else was forthcoming.

After blinking in surprise, YuanKong retook the floor.

“Where Disciple Alchemists must focus on concocting as many pills as possible, Master Alchemists begin working to make their pills as powerful as possible. For this portion of the competition, you will each concoct a Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pill. The winner will be the one whose pill has the highest efficacy.”

YuanKong clapped his hands, and a group of Disciples carried over five tables. Five herbs were needed to concoct the Meridian Builder Pill, and each table held more than a dozen copies of one of these five herbs.

“This is not just a competition of your ability to concoct pills. At the start of the match, you must both come forward and select which herbs you wish to use. This will test your eyesight and your ability to determine good herbs from bad.”

I flipped on my energy vision and scanned the herbs on the tables. The merest glance was enough to expose the Su Clan’s plot.

On each table, one herb contained far more energy than any of the others. As long as the Su Clan’s competitor knew which ones to choose, he could run forward, grab them, and be nearly guaranteed to make a pill that was far superior to anything the others were capable of producing.

The Su Clan’s plot was mildly clever, but they had made a mistake when they chose WuJing to be the judge. Allowing such a farce to take place under his watch would sully the name of the Blue Wind Pavilion, and if for no other reason than to safeguard his own future, he couldn’t allow that to happen.

However, before taking action, he looked in my direction. Once again, I subtly shook my head.

Seeing this, WuJing frowned, but he relaxed back in his chair to watch and see what unfolded.

This time, the more keen-eyed members of the Su Clan had noticed this strange interaction. This wasn’t because they had grown any more insightful, though. It was because they were carefully studying WuJing’s reaction to see if he would say anything about what they had done.

When WuJing looked at me, they had become nervous, but upon seeing my reaction, they just seemed confused.

YuanKong didn’t let that stop him. Since no one raised an immediate protest, he raised his hand and slashed it down.

“Begin!”

Su WuLong rushed forward and quickly snatched the five herbs containing the overly potent medicinal energy.

For his part, Chang didn’t seem to care. He walked forward and leisurely sifted through the herbs on offer as if he were at a vegetable market.

The reason I hadn’t raised any objections to the Su Clan’s cheating was that it had simply been too inept. The ‘special herbs’ contained abundant energy, yes, but it wasn’t balanced. There was too much variance in the power of the five herbs, so the efficacy of the final pill would be limited. Also, while the other herbs on offer were weaker, there was a combination that, if used properly, would produce a decent result.

Chang was in no hurry to pick out his ingredients. He carefully sorted through every herb on each table and compared them to each other.

It took him more than 15 minutes to finally make up his mind, but once he did, he quickly got to work.

Two hours later, the young men placed their pills on their jade plates and presented them to WuJing.

WuJing first lifted Su WuLong’s pill and studied it carefully. Then, he studied Chang’s.

He was extremely meticulous in his analysis. He wasn’t willing to make a single mistake.

Finally, he placed both pills back down on the table in front of him and addressed the crowd.

“Master Alchemist Su WuLong has crafted a High-Purity Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pill with 114% efficacy.” The crowd began to mutter in surprise at this, but WuJing continued. “Master Alchemist Chang has crafted a Perfect Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pill with 116% efficacy. The winner is Master Chang.”

On the opposite side of the arena, I saw Rudy lurch as if he wanted to shout out in protest. Having seen WuJing glance toward me previously, he no doubt wanted to accuse the man of some kind of conspiracy. However, before Rudy could open his mouth, a powerful wave of qi emanated from the Third Prince and froze him in place.

Gritting his teeth in anger Rudy pushed back his shoulders and shifted to a stiffly upright posture. Then, he glared at me. That glare carried a hint of menace that was underlain with a supreme confidence in his ability to win the final competition.

When Su WuLong returned to his side of the arena and tried to offer an apology, Rudy didn’t even look at him.

As for Chang, he walked back to our side of the arena with a casual gait. He looked as if he felt that nothing that had happened was of any significance.

After sending a group of Disciples to return the workstations to a pristine condition, YuanKong walked back to the center of the stage and bowed to the Third Prince. Then, he turned to address the audience.

“With each side having won one of the previous matches, the competition comes down to the battle between Grandmasters. Where the Disciples have shown the efficiency of their pill making, and where the Masters have proven the quality of their creations, the competition between Grandmasters will be on what many would consider the most important aspect of a pill, its value.”

YuanKong gestured to either side of the stage.

“For this final round, let us welcome those who are at the pinnacle of alchemy to the stage. The Grandmaster Alchemists!”

RuLan and Rudy both calmly walked to their workbenches.

Once there, Rudy was the first to step forward, and an unmistakable hint of anger tinged his voice as he addressed WuJing. “I am Su RuDi, a 65-year-old Grandmaster Alchemist, and the personal disciple of Pill Lord Hu LuKui of the Flowing Mountain Sect.”

RuLan cupped her fists to WuJing and bowed. “I am RuLan, a 32-year-old Grandmaster Alchemist.”

RuLan’s age, youthful appearance, and claim of being a Grandmaster Alchemist made most of the spectators look at her with a hint of suspicion. Not WuJing, however. He only looked excited at seeing a young Grandmaster Alchemist with no stated affiliation.

Introductions complete, YuanKong took control once more.

“As you are both Grandmasters, it would be unfair of us to limit what options are available to you. As such, you may use any herbs you possess to concoct any pill you wish. Once your pills are complete, Manager Chen will be responsible for determining whose pill is more valuable.” He opened his arms in a wide, welcoming gesture. “Please, select your ingredients.”

RuLan looked around confused, unsure of exactly what to do, but Rudy didn’t hesitate. He walked to the side of the arena, and a young man handed him a large jade box.

Upon returning to his workstation, Rudy opened the box and displayed its contents.

Most of the herbs inside were rather mundane and held little value, but sitting atop them was a large, reddish-brown fruit that looked somewhat like an oversized potato. It was an Earth Dragon’s Tongue Fruit.

I could only shake my head. The Su Clan was really pulling out all the stops to try and defeat me.

When RuLan saw this fruit, her response wasn’t nearly so sanguine. Her eyes widened in fright, and her breathing sped up.

She turned to look at Mo.

Mo gave her a slight smile, closed his eyes, and nodded. Then, he reached to his side and retrieved several items from the spatial bag I had given him for storing crafting supplies.

Almost no one in the stadium recognized any of the items he pulled out.

One was a yellowed tree branch, one was the broad leaf of some type of fern, and the last was a large bottle containing a greenish-yellow liquid.

When I recognized what that bottle contained, my heart rate skyrocketed. Did Mo know what he was doing? Was he aware of what this would mean?

I looked at RuLan. When she saw what Mo had prepared for her, a tear welled up in her eye, and she smiled at him with loving affection. Seeing this, I decided to let things play out. This would upend my timeline, but that might be for the best.

Instead of grabbing the items immediately, RuLan walked over and hugged Mo while he whispered something into her ear. Then, she picked up her ingredients and returned to her workbench.

Before YuanKong could start the competition, WuJing raised a hand to stop him.

He looked at RuLan and pointed at the bottle of disgusting liquid she had placed on her workbench.

“What is that?”

RuLan gave him a short bow. “The bile of a Rank 2 flame bear.”

WuJing’s breath caught as he stared at her. After a moment, his hand started twitching.

“You intend to use this to make an alchemical pill?”

RuLan nodded. “Yes, Manager Chen.”

This seemed to trouble WuJing, but to the side, Rudy couldn’t help but scoff.

“Rank 2? Are you concocting a Rank 2 pill? This is supposed to be a competition before Grandmasters, not mere Masters. Are you trying to insult me?”

RuLan smiled and bowed her head. “As I understood the instructions, I am supposed to concoct the most valuable pill possible. There was no mention of any requirement that this had to be a Rank 3 pill.”

Rudy just sneered and shook his head.

WuJing, though, looked concerned. “Are you sure?”

RuLan nodded. “Yes, Manager Chen.”

WuJing took a deep breath and held it for several seconds before releasing it. “Very well.”

With WuJing’s permission to proceed, YuanKong took over once more.

“Grandmasters, please begin.”

Off to the side, Rudy began breaking down his ingredients, but my focus remained locked on RuLan.

She first took the yellowed tree branch and stripped it of its bark. Then, she placed the bark in the bottle of bile, allowing the liquid to soak into the wood.

Next, she took out a mortar and pestle and ground the fern leaf into a fine paste. Once the leaf was fully broken down, she added this paste to the bottle of bile.

This started some form of strange chemical reaction, causing crystals to float to the surface of the bile.

Finally, she used her qi to gather these crystals and combined them with the wood of the tree branch in what I would consider the ‘normal’ alchemical process.

I had absolutely no idea what RuLan was doing, but as she worked, I couldn’t help but notice that her deft movements showed an incredibly deep understanding of not just her ingredients but also of the processes needed to best utilize them. Somehow, her knowledge of beast alchemy had leapfrogged mine by several orders of magnitude.

Seeing this, I couldn't help but curse and begin muttering to myself.

“She got the damn enlightenment…”

I had thought that submitting novel recipes to the Dao was a unique benefit of my System, but RuLan was clear evidence that this was absolutely not the case. By holding off on submitting knowledge of beast alchemy, I had allowed this little girl to snipe me…

I was a bit envious, but I wasn’t upset. Having a skilled alchemist push beyond the bounds of what was contained in the memory orbs was exactly the result I had wanted when I set everything up. I just had to hope that I would be able to create different Rank 1 and 2 recipes to get my own enlightenment.

Also, I needed to find time to work on mastering Rank 3 beast alchemy before anyone got there ahead of me.

While Rudy had been able to finish his pill in less than an hour, RuLan spent nearly three. When she was finally done, she placed the completed pill onto her jade plate and took a step back.

YuanKong, who seemed to have become bored from the long wait, cleared his throat. “Competitors, please introduce your pills to us.”

Rudy gave a brilliant smile and bowed toward the Third Prince. “My Prince, this is a Rank 3 Earth Affinity Pill. It is capable of greatly boosting a person’s earth affinity for several hours, granting them a substantial increase in power and making it easier for them to complete breakthroughs in their cultivation.”

The crowd buzzed at this, and hardly anyone was willing to pull their eyes away from Rudy’s pill to see what RuLan had made.

RuLan didn’t care. She just smiled at WuJing.

“This is a Rank 2 Body Tempering Pill. It will permanently enhance the physical strength of anyone who consumes it.”

Rudy and RuLan lifted their jade plates, walked over to WuJing, and placed them on the table in front of him.

YuanKong gestured toward the pills while looking around at the audience.

“We will now ask Manager Chen to carefully evaluate both pills to give us his expert opinion on which one is more valuable. While it is common knowledge that Rank 3 pills are far more valuable than Rank 2 pills, it is possible that little RuLan will surprise us.”

The sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable, but upon hearing it, I could only smile.

While most people in the audience had their eyes fixed on Rudy’s pill, something capable of enhancing one’s affinities, something that must have seemed like a legendary item to them, WuJing’s eyes were locked on RuLan’s Body Tempering Pill, an actual legendary item. From beginning to end, his reaction had shown that he understood not just the value of RuLan’s pill but also the importance of the process she had used to concoct it.

Slowly, WuJing lifted RuLan’s pill and studied it.

From past experience, I didn’t believe that he knew much about alchemy, but as a long-time manager of the Pavilion, both his knowledge of pills and his ability to appraise them were extensive.

Minutes stretched by, and WuJing used his qi to probe RuLan’s pill in great detail. Finally, after the ten-minute mark had come and gone, YuanKong cleared his throat.

“Manager Chen, can you please give us the estimated value of these pills?”

Not allowing his eyes to leave RuLan’s pill for even a second, he waved offhandedly to Rudy’s pill.

“While this Earth Affinity Pill is only Rank 3, its inherent value to cultivators, and the rare ingredients needed to concoct it, raises its price far beyond what is normal for a Rank 3 pill. Typically, the Pavilion would sell such pills for two to three spirit stones. However, the low quality of this pill severely hurts its value. I would estimate that it is only worth five to six hundred thousand gold.”

For many in the crowd, this price was shocking. According to WuJing, a low-quality Earth Affinity Pill was worth several times what even a Perfect ordinary Rank 3 pill would be worth.

However, I could only frown in contemplation.

The true value of a pill that could temporarily raise a person’s affinity would be difficult to ascertain. The herbs needed to concoct it were extremely rare, and its ability to assist Grandmasters in their breakthroughs was undeniable. However, if priced too high, a person would just use their excessive wealth to buy access to earth essence instead, so pricing it at two or three spirit stones seemed a bit generous. After all, pretty much any Grandmaster capable of generating spirit stones wouldn’t need such a pill.

Still, I didn’t speak up to contradict him. Whether two spirit stones or twenty, from WuJing’s reaction, the winner of this competition was obvious.

WuJing held up the Body Tempering Pill for everyone to see.

“This pill… is priceless. As such, I am entirely incapable of estimating its true value.” He turned to RuLan. “I will pay you 50 spirit stones to purchase this pill. That is all my branch of the Pavilion possesses. If you require more, I will request them from the headquarters at the fastest possible speed.”

This pronouncement left the audience stunned, but RuLan understood his meaning. Instead of responding, she looked at me.

How much was that Rank 2 Body Tempering Pill worth? That was a difficult question to answer. A normal cultivator might balk at paying even 100 gold for such a thing. But to an alchemist?

WuJing’s actions showed that he knew exactly what this pill represented. The moment he left this arena, he would head directly to the Pavilion and send a message to a Pill King, a Pill Emperor, or perhaps even the current Blue Wind Sovereign.

He had witnessed a brand new form of alchemy. Having closely watched RuLan’s actions, he could write a report about everything she had done, but would a Pill Emperor believe that some random nobody in the Wastes had done something they had never even heard of before? A report was one thing, but the pill would serve as proof that his report was true.

How many buckets of spirit stones would a Pill Emperor give WuJing for this one pill? If WuJing combined his report with this pill and tried selling it at an auction between Pill Emperors, how many thousands of spirit stones would he be able to get for it?

I doubted he would do any such thing, though. If he leveraged this situation properly, this pill was his ticket out of the Wastes. 50 spirit stones might be a little cheap for such a prize, but letting him have it could be considered a partial repayment for all the help he had given me.

I nodded to RuLan, and she turned back to WuJing.

“Agreed.”

Ever so carefully, WuJing pulled a jade bottle from his storage bag and placed the pill inside it.

“I will have the spirit stones delivered to you immediately.” Then, he turned to look at the Third Prince. “The winner of this competition is Grandmaster Alchemist RuLan.”

The Third Prince didn’t look happy, and I could tell that he hadn’t understood what had happened, but he could sense the seriousness in WuJing’s demeanor. So, gritting his teeth, he waved to YuanFeng.

“Give them the fruit.”

After accepting my prize, I bowed deeply to the Third Prince. Then, I bowed to Rudy.

“Thank you for letting us win.”

Chapter 258 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Once the alchemy competition was over, I didn’t hang around to watch the fallout. I immediately led everyone into a building, set up a quick formation, gave everyone a sleeping pill, stuffed them into my storage space, and silently departed for Mount Jiang. WuJing still owed Rulan 50 spirit stones, but I would pay her out of my stockpile. He could make it up to me later. It was far more important that we vanish before anyone started asking the wrong questions.

The only person at the competition who had seemed to grasp the importance of RuLan’s pill was WuJing, but the Third Prince would have been able to gather enough information from WuJing’s reaction to know that he needed to report what he had seen as soon as possible. Once this news reached the right ears, the Wastes would be flooded with enemy cultivators wishing to discover our secrets.

RuLan’s performance might have won the alchemy competition for us, but it made the further existence of our clan in the Wastes entirely untenable. We were now working under a deadline.

Once we were back on the mountain, I woke everyone up and handed out rewards to each of our competitors, including Hong. While he hadn’t technically won, he had done the clan proud, and I wasn’t one to skimp out on rewards.

After that, I visited Bao and handed him the Earth Dragon’s Tongue Fruit. While a Rank 3 pill for temporarily boosting a person’s earth affinity seemed somewhat pointless to me, the fruit’s effects were unique, and I wanted to see if we could find a more valuable use for it.

Next, I held a meeting with the leadership council. During it, I did my best to maintain the facade that everything was normal, but Mo, at least, sensed that something had changed. He didn’t say anything about it, but he kept a close eye on me and was measuring each of my movements.

Of course, it might not have been my behavior that had made him suspicious. He was at the competition with us, and he had been able to see WuJing’s reaction as easily as anyone else. He had to suspect that the importance of RuLan’s pill had exceeded his expectations.

Once the meeting was over, I disappeared and left everyone to their own devices.

Before everything blew up, I needed my storage space to be as habitable as possible. While it was mostly ready, there was still one major project left to complete, the illusory sky formation.

Over the years, with the help of my clan’s illusionists, I had developed a grand formation that would do what I needed it to do. The central node of this formation would be attached to the exact center of the ceiling of my storage space, and ancillary nodes would be installed into the ceiling at regular intervals. Then, as the space expanded, I would just need to attach new nodes to the newly grown ceiling.

This formation wasn’t exactly perfect. The colors in the space would be slightly unnatural, and the sky would definitely look artificial, but it was good enough for now. I could work on perfecting it later.

However, two issues had held me back from making this design a reality.

First, while I was confident that this formation would work, we had only been able to do small-scale tests on it. This grand formation was well beyond the abilities of the specialists in my clan, and without access to earth qi, I couldn’t carve stones with the precision that this formation required.

Not having access to the right qi was a problem, but I could easily solve that by swapping out my cultivation technique. The real stumbling block was the second problem. I had needed to find some way to attach these formation nodes to the ceiling of my storage space.

This had held me up for a long time, but I had recently figured out a solution.

When I had purchased mastery of my spatial spirit fire seed, I gained a significant amount of knowledge on how to direct the shape of my growing storage space. I had used this knowledge to transform the space from a sphere into a cylinder, and I was actively using it to expand only the edges of this cylinder so that the area inside would grow into a wide, flat disk.

Recently, I had spent time practicing with both the spirit fire and the fire seed to gain more control over them. This led me to understand that my thinking of how to use these flames to shape my storage space had been too simplistic. A Profound-Rank fire might not be powerful enough to do anything too crazy, like expand the space into a fourth dimension, but I could still do more than make simple geometric forms.

After discovering this, I began to practice using the flames of the fire seed to grow small extensions onto my storage space. Originally, I was only doing this around the edges, where the expanding disc would eventually cover over any mistakes I made, but after the alchemy competition, I knew that it was time to push forward. So, after entering secluded meditation, I began my work.

Within my soul, I extended a small tendril of flame from the fire seed and directed it toward the center of my storage space’s ceiling. Then, I used this flame to create a small tube. Once this tube reached a meter in length, I flared the flames to create a large bubble.

When I was done, I was left with a pocket of space two meters in diameter that was connected to the rest of the storage space by a ten-centimeter diameter tube. The tube would let energy flow into and out of the bubble, but anything larger than the tube, such as a formation node, would be trapped inside.

Once this first bubble was complete, I created several more, spaced out at 100-meter intervals. When I was done, the ceiling of my storage space looked like it was covered in a series of tumorous growths. It was ugly, but it would do what I needed it to do.

By placing formation nodes into these bubbles, I would be able to create an illusory sky grand formation that covered my entire storage space. All I had left to do was to make the actual formation.

To make the formation, I first needed to change my cultivation technique and gain access to earth qi, but doing this would drop me back down to Martial Disciple 1, and I would suddenly become the weakest person in the entire clan.

With the soul techniques that I had copied from the Nine Rivers Sect, I would still be able to fight against nearly any Grandmaster on the continent without much effort, but I was the only person who knew that. While I had placed copies of all the soul techniques I knew in the Soul Cultivation Library, no one had spent much time studying them. I didn’t offer any rewards for mastering them, so there wasn’t much point in doing so. Therefore, no one in the clan really understood the dangers of soul combat. Because of this, as far as anyone in the clan would know, the moment I abolished my cultivation base, I would be a chicken waiting to be plucked.

After visiting the elders and taking care of a few minor matters around the mountain, I visited Bao in his garden on the roof of the Soul Cultivation Library.

“Bao, I need to talk to you about something important.” My voice was only slightly louder than it needed to be. “I am about to enter seclusion to change my cultivation technique. This will mean abolishing my foundation and dropping back down to Martial Disciple 1. I will need you to manage things while I’m in my weakened state. I can’t let anyone know about it.”

Bao widened his eyes in concern. “Master, do you need me to protect you? I can stand guard while you cultivate.”

I shook my head. “No, stay here. Work with the council to keep everything running smoothly in my absence. If someone sees you standing guard over me, they will know something is wrong.”

Bao started to turn his head to the right. “But—”

I quickly placed a hand on his shoulder and forced him to return his attention to me.

“I know.” I tried my best to convey a deeper meaning with a mere look, but I could only rely on him figuring things out on his own. “After I enter seclusion, help the council where you can, but allow them to run the clan as they see fit. Don’t interfere if you don’t have to.”

Bao tried to look to his right again, but I used a thread of qi to keep him from turning his head.

Eventually, he nodded. With that, I returned to my house and entered seclusion. I had to hope that Bao had understood my meaning.

The moment I left, the spy that TaiZu had placed to monitor Bao’s activities dashed away to inform his master.

With a wealth of cultivation techniques to choose from, selecting the right one to use was a bit challenging. I needed a technique for cultivating earth qi, but what other considerations were important?

It would be nice to have access to metal qi to practice refining, but if I wanted to keep track of everything happening in the clan, I needed to retain access to wood qi, and I didn’t have any three-element techniques for wood, earth, and metal. Such a combination would have been rather strange.

Earth and wood were what I really needed access to, but while I did have earth-wood dual-element techniques, because this was a destructive combination, these techniques were considered suboptimal as there was no effective way to combine the two types of qi synergistically.

Eventually, I decided on a Peak-Earth wood-fire-earth three-element technique. I had never cultivated a true three-element technique before, so mastering it would take slightly longer than I was comfortable with, but as long as things didn’t get too crazy, I should be able to reach Peak Grandmaster before things fell apart completely.

Satisfied with my choice, I activated a defensive formation around my cultivation room and got to work.

First, I did my best to expel all the qi in my body. While I couldn’t completely drain myself, I needed to get rid of as much qi as I could so that I didn’t lose control of it later.

Then, I disconnected my dantian from my meridians and carefully picked apart its weave. Each time I removed a thread of qi, I allowed it to dissipate completely before moving on to the next.

Once my dantian was dismantled, I began dismantling my meridians.

Finally, I took a Rank 3 Energy Expulsion Pill to wipe away any vestiges of compressed qi that remained in my body.

This process took me an entire four days, and at the end of it, I was a basic mortal once again. As a 49-year-old, if I didn’t quickly begin working to restore my cultivation base, my physical body would begin to age rapidly, and my energy body would begin to calcify.

As no one had appeared to make an issue of my lacking cultivation base, I proceeded to go ahead and practice my new technique.

The technique I had chosen, the Writ of Wood-Burned Earth, was different from the Rank 1 cultivation techniques I had practiced in the past. It treated the body as a single unit, and a single qi vortex was used to draw in energy from every point in the body at once. To do this, a cultivator needed to create a large vortex in their chest and slowly expand it each acupoint they opened.

To start, I created the core of the vortex in the center of my chest, right behind my sternum, and set up earth qi filters on over three dozen acupoints that were scattered around my torso. From there, it was a simple enough matter to use pills and formations to break through to Martial Disciple 2.

However, I couldn’t allow myself to stop. At the moment, I was cultivating pure earth qi, and if I allowed the situation to continue, earth qi would begin invading other parts of my body.

So next, I extended the vortex to my upper right arm where I set up a series of filters for fire qi. This drew in fire qi from the environment and infused it into my muscles. Then, the expanded vortex pulled the energy into my torso where it surrounded the earth qi and stopped it from escaping into my limbs.

Of course, this would only result in fire qi invading my limbs instead, but that was fine.

At this point, I rested for a couple of days and allowed my qi to settle. Without an enlightenment helping me, I needed to be careful and ensure that all my energy was flowing through my body like it was supposed to.

Once I was satisfied, I expanded the vortex to my lower right arm where I set up several filters for wood qi.

As soon as wood qi began entering my body, it reacted with the fire qi that was already there, and a wave of heat lanced through my forearm. Thankfully, as more wood qi built up, it overwhelmed the fire qi, and the fiery pain was replaced with a calm, cooling sensation.

This didn’t last long, though. The vortex in my core began pulling wood qi from my lower arm and sending it to my upper arm. This caused the fiery lance of pain to return, but this time, the abundant wood qi from my lower arm mixed with the ample fire qi in my upper arm, and the pain was an order of magnitude stronger than before.

This pain seemed to last for hours, and I was worried that I had done something wrong, but eventually, the wood-infused fire qi finally reached the earth qi in my core. When it did, a feeling of solidity echoed from my torso, through my upper arm, and to the tips of my fingers.

For just an instant, I almost felt as if I had turned into a statue made of solid stone, but the sensation quickly passed, and I collapsed in a heap. The scroll for this technique had contained vague warnings that it wasn’t for the faint of heart, but I had not expected it to be so damn painful to cultivate.

I had raised my cultivation base back up to Martial Disciple 4, but I had no desire to continue cultivating for the moment. I needed time to let my body adjust. I needed time to forget the pain.

In any case, at this point, it had been over a week since I had entered seclusion. I still hadn’t heard anything from the clan, and I was starting to wonder if my plans had somehow gone awry. I needed to go out and check on things.

Before leaving my chamber, I looked through my storage space, took out a variety of random pills and crafting materials, and placed them all into a storage bag. Then, I placed my jade token into my storage space and swapped it out with a new one that I had only recently created.

After double-checking everything, I nodded in satisfaction, stood, and walked outside.

As I walked toward the door of my house, I noticed a formation that had been set up on its threshold. Someone had done their best to mask it, but they had overestimated their ability.

Smiling, I walked outside.

The moment I passed through the door, the formation activated and sent a pulse of qi down into the mountain. While I had cultivated a bit of wood qi in my right hand, it wasn’t enough to fully access my root network, so I couldn’t witness what occurred next, but it was easy to guess that a certain someone had been informed that I had exited seclusion.

Feigning ignorance, I calmly walked out from my house, which sat on an elevated outcropping, and headed down onto the main plateau below. As I did so, dozens of people swarmed toward my location.

When I caught sight of TaiZu, he looked apprehensive, but after studying me briefly, he set his jaw and approached with confidence.

As I passed by the location where I had placed the stele containing the rules for becoming a clan elder, a horde of cultivators encircled me. TaiZu and YuanFei had brought all their Grandmasters to greet me.

Most of the people surrounding me were from the groups that these two had brought to the mountain with them, but there were also a few of our outer elders mixed in with them.

Once everyone was in place, TaiZu stepped forward and bowed his head slightly in my direction. “Prince Fang, we wish to discuss the rules of the clan with you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, is that so? What is the issue?”

TaiZu gestured toward the stele. “According to the rules, ‘Anyone who wishes to be a leader must prove themselves worthy of such a position.’ I question whether this holds true for the position of Patriarch. I question whether a Martial Disciple is worthy of the position of Patriarch. I question whether someone surnamed Fang is worthy of being the Patriarch of the Su Clan.”

I rubbed my chin in thought. “What do you propose? Are you suggesting that you should be the Patriarch instead?”

TaiZu frowned at my nonchalant response. “No. I am the Grand Elder of the Su Clan. YuanFei was the designated heir of the former Patriarch. He must be allowed to assume his rightful position as leader of the clan. He has the highest cultivation base amongst the younger generation, and he has a blessing that will help him nurture the clan properly. He is the most worthy and capable person for the position of Patriarch.”

I nodded at him. “I see. So, because you feel that YuanFei is more ‘worthy’ of being the clan’s Patriarch, you have decided to rebel.”

TaiZu’s expression turned stony. “No. We are only setting things right. We will continue supporting you as your ally, as we always have. YuanFei is only assuming his proper place in the clan’s hierarchy.”

I looked at YuanFei. “Is that so?”

Contrary to TaiZu, YuanFei’s face was a mask of barely concealed disdain.

He snorted at me. “That is correct. I am only taking what is mine by right. Hand over the token of the Patriarch.”

“I see.”

I reached down, unfasted the token from my waist, and presented it to him.

YuanFei snatched it from my hand and examined it closely. Upon seeing the symbol for ‘Patriarch’ inscribed into it, he smiled. Then, he gestured to one of his Grandmasters with a flick of his head.

This Grandmaster threw a new jade token directly at my chest. It impacted me hard, but not hard enough to shatter bones.

YuanFei proudly raised his chin and waved a dismissive hand at me.

“You may leave.”

Then, he boldly strode toward my house.

Off to the side, TaiZu was nearly exploding with joy and righteous conviction.

Chapter 259 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Disciple 4

After YuanFei departed, the mood around me shifted. The cultivators that he and TaiZu had brought with them relaxed their postures and began glancing in my direction with hints of scorn and disdain.

As most of these people were members of TaiZu’s and YuanFei’s original entourages, this wasn’t entirely a surprise. They had never viewed me as an authority figure, and they had done their best to avoid me so that they wouldn’t have to show me any kind of deference.

The people I took special notice of, however, were elders who had chosen to join in on this little insurrection. They were young men and women I had recruited from the training complex, and they had all chosen to side with YuanFei. They no doubt had their reasons for this, but their reasons didn’t matter. The looks of scorn and derision they were giving me were enough to seal their fates.

As I turned to leave, TaiZu spoke.

“Prince Fang, today’s events were… unfortunate, but I hope you understand that this is for the best. The Su Clan should be controlled by members of the Su Clan. We will support your efforts, both in the Wastes and beyond, but we will not be your slaves. I am sure that after you think things through, you will agree that handing over the position of Patriarch to YuanFei was the correct decision.”

His tone was conciliatory, and I felt that he really believed what he was saying. However, a glance around at his compatriots proved that he was the only one here who had been driven by any such lofty ideals.

I dipped my head to him. “I am sure you are right. I look forward to seeing what this clan becomes under YuanFei’s leadership.”

TaiZu winced and softly cleared his throat. “Please, Prince Fang, refer to him with his proper title. Patriarch YuanFei.”

A faint smirk lifted the left side of my mouth. “Indeed.”

As I began walking away, a few of the surrounding cultivators seemed like they wanted to stop me, but a glare from TaiZu froze them in place.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the man. He was problematic, in more ways than one, but he wasn’t entirely without merit. If he could learn and adapt, his cultivation base, his relative sanity, and his position within the Su Clan at the start of each loop might make him a useful tool, but as things stood, he was simply too unreliable.

Shaking my head, I could only wait and see how things developed.

I wanted to allow news of recent events to spread around the clan a bit before I showed my face anywhere, so after leaving the cultivators who had encircled me behind, I paid a visit to Bao. It had been a few days since I had given him the Earth Dragon’s Tongue Fruit, and I wanted to see what he had discovered.

When I asked him about this, he dropped his head in shame.

“I don’t know. Nothing I tried worked. I can’t even get the seeds to germinate.”

As he talked, Bao moved through the garden he had set up atop the Soul Cultivation Library. Each time he passed by a plant, he made slight adjustments to the flow of energy around it.

“What about your blessing? Shouldn’t it have helped you figure out what to do?”

This question made Bao stare at one of the plants in thought.

“No. Something is… missing.” He walked up to the plant that he had been staring at and began manipulating its energies. “It’s like back at the Verdant Fields Sect. I’m… missing something. There’s something I don’t know, and it’s blocking me from understanding what my blessing is telling me. That fruit is… different.”

I lifted a hand to stroke my chin in thought.

What could make the Earth Dragon’s Tongue Fruit special? Early on, Bao’s trouble stemmed from only focusing on qi. He hadn’t known about wu or understood how it could be used in herbalism. Was this situation similar? Was there another type of energy that was missing? The fruit did allow a person to temporarily raise an affinity…

“Bao, have you tried—”

My words were cut off by the sound of several pairs of boots tromping across the roof of the library. Bao and I turned as one and saw half a dozen cultivators approaching us.

When they neared, one of YuanFei’s Grandmasters gave Bao a martial salute, but his stiff posture showed that it was only a formality.

“Elder Bao, by order of the Patriarch, your position as guest elder is hereby rescinded. Please hand over your token of office.”

Bao blinked at him and then turned to look at me.

I wanted to laugh. It looked like YuanFei wasn’t willing to waste any time. He wanted to consolidate his power before anyone could stop him.

I nodded to Bao. “Go ahead and give it to them. As a guest elder, the new Patriarch outranks you, after all. It is only proper to follow his commands.”

Bao looked confused, but he did as I said. He detached the token from his waist and held it out to YuanFei’s Grandmaster.

The man had a look of absolute superiority on his face as he snatched the token from Bao. Then, he reached into a bag and threw a blank jade at my disciple.

“If you wish to remain in the Su Clan, you can do so as a servant. Serve the Patriarch well, and you will be rewarded.”

With this, he turned and walked away. As he did so, I could only wonder if he knew how easily Bao could have ended his life.

Once they were gone, I reached into my storage space, pulled out a token marked with the symbol for ‘Revered,’ and handed it to Bao.

“Congratulations, you’ve been promoted to Revered Elder, a position above that of Patriarch.”

Bao’s mouth opened slightly, and his face showed nothing but bewilderment. He was clearly unaware of recent events.

“Master…”

I waved off his concern. “Don’t worry about it. YuanFei and TaiZu have decided to play some political games, and I’m making use of the situation for my own ends. Over the coming days, take note of how everyone behaves around you. Let me know if anyone starts disrespecting you, but try to avoid retaliating against them if you don’t have to.”

Bao dropped his head and shook it slightly.

We talked a bit longer, and Bao showed me around his garden.

An hour later, I left to take care of some important business. YuanFei had taken over my home, and I needed to see about arranging new accommodations.

GuiMing was the Master of Residential Affairs, but as an inner elder, he didn’t have much involvement in the day-to-day process of assigning living quarters. He was more concerned with coordinating everything. His subordinates took care of the details.

So, while I could try contacting GuiMing directly, I instead chose to go through the normal process one would use when requesting a new apartment and headed for the Residential Administration Building located on the eastern edge of the plateau.

On my way there, I passed by dozens of young cultivators.

My presence in the clan had been somewhat sporadic over the years, and I hadn’t made too many public appearances, but I had personally recruited everyone here, so they all knew who I was. When they recognized me, the looks they gave me told me that YuanFei had already made sure everyone on the mountain knew about the change in the clan’s leadership.

Some people gave me looks of pity, some of confusion, and some of scorn. I made special note of those in that last group, but I did nothing to show my displeasure with them. I wouldn’t judge a person too harshly based only on a single look, but I would keep a closer eye on such people.

When I finally entered the administration building, I found a nearly empty room with only a single young man sitting behind a rather ornate desk of carved blueschist.

I smiled at him and gave a quick martial salute.

“Hello, I’d like to apply for a new apartment.”

The young man’s eyes opened in shock. “Patri— Prin… Prince Fang…”

I cocked my head slightly. I had never called myself ‘Prince Fang’ here. Was this YuanFei’s, TaiZu’s, or GuiMing’s doing?

I stood there calmly and waited for the young man to get his thoughts in order.

“Yes, Pat— Prince Fang. I… I need to see your token.” He hesitated, worried about offending me. “It’s standard practice. I can’t… Please?”

Smiling, I pulled the token that YuanFei had given me from my waist and handed it to him.

Seeing it, the young man froze.

“Is there a problem?”

“Prince… Fang… this… This is a blank token. It’s what is given to the mortal outsiders… I can’t…” He looked like he wanted to cry. “Please, let me get Elder GuiMing. He’ll know what to do.”

I held up a hand to stop him. “What is the problem?”

He closed his eyes and bit his lip in worry. Then, taking a deep breath, he forced out his answer.

“I’m not supposed to give apartments to people with these tokens. That is handled by Elder GuiAi’s department. Please, I can contact Elder GuiMing immediately. He will know what to do.”

I smiled and waved offhandedly. “No need. I understand. Thank you for the explanation. Continue following the rules properly.”

Then, I turned and walked away, leaving the poor kid behind. He was a bit flustered, but I was happy with his performance.

The reaction of the young woman at GuiAi’s Mortal Affairs Building wasn’t too different. She was horrified at the prospect of assigning the Patriarch a mortal residence. Such a thing ran directly counter to the morals of a Traditionalist, and while I had ensured that all paths of soul cultivation were open to everyone, the paths chosen by the leadership council had made a strong impact on their subordinates.

Again, I just waved a hand and told her to follow the clan’s rules. My token was that of a mortal outsider, and my residence should reflect that.

The receptionist was caught in an untenable situation. Placing me in the apartment of an outsider clashed against her sense of propriety, but so did arguing with me about it. After what was no doubt a fierce internal debate, she dropped her head and did as I requested.

However, the moment I left, I saw her run out of the building in the opposite direction. I was certain that she was headed straight to GuiAi to complain.

At the same time, I caught a glimpse of another figure darting away in a different direction. I wasn’t sure where he was headed, but as he had been following me since I had departed GuiMing’s branch, I doubted his good intentions.

The apartment I had been assigned was at the bottom of the newly constructed sixth ring. With each ring consisting of five floors, this put me thirty floors below the plateau, near the foot of the mountain.

After the construction of the entertainment hall on the second ring, several elders had started asking me for permission to recruit more mortals to handle mundane tasks around the mountain. Since adding additional bloodlines to our settlement would help alleviate any potential problems with genetic diversity, I had agreed to this request, but I had stipulated that anyone who joined us had to have been born after the start of the time loop. The sibling’s parents’ inability to go back in time with us was already problematic, and I didn’t want to compound the issue.

In response to this influx of mortals, GuiMing had constructed this sixth ring to house them all. Unlike the upper rings, there were no elders in control of the sixth. Instead, it was managed by a combination of GuiAi’s and Liang’s deacons.

The council had consulted me when this ring was initially set up, and I had reviewed their plans for it, but I hadn’t invested too much attention into monitoring it.

So, I got a rather pleasant surprise when I arrived at the sixth ring and saw what greeted me.

Early on, I had told GuiMing and the others that I wanted this mountain to be a place where anyone on the continent would be proud to live. This was supposed to be the headquarters of a future Sovereign clan, and our buildings needed to reflect that.

So, even though the sixth ring was intended for mortals, GuiMing hadn’t allowed his teams to slack off. The corridors down here were more spartan than those above, but they were sturdy and well-built. No one had spent any time on decorative wall carvings, but there were ample formations inscribed into the ceilings to give the place a bright, cozy atmosphere.

The apartment I was assigned consisted of only a single room, but it was rather spacious, and it looked to be about the same size as the Disciples’ apartments on the upper floors. It even had a balcony where I could theoretically go for a bit of fresh air.

As this balcony was only a few dozen meters above the surrounding bog, the faint stench of decaying plant matter wafted up to assault me the moment I stepped outside, but I still judged the presence of this balcony to be better than nothing. I would just need to look at installing a formation to deal with the smell later.

All in all, I considered the place to be… adequate.

There was still one last item of business I needed to take care of before I could focus on cultivating, but I had to wait for it to come to me. So, I took out a plate for a Qi Gathering Formation, placed it in the center of my apartment, and sat down on it. Then, I took out a few bottles of pills and set them on the floor next to me.

After that, all I could do was wait.

I wanted to cultivate, but I was afraid that doing so might cause my body to be wracked with pain. That would leave me in a vulnerable position, and until this next encounter was over, that would be far too risky.

Thankfully, my guests didn’t keep me waiting. After less than half an hour, a large brute of a man kicked in my door and stomped inside. He was followed by four others, and they were all wearing the robes of enforcers.

When they saw me sitting on a formation plate, malicious grins spread across their faces.

“Fang Su, you have been accused of misappropriating clan resources. The Patriarch has declared that if you willingly hand over your storage bag, then your crimes will be forgiven. If you do not, then you will be punished according to the clan’s laws.”

I put on my best fearful expression and looked up at him. “What? I’ve not–”

He snorted. “You are sitting on a formation plate owned by the clan, and you have the clan’s pills next to you. Your guilt is beyond doubt.”

Biting my lower lip, I scooted backward slightly.

The moment I did, the brute raised a fist to attack me.

Feeling that it was finally appropriate, I quickly grabbed my storage bag and held it up to him.

“Here… Please… Take it.”

The brute snatched my bag, and all five of the ‘enforcers’ chortled in amusement. After that, they left. This surprised me somewhat since I thought they might want to rough me up a bit, but I wasn’t going to argue about it.

Once they were gone, I pulled a new Qi Gathering Formation out of my storage space and set it up. Then, to ensure that no one could disturb me while I was vulnerable, I surrounded my entire apartment with a powerful defensive formation.

If YuanFei decided to send someone else to attack me, these two new formations would give away the game I had been playing with him, but I had to do what I had to do. I could only hope that he was conceited enough to believe that he had somehow defeated me.

Chapter 260 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Disciple 4

As a low-level Martial Disciple, I was nearly entirely blind to everything that was happening on the mountain. Before doing anything else, I needed to fix that, and that meant advancing.

After my previous experience, I was hesitant to continue cultivating the Writ of Wood-Burned Earth. The process was far too painful. However, I needed access to the types of qi it would grant me, and I needed to expand my knowledge of and experience with such high-level techniques.

So, setting my jaw in determination, I got to work.

As I did so, I considered using some form of alchemical poison to dull the pain of advancing. With the herbs that I had stashed away in my storage space, there had to be something that I could concoct to block the sensation of burning myself alive. However, doing this would make properly cultivating the technique significantly more challenging since, if my body were numb, it would be much more difficult to sense my qi and acupoints. So, in the end, I decided to push through on my own.

Advancing to Martial Disciple 5 by cultivating fire qi in my upper left arm was a simple matter and caused no issues. In contrast, when I cultivated wood qi in my lower left arm to advance to Martial Disciple 6, I was left moaning on the floor in agony. This time, there wasn’t even a rush of earth qi to stabilize me afterward.

Continuing to push forward in this state wasn’t an option, but I didn’t need to.

By combining the wood qi from my lower arms, I would have enough energy to connect to a few of the smaller roots that I had previously spread throughout the mountain and listen in on what was happening out there. This connection wouldn’t last long, but it would be enough to help me better understand where things stood.

So, after taking a Shadowed Soul Pill, I climbed all the way to the top of the mountain and walked out onto the plateau. From there, I walked over to my house, used my real identity token to connect to the sect-protecting formation, and gained access to the secret underground cultivation chamber that sat at the center of my root network.

I spent the next few hours pinging important places around the sect, using my limited qi to quickly check for any noteworthy gatherings of important individuals. When I finally found what I was looking for, I was happy to see that it was in the house right above me. I would be able to monitor the situation with only a modest expenditure of qi.

YuanFei had gathered his loyal Grandmasters for a casual meeting in the audience hall on the ground floor of my house. As he lounged on an ugly stone throne, his subordinates reported on the status of various forces throughout the mountain. While many people had been initially opposed to any change in the clan’s leadership, once they learned that I had stepped aside willingly, YuanFei’s followers were able to convince them to cooperate.

Just as one of these reports was finishing up, the doors of the audience hall slammed open and TaiZu stormed inside.

“Did you steal Prince Fang’s storage bag?”

YuanFei smiled at the older man. “Of course not. I had reason to suspect that Prince Fang had misappropriated clan resources, so I confiscated it for further investigation.”

“Don’t play games with me, child! We cannot afford to offend Prince Fang. If we want to push back against YuanFeng and the Third Prince, our only hope is to ally with him and the Proud Mountain Kingdom. We cannot allow ourselves to be his slaves, but we must not provoke him without reason!”

YuanFei snorted. “You are a fool, uncle. Do you really think that Prince Fang will be willing to work with us after we betrayed him? With the items in his storage bag, he would have been able to rapidly cultivate back up to Grandmaster, and with an improved cultivation technique, he would have been unstoppable. We must not allow him to have access to any pills or formations. That is the only way to keep him weak and prevent him from retaliating against us.”

“Fei! You–”

YuanFei pounded a fist on the arm of his throne. “I am your Patriarch! You will address me properly or not at all! I have done what is in the best interest of the clan. We do not need help from the Proud Mountain Kingdom. Not only does ShouLi have a beauty blessing, but she has also proven herself to be an incredibly talented cultivator. We will use her to form an alliance with either the empire’s Second or Fourth Prince. Then, we will hand over Prince Fang and let the empire deal with him.”

It looked like TaiZu wanted to say something, but YuanFei bulled forward. “As long as we are under the protection of an imperial prince, the Proud Mountain Kingdom won’t dare to raise a hand against us. In fact, after having let some hidden prince come here and cause chaos, the empire will likely punish the kingdom so severely that it won’t even dare to look in our direction. That is how we will deal with YuanFeng, the Third Prince, and Prince Fang.”

TaiZu gritted his teeth. “You’re making a mistake. If you think an imperial prince is so easy to–”

YuanFei’s nostrils flared. “You will either stop questioning my decisions, or you will step down from your position as Grand Elder.”

With my wood qi running low, I disconnected from the scene above. Then, I headed back down the mountain and returned to my apartment.

In other circumstances, assuming that I was a prince of the Proud Mountain Kingdom, YuanFei’s plan might have worked. Unfortunately for him, the firestorm that was about to descend on the Wastes because of RuLan’s pill meant that if he tried to contact anyone from the empire, he would only be hastening the clan’s downfall.

I spent the next few days relaxing while wandering around the sixth ring and talking to its residents. I needed to continue advancing and return to Grandmaster as soon as possible, but I couldn’t let myself rush forward blindly. Aside from allowing my mind to heal after suffering the pain of my most recent advancement, I also need to give my body time to adjust to this new cultivation technique.

So, while I waited, I spent time walking around and interacting with people.

As expected, entry to the workshops and the cultivation halls was barred to me. Some of the attendants and guards were apologetic, and some were venomously gleeful, but in both cases, their messages were the same. Patriarch YuanFei had ordered that the clan’s core infrastructure was only open to members of the Su Clan.

Each time I heard this, I nodded and walked away, but as I did so, I used my journal to note down everyone’s behavior.

During these excursions, I would always expel all the qi I could from everywhere but my torso and right arm.

Aside from unique blessings, the only way to discover another person's level of cultivation was to look at them in qi vision. Doing so, one would generally see which muscles a person had cultivated, which meridians they had formed, if they had a dantian, and if they had a core. My hope was that by limiting the qi in my body as much as possible, I would be able to make YuanFei think that his plan to block me from advancing had been successful.

In total, it took me nearly two months to ascend from Disciple 1 to Peak Disciple. For others, this might seem like a blistering pace, but for me, with the experience and resources I had on hand, it was a bit slow. I could only hope that future advancements would come more easily.

Not long after my ascension to Peak Disciple, ShouLi called for a meeting of the leadership council to address the upcoming competition to choose a new Master of Residential Affairs. Interested in how things were progressing, I snuck up to my secret chamber to listen in.

Everyone in the council chamber looked like they hadn’t gotten much sleep over the past two months.

Even ShouLi, who had a blessing to help her maintain her outward appearance, was showing signs of exhaustion. While she didn’t have bags under her eyes, her hair was fraying, her robes were slightly askew, and she sat slumped in her chair.

She was looking at GuiMing with a desperate expression.

“Are you sure you need to step down? We can’t lose you at a time like this.”

He bowed his head in response.

“I know, but this is what we promised the clan. I will step down and administer the test for my replacement.” He closed his eyes for a second and then opened them to give ShouLi a firm look. “Elder TaiZu–”

ShouLi pounded a fist on the table, interrupting him, but GuiMing pushed forward.

“Elder TaiZu has put a lot of effort into training his people to take over my position, and two of them have blessings helping them. If the test is fair, it is likely that one of these two will be able to defeat my subordinates and take over my seat on the council. The other will almost certainly make a play for GuiAi’s seat next year. You need to be prepared for this.”

This caused silence to take hold in the council chambers. After a few moments, GuiMing continued.

“Patriarch YuanFei has sent me a message regarding the two sections of the first ring previously reserved for the Patriarch and Elder Bao. He has ordered me to begin work on them. He will take possession of the Patriarch’s section, and Elder Bao’s section will be given to Elder TaiZu.”

ShouLi looked like she wanted to spit fire. Angry at GuiMing, she turned to Liang.

“What are we going to do about this? It’s bad enough that YuanFei and TaiZu stole the position of Patriarch, but now they're usurping our authority as well. They must be stopped.”

Liang sat there, stone-faced.

“We will follow the rules. We were the ones who decided the rules for how our successors would be chosen, and we will abide by them. As for the areas on the first ring, YuanFei is the Patriarch now, and they are his to do with as he wills. Again, that is what we all agreed on when this place was established.”

ShouLi narrowed her eyes. “And were your subordinates ‘following the rules’ when they stole the Patriarch’s storage bag?”

Liang nodded. “Yes. Patriarch YuanFei claimed that the storage bag contained stolen goods and ordered the enforcers to seize it for inspection. Prince Fang currently has no official standing in the clan and wears the token of an outsider. If my subordinates had disobeyed the lawful orders of the clan’s Patriarch to protect an outsider, I would have punished them.”

Desperate, ShouLi looked to Mo, but he shook his head.

“Liang is correct. ‘Prince Fang’ gave his position to Patriarch YuanFei, and we must respect his decision. Even as a Martial Disciple, with the sect-protecting formation backing him up, ‘Prince Fang’ wouldn’t have had any problem standing up to Patriarch YuanFei. If he handed over the token of the ‘Patriarch,’ then he must have had his reasons for doing so. Follow the rules and ensure your subordinates do the same. Other than that, do as you think best.”

“But–” ShouLi wanted to interrupt, but Mo held up a hand to stop her.

“Remember the token he showed you. Remember what he told you. ‘Prince Fang’ is not the Patriarch.”

Mo looked at her intently, but he held back from explaining anything more. This behavior made me wonder if he somehow knew that someone was spying on him.

After returning to my apartment, I sat down on a Qi Gathering Formation and focused on cultivating.

To ascend to Martial Master, I only needed to create two meridians, one that ran along the left side of my torso and one that ran along the right. Normally, this wouldn’t be overly complex, but unlike the dual-element technique I had used in the past, the Wood-Burned Earth technique only used a single set of meridians for all three elements.

These meridians were formed from a blend of fire and earth qi, and they needed to be able to shift forms depending on the type of qi that was running through them at any given time. When using fire or earth qi, the interior walls of the meridians needed to be formed from threads of earth qi, but when using wood qi, the interior walls needed to be formed from fire qi.

This shifting weave complicated things, and it took me several days of practice to master the theory behind it. However, the moment everything clicked in my mind, I was able to start cultivating and quickly advanced to Martial Master 1.

From there, I couldn’t immediately advance to Martial Master 2. Instead, the technique required me to construct a series of ancillary meridians within my torso. These additional meridians would be used for purging my system when switching between qi types.

I completed them as swiftly as possible and then focused on creating the remaining meridians I needed one after the other.

I should have been more careful during this process. I should have taken more time to assess my situation and understand how the placement of each meridian affected the flow of qi in my body. I just didn’t have the time to do so.

The end of the year had already come and gone, and I had received news that YuanFei was intending to send a delegation to the Su Clan’s training compound to recruit Disciples. This foolish attempt at posturing was bound to tell everyone on the continent exactly where to find our clan, and I needed to be ready for what that would mean.

Fortunately, my choice of cultivation techniques, and all the pain I had suffered cultivating it, had paid off. After reaching Peak Master, I found that the additional meridians I had constructed in my torso acted to compress any qi I stored inside them. This was enough to give me nearly as much raw power as a normal Martial Grandmaster 1. When combined with earth qi that had been enhanced by wood-fueled fire qi, I had more than enough strength to construct the nodes of my illusory sky formation.

Chapter 261 – Life 73, Age 50, Martial Master Peak

To construct the primary control node of the illusory sky formation, I used a combination of marble, kyanrolite, and rhyolite. The inscriptions for creating and controlling illusions were carved into marble, and I used kyanrolite for the inscriptions related to regulating and controlling the grand formation’s ancillary nodes. Finally, I used rhyolite as an insulator to prevent energy from bleeding from one inscription to another. With so many large, complex inscriptions crammed together, this was the only way that I could ensure they wouldn’t interact with each other in unexpected ways.

If all I had needed to do was carve inscriptions into stone, I would have been able to do that with wood qi or a spirit fire. However, because I was using a mix of stones in a complex lattice, I needed to use earth qi to bind everything together seamlessly so that the torrent of energy involved in this formation could flow smoothly from one inscription to the next.

The primary control node alone took me over a month to complete. While I could have used some of that time to advance to Grandmaster instead, making the process of melding stones together both easier and faster, the dantian created by the third Rank of the Wood-Burned Earth technique was rather unique, and I would need time to fully understand it. So, while crafting this formation as a Martial Master might have been a bit inefficient, I pushed forward and did it anyway. My time was limited, and by taking this path, I could guarantee that I would be able to finish before the world collapsed around me.

After completing the primary control node, I spent the next two months crafting eight ancillary nodes. These nodes were mostly marble and only contained small pockets of kyanrolite, so crafting them was much easier than crafting the control node had been. The main time sink here was ensuring that all eight nodes were identical and balanced.

Once everything was finished, I placed the control node in the bubble at the center of my storage space’s ceiling. Then, the ancillary nodes were placed in a square-shaped pattern around it.

Each of these nodes would need a copious amount of both light and dark qi to function properly, and my storage space didn’t have either. So, I placed a horde of spirit stones in each bubble and then added copies of the Gloomy Shadow Fire and the Halcyon Illumination Fire to convert these stones into dark and light qi, respectively.

Relying on spirit stones indefinitely wasn’t exactly economical, but it was good enough for the moment. I could look at other ways to fuel the formation in the future.

When it was all done, I took a deep breath and manipulated a thread of light qi to kickstart the inscriptions in each of the nodes.

Puddles of blue spread from nine locations in the sky of my storage space, casting an azure hue over everything below. Then, slowly, nine small suns appeared.

This was the solution that the illusionists and I had come up with, blue light for most of the sky, and small white suns at regular intervals to produce wide-spectrum light and give the space the appearance of a somewhat normal sunny day. At ‘night,’ the blue sky would vanish, dark qi would take its place, and the suns would dim and turn into small stars.

To try and make things feel more natural, we added illusory clouds to the mix, but in truth, nothing about this sky looked ‘real.’ It was good enough, though. People would hopefully be able to live and work in the space without feeling like they were trapped in a small, confined cave.

There were things to improve, but it was good enough. Even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter anymore. I was out of time.

Roughly three months after the start of the new year, YuanFei’s Grandmasters returned from the Su Clan’s annual training camp with dozens of new recruits.

Upon seeing this, the corners of my mouth dropped, and my expression hardened.

Our time in the Wastes had come to an end.

I immediately sent a message to the leadership council and summoned them for an emergency meeting. Less than ten minutes later I stood in the middle of the council chamber, and five of the six inner elders sat in front of me, waiting to hear what I had to say.

ShouLi had looked like she wanted to start the meeting as soon as I had arrived, but I held up a hand to stop her. We would wait until our new Master of Residential Affairs joined us.

While I stood there, silent and motionless, I cycled my qi, connected to my root network, and used it to check in on what was happening elsewhere in the clan. On the surface, everything looked normal, but one old man understood the situation well enough to at least suspect the danger we were in.

Elder TaiZu burst into the YuanFei’s audience chamber, interrupting a report on how the trip to the Su Clan’s training camp had gone.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this!? Why wasn’t I informed that you were sending people to that damned training compound!?”

For an instant, YuanFei’s face froze. Then, his cheeks turned red, and a murderous glint appeared in his eyes.

“How dare you speak to your Patriarch in such a manner! Why did I not tell you? You!? Who are you? I am the Patriarch. I do not need to report my decisions to anyone.”

“Child, do you think—”

“Enough!” YuanFei's roar was enough to shake the entire building. “I hereby strip you of your position as Grand Elder. You are demoted to the position of outer clan disciple. Leave. Now.”

TaiZu gritted his teeth. “You cannot do this. The leadership council—”

YuanFei snorted. “I’m done with letting those kids play their silly games. Next week, ShouLi will be sent to the Rising Sun Empire, and the rest of those commoners will learn their proper place in my clan.”

YuanFei gestured at the Grandmasters around him. “From now on, the only council is the elder council, and they have already agreed to strip you of your position.”

TaiZu glared at YuanFei. Then, he narrowed his eyes and looked around at the assembled Grandmasters.

When his eyes landed on one of the figures, he froze.

“Heng, what are you doing here?”

Su Heng, TaiZu’s only son, stepped up and stood next to YuanFei.

“I am serving the Patriarch. What are you doing, old man? You have constantly questioned the Patriarch’s authority, and you have actively worked to undermine him. Begone. Do not try to involve me in your crimes any longer.”

TaiZu’s expression fell, and his shoulders slumped.

Letting my connection to the audience hall fade, I had to wonder what the Rising Sun Empire had promised YuanFei to make him act this recklessly. He had been arrogant before, sure, but thinking that he could sit on my mountain and dictate terms to everyone around him? That stunk of him believing that he had a powerful backer capable of protecting him from anyone who might stand against him.

However, I had to wonder if YuanFei had informed this backer about his plan to send people to the training camp. The delay in sending ShouLi to the empire was likely an indication of his backer’s timeline for assaulting us. However, with travel to and from the training complex having exposed our position, people would likely start showing up in mere hours. YuanFei’s arrogance had completely ruined his backer’s plans.

This thought made me smile, but this smile faded as the doors of the council chamber opened, and the clan’s final inner elder strutted inside.

The pompous look he gave me made me want to smack him, but I held myself back. The scorn that had been directed toward me over the past couple of months had worn away at me, but I just had to persist for a few more days. The time for restraint was almost over.

After sitting in his chair, this council member flicked his fingers at me dismissively.

“Prince Fang, you do not have the standing required to summon a meeting of the council. Elder Liang, I demand you arrest him at once.”

I smirked at the man and then turned to Mo. “Is that true?”

Ever since I had entered the chamber, Mo had been staring at the token on my waist, lost in thought. Roused by my question, he quickly nodded.

“Yes, Yes… I mean no. It is not true. You are allowed to summon the council.”

GuiMing’s replacement narrowed his eyes at Mo. “Do you know what you are saying? How dare—”

ShouLi slammed a fist on the table to interrupt him. “We will listen to what Ancestor Fang has to say.”

The newest elder tried to speak up in outrage, but smiling, GuiAi sent out a thread of qi to silence him. Then she looked at me with an apologetic expression.

“Sorry for the interruption, Ancestor.”

Nodding, I looked around at the group, including the rude man wrapped up in GuiAi’s qi.

“The mountain will soon be attacked by several powerful armies. I do not know exactly when this will occur, and I cannot tell you how many enemies there will be, but their numbers will be overwhelming.”

Everyone became serious as they looked at me.

I couldn’t help but think back to when the Twin Mountains Sect had been attacked. At that time, it was only the three nearest empires that had decided to attack the sect as a form of punishment. This time, it would be worse. Powers from across the continent might participate in this assault, and they would be far more ruthless.

“Our defenses will hold for a time, but not indefinitely. Tell your people that as long as the barrier around the island holds, they can go down and do battle with the invaders. However, the moment that it starts to collapse, they need to rush back to the mountain. The illusion formation on the island should give them the time they need to retreat.”

ShouLi looked down at her hands for a moment. Then, she looked up at me with a determined expression.

“Will the barrier around the mountain be able to hold?”

I shook my head.

“No. Not against our real enemies. They will have the means to destroy it.” I paused briefly, letting them fully absorb this information, and then continued. “Talk to everyone on the mountain who you believe is loyal to our clan. Not to YuanFei’s Su Clan. Not to the leadership council. Not even to me. Talk to the people who are loyal to the clan we have built on this mountain together.”

I looked at Liang. “Your enforcers all follow the rules, but that isn’t enough. Many of them have been looking for loopholes in the rules to benefit themselves at the expense of the clan. I understand that you have guided them in Legalist philosophies, so looking to benefit themselves is natural, but they must never do so at the expense of the clan.”

To my surprise, Liang dipped his head and accepted my rebuke without complaint.

“The moment the barrier around the island fails, those who are loyal to our clan should gather in the open area on the Second Ring. I will be demolishing the buildings there to make room for everyone. This includes the mortals who have joined us. Everyone who is loyal to the clan needs to be there. At that point, I will tell you about what comes next.”

ShouLi wanted to ask a question, but I held up a hand and looked blankly at the wall to my right.

“Our time is up. They’re here.” I looked back at her. “YuanFei will likely be here soon. By the authority of the clan Ancestor, I revoke his status as Patriarch. You may follow his orders if you wish, but you are not duty-bound to do so.”

With that, I hurried away to make my final preparations.

The first group to arrive at the mountain was the alliance of YuanFeng and the Third Prince of the Rising Sun Empire. They looked like they had brought every cultivator they could with them, and they used this horde to completely encircle the mountain. The young Disciples in this group wouldn’t stand a chance against even the weakest member of my clan, but they would make it significantly more difficult for anyone to escape without being noticed.

As soon as this group arrived, their Grandmasters began pummeling the defensive formation around the island with a rapid series of attacks. When I had purchased the sect-protecting formation from the System, I had paid for something capable of withstanding this kind of assault, so these attacks did no real damage, but I knew that this was only the opening salvo.

Once it was clear that these attacks weren’t having any effect, and once he learned that the barrier only kept out Grandmasters, the Third Prince ordered his Masters and Disciples to invade the island. In response, YuanFei ordered our Masters and Grandmasters to repel them.

As the clash between these two forces began, I was standing next to Bao at the edge of the roof of the Soul Cultivation Library, overlooking the battles below.

“A couple of months ago, I told you to pay attention to how everyone acted around you. Have you been doing that?”

Bao dipped his head. “Yes, Master.”

“Good. Right now, I’m only a Martial Master. I don’t have enough energy to affect the battles down there. I need your help. Pay attention to the fighting. If any of our people get in trouble, I want you to save those who you believe should be saved.”

Bao’s forehead wrinkled, and his eyes narrowed in a wince. “Master, I’m not sure… I don’t know if I can make that kind of decision.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “I will trust your judgment. If you want to save everyone, then save everyone. But at the very least, if anyone uses this chaos as an opportunity to betray their comrades, cut them down without mercy.”

Bao lowered his head. “Yes, Master.”

Leaving Bao to manage the battle, I slipped into my secret chamber and connected to my root network.

In the house above me, YuanFei was celebrating with his Grandmasters. To him, YuanFeng was courting death. Because of this, I ended up having to listen to several minutes of noxious preening before I heard anything of actual substance.

“I have already received a message from the Rising Sun’s Crown Prince. He will be here to support us in only a matter of days. With the jade tokens I sent him, the Crown Prince’s Grandmasters will be able to enter and exit our defensive barrier at will. After he gets here, these fools who dared to attack us will be nothing more than a mountain of corpses.”

As soon as I heard this, I used the token of the ‘Ancestor’ to connect to the sect-protecting formation.

I couldn’t deactivate specific tokens without knowing the names of the people they were assigned to, so I just sent a signal to deactivate any tokens not currently inside the formation. This meant that if there were any members of my clan out there, then they wouldn’t be able to get back inside, but with one army already surrounding us, and several more on the way, that was unlikely anyway.

The stalemate around the island continued for two full days. The Grandmasters hadn’t been able to breach the defensive barrier, and any Disciples and Master they sent inside were swiftly defeated.

This started making the members of my clan somewhat complacent, but an hour after noon on the third day, things changed.

Four more armies arrived and surrounded us. One was from the Flowing Mountain Sect, one was from the Verdant Forest Sect, one was from the Rising Sun Empire, and the last appeared to be an amalgamation of cultivators from various other forces. While this last group looked the least organized, by using energy vision, I could see that they were the most dangerous by far.

As soon as these four forces arrived, the fighting on the island ceased. The Third Prince's forces pulled back, and all five groups set up separate encampments around the perimeter of the island.

Three hours later, a delegation approached the edge of our defensive barrier, and the man in the lead held a formation plate up in front of him to amplify his voice.

“Fang Su, you are suspected of impersonating a member of a royal family, breaching the peace of the Western Wastes, and harboring the fugitive Su RuLan. Drop the barrier around the mountain and hand both yourself and Su RuLan over for judgment. Any coconspirators will be taken into custody, but anyone who has not violated the laws of the Imperial Alliance will not be harmed.”

This made me smile. With RuLan’s name included in this pronouncement, the fault lines within the clan would become even clearer.

I wanted to see what nonsense YuanFei was getting up to, but I didn’t have time. Instead, I rushed to the only place on the mountain that was truly important, the Technique Hall. Everything else could be replaced. The books in the Soul Cultivation Library were easy enough to copy, and the formations in the Affinity Hall needed to be updated anyway, but there was no way I would be willing to lose the memory orbs in the Technique Hall.

When I arrived, I gave the hall a good, long look. It was a large three-story structure, but that wouldn’t pose too much of a problem.

First, I used my wood and earth qi to detach the hall from the mountain below it.

Then, using my space affinity, I concentrated my mind to surround the hall with my intent and pulled.

In one instant, my face was mere centimeters away from a wooden wall. In the next, there was nothing in front of me but empty air. The Technique Hall and all its contents were safely locked away in my storage space.

With this task complete, I headed down to the Second Ring to get it ready for my guests.

“Fang Su, your time is up. By order of the Imperial Alliance, I, Zhuge HanYe, hereby find you guilty as charged. All residents of Mount Jiang are hereby sentenced to death.”

Hearing this, I began to contemplate the meaning behind a member of the Zhuge Clan being involved in this assault, but my thoughts were immediately cut off by a powerful explosion that rocked the entire mountain.

The power of this blast was far above anything that a mere Grandmaster could possibly produce. Even a Lord would have a hard time matching it. As I had expected, the attackers had deployed a high-Rank attack formation to breach our defenses. The sparse qi in the Wastes would have limited how powerful of a formation they could use, but I placed that explosion on the low end of Rank 5. Our defensive barrier didn’t stand a chance.

Once our outermost defenses were down, it wasn’t long before people started streaming into the Second Ring’s cave to join me.

The first ones to appear were in a state of near frenzy. The moment they saw me, they started screaming for me to do something to help them, but I just calmly stood on a platform in the center of the room and waited.

The last to arrive were Liang and NiangBa, who were leading a large group of mortals up from the lower levels. When I saw this, I couldn’t help but smile in satisfaction.

Using my root network, I verified that no one else was on the way, so I activated a defensive formation to block out everything in the surroundings. Then, I walked to the edge of my platform and looked down to address everyone.

“Does anyone know why we were attacked?”

Everyone looked like they wanted to say something, but most of them were afraid of speaking. One of NiangBa’s warriors, however, wasn’t so reticent.

“Because you and that bitch RuLan—”

Before he could say anything else, NiangBa struck him hard enough to send him flying.

Then, with an exertion of qi, I moved his limp form outside the defensive barrier.

NiangBa gave a deep bow. “Apologies, Ancestor. I should not have allowed BieWang to join us.”

With the trash removed, I returned my attention to the crowd.

“Does anyone know why we were actually attacked?”

Everyone glanced around at each other worriedly, but no one else was willing to speak, so I explained.

“It is because of the pill that Elder RuLan made in the alchemy competition last year. All of these people, people from powerful forces from around the entire continent, they are all here to steal the knowledge of how to make that pill. Seeing that one single pill was enough to create this firestorm. Leaking the knowledge that we are capable of crafting such a pill was enough to sentence everyone here to imprisonment or death. That is the danger of the knowledge that I have given you. I hope you all now appreciate the dangers involved in letting others know the true extent of everything I have taught you.”

Everyone fell silent as they processed my words, and I took the moment to hold up a large glass orb inscribed with countless golden lines.

“This is another secret that I will share with you. This is a world orb. It is a storage device that contains an entire world. This is how we will escape our pursuers. I will place all of you inside and take you… elsewhere. Once there, you will all have the chance to ascend to Grandmaster, Lord, King, and even Emperor. However, the place we are going is far more dangerous than here. If any one of you tells anyone even one of the clan’s secrets, it could mean the death of everyone. The events of today should be burned into your memory. If you leak information about the knowledge and items our clan possesses, then this will all happen again.”

I closed my eyes and stood there silently, allowing the moment to linger. Then, I looked around the room and picked out a few familiar faces.

“Elders Bao, ShouLi, Liang, Mo, GuiAi, GuiMing, and NiangBa. You are the seven people who I will put my faith in. I have told you of the dangers ahead of us. Our clan has grown, and I do not know where everyone’s loyalties lie. I ask the seven of you to decide who will be allowed to join us in the world orb. The actions of those you accept will be your responsibility to bear. If someone you choose betrays us, then it will be the same as you betraying us.”

Over the next three hours, my seven elders went through everyone in the cavern one by one. This slow process made some people anxious, but we were in no real danger. The barrier around the mountain still held, and as long as it did, we had as much time as we needed.

Finally, there were only a handful of people left in the cave. Everyone else had either been sent into my storage space or expelled from the formation.

Those that remained were GuiMing, GuiAi, their parents, and the handful of mortals they had come to the mountain with.

When I saw this group, I couldn’t help but close my eyes in sorrow.

I looked at the sibling’s parents. “There is an issue with the world orb. You all… You’re too old. I will take you all somewhere safe, but where we are going next… you cannot follow. I can promise you that you will be able to meet each other again in the future, but I do not know when that will be. Time is… complicated. GuiAi and GuiMing will be safe, and they will have a chance to grow powerful, but it will be a long time before you can see them again.”

Hearing this, Su LianFu and Ma XinYi burst into tears and ran to hug their children. I gave them what time I could, but eventually, I had to separate them and send GuiMing and GuiAi into my storage space.

When the children were gone, Su LianFu looked at me.

“We aren’t going to see them again, are we.”

I dropped my head in shame. “That is… complicated. I honestly do not know how to answer your question, but… no. The you who stands before me will never see them again.”

Reaching into my storage space, I pulled out two memory orbs and handed one to each of them.

“These will allow you to store your memories. This way, a… different you will be able to meet them once more.”

After their memories were safely packed away, I gave the mortals in front of me a sleeping pill and stashed them in an underground bunker in my storage space. Then, I deactivated the formation around me.

With everyone I planned to take with me safely locked away in my storage space, I was nearly ready to leave Mount Jiang. However, there were still two items of business I needed to take care of.

The first was standing on the roof of the Soul Cultivation Library, staring around at Bao’s garden in a haze of confusion.

“Hello, Elder TaiZu.”

The man didn’t even look at me. He just continued stumbling around, lost.

“Did you know this would happen?”

“Yes. The moment news of RuLan’s pill was leaked, this fate became unavoidable. Body cultivation pills, pills made from the energy of demon beasts, these are not things that exist in this world. The true powers on this continent would do anything to control such knowledge.”

TaiZu closed his eyes and began muttering things to himself incoherently.

I pulled out a memory orb and tossed it to him.

“I still have a use for you. With what you have learned, with what you have seen, it is possible that you might be of assistance to me in the future. You are concerned about the fate of the Su Clan. You are honestly concerned about the children in my care. I see potential value in this, and I see potential value in you, but potential is all it is. Store your memories in the orb, and that potential may one day be fulfilled.”

Closing his eyes, TaiZu did as I directed. I wouldn’t be restoring his memories anytime soon, but having them opened certain possibilities for the future.

After storing TaiZu’s orb safely away, I walked through Bao’s garden and pulled everything into a jade-lined cell deep within my storage space. I doubted that any of these plants would be able to survive, but we would at least retain their seeds so that we could replant them in the future.

Then, I moved around the top plateau and collected the nodes of the sect-protecting formation. There were additional nodes at the base of the mountain, but going down to collect them in the middle of this siege wasn’t worth the trouble. I had already studied them enough to know how to recreate them, so the only reason for gathering the ones I did was because it was convenient.

Finally, I snuck into my house where YuanFei was sitting on his throne in the middle of my audience hall and shouting at his Grandmasters.

“What the hell does the Crown Prince think he is doing? How dare he betray me! I will have his head!”

Behind him, Heng was slumped against a wall, nearly catatonic.

Not wanting to alert anyone to my presence, I bypassed the scene and slipped into the back room where the main node of the sect-protecting formation was stored. I placed a hand on it to disable it. Then, I shoved it into my storage space.

The moment I did so, the barrier protecting the mountain vanished, and a horde of angry cultivators charged forward. I immediately popped a Shadowed Soul Pill in my mouth and disappeared.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 262 – Life 73, Age 50, Martial Master Peak

After disappearing from Mount Jiang, I immediately headed north. Our attackers wouldn’t have had time to scour the surrounding villages yet, and I needed to work fast before that happened.

My first stop was the small city where we had resettled SuYin’s family. I wanted to talk to them, to explain what was going on, but I wasn’t willing to spend the time that would require. I simply shoved sleeping pills into everyone’s mouths and threw them into my storage space.

Following this, I used my wind horse to make a quick circuit of the Wastes.

Once the invaders learned that we were missing, I was certain that they would go looking for people’s families to try to find out where we had gone. If possible, I wanted to prevent that from happening. So, I ran around the Wastes and grabbed all of them that I could.

With each group I grabbed, I didn’t stop to ask questions or explain why I had come. I just sent everyone to sleep and shoved them into one of the subterranean chambers of my storage space. They might not thank me for this, but they would at least survive to be angry with me.

Was all this necessary? Wouldn’t all these people vanish and come right back after my death?

I didn’t know.

Did the world end when I died, or did it persist? Based on what I had seen from Mei’s and Emperor Li’s blessings, I had begun to believe it was the former, but I was not willing to take that risk without being certain. Saving these people might have been meaningless, but it was what I needed to do.

Once these families were accounted for, I turned north and headed for the Verdant Forest Sect.

As I departed the Wastes, I had an unreasonable fear that an Emperor or a Sovereign would suddenly pop out and capture me. While no one should have had any understanding of my plans or motivations, there were powerful information blessings in this world, and it seemed likely that the Sovereigns would have subordinates capable of tracking my movements.

If a powerful cultivator appeared, I would have to commit suicide immediately, losing years of SuYin’s memories and dooming many of those that I had tucked away in my storage space to an instant death.

Fortunately, this didn’t happen. Even though I was nervous the entire time, no one stood out to stop me, and I could only begrudgingly give my thanks to the Earthly Dao. While I didn’t know how much influence it had over blessings after they had already been handed out, I knew that it almost certainly had ways to reveal my location if it had wanted to.

With no one blocking my path, I quickly made my way to SuYin’s city. While I hadn’t had a chance to speak with her in recent years, she had kept me abreast of her activities through messages sent via the Blue Wind Pavilion.

After becoming a core disciple of the Verdant Forest Sect, she had been granted the lordship over one of its smaller cities, and she had already been able to advance to Martial Lord 4. However, Young Master Wang’s preparations for entering the Nine Rivers Sect were nearly complete, and she would soon be relinquishing her position to join him there.

Thankfully, this hadn’t happened yet.

After reaching SuYin’s city, I quickly rushed to the lord’s manor.

Her guards moved to stop me, but I held up the banner that SuYin had given me the last time we had met. It was made of undyed, white silk, and both sides displayed the image of a large golden leaf.

When her guards saw this banner, they narrowed their eyes, but they immediately stepped aside.

Inside the manor, upon seeing the banner in my hand, the manor’s steward quickly led me to a small sitting room, sat me down, and served me tea. Moments later SuYin arrived.

After setting up an anti-eavesdropping formation, I gave her a quick rundown of the situation. Once it was complete, I looked at her, hoping that she might have an idea for what I should do now.

“Your family is asleep in my… ‘inner world.’ If they remain there, then when I revert back in time, those who were alive at the start of the loop will die. I need a safe place to put them before that happens. Somewhere unconnected to the troubles in the Wastes.”

“That… I…”

SuYin’s head dropped, and her eyes started roaming the room. She looked nearly as lost as I was. Saving these families had seemed like the right thing to do in the moment, but now, after the fact, I had no idea what to do with them.

SuYin might be able to provide for them while she was a city lord, but she was planning to leave and enter the Nine Rivers Sect. Was she just supposed to leave so many outsiders here and hope that no one was able to connect them to what had just happened in the Wastes?

Suddenly, her expression firmed.

“Let me contact Young Master Wang.”

The young master arrived at SuYin’s manor two days later. He hadn’t even questioned her about why she had asked him to come, and a simple request was all that it took to get him to enter an anti-eavesdropping formation with us.

Once we were seated, he looked at me.

“What is this about?”

I took a breath. There was no reason to hide anything. The more he knew, the more he would be able to help, and soon, he wouldn’t have any way of harming me.

“I have around a hundred refugees from the Wastes that need a safe place to live. They are related to the people who escaped from Mount Jiang. I am worried about what will happen to them if the Zhuge Clan, or someone else, finds them.”

Young Master Wang’s face twitched furiously as a riot of emotions passed through him. Needing time to think, he used the excuse of taking a sip of tea to pause the conversation. Then, after several moments, he set his cup down and looked me directly in the eye.

“What is your offer?”

I took out a scroll and placed it on the table. “This is what the armies were looking for in the Wastes. It contains everything one needs to know to concoct a Rank 2 Body Tempering Pill. It might be a good idea to simply destroy it, but I will let you decide what to do with it yourself. Also, I will instruct my disciple, Bao, to join you in the Nine Rivers Sect. You will find that his grasp of herbalism is exceptional, and I can almost guarantee that he will be able to lead a successful group on the path to Heaven City for you. Finally… I will owe you a debt. This might not mean much to you now, but it will in the future. In short, I will help you out a single time.”

The three different terms had three very different effects on the young man. The scroll sparked a hint of avarice, my knowledge of Heaven City made him wary, and my offer of a debt just seemed to confuse him. Still, after everything was combined together, he gave me a nod.

“Fine. I will help you this once, and you will help me once in the future.”

With the young master’s agreement, we got to work.

After being taken to a secluded courtyard, I set up a defensive formation and took out everyone’s families. Then, I took out the members of my clan to give them a chance to say goodbye.

When these young cultivators first appeared, they looked like they wanted to give me a serious talking to about the various issues they were having with my storage space, but upon seeing their families and hearing that they needed to say goodbye, these complaints were forgotten.

With hundreds of people involved, this process was rather slow, but I did my best to hurry it along. I wanted to give everyone as much time as I could, but we were exposed here, and we needed to vanish as soon as possible.

When everything was over, I stood alone in a room with Bao and SuYin. I handed both of them an orb, and after they imprinted their memories onto it. Then, we said our goodbyes, and I departed.

Most of what I had wanted to accomplish in this life was complete, but I had left the Wastes in a bit of a hurry. I still needed to visit the Rosehill Hot Springs and collect my belongings.

When I entered Rosehill, it was clear that something was amiss. No one was wandering the streets, and there were no sounds of busy people going about their daily lives. The once lively tourist destination had been turned into a ghost town.

It didn’t take much effort to guess the reason for this. The fact that I had leased this land from the Su Clan was public knowledge, and I was certain that the armies that had attacked Mount Jiang had come here as well.

It was likely that they had even stationed soldiers to stand guard and wait for us in case we decided to return. That was fine. They could wait around for as long as they wanted.

After understanding the situation, I ignored the city completely and rushed straight to the center of the hot springs that the city was named after.

Without pausing for even a second, I used my earth qi to drill down into the ground below me.

Similar to what had happened when I had tried doing this around Mount Jiang, groundwater tried to infiltrate the hole I was creating, but I was able to harden my tunnel’s walls and stop it.

Similar to when I had dove into the hole in the Verdant Fields Sect, the ground around me grew hotter and hotter with each meter that I descended. Unlike then, however, this time, I had access to fire qi, and I was able to channel the heat away from me.

At 100 meters, the ground around me was scorching, but that was all. It was hot, but… normal.

At 200 meters, however, the rocks surrounding me were so hot that they had become soft and pliable. While fire usually makes earth stronger, too much fire can overwhelm it.

At this point, my fire qi wasn’t strong enough to handle the intense heat of my surroundings, so I instead channeled a portion of my qi into a water-based spirit fire I could only hope would be enough to keep me cool. If the temperatures around me continued to rise, however, then I would have to give up and come back later.

At 250 meters below the surface, the rocks below me disappeared, a wave of heat blasted me in the face, and I was greeted by the sight of a massive underground cavern.

The floor of this cavern was covered by a lake of lava which exuded the faint stench of sulfur.

At the center of this lake, a small, perfectly round stone island rose from the molten rock surrounding it. The island was nearly 20 meters across, and the closest cavern wall was over 40 meters away from it.

Looking in energy vision, I saw that this island was covered by four concentric rings of formations, with each ring being more powerful as they neared the center. From what I could tell, the outermost ring was a Rank 4 formation. The inner ring, however… Based on the amount of energy that it contained, the innermost ring had to be at least Rank 7.

How long had this formation been down here? Who had created it?

While I had zero information on what this formation did or why it was down here, its importance was obvious, so I copied it down in my mental journal for later study. However, while copying the outer ring wasn’t much of a problem, the inner rings were hidden by a layer of energy that made them hard to decipher. I could only make out a few of the details of the Rank 6 ring, and the Rank 7 ring looked like nothing more than a solid white line.

Once my drawing was as complete as I could make it, I allowed my eyes to drift to the edge of the island, to the small slice of land between the Rank 4 formation and the lake of lava that surrounded it. On this small ring of stable soil, several plants had taken root, and all of them appeared to be powerful herbs. I didn’t recognize most of them, but the sight of the Metal Dragon’s Tongue Fruit was unmistakable. This was enough to make me utterly convinced that the Su Clan had gained access to the earth formation and that the Twin Mountains Sect had gained access to the fire formation.

This entire cavern looked to be an untapped treasure trove, but with a lake of lava preventing me from moving forward, I didn’t know if I could loot it.

While studying how energy was flowing through the cavern, my eyes were drawn upward, toward the ceiling.

I didn’t understand even half of what the formations on the island were doing, but I knew one thing. A portion of the inscriptions were acting as a massive Metal Essence Gathering Formation, and they were channeling all the essence they gathered into a spot about 30 meters above the exact center of the island. They were channeling all of it directly into the seed of a spirit fire.

As essence entered this seed, it was transformed into water and heat. The water shot up, toward the surface. The heat poured down, into the lava below.

The herbs on the island were interesting, but I didn’t need them. I could come back for them later. The seed, though… I wanted that seed. It was the key to providing the inhabitants of my storage space with endless, clean drinking water.

Approaching it from below wasn’t going to happen. The heat it was putting out was too much for me to endure, but approaching from above wouldn’t be much better. The jet of water gushing out of it would be enough to pulverize my bones to powder.

I had to approach from the side and slip in through the gap between the jets of fire and water.

Using my earth qi, I extended a bridge from the wall of the cavern and headed toward the fire seed.

This strategy seemed to be working, but the moment my bridge passed over the edge of the island, it crumbled to dust.

I tried again, but the situation soon became clear. Whenever my qi passed over the island, I would lose control of it.

Upon learning this, I extended my bridge as far as possible. Then, I stuck out my right arm, allowing it to enter the island’s airspace.

Searing pain shot through me as the skin of my arm turned black and the scent of cooked meat reached my nostrils. The moment my hand had passed over the island, it had lost the protection of my fire qi, and the intense heat of the cavern had started burning it to a crisp.

Without retracting my arm, I quickly tried to summon a healing pill, but nothing happened. I had lost access to my storage space.

With my worst fears confirmed, I pulled my arm back and darted to the edge of the cavern.

The formations on this island possessed the same properties as the Path of the True Chosen in the Nine Rivers Sect. Entering their range would block me from accessing both my qi and my soul.

Staring at the fire seed in front of me, I knew that there had to be some way to retrieve it.

The Twin Mountains Sect’s fire seed was not hovering above a formation like this. It sat alone in an empty cavern. Someone had been able to remove it from above the formation.

If someone from the Twin Mountains Sect could figure out how to move one of these seeds, then I could as well.

My first thought was of ShouLi. With her blessing, she might be able to survive in this environment. If there was an intended solution to this problem, some form of body blessing or body cultivation was likely it.

I could try asking ShouLi to help me, but this situation was far too dangerous. I wasn’t willing to let her risk her life just to nab a new fire seed. I needed another solution.

Taking a deep breath, I knew what I had to do.

While cultivating the Wood-Burned Earth technique, I had experienced a pain that simulated the feeling of burning alive. Now, it was time to experience it for real.

I reached into my storage space and pulled out a large jade box inscribed with the formations necessary to contain a spirit fire seed. Then, I pulled out one of my most powerful poison pills and held it between my teeth. Finally, I took a tendril of a water-based spirit fire and wrapped it around my body. The island’s formations would cause me to lose control of this fire, but in this situation, an uncontrolled spirit fire was better than no spirit fire at all.

I took a deep breath of the scorching, sulfurous air and then ran forward.

The moment I reached the end of my stone bridge, I leapt directly toward the fire seed.

Pain lanced through every inch of my body.

I wanted to scream, but I kept my jaw locked in position, not allowing the poison pill to escape from between my teeth.

My robes began to crackle and burn, and my hair burst into flames.

I concentrated my entire mind on my task and held the jade box in front of me in steady hands.

I passed through the outer corona of the fire seed, and then, at the center of the flames, I saw a small, bright blue orb. I adjusted the positioning of the jade box slightly, and a second later, I slammed into the seed and ripped it from its position above the formation.

I immediately closed the box, but its formation didn’t activate. I was still above the island.

Even though the seed was no longer being fed an endless stream of essence, it was still filled with energy, so it was still producing both water and heat. As the box began heating up and water began seeping out of it, I frantically tried to shove it into my storage space, but nothing happened. I was still over the island.

Just as I was worried that the seed might burst free from its confines, the box vanished.

The moment it did, I swallowed a poison pill, ending my agony.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Master Peak – 10,000 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 539,755,440,897

-----------------------------------------------------

Affinities

Peak Four-Star – Earth, Metal, Lightning

Peak Five-Star – Wood, Fire, Water, Wind, Light, Dark

Peak Seven-Star – Karmic Energy

Low Six-Star – Space

Resistances

Mental Effects (Cultivation Techniques) – 25,000,000 credits

Mental Library

Capacity – Rank 6

Journal (with Mental Input) – Rank 6

Perfect Transcription – Rank 6

Touch Reading – Rank 6

Scribe – Rank 3

Comprehension Boosts

Cultivation:

Cultivation Techniques – 100 billion credits

Soul Techniques – 100 billion credits

Qi Control – 100 million credits

Teaching – 100 million credits

Professions:

Alchemy – 1 billion credits

Formations – 100 billion credits

Herbalism – 10 billion credits

Refining – 10 billion credits

Martial – 1 billion credits

Social:

Reading Emotions (True) – 25,000,000 credits

Skills

Mastery of Cold Mountain Fire, Expanding Realms Fire

Talisman Artistry – Rank 4 (Continent-Wide Expert)

Soul Formation Concealment – Rank 6

Enhanced Soul Growth – 20,000 credits

Pill, Formation, Herb, Talisman, Demon Beast, Refined Item, Illusion, and Gu Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive, Detailed)

Technique Appraisal – Rank 3 (Earth)

Fire Seed Appraisal – Profound

Language (Western Han)

A note from G Tolley

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 263 – Life 74, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

When I awoke in my tiny house, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. The pain of burning alive had vanished. In a couple of hours, once the memories of my past life faded into the background, the agony I had experienced would be nothing more than a distant dream.

To speed this process up, I focused on my newly acquired fire seed.

Hot Springs Fire, Yellow-Rank, Elements: Water/Fire, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Water/Heat

Seeing that the fire was only Yellow-Rank, I almost wanted to laugh. Supercharged by an abundance of metal essence, this fire had seemed closer to Earth-Rank. Still, I wouldn’t complain. Yellow-Rank was fine. I just needed it to be able to supply my storage space with an endless stream of water.

Speaking of my storage space, since I had a moment of downtime, I decided to check how things were going in there.

ShouLi stood on a small rock outcropping, surrounded by the other members of the leadership council. The elder who had replaced GuiMing had not been allowed to join us, so GuiMing had resumed his original position until a replacement could be appointed.

While everyone appeared somber, Liang showed signs of irritation.

“When is the Ancestor going to contact us? I am extremely grateful to him for saving my father, but he didn’t give us a chance to tell him about the problems with this place. If things don’t change soon, people are going to start rioting.”

ShouLi dropped her head. “I’m sure he has his reasons. We just have to endure. We have enough food for a few more days, and we can survive without housing. Just… Do your best. I’m sure he will contact us when he has time.”

Suddenly, ShouLi vanished, and everyone was left looking around in confusion.

I stood up and moved to the corner of my tiny house. This place was barely large enough for one person, so bringing a second one in would be a bit of a squeeze, but we could manage.

With an effort of will, I pulled ShouLi out of my storage space.

When she first appeared, her eyes widened in shock, but only an instant later, she sat down and began cultivating as fast as she could.

It wasn’t until nearly half an hour later that she finally opened her eyes and looked at me.

“Ancestor!?”

ShouLi’s face was a mask of horror and confusion. My cultivation base having disappeared was one thing, she had a frame of reference to understand that. However, the fact that I had somehow become decades younger, and the fact I now looked like nothing more than a malnourished street urchin, likely didn’t comport with her understanding of reality.

I just smiled wryly at her. “Yes, it’s me. Don’t worry about my current appearance. Things are a bit more complicated than I let on earlier, and I would prefer keeping a few things hidden for the moment.”

ShouLi bit her lower lip and nodded at me.

“I heard a bit of what the council was talking about. What’s the problem with the… world orb?”

This question brought her back to reality, and she focused on me with a serious expression.

“Aside from the place just feeling… wrong… The biggest problem is that we can’t use our qi in there.”

I nodded. “I know. I’m working on it. Once I regain a bit of power, I can look at setting up small areas of enhanced qi where people can cultivate.”

It would cost me a few spirit stones, but I could construct something like a Qi Gathering Formation that was fueled by spirit stones instead of ambient energy. I had done something similar in the past with the Rank 3 Cultivation Hall on Mount Jiang. It was expensive, but it would let me solve the immediate problem until I could implement a longer-term solution.

ShouLi shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. It’s not just a lack of qi. It’s that our qi, even the qi that’s inside our bodies, it doesn’t… it doesn't work right. It doesn’t do what we want it to do. It acts erratically. Mo tried using his qi to build a stone house and it just… didn’t work. After placing a few blocks, he lost control of his energy, and everything… exploded.”

My forehead creased when I heard this. All my formations had always worked properly, so I didn’t know what the issue would be. I couldn’t exactly go in and check it out myself, after all.

“I’ll look into it. For now, what do you need to make the place more habitable?”

ShouLi dropped her head. “If you can just supply us with a few crates of fresh food, that would go a long way to showing everyone that you haven’t forgotten about us. Other than that, if we can’t use our qi… then we need tools. We will need to build and farm like mortals. Some people might not be happy, but a few of the outsiders we brought with us know what to do. They just need the tools to do it.”

I nodded. “Anything else?”

She closed her eyes. “Do we have to keep living in there?”

“If possible. If it’s possible, then yes. In a few days, a month at most, I will start letting people out, but, if possible, I want a large group to stay in there and work on making it a decent place to live. I can’t explain everything yet, but just know, that world… It’s the clan’s future.”

ShouLi nodded. “I understand. I’ll do my best.”

With a wave of my hand, ShouLi disappeared.

I had done my best to ensure the loyalty of the people I had brought with me, and recent events should have been enough to convince them of the need to keep the clan’s secrets, but loyalties fail and memories fade. Besides, even if everyone remained stalwart, there were still ways of extracting information from people without their consent, such as slave techniques and soul gu.

I needed a final line of protection.

“System, how much would it cost to purchase an oath stone and formation capable of allowing the members of my clan to swear Oaths to the Heavenly Dao? I would want it so that a person had some kind of warning if they were in danger of breaking their Oath, and if they did so, I want them to be struck by lightning and killed, no matter where on this continent the infraction occurs.”

Cost 2 quadrillion credits.

I nodded grimly. “How much for just the oath stone?”

Cost 500 billion credits.

While I could buy the stone, it would burn through all my credits, and I wouldn’t have much to show for it.

In the Eight Flower Kingdom, everyone was forced to swear an Oath upon becoming a Lord, but one would only be punished for breaking that Oath if they were within range of the kingdom’s Bagua Formation. I might be able to buy something like that, or even just steal Eight Flower’s, but it wouldn’t help me much. If someone ran away and started spreading news of our clan, any Oath they swore wouldn’t have much of an effect.

I needed a way to administer Oaths like the one Zhuge Yan had sworn, one that would be effective anywhere.

If purchasing such a formation from the System wasn’t possible, I only had one idea of who I could turn to for help. It was dangerous, but at this point, everything was dangerous.

“System, send me to a secluded spot near the Pavilion in Blue Wind City.”

Purchase Confirmed. Cost 10,098 credits. 539,755,430,799 credits remaining.

I appeared in an alleyway surrounded by two towering skyscrapers. Stepping out onto the street, I was greeted by the sight of a massive, 80-story tall pagoda that sat upon an impressive 30-meter-thick foundation of pure ziethanite.

Without pausing to take in the sights around me, I walked confidently up to the base of the pagoda and began climbing the stairs.

Halfway up, my lungs started burning from the exertion. I hadn’t taken a Nutrition Pill in this life, so I was still suffering from malnutrition, and my body was little more than skin and bones. Seeing this, the numerous patrons entering and exiting the Pavilion gave me strange looks, but no one spoke up to cause a scene. Even the most arrogant young master would hesitate before speaking out of turn at the headquarters of the Blue Wind Pavilion.

Ignoring my surroundings, I pushed on, and after a herculean effort, I made it to the top of the stairs.

The two men standing guard there narrowed their eyes at me, but they did nothing to stop me from passing through the large, open double doors and entering the Pavilion.

Like every other Pavilion I had visited, the first floor of the Blue Wind Pavilion’s headquarters was a giant, open atrium with dozens of counters that sold everything a person might need. The only thing that set the headquarters apart was the sheer size of the place. It was several times larger than normal, and the ceiling was at least five full floors up, giving the place a cavernous feel to it.

Because of the sheer number of shoppers, instead of having attendants approach everyone as they entered, a desk had been set up near the entrance where one could go to request assistance.

As I approached, the young woman behind this counter gave me a cold, imperious look. With her stiff, upright posture and a slight sneer on her lips, she made the Pavilion’s blue and silver qipao look like the robes of a monarch. Her golden hair ornaments seemed almost to be a crown.

When I stood before her, she didn’t ask if I needed help, she simply raised a questioning eyebrow.

I gave her a soft smile. “Hello, I need to speak with Li GuiYang.”

I reached out and placed a small coin on the counter between us.

The moment this coin touched the counter, a bright purple light burst forth from the image of a plum blossom that had been engraved into it.

Seeing this, the attendant’s eyes widened in horror, and she bowed deeply. “Of course, emissary, at once.”

She turned to leave, but before she could take even a single step, a black portal appeared, and an elderly man in a dark blue robe stepped out of it.

Emperor Li gave me a considering look and then motioned me toward the portal.

I gave him a slight bow of my head and stepped through. Coming here had already put me in his clutches. Walking into an unknown portal wouldn’t make things any more dangerous than they already were.

On the other side, I stepped out into a tidy, spartan office. Emperor Li took his seat behind the desk and gestured for me to sit across from him.

Once seated, he gave me a stony look. “There are only a few possible ways that you could possibly possess my token, and I am not exactly thrilled with any of them. Explain.”

Wordlessly, I pulled out his memory orb, placed it on the desk, and rolled it over to him.

Emperor Li narrowed his eyes at this, and a faint snarl crossed his lips, but he held himself in check.

After staring at the orb for several seconds, he picked it up and absorbed the memories.

When the transfer was complete, a flash of emotion overtook him, but he quickly composed himself and looked at me with his regular, granite expression.

“Alright, why have you come here? I assume you want something from me.”

I nodded. “I need a way to apply Oaths. I know that Zhuge Yan has sworn an Oath to keep certain information private. When he broke that Oath, he was immediately struck down by lightning. I need a way to make that happen. I need to be able to make people swear Oaths of secrecy so that they cannot reveal certain information even if they are forced to do so.”

Emperor Li looked at me silently for nearly an entire minute before speaking.

“Each of the Sovereign clans has a formation that can do what you want. They were made by a Formation Spirit on the Central Continent hundreds of years ago. They are irreplaceable, and while they are only effective on this continent, they are vital for our operations here.”

I smirked faintly. “So, your Li clan has one. Do you care that it cannot be replaced?”

Emperor Li narrowed his eyes. “Not entirely. As you already know, I only have 20 years left before I wither away to dust, and I don’t mind punishing the Li Clan a bit before I leave. However, how many resources have I provided you? How many of them have you repaid? Ultimately, yes, I hope that you will assist me in ascending to immortality, and that would be a gift far beyond anything I could ever give you, but I have my pride. I do not enjoy being treated as a money jar. How many lives have you lived since I gave you that orb? How many times have you allowed me to regain my memories?”

I ducked my head apologetically. “Three or four lives, and this is the first time you have reabsorbed them. I had assumed that if you wanted the memories, then you would come and get them. That’s what your blessing is for, is it not? I did not seek you out, no, but you did not seek me out either. As for repayment, let's put this issue to the side. I consider the help that you have given me to be beyond measure. Once I am capable of helping you ascend, I am sure that you will feel the same way. Instead, let us talk about how we will work together.”

The mention of his blessing caused a spike of rage to well up in Emperor Li, but he calmed himself and nodded.

“I need the Oath formation. I hope you can get that for me. Also… I wonder if you know where I might find a technique for cultivating wind, dark, or light essence. In return, I will give you the notes of a Master Alchemist.”

When I took a small book containing RuLan’s notes on beast alchemy out of my storage space, Emperor Li stared at it, and his brow furrowed in confusion.

“That... What... Ye…” He bit his tongue to keep from saying more. Then he looked at me with sharp eyes. “What is that? Why is it so valuable?”

I smiled as I thought of something. “Also, you might be aware that I have not been a particularly good disciple to you over the years. I was wondering if you would be interested in taking a true disciple?”

Inside my storage space, one moment, RuLan was having a private conversation with Mo. The next, she was gone.

RuLan suddenly appeared in Emperor Li’s office and looked around in panic.

When she spotted me, her eyes widened in horror at the state of my body. “Patri… An… Ancestor?”

I waved her to silence. “RuLan, would you be interested in taking a Martial Sovereign as your master?”

She turned and stared wide-eyed at Emperor Li.

In the end, I left the Pavilion with an oath stone and a formation plate. While this formation had unexpected limitations, it would still let me accomplish my goals.

RuLan left the Pavilion with an agreement to meet her new master in the next loop and a memory orb for Emperor Li that contained the details of this agreement.

The only shame was that I no longer had Emperor Li’s token, it had been handed over to RuLan.

As for the wind essence cultivation technique, that was a secret of the Li Clan. It was locked away in the Li Clan’s vaults and only blood members of the clan were allowed to access it. Emperor Li was unable to give it to me. Likewise, the light and dark techniques were secrets of the Zhuge Clan.

Zhuge YeDu had tried to entrap and enslave me when I went to the Nine River’s Summit. Zhuge HanYu had just led an army to eradicate my clan. While both of these gestures had ultimately been futile, they had built up a debt that needed to be repaid, and handing over these techniques would be a good way for them to do that.

However, this was something for the future. Neither I nor my clan was ready for that yet. For the moment, we needed to focus on growing stronger.

With that in mind, I took a few hours to wander around Blue Wind City and purchase a variety of mundane supplies for the people living in my storage space, including hammers, hoes, and watering cans.

Then, I found a secluded spot in one of the city’s gardens and sat down in the shade of a tall cypress tree.

My status as Emperor Li’s disciple would quickly be known by the various powers of this world, and that would cause nothing but trouble. So, before I could move forward, I needed to return to the beginning.

I pulled out a poison pill and swallowed it.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Disciple 1 – 10 credits awarded.

Total Credits: 539,755,430,809

-----------------------------------------------------

Affinities

Peak Four-Star – Earth, Metal, Lightning

Peak Five-Star – Wood, Fire, Water, Wind, Light, Dark

Peak Seven-Star – Karmic Energy

Low Six-Star – Space

Resistances

Mental Effects (Cultivation Techniques) – 25,000,000 credits

Mental Library

Capacity – Rank 6

Journal (with Mental Input) – Rank 6

Perfect Transcription – Rank 6

Touch Reading – Rank 6

Scribe – Rank 3

Comprehension Boosts

Cultivation:

Cultivation Techniques – 100 billion credits

Soul Techniques – 100 billion credits

Qi Control – 100 million credits

Teaching – 100 million credits

Professions:

Alchemy – 1 billion credits

Formations – 100 billion credits

Herbalism – 10 billion credits

Refining – 10 billion credits

Martial – 1 billion credits

Social:

Reading Emotions (True) – 25,000,000 credits

Skills

Mastery of Cold Mountain Fire, Expanding Realms Fire

Talisman Artistry – Rank 4 (Continent-Wide Expert)

Soul Formation Concealment – Rank 6

Enhanced Soul Growth – 20,000 credits

Pill, Formation, Herb, Talisman, Demon Beast, Refined Item, Illusion, and Gu Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive, Detailed)

Technique Appraisal – Rank 3 (Earth)

Fire Seed Appraisal – Profound

Language (Western Han)

.

End of Volume 4.

A note from G Tolley

As this chapter is essentially an epilogue, I decided to go ahead and post it with 262. However, this means that there will be no chapter Monday.

See you Tuesday for the start of Volume 5.

Join the discussion on Discord.

Read more now on Patreon.

Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Volume 4 Afterword

Hello again everyone,

First, today was a double chapter, and yesterday's chapter was the length of two chapters in one, so the next chapter will no be released until Tuesday. While this may be disappointing, I thought it was better to have 263 follow 262 immediately.

Now, onto my thoughts for Volume 4.

You may have noticed that several plot threads were not exactly wrapped up and that there is still a lot for Fang to accomplish with his new clan, even more than normal for this series. The reason for this is that Volumes 4 and 5 were originally planned out as a single book. Where we are at now was supposed to be about 60% of the way through Volume 4, but Volume 4 is already at 170k words though. I knew that completing it would push it to 300k words or beyond, so I decided to go ahead and break it here. This also gives me more space to let the next steps in Fang's plans breath. Quite frankly, he still has a lot to get done.

So, yes, a lot of plot threads won't be wrapped up until Volume 5, but I hope that recent events have felt like a suitable conclusion to Volume 4.

Unfortunately, I do not yet have a temporary book cover for Volume 5 yet. I've tried, but forcing AI to generate the cover I want wasn't working. I'll have to work on it in the coming days.

In any case, thank you for your support, and I'll see you Tuesday for the start of Volume 5.

G. Tolley

Chapter 264 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Arriving back in my tiny house, I thought through my plans for the near future. Was there anything I had missed? Was there anything I hadn’t thought about?

After only a few decades, my fledgling clan was capable of dominating our small corner of the world. We were few in number, but within the Wastes, our strength was unrivaled. Part of me was proud of this accomplishment, but ultimately, it was meaningless.

Outside of the Wastes, there were far stronger forces that we couldn’t yet compete with. I, personally, had the skills necessary to fight against nearly anyone from these forces, but I alone wasn’t enough. I needed a powerful clan behind me. That was the only way to achieve my goal. That was the only way for me to become a Sovereign.

At the moment, I had over 400 people in my storage space, and most of them were members of the Su Clan. To become a Sovereign, I needed to be viewed as the head of a clan, and I needed to be connected to the members of said clan through body and soul.

These 400 people saw me as their Ancestor, and we were nearly all members of the Su Clan by blood, so I should be connected to them through ‘body.’ However, the second qualification was still a lingering question mark. I didn’t know what it meant to be connected to someone through ‘soul,’ and the fact that I was an outsider who had been reincarnated into the body of Su Fang worried me.

My soul wasn’t born into the Su Clan. Would that be an issue? I didn’t know, but the only way to find out was to keep pushing forward. With such monumental events at play, attempting to buy relevant information from the System was impossible.

So, my goal was to advance to Sovereign. What did I need to do? I needed to grow my clan, both in size and in power.

While the Wastes gave me access to recruits who could quickly grow my clan’s size, it severely limited how powerful anyone could become. I could attempt to continue simply recruiting as many Disciples as possible, but there was only so much room in my storage space to take them back in time with me, and I would rather use that limited space to carry around the most powerful cultivators possible. So, even though the Wastes had its advantages, I wanted my people to grow stronger, and that meant we needed to go elsewhere.

Another factor that limited how powerful my people could become was my lack of memory orbs. If I could provide orbs with knowledge of more powerful techniques, the people in my clan would be able to grow much faster with much firmer foundations. However, I was nearly out of orbs, so this was impossible.

I needed more memory orbs, and I needed to learn to make them myself. This was the only way to ensure that we would always have as many as we needed, but this would require time—time as a Martial Emperor.

I wanted to study Rank 6 alchemy, formations, and refining. I wanted Bao and SuYin to have a chance to study Rank 6 herbalism. I wanted to push the members of my clan to Peak Emperor. I wanted to ascend to Martial Sovereign. None of this could happen in the Wastes.

As far as I knew, there was only one place on the entire continent where it could happen. The Nine Rivers Sect. I needed to go back there, and I needed to take my entire clan with me.

However, the sect was a dangerous place. If I recklessly sent everyone in there without the proper preparations in place, many of them would die. Worse, a large number of them would likely become infected with soul gu and be turned into slaves.

If we were going to go back to the sect, we needed to be prepared, and I knew that I couldn’t do everything myself. I needed help.

“System, I want to purchase a permanent version of the Memory Implantation ability I used previously. I want to be able to transfer a person’s memories directly from a memory orb and into their soul so that it is like they had absorbed it normally. This ability only needs to work with a person’s own memories, and it only needs to work on Martial Disciples.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 100 billion credits. 439,755,430,809 credits remaining.

I took a deep breath as I mentally prepared myself for what I needed to do.

“Teleport me inside of JiaQi’s carriage.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 3,759 credits. 439,755,427,050 credits remaining.

I arrived, crossed-legged, sitting in the middle of the well-used wooden carriage.

“What the hell!”

Even though I had expected it, her scream startled me, but I didn’t react.

As JiaQi stared at me in fear, I quickly pulled out her original memory orb and tossed it to her.

“Catch.”

Reflexively, she moved her hands and grabbed it. The moment she did, I activated my new Memory Implantation ability.

A few seconds later, her eyes widened in shock.

“You’re an ass!”

I gave her a quick smile. “I’ll leave a message for you at the Blue Wind Pavilion after I secure a residence.”

While I was pretty sure that I would purchase the same manor as last time, I figured it would be better to play things safe.

After giving JiaQi a quick wave goodbye, I turned my head to give a subvocalized command.

“System, teleport me inside of LiTing’s carriage.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 13,835 credits. 439,755,413,215 credits remaining.

After returning her memories to her, I passed the same message to LiTing and then disappeared.

“System, teleport me inside of YuLong’s carriage.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 5,279 credits. 439,755,407,936 credits remaining.

Quick as I could, I tossed YuLong his orb and activated it. When his eyes regained clarity, we gave each other a short nod of understanding, but then I said something that I was sure he hadn’t expected.

“YuLong, do you think you can return home, grab your sister, and bring her to South Gate City safely?”

His eyes widened in shock. Then, he balled his hand into a fist and began tapping it on his leg.

“I don’t know… maybe.”

I thought for a moment, and then I subvocalized to ask about a purchase that I should have considered earlier.

“System, how much would it cost to teleport YuLong’s sister here?”

Calculating…. Cost 7,543,000 credits.

From what I could tell, the System had applied a hefty multiplier, either because the target wasn’t present or because she was unwilling. Either way, it was fine. The cost was minimal, and transporting her here safely was all that mattered.

Returning my focus to YuLong, I nodded.

“I know you want to spend time at home, but go to South Gate’s Pavilion. I’ll leave a note for you there. Just… trust me on this, okay? We’ll talk more when you arrive.”

YuLong grimaced. “Fang…”

I moved and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Please, just trust me in this. There are important issues that we need to discuss, and this isn’t the place to do it.”

His shoulders slumped, and there was evident sadness in his eyes, but he dipped his head in acknowledgment all the same.

With the memories that I had given him, YuLong had returned to a time shortly after our group had first entered Heaven City. He wanted to go home and spend time with his family.

I considered going ahead and giving him his memories from the life after that one as well, but I was worried.

When I had given everyone their memories the first time, it made them all rather unstable. LiTing had developed an unnatural connection to Meng LuYao, JiaQi had stopped caring about anything other than having fun, Yan had become somewhat megalomaniacal, and YuLong had led a full-scale rebellion against the Empire of Eternal Winter. They were still themselves, but it was like their original personalities had been twisted and amplified.

I was worried that if I gave everyone two lifetimes' worth of memories, things would only get worse. So first, I wanted to give them time to grow. For everyone else, this wouldn’t be a problem. For YuLong… He would understand eventually.

I smiled at him. “Don’t worry, things will work out better this time.”

Then, I looked away.

“System, teleport me to a secluded spot in the Twin Mountains Sect’s city for nominal disciples.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 10,431 credits. 439,755,397,505 credits remaining.

After dressing up in the proper robes, I attached a jade token to my waist. I had bought this token from the System in a previous life, and it gave me near-complete authority over the Twin Mountains Sect’s defensive formation.

Once I was ready, I headed out to find Bao, and since I already knew where to look, this was a bit easier than it had been the last time. As soon as his memories were restored a worried look appeared on his face, and he gave me a deep bow.

“Master… it’s… true? We really—”

I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, but don’t say it. Try your best not to even think it, okay?”

He nodded.

“What… what are we going to do now? Are we going to go get Senior Sister SuYin?”

“In a bit. First, there is someone else who I want to recruit.” I smiled at him “How many contribution points do you have?”

---------------------------------------------------

I didn’t know where to find the person I was looking for, but I knew that she offered alchemy lessons through the sect’s lecture halls. Normally, arranging such a lesson would have taken a day or two, but thankfully, Bao had a few extra points on his account and was able to offer her three times her normal rate if she could meet us immediately.

This made me smile. An hour earlier, the 150 points Bao shelled out for this single lesson would have seemed like a fortune to him. He had probably spent several months saving them up, and now, they were next to useless.

After arranging things, Bao and I entered a private room to wait.

Only a few minutes later, a young woman arrived and gave us a martial salute.

“Greetings, I am Cao MeiLan. Who is Junior Brother Bao?”

Bao gave a salute in return.

“Hello, Senior Sister. I am Bao Wen.” He motioned toward me. “This is Su Fang.”

She dipped her head toward me and then refocused on Bao. “You requested an urgent alchemy lesson? Is there an issue that you need my help with?”

Bao winced and turned to me.

I cleared my throat. “Miss Cao, there is something I would like to discuss with you.”

Cao tensed. Because of the quality of her cultivation base, she wasn’t as far gone as Bao had been, and she could tell that something strange was going on. However, she was still compelled to view us in a positive light, so she didn’t run away immediately.

“Miss Cao, I would like to make you an offer.”

I pulled a jade box containing a spirit fire out of my storage space and set it down in front of her.

“I would… I would like to hire you. I will provide you with a spirit fire and all the training and resources you will need to become a Grandmaster Alchemist. However, this job will involve a bit of travel, so you will need to withdraw from the sect.”

Without a memory orb, convincing someone like Cao to follow me blindly was rather tricky. She wasn’t as cultivation-mad as Bao had been, and she wasn’t as desperate as SuYin had been, so all I could rely on was a combination of these two factors.

Cao stared at the jade box. As someone who had lived in the sect for years, acquiring a spirit fire had to have been a dream that she thought she would never achieve, and it was right in front of her. However, she wasn’t foolish enough to rush into anything.

Forcing herself to look away from the jade box, Cao eyed me closely and examined me in qi vision. This caused her to take a step back, but she didn’t leave. Her eyes flicked to Bao, but he only dipped his head in my direction.

Cao looked back at me, and I could sense a mix of suspicion, worry, and a desire for the spirit fire in her.

“Why me?”

I closed my eyes and thought through how to answer this.

“Because… I owe a debt. The situation is complicated, but let’s just say that your ancestor assisted my ancestor. In return, I want to offer this opportunity to you.”

She kneaded her hands together. “There are others in the sect you should choose instead. A debt between ancestors… even if I believe that, there is no debt between us. You should choose one of the sect’s more talented alchemists. I know my limits. I…”

I rubbed my chin as I thought about what to say.

“Master Cao.” I fixed her with my most penetrating glare. “You may see me as little more than a new Disciple, but I can promise you this. Those talented alchemists are nothing in my eyes. With my help, in only a few years, you will be far more skilled than any of them.”

I spoke with conviction, and Cao’s cultivation technique compelled her to believe me. When she looked at Bao, and he nodded earnestly, her resistance collapsed.

“O… Okay.”

I smiled. “Excellent.”

Then, I waved my hand, and ShouLi appeared.

“An… Ancestor!?”

“ShouLi, I would like to introduce you to Cao MeiLan. She will be joining us. For now, please arrange a temporary home for her. We will discuss things further in a few days.”

ShouLi looked around with wild eyes for several moments before she could focus on Cao.

She gave a slight bow. “Of course, Miss Cao, if you will…”

I waved my fingers, and both Cao and ShouLi vanished.

Bao laughed. “Can you teach me to do that?”

“Sorry… it’s a bit of a trade secret.”

Bao pouted melodramatically and dropped his head.

As he did, I subvocalized. “System, teleport SuYin into this room.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 375,500 credits. 439,755,022,005 credits remaining.

Suddenly, SuYin appeared.

Her eyes widened in fright, but she didn’t scream out. For some reason, she was trying to force herself to remain calm and not overreact.

I quickly forced her memory orb into her hand and activated my Implantation ability.

Moments later, her eyes cleared, and she looked at me, confused.

“M… Master? What…” She looked around the room and saw Bao. “You… you are… Bao… right? Where… am I? What…”

My forehead creased in concern. “SuYin, what’s wrong?”

She did her best to focus on me. “Master it’s… I can’t remember… There’s so much… It’s like… My memories are only fragments. What’s happening?”

I looked at Bao. “I’m worried about spending too much time here. Can you talk with her? Help her understand.”

He quickly bowed his head. “Of course, master.”

“Alright, I’ll pull you back out in a few hours. Just… do your best in the meantime.”

I waved a hand, and both Bao and SuYin vanished.

Once they were gone, I considered the final person I wanted to recruit from the Twin Mountains Sect. At one time, Senior Sister Jiao had been a friend to me, and she had helped me out on several occasions. However, even before that life had ended, that friendship had faded.

I still wanted to pull her into the fold… but this wasn’t the time. Convincing Cao to join us had been difficult, but Jiao would already be in the outer sect, and I highly doubted that she would be beholden to her cultivation technique.

There were ways to get around this, but there was another, more important problem. Jiao was a social climber. She cared about her status and influence. Pulling her in right now would be far too dangerous. Next time, though, things would be different.

Another person who I would have liked to recruit was Murong NaYun. I had only seen him a single time, and I had never even talked to him. All I knew about the man was that during the Dragon Gate Festival, he had claimed to have an extremely powerful blessing and that he had displayed an extraordinary talent with talismans.

Unfortunately, he was far too old to join us in the Nine Rivers Sect, and the fact that I knew nothing about him meant that I couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t betray us. So, while he seemed like he might be exactly the kind of person I was looking for, I could only set him aside, for the moment at least.

Of course, there was one final person that I felt I needed to recruit, but she… She would have to wait as well. If Jiao XinYan and Murong NaYun were dangerous, then Pei LiMei was deadly.

“System, teleport me to a secluded spot in South Gate City.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 9,291 credits. 439,755,012,714 credits remaining.

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Chapter 265 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

When I appeared in South Gate City, I went to a bathhouse, got cleaned up, and put on the fanciest set of non-refined robes I possessed. Then, I made my way to the Blue Wind Pavilion.

As soon as I entered, a young woman walked up to me and gave me a deep bow.

“Hello, sir. How may I help you today?”

I looked at the unfamiliar young woman for a brief moment and then raised my chin in acknowledgment.

“Is Meng LuYao in today? I’ve had some business with her in the past, and I would prefer to work with her directly.”

The attendant grimaced. “Sir, Miss Meng is indisposed. Would it be possible for me to handle your request instead?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “What do you mean by ‘indisposed?’”

The attendant looked like she didn’t want to say anything more. I considered bribing her, but since that would involve either handing her a spirit stone or a stack of gold coins, I held back.

“Sir, Miss Meng has taken the day off. She…” The attendant hesitated about whether she should say more, but at my insistent gaze, she continued. “Earlier today, she ran out of here claiming that she wanted to learn how to cultivate. Sir, don’t worry. She is far too old for any of the respectable schools to accept her, and she is smart enough to avoid the more unscrupulous ones. She should be back by tomorrow.”

I nodded and handed her a few gold coins. “Thank you.”

While I hadn’t been willing to bribe the girl, giving her a generous tip was only fair.

After leaving the Pavilion, I ducked into a side alley and reached out for some help.

“System, how much would it cost to teleport me to a secluded area near Meng LuYao?”

Cost 2,490 credits.

As expected, I had to pay a bit of a markup because the price included information about her location, but it wasn’t bad. The low price of this information suggested that I could wait and meet her later, but I saw no reason to do so.

“Teleport me.”

Purchase confirmed. 439,755,010,224 credits remaining.

I appeared in the nook of a building created by two outstretched extensions. After taking a moment to orient myself, I realized that I was outside the main complex of the Yellow Orchid Academy.

My location was far from ‘secluded,’ and since I would look incredibly suspicious if anyone were to stumble upon me, I hurriedly made my way to a more public location where I could blend in as just another new applicant.

However, as I began moving toward the building’s entrance, I heard the sound of crying.

After a bit of looking around, I found a young woman huddled in a nearby corner.

I approached and sat down next to her without saying a word. When I did so, she flinched, showing that she had noticed my arrival, but she didn’t look up. She just continued to sit there and cry. It wasn’t until several minutes later that she ran out of energy.

Meng LuYao glanced at me from behind the cover of her arms and hands.

“I just… want to become a cultivator. I want…”

I leaned against the wall of the building. “Why?”

This caused LuYao to burst into tears again. “I want… control. Control over my life.”

“The school wouldn’t accept you?”

“N… No. They said… They didn’t even check to see if I could cultivate. They just said that I’m too old.”

“There are plenty of other schools in the city. I’m sure at least one of them would accept you.”

LuYao convulsed. “No. They’re right. I’m already 19. It’s… too late.”

I nodded. She had less than 2 years before stagnation set in. Under normal circumstances, training someone to Martial Master in such a short time would be difficult. However, Meng LuYao had a five-star light affinity and an incredibly high comprehension level. She wouldn’t have any problems.

“If you are willing, I can give you a chance. I can teach you to cultivate, and you will become far stronger than you’ve ever dreamed of.”

For the first time, LuYao looked me full in the face. The look she gave me… It wasn’t one of joy or excitement. It was one filled with suspicion and hostility.

“What’s the catch? There’s always a catch.”

I nodded.

“There is. You…” Thinking about what I was about to say made me wince. “You will need to allow me to use my blessing to change your appearance. I will transform you into someone completely new, and no one you know will be able to recognize you. You won’t be able to tell anyone about this, and you may never see your friends and family again.”

LuYao’s eyes narrowed. “Is that all?”

“Yes. If you accept these terms, I will teach you to cultivate. I will also need you to take an Oath of secrecy, but that is all. You will not be beholden to me, and you will be free to leave and go your own way whenever you wish.”

LuYao closed her eyes, but only for a moment. After that one brief moment, she opened them and glared at me fiercely.

“I agree.”

I smiled at her and then turned away.

“System, change Meng LuYao’s physical appearance. Choose random features from women on the Central Continent and mix them into something new. She should retain the same apparent age, and she should be considered attractive, but keep it within limits. The most attractive woman in the city is fine. Most attractive on the continent is not.”

Processing… Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 million credits. 439,754,010,224 credits remaining.

Meng LuYao’s eyes snapped open, and she looked like she wanted to scream, but no sound came out.

Then, her skin started to shimmer and morph.

Her hair burst out of the Pavilion’s golden clip and fell to the small of her back. Then, it began extending to below her waist. As it did, it shifted hues from the pitch black of everyone else I had ever seen in this world to a softer mahogany.

Next, her eyes enlarged a tad and took on a slightly steeper cant. Above them, the color of her eyebrows faded to match her new hair color and thinned out.

Her lips and cheeks reddened, her nose shrunk, her cheekbones lifted, her chin narrowed, and small pockets of fat disappeared.

When everything was done, I gaped as I stared at a brand-new woman.

LuYao’s breathing quickened. “What… What did you do to me?”

Wordlessly, I reached into my storage space, pulled out a large sheet of silvery metal, and held it up for her.

When she saw her reflection, LuYao started touching her face at random.

“What…”

I smiled. “I told you. I used my blessing to change your appearance. Please, do not mention this to anyone.”

I waved a hand, and GuiAi suddenly appeared next to us.

“Ancestor!?”

I let out a slight chuckle. “GuiAi, this is Meng LuYao. Please help her get settled in.”

GuiAi bowed deeply. “Ye…Yes, Ancestor.”

With a flick of my fingers, LuYao, GuiAi, and the metal sheet vanished.

GuiAi was a good kid. She should be able to take care of LuYao for a bit.

As for LuYao herself… I didn’t exactly like the idea of requiring her to change her appearance, but it had been the easiest solution to deal with the ‘LiTing Problem.’ As long as LiTing didn’t see LuYao’s natural appearance, the two of them shouldn’t develop as unhealthy of a relationship as they had the last time they met. Later, when they got their memories back, this might cause other problems, but for the moment, it was the best idea I had.

After handing LuYao off to GuiAi, I was stuck at the Yellow Orchid Academy with no easy way to get back to the city proper. In my current condition, there was no way I would make it back if I tried to walk, and as I hadn’t used a carriage to come out here, there wasn’t one waiting to take me back. I could have tried to find the carriage that brought LuYao, but I decided to simplify things and just pay the small fee to hop back.

“System, send me back to a secluded spot in South Gate, near the Pavilion.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 24 credits. 439,754,010,200 credits remaining.

Then, I headed inside and took care of business.

I paid an exorbitant price for the same house as our group had used the last time we were in the city, I left letters for LiTing, JiaQi, and YuLong, and I ordered a large number of basic mortal and Rank 1 goods to be delivered to the house the next day. Finally, I sent a letter to Zhuge Yan.

The last time we had done this, Yan had written a letter to himself, and all I had needed to do to get his attention was send it to him. This time, I didn’t have such a letter. However, since it had only contained mortal information, the letter had been copied into my library the moment I had touched it.

When I looked at said letter, I found that the whole thing was written in a cipher that I couldn’t understand and would have a hard time replicating, but that wasn’t a problem. I took out a similar sheet of paper and used my new scribe ability to copy the letter exactly.

This worked as expected, and the next day, Yan appeared in the Pavilion.

We didn’t say much. I just gave him his orb and the location of our house. We would need to wait until we were in a more secure location before we discussed things in detail.

Then, I returned home to get everything set up.

It would take everyone a few weeks to assemble in South Gate City, so I gave both my clan and my new recruits a bit of time outside of the storage space. No one was allowed to leave the house, and I set up defensive formations to enforce this rule, but as South Gate had significantly higher qi density than the Wastes, I was able to set up multiple locations for people of all Ranks to restore their energy and cultivate.

For my clan, ShouLi set up a rotating schedule so that everyone, including the mortal outsiders, would be allowed a bit of time out in the real world.

As for my recruits, I sent Cao to study fire cultivation with RuLan, LuYao to study light cultivation under GuiAi, and SuYin to study wood cultivation with Bao.

This process could have been sped up by teaching basic cultivation techniques through memory orbs, but SuYin had already shown me the dangers of doing that. Nothing that had been stored in her blessing’s ’perfect memory’ had been copied to the memory orb. It had only recorded the fragmentary knowledge that had existed in her brain.

Most of her basic knowledge had been retained. She knew who Bao and I were, she knew about the Verdant Forest Sect, and she knew what I had told her about time loops. However, nearly all of the details were gone. For instance, she knew the basic idea of how cultivation techniques worked, but she had relied almost entirely on her blessing when learning the specifics.

This loss of SuYin’s memories was a bit of a blow as it meant that we had lost any secrets she might have known about the Verdant Forest Sect, but that was fine. I didn’t consider them too important. I had to believe that if any of these secrets had been worth knowing, then SuYin would have mentioned them in the previous timeline.

All we had lost was a bit of time, and even then, it wasn’t much. Cao and LuYao would need to relearn cultivation from scratch anyway, and I was confident that SuYin could outpace either of them. However, this time, she was doing a bit of extra work to try to retain more knowledge for future lives.

There was another problem that needed to be addressed, though. SuYin and Bao’s affinities had vanished. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a big deal since I could just set up a Wood Essence Gathering Formation, but in South Gate City, there wasn’t any environmental essence for such a formation to gather.

Once we entered the sect, I had no doubt that both of them would be able to get plenty of essence from the Wood Peak Trial, but for the moment, I would have to take care of it personally.

“System, raise Bao and SuYin’s wood affinity to peak seven-star.”

Purchase confirmed. 35,520 credits. 439,753,974,680 credits remaining.

A few days after we arrived, YuLong appeared, and I immediately led him to my private room at the back of the house.

Once we were both seated, I bowed my head to him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t explain earlier, but without the proper formations in place, doing so would have been too dangerous.”

YuLong fixed me with a steely gaze and dipped his head in acknowledgment.

“I will explain things in more detail after everyone arrives, but here is the short version.” I closed my eyes for a moment to focus. “This is not the first cycle since the memories you absorbed were recorded. You have already lived a life where you chose not to rejoin the sect and instead returned to spend time with your family.”

I took out the memory orb to show him. “I’m worried about you absorbing too many memories too early. I think it would be best if you waited until after you spent a bit of time cultivating your soul, but I will give them to you now if you wish.”

YuLong’s gaze was fixed on the orb, but he made no move to grab it.

“What happened?”

“All I know is that, at some point, your sister was forced to marry one of the princes of the Empire of Eternal Winter, and you led a rebellion to stop it. I don’t know what happened to your sister, but you were eventually locked up in a dungeon beneath the palace. The memories in this orb come from shortly after the point where we rescued you.”

YuLong nodded with grim determination. “Okay. I can believe that. What now?”

“Now, you need to decide what you want to do. You can take these memories, run back to the empire, and try to change things. It might not work, but it’s worth a shot. However, what I hope you will do is join us in the Nine Rivers Sect and spend a few decades, possibly centuries, in training.”

YuLong tensed, but I held up a hand to stop him from answering.

“I know you want to see your family, but if you want to be able to fight against the empire, you need to be better prepared. I can offer you this, though. I will bring your sister here, and the two of you can train together. Also, once you get your memories back, I would suggest you spend time with Yan to plan things out so that you will be more successful in the future.”

This last comment made YuLong let out a wry chuckle. “Alright. I’ll trust you. Please, bring my sister here.”

I nodded and then turned my head to the side.

“System, teleport YuLong’s sister into this room.”

Purchase confirmed. 8,277,000 credits. 439,745,697,680 credits remaining.

A young girl, far younger than I had expected, only 8 or 9 years old, suddenly appeared. The moment she did, she started screaming.

Wide-eyed, YuLong ran over to try and comfort her.

After a moment of thought, I flicked a finger and GuiMing appeared.

“Ming… can you… can you get the two of them settled?”

He bowed to me. “Of course, Ancestor.”

Then, all three vanished.

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Chapter 266 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Disciple Peak

A week later, JiaQi and LiTing showed up. I gave them the same rough information that I had given YuLong and showed them to a room where they could cultivate in seclusion.

Then, I also entered seclusion to begin cultivating a new technique, the Writ of Metal from Charred Earth. Since I was returning to the Nine Rivers Sect, it might have been better to take this opportunity to cultivate the fire essence technique and permanently raise my fire affinity to peak four-star, but changing one’s cultivation technique after ascending to the Ruler Tier was a bit complicated, and I needed access to both metal and earth qi if I wanted to learn how to make memory orbs.

So, I chose a technique that was similar to the Writ of Wood-Burned Earth which I had cultivated previously. There wasn’t much new that I needed to learn, and thankfully, this technique didn’t require experiencing the pain of burning alive.

With the help of pills and formations, I was able to return to Peak Disciple after only a few weeks.

At the end of the first month, Yan finally made an appearance, so I gathered both my friends and my two disciples in the manor’s sitting room. As I looked around at everyone, my feelings were… mixed. I was happy about seeing them again, but I was worried about how they would react to what I had to tell them.

I closed my eyes, breathed out, and began.

“Let’s start with some introductions.” I looked at Bao and SuYin and gestured to the others. “These are Zhuge Yan, Shi YuLong, Chai JiaQi, and Lin LiTing. They are the companions who joined me on my first trip through the Nine Rivers Sect.”

Bao and SuYin both gave the others a quick martial salute.

I turned to this group of four and gestured to the pair opposite them. “This is Bao Wen and Ye SuYin. They are personal disciples that I accepted in my most recent life.”

My four friends gave this pair martial salutes in return.

“As I have already told everyone, in the past, the five of us made it to Heaven City in the Nine Rivers Sect. We did this twice, in fact. After the first time, I took the Path of the True Chosen and was killed nearly instantly. While I still have questions about that path, I have become convinced that the sect is looking for people who have found a way to cultivate their physical bodies instead of their energy bodies.”

Yan looked like he wanted to ask questions, but I held up a hand to stop him. “We can discuss everything in more detail later. Suffice it to say that my first trip to the Summit ended in my near-immediate death.”

Yan nodded in acceptance, but I could see a glint in his eyes that told me we would be having a talk later.

“For now, what is important is this: the Summit is a lie. You might be allowed to ascend if you make it there, but whether you are allowed to ascend or not, reaching the Summit means that you will be required to swear a venomous Oath that will lock you into a soul contract for all eternity. Through this Oath, you will forswear all existing allegiances, friendships, and familial connections. If, for some reason, you do not feel inclined to swear such an Oath, then they will implant you with a soul gu and force you to do so.”

Bao, SuYin, LiTing, and JiaQi gasped at this news. YuLong got angry. Yan… Yan just looked disgusted.

“Successfully walking the Path of the True Chosen might allow you to get around this Oath, but I doubt it. The Saint’s Emissary didn’t give me the impression that the Saint was any better than the Sovereigns under him. My guess is that you will simply be required to swear an even worse Oath to the Saint himself. So, in short, joining the Nine Rivers Sect means nothing but eternal servitude to the Sovereigns.”

This caused Yan to clench his teeth in anger, but I just smiled viciously at him.

“That’s why I plan to break the rules. You may have noticed the others gathered in this manor. They are members of my new clan. I intend to use them to break through to Sovereign without the Saint or his lackeys even being aware of it. I don’t know how easy it will be to bring you with me, but if you’re willing to work with me, I will do my best. So, the question is, are you willing to join my clan?”

LiTing’s response was muted, but it was nearly instantaneous. “Yes.”

JiaQi cocked her head to the side. “What does joining your clan mean?”

I dipped my head to her. “You will each be named Revered Elders and placed above everyone except for myself. I will not ask you to forsake any of your current bonds, and I will not hold you to any promises beyond this life. If you wish to quit, you may do so. All I want is for you to help teach the existing members of my clan and guide them through the Nine Rivers Sect. I plan to plunder as many of the sect’s resources as I can to grow my people to an absurd level of strength. Then, we will skip to the next cycle, keeping any Sovereigns and Saints blind to the force that we are developing.”

I looked at Yan. “I want the light and dark essence cultivation techniques the Zhuge Clan possesses. Not only that, but multiple members of the Zhuge Clan have actively offended me. I plan to repay this debt, but first, I want to create a force capable of suppressing them. Will you help me?”

Yan’s eyes widened and a wicked smile appeared on his face. “Sure.”

After a bit more thought, JiaQi agreed as well.

YuLong sat with both fists balled. After a minute of silence, he finally nodded.

“Give me my memories once I am ready for them, and I will help you in this life. As for the future… I will let you know after I have my memories back. Joining a new clan is… I don’t know if I can do that.”

I bowed my head. “That is all I ask.”

I looked around the room.

“I would like each of you to lead a group into the Nine Rivers Sect. While Bao and SuYin have never been there before, they should be able to handle matters on the Wood Peak, and once Jin ZiHan is old enough, I may ask her to help them.”

I gestured to each of them. “LiTing, I would like you to lead a group to the Metal Peak. JiaQi, the Water Peak. Yan, the Dark Peak. YuLong, the Earth Peak. YuLong, I know that you went to the Lightning Peak last time, but… that wasn’t a good idea. The Master of the Lightning Peak is a prick, and going there without cultivating lightning qi will only make him mad.”

For the first time in this meeting, YuLong cracked a smile and let out a soft chuckle.

Yan cleared his throat. “What about the others?”

“I will lead the group on the Fire Peak. I have a recruit who I hope will take over the role of Revered Elder of Fire in the future, Cao MeiLan, but she isn’t ready. The same is true for the Light Peak. Meng LuYao will make a strong Revered Elder of Light, but she isn’t ready yet, and I don’t have anyone to assist her. I can only hope that she will be able to manage on her own. I know that Cai XiaoYu would prefer to be your assistant, but I was hoping that she would consider going to the Light Peak to help Meng LuYao instead.”

Yan stroked his chin. “I’ll go with this Meng LuYao to the Light Peak. I’ve already spent one life, possibly two, on the Dark Peak. I need to experience something new. Once XiaoYu is old enough, she can take over the Dark Peak.”

I nodded, accepting this arrangement.

“What about Wind and Lightning?”

I grimaced slightly. “For the Lightning Peak… I know of a man who seems like he could make an excellent Revered Elder of Lightning, but he is too old to join the sect. For now, the Lightning Peak cultivators will be on their own, and we will need to do the best we can to help them from afar.”

I took a deep breath. “As for Wind… No one in my clan cultivates wind qi. Aside from the fact that I don’t have a Wind Essence Gathering Formation, there is also the fact that I would prefer not to be surrounded by people who are capable of controlling others through soul gu.”

Yan’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Gu are used for a lot more than just controlling people’s souls. Having Gu Keepers with us could be extremely helpful.”

“I know… I just… I would prefer to put that off for now.”

I glanced around the room. “Does anyone have any questions?”

An hour later, I held a meeting between my clan’s leadership council and my new group of Revered Elders. We all sat around a circular table with the ‘world orb’ inset into its center.

“ShouLi, Liang, Mo, NiangBa, GuiAi, GuiMing. The six of you form the clan’s leadership council and are responsible for ensuring that it continues functioning properly. I appreciate your service, but if we want to take the next step forward, we will need more help.”

I gestured to Yan and the others. “These six will take up positions as the clan’s Revered Elders. You are already familiar with Elder Bao, and I am sure you know how capable he is. The other five at this table are no less so. They will help guide our clan forward, and they will help each of you ascend through the Ruler Tier.”

Everyone on my leadership council tensed at this. They likely felt that they were being replaced.

“The Revered Elders will not interfere in the day-to-day operations of the clan, and I would be surprised if they even had any desire to do so. Instead, they will serve as protectors and guides as we take the next steps on our journey.”

ShouLi still seemed nervous, but she bowed her head to me. “Yes, Ancestor.”

I did my best to give her a comforting smile. “We are headed to the Nine Rivers Sect. This sect is divided into nine factions, one for each element. The Revered Elders will lead groups to the Wood, Water, Earth, Metal, and Light Peaks. I will lead the group to the Fire Peak.”

I looked at Liang. “We do not have a Revered Elder of Lightning, so I will need you to do your best to lead anyone who chooses to follow you to that peak.”

Liang, filled with mixed emotions, gave me a nod of assent, and I turned to ShouLi.

“I do not expect anyone to go to the Wind Peak, but there should be a few of the illusionists who will wish to join the Dark Peak. Since none of the Revered Elders will be able to accompany them there, I would like the council to appoint someone to serve as their leader. Liang, we will discuss the situation in the sect with both you and whoever is leading the team to the Dark Peak, but you should come to us if there are any questions. Elder Shi has extensive experience on the Lightning Peak, and Elder Zhuge has experience with the Dark Peak.”

After a long pause, I revealed the oath stone that I had acquired from Emperor Li.

“While I trust everyone here, the Nine Rivers Sect is a dangerous place. Aside from the risk of someone betraying us willingly, there is also the possibility that someone will be forced to do so. If that were to happen, it would put everyone in the clan in danger. So, anyone who chooses to join the sect will need to swear an Oath. If this Oath is violated, they will instantly be struck by lightning and destroyed, body and soul. While I do not enjoy asking this of you, I hope that you all understand the reason for it.”

I passed the oath stone to Yan, and he placed his hand upon it.

“I, Zhuge Yan, hereby swear that I will not divulge anything that Su Fang or his Revered Elders has told me is a core secret of his clan to anyone who has not sworn this same Oath.”

This wording was a bit broad, but I felt that it struck a balance of covering everything that might be dangerous to spread around while not feeling too restrictive. For now, the only ‘core clan secret’ would be the existence of the ‘world orb,’ but eventually, we would have to add time travel to the list.

After swearing, Yan passed the stone around the table, and everyone copied him.

When it was her turn, ShouLi gave me a strange look, and I realized that this was the first time she had solid confirmation that I was not Prince Fang of the Proud Mountain Kingdom. I was Su Fang of the Su Clan.

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Chapter 267 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Grandmaster 1

Over the next year, I raised my cultivation base as quickly as possible. With the resources available to me, and with the amount of experience I had with low-level cultivation, this was nothing overly difficult, but since I was using a new technique, I wanted to take my time.

The reason I was in such a rush was that I didn’t want to keep everyone trapped inside my storage space for any longer than necessary. Ideally, people would want to stay inside and build a real community in there, but I knew that the space wasn’t ready for that yet.

Most importantly, while within my storage space, no one was able to cultivate. As an experiment, I used a combination of spirit stones, spirit fires, and formations to create areas with extremely dense qi, but this hadn’t done any good. As ShouLi had told me, the problem wasn’t a lack of qi. The problem was that qi didn’t behave properly. It was nearly impossible to control. My spirit fire-powered formations worked, but after the qi left them, it became unusable, even though it remained trapped within the formation’s barrier.

Figuring out the cause of this would take time, and keeping everyone locked away while I tried to do so felt wrong. Until my storage space was more habitable, I couldn’t expect people to stay inside indefinitely. I needed to let them out.

I considered taking everyone somewhere new. I could settle them down in some remote city and set up a few formations to protect them from as much danger as possible. However, after only a moment of thought, I felt that this was likely the worst option possible. The clan’s most powerful cultivators would be joining the sect, so any group left outside wouldn’t have any leaders or protectors. We needed to stick together.

In the short term, cycling people in and out of our manor in South Gate City would work, but what we really needed was a city to call our own. We needed a place where I could set up all the defenses I wanted and where the younger and less powerful members of our clan could live in relative obscurity.

Thankfully, the Nine Rivers Sect had a way to make this happen. I just needed to become a Lord first.

So, I advanced to Martial Grandmaster as quickly as I felt was prudent. However, I didn’t try to rashly push past Grandmaster 1. With my understanding of acupoint control, and with the quality of my cultivation base, I didn’t expect to have any problems with mental influences, but I still wanted to give my energy body time to acclimate. Also, since I hadn’t reached Grandmaster with the Wood-Burned Earth technique, I wanted to fully understand the dantian that I had created before continuing forward.

---------------------------------------------------

As the end of the year approached, I made a few final arrangements with my Revered Elders. They would be staying in the manor along with Cao, Meng LuYao, and a few dozen members of my clan so that they could continue cultivating in peace. Once they reached Grandmaster, they would be able to join us in the sect, but there was no rush. No one was at risk of stagnation, so everyone could take their time and do things right.

After giving everyone a chance to say goodbye, I led the leadership council and a small group of 22 other Grandmasters to participate in the Nine Rivers Sect’s Entrance Exam.

The Grandmasters who had joined me were from a mix of every element except for wind, and I was a bit worried about what would happen when we all split up upon entering the sect. The elemental peaks we would be sent to each had their own rules, and while most of them were safe, some were exceptionally dangerous.

This was the main reason I had chosen to join the Fire Peak.

From past lives, I knew that the PangBo Merchant Association had some mechanism in place for implanting promising new alchemists with soul gu. While the other peaks no doubt held dangers of their own, I considered the Fire Peak to be the most dangerous, so I wanted to go there personally to ensure everyone’s safety.

Aside from myself, there were only two other people joining the Fire Peak, RuLan and XuJian, a young man I wasn’t familiar with. As RuLan was Emperor Li’s personal disciple, even if he didn’t know it yet, targeting her would be about the dumbest thing the PangBo Association could do, so I didn’t need to worry about her.

XuJian, on the other hand, was neither an exceptional cultivator nor an exceptional alchemist. He was decent at both, though, so he was exactly the type of person a group of slave traders would want to target. However, as long as I entered the sect before him, I would be able to ensure that nothing went wrong. In the worst-case scenario, I would just need to throw him into my soul space and rush back to Mortal City where the sect’s rules would protect us.

---------------------------------------------------

As usual, it took us several days of waiting in line before it was our turn to be tested.

When we reached the front of the queue, I looked around at the people who had joined me.

“Remember, stay safe. After you are brought into the sect, your most important objective is to get back to Mortal City. Try not to offend anyone, but if you do, don’t worry about it too much. None of the real big shots will try to recruit you immediately.”

After everyone signaled their understanding, I turned and entered the building.

The place was just as I remembered it. To my left, scribes sat at a long desk and recorded everyone's information. To my right, a hallway led off to the sect’s teleportation portal, and in front of me, there was the large black hole that served as the entrance to the Exam’s Trial.

I walked up to the table on my left. When the head scribe addressed me, he seemed bored. It must have been a rather slow day.

“Name?”

“Su Fang.”

“Age?”

“16.”

He paused his writing and looked up at me. “You were blessed at the start of this year?”

He narrowed his eyes and examined me in qi vision. “You… are a Martial Grandmaster… How…”

Suddenly, he shook himself and returned to the standard questions.

“Blessing?”

“It has a few nuances, but it has helped me gain a comprehensive understanding of both cultivation and several related professions.”

The scribe raised an eyebrow but noted this down without comment. Then, he pointed to an affinity testing orb.

I placed my hand on the orb and channeled my qi into it without restricting my acupoints. When it showed nothing but a mix of chaotic lines, the scribe tapped on it to resolve them.

Nine symbols shone brightly in the orb, and a faint crackle of static surrounded them. Upon seeing this, the scribe blanched.

“Pe… Peak four-star earth, metal, and lightning. Everything else is peak five-star? Who… Who are you?”

The moment these words escaped his mouth, the scribe’s eyes widened in horror.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. Please, you may enter the portal to begin the Exam whenever you are ready.”

I smiled and gave him a martial salute, but this only seemed to make him want to cry, so I quickly turned away and faced the entrance to the Exam.

As I approached, I remembered my old custom.

“System, create a mental reversion point for me so that when I exit the portal, my mental state returns to exactly how it was when I entered with any foreign influences removed.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 million credits. 439,752,983,769 credits remaining.

Then, I stepped into the portal.

---------------------------------------------------

I stepped out of the portal and turned to face the desk to my right.

The head scribe was staring at something, and his face was as white as a sheet.

I approached him and cupped my hands in a martial salute. “Hello, what are my results?”

He turned and stared at me with eyes wide and mouth agape. He looked like he had seen a monster.

“You… You… You have been offered positions as a grade 3 core disciple on the Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Lightning Peaks. You have also been offered positions as an ungraded core disciple on the Water, Wind, Light, and Dark Peaks. You may… choose whichever one you wish…”

I smiled and bowed my head. The positions on the Fire, Earth, Metal, and Lightning Peaks made sense, but the one on the Wood Peak seemed a bit high—my herbalism skills shouldn’t have been good enough. As for the positions on the other four peaks, those didn’t conform to my understanding of this test at all. Whoever was in charge must have assumed that since I had mastered four skills, then I could master the others just as easily.

This was interesting, but it didn’t change my intentions.

“I will join the Fire Peak.”

The scribe dipped his head and quickly gestured for one of his assistants to lead me away.

---------------------------------------------------

The Fire Peak was a rather bleak and depressing hellscape. The peak itself was a dormant volcano, and nearly all the ground around it was solid black basalt.

My guide led me to the large village at the base of this volcano.

While I had never been a member of the Fire Peak, I had visited it a couple of times in the past, so I was already familiar with its basic layout. The first time I had visited, I had expected all the buildings to be made of pure basalt since it was so abundant here, but instead, the buildings were made from expensive sandalwood and sat upon bright marble foundations.

The administration hall was a large, opulent structure near the village's entrance. Several ornaments wrought from pure gold stood on its roof, and the paintings on its eaves were all some form of high-Rank talismans. While these ‘talismans’ contained a lot of power, from what I could tell, they were entirely useless. They were nothing more than a show of wealth.

Inside the hall, an older man in fine silks sat behind a long ebony counter.

My guide bowed to him. “Deacon Leng, this is Su Fang. He is a new disciple who has joined the Fire Peak.”

The deacon smiled at me.

“Excellent.” He placed a hand on a formation beneath his desk to signal someone outside. “One of our older disciples will be here shortly to show you around. While we wait, we can get you registered.”

He turned to my guide. “What was Disciple Su’s placement in the Exam?”

“H… He… He is a grade 3 core disciple, deacon.”

Instantly, the smile on the deacon’s face vanished. “What?”

“Gr… Grade 3. Core.”

The door to the hall opened and a middle-aged man stepped inside. He had a rather somber look about him, and his eyes never left the floor. He turned to where the deacon had just pushed himself up from his chair and gave a deep bow.

“Deacon, I am here to guide the new disciple.”

Deacon Leng’s eyes shot to the man. “Not now! Leave!”

The middle-aged man looked confused, but he turned around and did as ordered.

Before he left, I scanned him using energy vision. He was a Peak Grandmaster, but his cultivation base was… It was awful. I had a hard time believing that anyone could have joined the sect in such a condition.

The deacon stepped out from behind his desk, approached me, and gave a martial salute.

“Junior Brother Su, it is an honor that you have chosen to join our Fire Peak. Please, allow me to show you around.”

I smiled at him and dipped my head. “Thank you, Deacon Leng, but I need to return to Mortal City and reunite with my subordinates. Perhaps later.”

“Of course, Junior Brother. Of course. If you have any questions, please come and find me.”

I dipped my head to him one last time and exited the building.

Once outside, I separated from my guide and found a nearby teahouse where I could wait for RuLan and XuJian.

---------------------------------------------------

As I had expected, about an hour later, RuLan left the administration hall on her own with the token of a core disciple hanging from her waist. Since that token should be enough to keep her safe, I didn’t step out to meet her and simply watched as she headed back to the portal to Mortal City.

About half an hour after that, XuJian entered the building, but he didn’t exit so quickly. When he finally did come back out, he was being led by the same somber man that I had seen earlier.

This older Grandmaster led XuJian through the twisting streets of the village and pointed out various important places along the way. Finally, they came to a secluded garden tucked behind a couple of alchemy workshops, and the two of them sat down across from each other on a pair of stone benches.

“Disciple XuJian, you must understand that surviving in the sect is extremely difficult. There are many factions that are constantly battling each other, and if you don’t have a sturdy tree trunk to cling to, the storms will blow you away.”

XuJian nodded slowly. “I can see that. But–”

“Listen, my… boss appreciates talents like you.” The man pulled a pill bottle out of his robes and presented it to XuJian. “As a sign of his appreciation, he offers you these pills. They were made by a powerful Pill Lord and will assist you in breaking through to Peak Grandmaster as soon as possible. You don’t have to accept this offer now. All I ask is that you think about it. After you do, come and find me.”

XuJian nodded. “Thank you, Senior Brother.”

The man smiled, patted XuJian on the shoulder, and then turned to leave.

Before he could, I stepped out from the shadows and slammed a talisman into his chest.

His whole body arced with lightning.

When it was over, the man collapsed to the ground.

XuJian shot to his feet and looked at me, horrified. “What… What did you do?”

“Soul Cleansing Talisman.”

I walked over and took the bottle from XuJian’s unresisting hands.

Then, I poured out one of the pills and analyzed it.

Low-Purity Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pill (tainted), 23% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 340,000 gold.

Part of me wanted to crush the pill instantly, but instead, I placed it back in the bottle, sealed the lid, and hid it away deep in my storage space.

Yan had been right. Gu were useful for more than just controlling a person’s soul, and I would eventually need to begin to understand them better.

Finally, I placed a stack of talismans next to the somber man’s unconscious form and wrote a quick note about how to use them.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 268 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Grandmaster 1

The last time we were in the sect, Yan had written down a significant number of notes in a book that he had asked me to carry back in time with me. While I was hesitant to overload his soul by giving him the memories of that life too early, I had given him this notebook so that he could review what had taken place.

Using these notes, he did his best to pick out a location for our headquarters in Mortal City. The place he chose was in the city’s outer ring, located near one of the outlying cultivator districts. This area wasn’t too popular, and we would need to travel quite a distance whenever we chose to visit our peaks or the city’s larger shops, but it would give us the peace and quiet we needed as we silently developed our clan.

Since I had needed to wait a few hours for XuJian to get through the Exam and take his tour, most of the others were able to make it there before me, and ShouLi had already rented the place out by the time I arrived. While everyone else worked on cleaning the place, I set up a series of defensive formations to protect us from eavesdroppers or other covert attacks. Mortal City was supposed to be safe, but I had no desire to take any unnecessary chances with the lives of people who wouldn’t simply return in the next loop.

Once everything was settled, I gathered the leadership council for a short meeting.

“How did everyone do?”

Not a single person seemed happy as they held up their tokens for me to inspect.

ShouLi shook her head. “RuLan was the only one to get a spot as a core disciple. Several of us got spots as inner disciples, but most are outer. Our illusionists were only rated as servants.”

I nodded. “This should be expected. Cultivation, profession, soul. As I told you, if you want to become a core disciple, you need all three. The light and dark cultivators were hurt by their affinities, but once we become city lords, we can funnel them extra contribution points. Then, they should be able to fix this problem through the sect’s Trials. As for the rest of you, your cultivation bases are solid enough, but you need to work on your professions and soul cultivation.”

No one looked at me, they all just stared at the ground and mumbled. “Yes, Ancestor.”

I smiled. “Don’t think too much about it. You’re all only 35. You’re still young and have more than enough time to improve. However… I only plan to stay in this city for five years. In five years, I will advance to Yellow City so that I can become a city lord and establish a safe place to let people out of the world orb. During this time, work on your professions, cultivate your souls, and do your best to raise your affinities to mid five-star through the sect’s Trials.”

ShouLi dipped her head. “Yes, Ancestor.”

“My focus will be on returning to Peak Grandmaster and practicing my own professions, but I will establish a new Soul Cultivation Library in the world orb. I will also open the Technique Hall back up. If there’s anything else you need, let me know.”

After a few parting words, I took my leave while the council stayed behind to hammer out the details.

While arranging everything in Mortal City was the duty of the council, there was one job that I had to take care of myself.

I walked into a side room and found RuLan waiting for me there, alone.

“Mo decided not to join you?”

RuLan shook her head. “No, he… he’s going to stay here and take care of Qiang’er.”

QiQiang, or Qiang’er, was RuLan and Mo’s 2-year-old baby boy.

“I’m… sorry. I should have thought about that before asking you to become Emperor Li’s apprentice.”

RuLan gave me a sad smile. “It’s fine. I… I want to go. I want to learn. I just… I hope he lets me come back here every now and then.”

I dipped my head. “If it’s possible, I’m sure he will. The situation with the other Sovereigns is a bit tense, but I’m sure Old Li will be able to make it happen.”

I handed RuLan a storage bag containing six memory orbs. One for Emperor Li, two for Emperor Jin, two for Emperor Shen, and one of Jin ZiHan’s. It also contained the massive stone block, the partially complete formation that Emperor Shen had asked me to bring back for him.

“Give these to your master. There is a letter inside that tells him what to do with them. Also… please ask him to tell Emperor Shen that I brought Emperor Li a new disciple and that I hope he will continue to follow our deal.”

Mo needed to stay in the sect, and he would need to take care of Qiang’er, but he would surely have some spare time to learn from a Formation Emperor, right?

This left RuLan slightly confused, but I just smiled and patted her shoulder.

“Ready to go?”

As soon as she started to nod, I shoved her into my storage space.

“System, send me to a secluded alley near the main Pavilion in Blue Wind City.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 44,590,000 credits. 439,708,393,769 credits remaining.

As a Grandmaster, the cost of teleportation was far from cheap, but my goal was to completely hide RuLan’s origins, and this was the only way I knew how to do it.

When we arrived, I pulled her out of the storage space and pointed to the alley’s entrance.

“Head straight to the large pagoda. Your master should take care of the details.”

After she started walking, I turned my attention back to the System.

“Send me to a spot where I can see both the exit of this alleyway and the entrance of the Pavilion.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 10,000 credit. 439,708,383,769 credits remaining.

I appeared high atop a nearby building that overlooked the street in front of the Pavilion and watched as RuLan exited the alley, walked to the base of the pagoda, climbed dozens of marble steps, and entered inside.

Only moments later, several people rushed out of the Pavilion and entered various buildings in the surroundings.

A few seconds after that, people began rushing toward the alleyway that RuLan had exited from.

I chuckled at this. It was a good thing that I had disappeared when I did. Those who knew about Emperor Li’s blessing may have claimed that they didn’t believe him, but it seemed like they weren’t willing to take any chances.

“System, send me back to our manor in South Gate.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 44,600,000 credits. 439,663,783,769 credits remaining.

With the council and elders managing everything, I was able to turn my focus to unlocking the secrets of beast alchemy. RuLan had taken a strong lead over me by snatching enlightenments for both Rank 1 and 2 pills, but I refused to be outdone.

Using her notes as a starting point, I began performing experiments on parts from every Rank 1 beast that I could get my hands on. In the process, I discovered recipes for a dozen or so new pills, but none of them triggered an enlightenment. This made me start to worry that there had only been one available, but then, while working with a mixture of powdered tiger bone, the dried rhizome of the fortunei plant, and the dried leaves of a barrenwort, I finally stumbled on a pill that RuLan hadn’t beaten me to.

System Alert: A novel pill recipe has been created.

Rank 1 Bone Mending Pill. Would you like to submit this recipe to the Dao?

“Yes!”

Submission successful. Contribution confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 1,000 credits.

Note: Rank 1 pill recipes will no longer qualify you for further discounts.

The discount was rather pathetic, but since I was simply adding an extra recipe to an already expanding list, I hadn’t expected much. In any case, the discount hadn’t been what I was interested in.

Just as I braced myself against my workbench, a flood of information poured into my mind and filled in countless small gaps in my understanding of Rank 1 alchemy.

When it stopped, I felt exhausted, but I was smiling. RuLan might have gotten here first, but with this new knowledge, I would be able to catch up to her.

I looked down at the pill in my hand, and my face twisted in disgust.

I couldn’t believe that I had been so sloppy. I crushed the pill to hide my shame.

Perfect Rank 1 Bone Mending Pill. 107% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 25 contribution points.

After several attempts, I was finally able to make a pill that I could be proud of. 107% efficacy was the limit of what my ingredients could produce, and I would need the beast tamers to figure out how to improve a tiger’s bones a bit before I could make any further advances with it, but breaching the threshold of 100% efficacy was enough.

As for the value… It was a bit strange. 25 contribution points was the price that I had decided to sell it for to my clan, and the System had automatically filled this value in without me having said anything. This meant the System was probably reading my mind, which was a little concerning, but I decided to ignore it. Either it was a problem, or it wasn’t. Either way, the situation had gone on for long enough that it wouldn’t make any difference at this point.

As for the pill, I was interested in seeing how its effects differed from a standard Healing Pill, but this meant finding someone with broken bones to test it on. While I was somewhat hesitant to break a person’s bones just to try out a new pill, there was one person who might be willing to act as my test subject.

After leaving my workshop, I headed directly to the council chambers where a meeting was currently in session.

Upon my arrival, everyone stood and gave a short bow.

ShouLi smiled pleasantly at me. “Ancestor, how may we assist you today?”

I held up my pill bottle. “ShouLi, I would like to discuss something with you in private, if I may.”

Five minutes later, I sat alone with ShouLi and Liang in a side room.

ShouLi had a pensive look on her face as she stared at the bottle. “Are you… certain this will work?”

I shook my head, sadly. “No, it might not do anything at all, but it’s worth a try.”

When ShouLi had first joined me, her feet had been broken and bound to make them look smaller, to turn them into ‘lotus feet.’ At first, I had thought that this would be an easy problem to fix. I just needed to give ShouLi a Healing Pill, and it should fix her up, right? Unfortunately, no.

What the Su Clan had done to her was worse than I had imagined. Not only had they broken and reshaped her feet, but they had also removed several shards of bone and used their own Healing Pills to fuse everything together into the shape they deemed appropriate. Fixing this had been beyond me. While I knew of several pills that could repair small fractures, growing bones and fusing them together had been beyond me.

This new pill, a ‘Bone Mending Pill,’ might be different, but there was only one way to find out.

ShouLi closed her eyes to try and build up her courage and then stuck out her hand.

“I understand. I’m willing to give it a try.”

I didn’t move.

“ShouLi… if we want to give this the best chance of working…”

A tear began to form in the corner of her eye. “Alright…”

In the past, we had discussed what would likely need to happen if we wanted to fix her feet correctly, so she knew what I was planning to do.

Liang stepped up and placed an arm around her.

I held out another pill. “This will help with the pain, but it might interfere with the healing.”

She waved the pill aside. “Just do it.”

I took a deep breath and focused on ShouLi’s feet. Having infused her body with a significant amount of wu over the years, ShouLi’s body was brimming with energy, so I was able to use energy vision to see her bones directly.

After studying them for only a moment, I began breaking them as quickly and precisely as I could.

This caused ShouLi to scream in agony, but I didn’t pause.

I used dozens of long silver needles to reposition every last shard until the energy patterns in her feet looked correct. As expected, several fragments were missing, and I could only hope that my pill would be able to help.

Once everything appeared to be in perfect alignment, I handed ShouLi a Bone Mending Pill, and she swallowed it immediately.

Starting from her skull, energy surged through ShouLi’s body and traveled through her entire skeletal system. As soon as the first tendril reached her feet, all the energy from the pill began converging and pouring into them.

At first, this energy only healed the smaller fractures caused by the breaking and repositioning of everything, but once enough of this energy was present, the small shards of bones began to expand.

This caused ShouLi to let out another wail of pain, but as soon as she was able to get herself under control, she looked down and stared at her feet intently.

It might not have been necessary, but as these small shards of bone grew, I held them in place with my silver needles to ensure the surging energies didn’t dislodge them.

When the first two shards touched each other, there was a slight bit of resistance, but then they merged together to form a larger whole.

This process continued for nearly ten minutes, and when the energy from the pill ran out, ShouLi’s feet were only partially healed, so I handed her another one.

It was only after the fourth pill that her feet were able to return to normal.

I had expected that after the healing was complete, ShouLi would be crying tears of joy, but ever since giving her the second pill, she had done nothing but stare at her feet wordlessly.

As soon as the healing was complete, she dropped from her chair, sat on the floor, and began cultivating at a manic pace.

Liang moved to pull her up, but I grabbed his shoulder to stop him.

He flashed me an angry look, but I just shook my head and pointed.

“Watch.”

ShouLi cycled a cultivation technique that I was almost entirely unfamiliar with. It looked nothing like any technique I had ever seen before, and the only reason I knew what she was doing was because I had been the one who had given her my notes on Jin ZiHan’s and Cai XiaoYu’s ‘beauty blessings.’

ShouLi’s blessing had allowed her skin to absorb wu extremely easily, but it only soaked into her skin and sat there. ZiHan’s and XiaoYu’s blessings had been different, but trying to mimic their energy flows directly hadn’t worked. Something was missing.

Healing ShouLi’s feet had given her that piece she had been missing.

As a torrent of energy cycled through ShouLi’s skin, a black film started to emerge from it. At first, this was barely noticeable, but after only five minutes, the girl was covered in a thick black tar, and the entire room smelled like a cesspit.

Again, Liang tried to move to stop her, but I held him in place.

After another ten minutes, ShouLi slowly opened her eyes.

“An… Ancestor? Li… Liang?”

Liang once more tried to move to her, but I yanked him back once again.

Suddenly, ShouLi looked to have been struck by lightning and nearly collapsed to the floor.

When she was finally able to sit back up, I smiled at her.

“Congratulations. It looks like you have developed a new technique for cultivating your physical body. Be sure to share it with everyone.”

With that, I left the two youngsters alone in the room. It smelled far too foul to stay in there any longer.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 269 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Our first five years in Mortal City quickly passed us by as we stayed hidden away in our remote corner of the city’s outer ring.

In the sect, little of note occurred.

While a few of our people offended Lord-level powers on their short jaunts to their peaks, none of these incidents produced anywhere near the level of the fallout that XuJian’s initial trip to the Fire Peak had. Somehow, several of the PangBo Association’s slaves had gained access to an endless supply of Rank 4 talismans that were capable of cleansing people of soul gu, and they had been spreading them about freely, causing havoc. This had absolutely nothing to do with us, though, so I made sure that none of my people got involved in the mess, and we certainly didn’t help anyone who was being chased escape to Mortal City.

Of more importance was ShouLi’s study of body cultivation. Based on the knowledge she gained from her enlightenment, ShouLi claimed that while it might have looked impressive, the initial breakthrough that she had made was only the equivalent of advancing to Martial Disciple 2. However, since this breakthrough had only used up a fraction of the energy in her body, ShouLi was able to continue advancing without delay, further refining and enhancing her skin with each step.

Over the course of only a few years, she had made a total of nine such advancements, climbing all the way to the equivalent of Peak Disciple, but this was where she got stuck. Without an understanding of what came next, she had made no progress in breaking through to ‘Body Master.’ So instead, she had shifted her focus to trying to help others make breakthroughs of their own.

This, as it turned out, was a bit more complicated than we had initially expected.

ShouLi’s blessing had given her a significant advantage. She hadn’t thought in terms of fire wu or wood wu. She had just cultivated ‘wu.’ She used Strengthening and Feasting Pills to pull in as much energy as possible, from any sources available, and incorporated it into her skin. When others tried to replicate this process, it resulted in a chaotic mix of energies that caused people’s skin to burst into flames, rot away, or worse. Whenever this happened, we needed to cut away these infected areas and regrow them using a combination of a few different types of healing pills.

My people hadn’t given up, though, especially not Liang and NiangBa. They wanted to become stronger, and they were willing to endure the suffering that came with these early experiments in body cultivation if that was what it took to do so.

At first, they tried to simply get around the issue of elemental purity by only consuming beasts with wu of a single element. Unfortunately, since the technique ShouLi had created also pulled a modicum of wu from the environment, this didn’t work. So, they turned their focus to figuring out how to create ‘wu filters,’ similar to the qi filters in regular cultivation techniques. Having attempted to purchase such a thing from the System in the past, I suspected that no such filter designs existed in this world, so I could only wish them the best of luck.

As for the rest of my clan, things were going a bit more smoothly.

Within my storage space, several children had turned 16 and needed to learn the basics of how to cultivate. These were not children born to members of my clan, the oldest of those had only reached 13. These were a few of the family members that I had pulled in after leaving Mount Jiang. Since qi acted strangely in the storage space, I dropped these children off in our manor in South Gate City to receive their blessings and learn to cultivate.

This caused the overcrowding issue in the manor to become even worse, but the council stepped in to handle things. Instead of spots in the manor being handed out on a rotating basis, they started charging contribution points for them, and to earn these contribution points, people would need to contribute to the development of the settlement within the storage space.

Various levels of rewards were set for different activities, such as teaching, farming, and construction work, but with all of them, the message was clear. If you want to be able to go outside and cultivate, you need to make the inside world a better place to live.

By the end of my first five years in the sect, all my Revered Elders had been able to advance to Grandmaster 1, and most of them had joined the sect. YuLong, however, remained behind to take care of everyone in South Gate.

In the past, I had used the System to give him a talent for teaching, and that was proving to be far more useful than I had planned. While everyone gained an initial understanding of how to cultivate from memory orbs, because these were not their own, personal memories, they still needed time to incorporate this knowledge into themselves to truly understand it. With his System-enhanced teaching skills, YuLong had been able to learn methods to shorten this time and make the absorption process more complete.

Overall, we were making solid, steady progress.

One interesting note was that only a year after sending RuLan to Blue Wind City, she returned via a pitch-black portal that opened up in the middle of our manor’s sitting room. As soon as she arrived, she immediately requested to be sent into the ‘world orb,’ and it wasn’t until the next day that she was ready to explain things.

Once we were alone, she gave me a martial salute, and her face contorted in a look of embarrassment.

“Se… Senior Brother, our… our master has sent me back here to continue my studies in private.”

RuLan’s awkward address made me smile and let out a soft chuckle. I was a bit surprised that Emperor Li had decided to still recognize me as his disciple after I had handed his coin to someone else, but it made sense. Even if he had a connection to me through RuLan, his blessing wouldn’t want him to lose our direct master-disciple relationship.

For me, this didn’t make any difference. Emperor Li had helped me rise from a struggling Grandmaster Alchemist to a skilled Pill Emperor. For that, I would always consider him my benefactor. I just might not always express it in the ways more common to this world, like calling him ‘master.’

“Of course, Junior Sister.” This caused RuLan to wince, but I ignored it. “How long will you be staying?”

She squeezed her eyes closed and dropped her head. “I’m… not sure. Master said… He said that he would contact me when he needed me. He knows where we are, so he can open a private portal here without raising any suspicions. However, I’m supposed to keep a low profile.”

I nodded in understanding. “Don’t worry about that too much. If necessary, I can modify your appearance to get around some of these issues. The bigger problem will be earning contribution points from the sect. If you’re hiding your identity, this could be tricky.”

“I… That isn’t necessary. Master has had me doing several missions over the past few months. For now, I just want to spend time alone with Mo and Qiang’er and experiment in peace.”

“No worries. Just let me know what you need. As for experiments… You should consider taking some time off. Just relax for a bit and improve your cultivation base. No need to push to uncover all the secrets of beast alchemy so quickly.”

I gave her a wide, comforting smile, but she only returned it with a look of confusion.

“Al… Alright.”

Once our conversation was over, I sent RuLan to spend some time with her husband and child in my storage space, where performing alchemy wasn’t possible.

While most of my time in Mortal City was spent researching beast alchemy, near the end of my time there, I started preparing for what came next.

For the Sovereigns and sect elders, losing people on the path to Yellow City might be considered a good thing. Anyone who died on this path had overestimated their abilities, and it was good and proper to get rid of them before they wasted any of the sect’s karmic energy.

I didn’t care about these games, however.

Based on my people’s natural talents, and considering the circumstances of their births, almost none of them had any business joining the Nine Rivers Sect. If any of them had entered blind and unprepared, they would have quickly met their end. Simply put, they were not among the geniuses who the Sovereigns were looking to recruit.

But again, I didn’t care about this. I would keep them safe, and I would ensure they thrived. To make that happen, I established strict rules for those who wanted to ascend the mountain.

Normally, cultivators would be expected to blindly guess if they had the skills needed to complete one of the three paths to Yellow City. If one guessed wrongly, then they would either die or be trapped on the path forever.

To prevent this from happening, I set up a series of preliminary tests that the members of my clan would need to pass before they would be allowed to ascend. These weren’t perfect, but by overestimating the level of skill required to complete the path successfully, we would be able to keep everyone safe.

The easiest of these tests to set up was the one for the Path of Body. I just created two formations. The first tested a person’s maximum attack power, and the second tested a person’s endurance. These two factors alone wouldn’t guarantee everyone’s safety, but when combined with oversight from a competent elder, they would be good enough.

The test for the Path of Soul was a bit trickier. At first, I thought I might need to rely on testing a person’s soul indirectly, through something like testing the strength of their soul attacks, but then I remembered the formations that I had won in a bet during my first climb up the mountain. Those formations were capable of exerting pressure directly on a person’s soul, just like the path did.

While these formations had been destroyed when a small-scale tornado wreaked havoc in my storage space, I had made a series of notes on how they worked, and Emperor Shen’s book on Rank 4 formations provided all the details that I had missed. So, after a bit of experimentation, I was able to create my own version of them.

Therefore, to be allowed to walk the Path of Soul to Yellow City, people would just need to endure similar soul pressure from one of my formations. Calibrating this pressure so that it matched the path would take a bit of work, though, so to keep everyone safe, I set the level of pressure that these formations exerted to be a fair bit higher than what I remembered encountering on the path.

As for the Path of Mind, this test was broken up into seven sections, one for each profession, excluding gu keeping. I had more than enough experience with the alchemist test to recreate it easily, and my Revered Elders provided me with everything I needed for the illusionist, refiner, beast tamer, and talisman artist tests. This only left the tests for herbalism and formations, but with Bao and SuYin’s knowledge of herbalism, and my knowledge of formations, we were able to create tests that could at least ensure that anyone who wanted to ascend to Yellow City was qualified to do so.

After these preliminary tests were in place, it was time for me to leave Mortal City, and I would be leaving on my own. No one was ready to join me.

I considered waiting so that I wouldn’t have to be separated from everyone, but I wasn’t willing to do that. The people in my storage space had been stuck in there for far too long already, and I needed to claim ownership of a city so they could be let out.

Establishing myself as a city lord would also be beneficial to many of the Grandmasters who had already joined the sect since I would be able to start funneling them contribution points. To purchase entry into the sect’s Trials, one had to use points they had earned through official duties, and working for my city would count as an ‘official duty.’

So, while I was slightly hesitant to leave everyone behind, I knew that it was the right choice.

After a final meeting with my council and elders, I headed out of the city and up the mountain.

This time, I chose to take the Path of Mind and be tested as a formation specialist. I wanted to experience this path personally so that I would be able to create a better preliminary test for our people in Mortal City. Taking a test for a profession other than alchemy might lower the evaluation the elders on the Fire Peak had of me, but I had completed more than enough alchemy missions over the years, so I had already more than proved my abilities as an alchemist. Completing the path for a secondary profession should be nothing but a positive.

The test for a formation specialist was rather simple. I just needed to identify a few basic formations and reconstruct them. So, only a few hours after leaving Mortal City, I arrived at the gates of Yellow City.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 270 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Grandmaster Peak

During my last life in the Nine Rivers Sect, I had chosen to become the steward of NanLu City, a poor border town that had been ravaged by a series of wars. The reason for this choice was that I had wanted a place in dire need of help so that I could quickly generate karmic energy and contribution points.

For this life, my goals were a bit different. I didn’t care too much about contribution points. Instead, I wanted a stable base of operations that I could use to further grow and strengthen my clan, and with Yan’s help, I was able to create a list of cities that were ideal for this.

When I arrived in Yellow City, I headed straight to the temple at its center to see which ones were available.

Once there, I was greeted by an elder in an orange hanfu.

“Hello, disciple. How may I assist you today?”

I saluted and gave him a short bow. “Greetings, elder. I wish to purchase a position as a city steward.”

The elder dipped his head toward me, but his face remained impassive. “I see. Please allow me to review your status.”

I pulled my jade token from my waist and handed it to him.

After accepting it, the elder disappeared into a side room.

Five minutes later, he returned and smiled at me.

“Disciple Su, I have confirmed your position. You have enough contribution points to lease any city you wish. Do you have any preferences?”

I nodded. “TongBei, ZhaoGuang, or ErJing. If none of those are available, then a different city within the Black River Kingdom will do.”

The elder raised a hand to his chin and tapped his lips in thought. “Black River? A valid choice, considering your age. Very well. TongBei City has a vacancy. An inner sect Lord in Profound City was scheduled to fill it, but as a core disciple, your preferences take precedence.”

I cupped my fists to him. “Thank you, elder.”

The decision to pursue a position in the Black River Kingdom had come from Yan. Based on the notes in his book, the steward of Black River would be replaced in two years, and the person who was set to replace her was said to be a rather companionable fellow who shouldn’t cause us any trouble. In fact, as the Steward of TongBei, I would be in a position to help him claim the kingdom, creating a strong alliance between us.

The meaning behind the elder’s comment about this being a valid choice ‘considering my age’ was that I was unlikely to be ready to compete for the position as the kingdom’s steward in only two years. This meant that if I wanted to do so, then I would need to wait out the new king’s full 15-year term before I would have the opportunity. However, given my relative youth, a near-guaranteed delay of 17 years wouldn’t affect me much.

In actuality, I had little desire to be responsible for an entire kingdom. Others could deal with such things. I just wanted to sit back and concentrate on my private projects while everyone else went about having fun and learning on their own. I was only becoming a steward to ensure that my clan had a safe place to grow, and I was only positioning myself in TongBei so that I could provide my support if and when it was needed.

---------------------------------------------------

As soon as my stewardship was confirmed, I went to the Fire Peak, met up with XuJian, and gave him a note to take back to Yan and the leadership council. Then, I returned to Yellow City and used the sect’s teleportation network to make my way to TongBei, located in the Black River Kingdom of the North Empire.

When I arrived, I first took some time to look around and appraise my new domain.

Leaving the portal room behind, I stepped out onto a wide, cobbled street. As I did, I noticed something slightly peculiar. Each of the street’s stones had been expertly placed and properly positioned to provide a perfectly even surface. A quick inspection proved that an earth cultivator had even gone to the trouble of melding these stones together to ensure that they wouldn’t move. That cultivator had also gone to the trouble of leaving countless small holes between each stone so that rainwater would be able to seep through the gaps and into a drainage ditch that was hidden beneath the road’s surface.

Such an extensive use of earth qi for a mundane task like road construction showed that the city’s previous stewards had done everything they could to wring as many points as possible from this city. So, if I wanted to generate anything more than the city’s baseline karmic energy, I would need to find novel ways to improve the place.

When I did a quick check of the city’s walls and defensive formations, I found that everything was of high quality and well-maintained. When I checked the city's harbor, I found multiple formations to help both with the city’s defenses and with the loading and unloading of cargo ships. Everything I saw indicated that either the previous steward had been a skilled formation specialist, or he had paid a substantial price to employ someone who knew what they were doing.

Not seeing much that needed my help inside the walls, I turned my gaze outward.

The fields surrounding TongBei were fertile and full of growing plants. Most of these were mortal foodstuffs, but as there were several herbalists living in the city, there were also a number of fields growing Rank 1 herbs, some growing Rank 2 herbs, and even a few growing Rank 3 herbs. While Bao and SuYin might have ideas for how we could improve these fields, any such improvements would likely only be marginal.

The only places I saw where we could really make a difference were the outlying villages. TongBei’s villages weren’t as bad as some I had seen, but they didn’t show any of the signs of prosperity that the city proper did. No one was starving, and there were no signs of disease, but the houses were all rather run down, and the streets between them were simple dirt roads.

The reason that the previous steward hadn’t done anything to change this situation was likely because improving these villages wouldn’t generate any karmic energy. Better housing and infrastructure might make the residents more comfortable, but that was all. It wouldn’t change anyone’s destiny. In fact, it might even be detrimental.

The higher quality of life in the city would cause immigration, and once in the city, people would gain new opportunities. Having a steady stream of people rising up from relative poverty might be a consistent way to generate low levels of karmic energy.

All in all, my evaluation of TongBei was that it would be difficult for a normal Lord to earn much karmic energy here.

In this situation, the usual answer was war. Using TongBei’s superior position and resources, I could begin pillaging other cities. Then, when the cities I attacked retaliated and destroyed my crops and villages, I would be able to generate energy by rebuilding them.

I could go down this path, but it wasn’t necessary. I would be able to earn more than enough contribution points through alchemy. I didn’t need to go to extreme lengths to earn a few extra points here or there.

However, this didn’t mean that I would allow the city to stagnate. There were ideas that I wanted to experiment with, and I had a large team of skilled individuals to help me out.

---------------------------------------------------

When I finally made it to the city lord’s manor, the leadership council, the Revered Elders, and the city’s mortal representatives were already waiting for me. The only person who was missing was YuLong, who was still back in South Gate training Disciples.

With such a large gathering, sitting everyone down at a table together wasn’t going to happen. So, instead, I sat on a small throne in the manor’s audience hall. The leadership council stood in front of me and to my left, and the city’s mortal representative stood in front and to my right. The Revered Elders, meanwhile, stood behind me.

“For now, I will make this simple. As the head of my leadership council, ShouLi is in charge of the city. The existing mortal leadership will report to her, and she will report to me. Except for Elder Zhuge, the elders will serve in advisory roles only. Elder Zhuge will serve as my Grand Chancellor. His words are the same as my own. Understood?”

Everyone cupped their fists and bowed. “Yes, Lord.”

“Good. I have inspected the city and have my own thoughts on how we should proceed from here, but first, I will let Chancellor Zhuge give us his appraisal of things.”

Yan walked forward and stood by my side.

“TongBei sits on the southern bank of the Black Dragon River and is only a few dozen kilometers upstream of the kingdom’s capital. This has allowed TongBei to become an important hub within the kingdom’s trade network. It is a powerful, well-established city.”

Yan gave everyone a meaningful look. “While this may be good for the city’s residents, it makes generating karmic energy rather challenging. To make matters worse, any Lords looking for a quick boost in their energy production will see us as a tempting target. The city’s defenses are solid, but if too many forces unite against us, they will not hold.”

Yan’s blunt assessment of how cultivators would view the city unsettled the mortal representatives, and their leader stepped forward to refute it.

“Chancellor Zhuge, while this might be true of other cities, TongBei is of vital importance to the kingdom’s economy. Attacking it would only hurt the kingdom as a whole and incense its Steward-King.”

Yan nodded. “This is true. For now. But in two years, a competition will be held to choose a new steward for the kingdom. At that time, many of the competitors will want to destroy this place, both because it would prevent us from supporting their opponents and because rebuilding the city would provide them with a quick boost to their karmic energy once they take control of the kingdom.”

The mortal representative looked shaken by this statement. He had to have known what to expect, but he had likely been in denial about it.

Yan returned his gaze to the rest of the assembled audience.

“No one should feel disheartened. We are in a strong position, and that will not change. We just need to be prepared. My suggestion is that we have sufficient defenses in place to defend against a joint army from at least three Lord-level powers. The sect’s rules protect us from direct attacks by any true King-level opponents, but we need to be prepared to face multiple false Kings.

Both the leadership council and the mortals gaped at this, but I just waved it off. Once I ascended to Martial Lord, creating a few Rank 5 formations wouldn’t be much of an issue.

“What is your assessment of the economic and karmic situation?”

Yan shook his head. “It’s difficult. The ‘factories’ mentioned in my notes might help a bit, but nothing they are able to produce will have much of an impact here. At most, they might allow our farmers to earn a bit of extra coin. Additionally, raising more cultivators will, of course, be beneficial, but not as much as it would be in a less developed region. Overall, TongBei is what you asked me for. It is stable, and that will be difficult to change.”

Again, Yan’s appraisal worried the mortal representatives. To them, a well-run, stable city was a good thing, but to the average cultivators, it was anything but.

I nodded to Yan and then looked at ShouLi.

“Right now, our priority is to get everyone settled. Originally, I had planned to construct a new village where everyone could live together, but after inspecting the place, I changed my mind. I want to divide everyone up amongst the existing villages so that the influx of new residents will be less noticeable. Once that’s done, I want to implement some type of system to get the various villages competing against each other. The council can decide what type of competitions might be best.”

After ShouLi signaled her acceptance, I turned to the leader of the mortal representatives.

“I have no desire to throw the city into turmoil. For now, our goal is simply to ensure TongBei’s continued prosperity. In the future, we will work to improve it further, but that will only happen once I am convinced that we are ready for it.”

The mortal representatives didn’t seem entirely mollified by my words, but they bowed in acceptance.

With the direction for the city set, there was nothing else for me to say. I stepped back and allowed my council to figure out how to make it happen.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 271 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Moving my entire clan out of my storage space and into the villages around TongBei took several weeks, and some people, especially the mortal outsiders, were hesitant to leave. For them, access to qi and the ability to cultivate was unimportant. Even if I could give them affinities, most were too old to take advantage of them. They just wanted a place where they would be able to live in peace.

However, after a long discussion with ShouLi and the council, we decided that everyone would have to move out. It would have been nice to use the storage space as a safe place to raise children, but most of the parents wouldn’t be willing to stay in there with them, and I didn’t fancy the idea of needing to constantly transfer people in and out all the time.

As for the mortals, I sympathized with their desire for a safe home, but I expected us to remain in the sect for decades, possibly centuries. Leaving only mortal outsiders inside the space would lead to them viewing it as their rightful homeland, and that would cause problems when I tried to move my people back in once our time here was over.

This resettlement project took a significant amount of time and effort, but the rewards were worth it. While Yan had been correct that generating karmic energy in TongBei would be difficult, adding hundreds of new cultivators to its population had given me enough contribution points to purchase the energy I needed for my initial advancement to Martial Lord. So, after a quick trip to Yellow City, I entered seclusion to prepare for my breakthrough.

However, I didn’t advance immediately.

In the past, when I had improved my comprehension of cultivation techniques to an exceedingly high level, I had noticed that something was… ‘off’ about the Ruler-Tier techniques I was using. I had never been able to figure out what it was, but I wanted to use this opportunity to try and learn more.

How many credits was I willing to spend on this, though? Or, looking at the question from a different direction, what else did I need credits for?

My personal goals for this life were to master Rank 6 alchemy, formations, and refining. Everything else was secondary. However, the most important of these secondary goals had to be improving my cultivation base as a Ruler.

After considering my options from several different directions, I made my choice.

“System, improve my comprehension of alchemy and refining to a total of 100 billion credits each.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 189 billion credits. 250,663,783,769 credits remaining.

That put my alchemy and refining comprehensions on par with my existing comprehension of formations, but what else did I need? With alchemy, I didn’t just want to master normal Rank 6 alchemy—I wanted to master beast alchemy. With cultivation, I didn’t just want to master normal Emperor-level techniques—I wanted to begin exploring body cultivation. What did these have in common? Wu.

In the past, I had purchased a comprehension boost to my qi control, and I felt like that should apply to wu, at least tangentially, but did it? I still barely understood what these comprehension boosts were actually doing to me, but by this point, I knew that they weren’t exactly making me smarter. It felt more like they were unlocking potential knowledge for me, and unlocking knowledge of qi control didn’t necessarily mean that knowledge of how to control any other type of energy would be unlocked along with it.

With this thought in mind, I had my next purchase.

“System, expand my comprehension of qi control to a more general ‘energy control’ and boost it to a total of 100 billion credits.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 99.9 billion credits. 150,763,783,769credits remaining.

I was a bit worried about spending too many credits and not having enough in case of an emergency, but I needed to make one last purchase.

More than anything else, Ruler-Tier cultivation techniques relied on karmic energy. I had bought an affinity for karmic energy in the past, and it had never done much for me, but it was possible that was simply because my affinity was too low. Lord-level skills typically required six-star affinities.

I had more than enough credits to purchase a peak six-star affinity for karmic energy, so what if I went even further?

“System, improve my affinity for karmic energy to low five-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 116 billion credits. 34,763,783,769 credits remaining.

My body began to tingle.

I tried to concentrate on this feeling, but it was soon overtaken by something else. A feeling of… nervousness.

The more I concentrated on my karmic energy affinity, the more nervous I became.

It didn’t make me feel worried, not exactly, just… nervous…

I forcibly pulled my mind away from this sensation. I needed to focus.

Worrying about vague premonitions wouldn’t do me any good. We just needed to take things one step at a time. That was the best way to prepare for whatever might happen.

Focusing with all my might, I returned my attention to my breakthrough.

I needed to advance to Martial Lord. To do this, I needed to create a core in the center of my dantian and fill it with as much qi as possible. Once this energy hit a critical limit, it would collapse and create a hole in the world. Then, I could send a stream of energy through this hole to shatter the metaphysical chains that were binding me.

So, there were three key components to advancing as a Lord: creating a core, creating a ‘hole in the world,’ and destroying chains. If I wanted to create an improved Lord-level cultivation technique, I would need to improve at least one of these three components, but, if possible, I would like to improve all three.

The first step was constructing my core.

The generally accepted view was that karmic energy was required to form a cultivator’s core because qi couldn’t become solid. It was possible to construct small strings of qi and weave them together to form meridians, and a similar process could be used to form a ‘false core,’ but such a construct would be entirely incapable of containing the energies one needed to ascend as a Ruler.

While a core of pure qi would not work, there were several other types of energy in this world, and it was possible that one of them might work instead. Aside from karmic energy and qi, the options I knew about were essence, medicinal energy, wu, and whatever type of energy was contained within spirit stones.

As the territories of the Nine Rivers were devoid of essence, I set it to the side. It might have been worth journeying outside the sect to make an attempt at an essence core, but I felt that it would just be a waste of time. Essence was too ephemeral. I had never been able to detect it after it entered my body, so the possibility of using it to form a core seemed extremely remote.

Medicinal energy and wu seemed much more promising. Wu was supposed to be ‘substance,’ so the idea of making the solid shell of a core from it made sense. Medicinal energy, as I understood it, was a blending of qi and wu, so it should retain aspects of both.

Both wu and medicinal energy had problems, though.

For medicinal energy, it was one of control. Consuming a pill would flood my body with medicinal energy, but that energy was almost impossible to control. With my high affinities and soul power, I could shove it around or expel it from my body entirely, but shaping it to force it to do as I wanted was beyond me. The structure of medicinal energy gave it ‘instructions,’ and forcing it to do something else only resulted in the energy breaking down into its component parts.

For wu, the biggest problem related to getting it into my energy body in the first place. Medicinal energy would travel through my acupoints and enter on its own, but with wu, I would need to pull it in directly. Without some type of wu filter, this wouldn’t be possible. Liang and NiangBa were working on designing such filters, but they had yet to make any progress.

However, aside from the feasibility of the idea, there was also the more basic question of whether or not pulling wu into my energy body was something that I should even consider in the first place. What would flooding my meridians with wu do to me? If I could fully control it like I could with qi, aside from just creating a wu core, I could also look at combining the two to form devastatingly powerful attacks. But if I couldn’t control it, it would clog up my energy body and leave me crippled. As I had already learned, Energy Expulsions Pills didn’t work on pure wu, so once it entered my body, it would be stuck there.

I wasn’t willing to take this risk, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t experiment a bit. Using a modified Qi Gathering Formation, I created a bubble completely devoid of energy and used a spirit fire to fill that bubble with earth wu.

Then, I entered the bubble and assumed a meditative pose.

I stuck out my hand and worked to consolidate the energy around me into a hollow sphere as I would when forming a core. This worked, somewhat, but controlling environmental energy was extremely challenging.

After an hour of work, I was able to create a thin shell of pure earth wu, but when I pushed my qi toward it, this shell instantly collapsed.

Would it be possible to create a core of pure wu? Possibly, but it would be extremely time-consuming to construct, and it wouldn’t have anywhere near the power and rigidity that a karmic core would have. Just as karmic energy was more powerful than qi at destroying the ‘chains of the world,’ it was more solid than wu when used to construct a core. Still, if I were ever in a situation where collecting karmic energy was impossible, this might be an idea to explore further.

My last option was to rely on the energy contained within spirit stones. I already knew that this energy would fall short of what I could accomplish with karmic energy, so the only reason to use it would be if I couldn’t gather sufficient karmic energy for some reason, but it might still be a viable path forward.

Plundering the Nine Rivers Sect’s spirit stone reserves and collecting enough to let tens of thousands of people advance to Martial Lord would be far easier than acquiring a similar amount of karmic energy, but was creating such a core possible?

Maybe, but after thinking everything through, I decided not to attempt it.

A failed ascension to Lord could block me from ascending to Emperor, and I didn’t want to take that risk. Instead, I would allow my clan to experiment with it. There would be people who wouldn’t be able to earn enough karmic energy to advance to Lord, and I could offer them incentives to try making the breakthrough with pure spirit stone energy.

So, in the end, I was back where I started. I had no choice but to rely on karmic energy. However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t improve my technique.

I needed to make a core from karmic energy, but could I use my refining knowledge to enhance this core in some way? By arranging everything perfectly, could I pull out some kind of extra benefit from my ascensions? I didn’t know, but there was only one way to find out.

Following the instructions in the best Rank 4 cultivation technique that I possessed, I created a karmic core in the center of my dantian. Then, I inspected it closely.

Something about it felt… off. The crystalized karmic energy looked… fine, but it wasn’t quite right.

As I would when working with metal, I began reshaping the crystalline structure of the solidified energy. Instead of following what the cultivation technique told me to do, I did what made sense based on what I was seeing within the patterns of energy.

One line after another clicked into place, and when I was done, I was left with what looked to be a ball made from golden lace. There were gaps everywhere, and it looked like any energy I sent into it would leak right back out, but this was the shape the energy wanted to take, so I allowed it to happen.

Unsure of what would happen, I began filling my new core with the enhanced metal qi of the Writ of Metal from Charred Earth. This energy met zero resistance as it passed into the core through the holes in the lacework, but when it tried to escape out the other side, an invisible barrier kept it from doing so.

The more qi I poured into my core, the more the pressure built, but this lace core showed no signs of strain, and not a single wisp of qi was able to escape.

As I neared the point where the qi would punch through the world and allow for my breakthrough, I paused.

Constructing this lace core had only required about half the karmic energy that a normal core would have needed. That gave me options. I thought about using this excess energy to make an additional breakthrough, but I quickly discarded the notion. Acquiring more energy from the sect was simple, so there was no reason to hoard it. Instead, I would use every bit of energy to make as powerful of a breakthrough as possible.

I began weaving strands of qi, karmic energy, and spirit stone energy together in a tight braid. This weave lacked the solidity of my core, so understanding it through my limited knowledge as a refiner was more difficult, but I did my best to reshape it into the most potent form possible.

Once I was ready, I poured my remaining reserves of energy into my core.

A small hole opened, and I immediately sent the string of braided energy hurtling through.

This energy crashed into a chain and pulverized it.

After three and a half months of tireless effort, I had completed my breakthrough and returned to the level of Martial Lord. I had done everything I could to make my core as solid as possible, and I had shattered the chains of the world with as much force as I could muster, but something still felt… missing.

Nothing about this breakthrough was ‘wrong,’ but something still wasn’t quite right, and I didn’t know what. Also, the fact that I hadn’t received a System announcement meant that while what I had done might have been impressive, it wasn’t anything revolutionary.

At this point, all I could do was wait and try to find out more information.

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

Chapter 272 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Lord 1

As soon as I completed my breakthrough to Martial Lord, I took out a memory orb and used it to record every detail that I could remember about what I had done. While this orb wouldn’t be a match for what I could buy from the System, filling a memory orb with Rank 4 information was a bit too expensive, and while this orb might not be ideal, it should still be enough to allow everyone to advance.

Once this task was complete, I stood and exited my cultivation chamber.

Having advanced to Lord, I now had access to a Ruler’s will-lock, and the potency of my qi had noticeably increased. I needed to use this power to begin shoring up TongBei’s defenses.

For the city proper, there wasn’t much to do. It already had high walls and Rank 4 defensive formations in place, and while upgrading them was possible, as a Lord 1, doing so wasn’t worth the investment. Instead, I only worried about improving the formations in key areas, such as the city lord’s manor.

Then, I turned my attention to the outlying villages.

These villages had no formations to speak of, and while there were several that I could add to improve people’s quality of life, like formations to keep pests away, I wanted to leave most of these for the lower-level members of my clan to take care of. My only aim was to ensure that everyone was protected.

Single-handedly building basic Rank 4 walls and formations for all of TongBei’s villages took me months of work, but once I was done, I was confident that no one below Lord 7 would be able to breach our defenses. Of course, this work could have been sped up by me selling pills to earn points to hire people to do everything for us, but I wanted to do it myself to get in a bit of practice with large-scale formations.

Once all the villages were as protected as I could reasonably make them, I retreated back to my cultivation room in the city lord’s manor. While having an excuse to experiment with grand formations had been nice, if I wanted to learn how to make memory orbs, I needed to focus on mastering the art of refining.

Like me, my Revered Elders also stepped back from any active involvement in the clan and only offered guidance where necessary, even Yan. While I had appointed him my Grand Chancellor, ShouLi was the one who was really running everything. This was a bit tough on her since it meant that she needed to split her attention between energy cultivation, body cultivation, soul cultivation, learning beast taming, martial training, and running my city, but if my guess about how the sect would treat her after she retook the Exam was correct, she needed to be as prepared as possible before that happened.

One year after we arrived in TongBei, one year before the competition to select a new steward of the Black River Kingdom, I was broken from my meditations. It was extremely unusual for anyone to interrupt me during my time in seclusion, so when someone started frantically pounding on my door, I stood and opened it immediately.

On the other side, I found a harried young man with rivulets of sweat running down his face.

“Yes? How may I help you?”

As soon as he realized that I had opened the door, the young man dropped into a deep bow. “Lord Su, a message for you.”

Using both hands, he lifted up a single sheet of paper that had been sealed with Yan’s stamp.

With a single flick of the wrist, I picked up the paper and opened it.

Fang,

Lord Kang is on his way. Main gate. Immediately.

I nodded to myself, flipped the boy a random Rank 1 pill, and then disappeared.

When I arrived at the main gate, I only found ShouLi, NiangBa, and a luxurious carriage waiting for me. ShouLi and I had discussed this situation with Yan several times over the past years, and he had created a series of contingencies based on Lord Kang’s behavior, but only ShouLi and NiangBa being here meant that he had decided to move forward with the simplest one.

I looked at ShouLi. “What’s the situation?”

She dipped her head to me. “Ancestor, our scouts—”

Before she could say any more, three men riding large white horses came into view.

Watching these horses move was surreal. Each step took the beasts farther than it should have. Instead of walking on the ground, it looked like they were skating above it.

I glanced at ShouLi. “Rank 5 wind horses?”

She nodded silently.

Without another word, I stepped forward, and ShouLi and NiangBa took up positions on either side of me.

Only moments later, the three horses stopped mere paces in front of us.

I cupped my fists and gave a deep bow to the richly dressed man in the center.

“Lord Kang, I have long heard your great name. I am Su Fang, steward of TongBei. Welcome to my city.”

Still sitting high atop his horse, Lord Kang nodded his head to me. “Lord Su, it is nice to finally meet you. We have much to discuss.”

I gave him another deep bow and gestured to the fancy carriage that Yan had prepared for us. “Of course, Lord. Please allow me to escort you to the city lord’s manor where we may do so in comfort.”

Smiling, Lord Kang and his two companions jumped from their horses and climbed aboard the carriage. Once we were all seated, I bowed my head to him.

“Lord Kang, shall I order some grooms to take care of your horses?”

Lord Kang waved a dismissive hand. “No need. Rank 5 beasts are intelligent enough to take care of themselves.”

“Of course, Lord. However, I must warn you that there have been reports of extremely vicious demon beasts in the area, and I cannot guarantee their safety.”

Lord Kang just smiled at this, clearly thinking there was nothing to worry about.

As the ‘vicious demon beasts’ I was referring to was LuLu, a Rank 6 demon deer, there indeed wasn’t too much to worry about. As long as these horses didn’t cause any trouble, she would allow them to graze in her territory freely. However, if Lord Kang sent these horses out to cause mischief, then things might get a little messy.

In any case, I didn’t think these horses would cause us any trouble unless my negotiations with Lord Kang broke down completely, so I didn’t worry about it. Instead, I focused on my new companions and evaluated them in energy vision.

Lord Kang was a Peak Lord with an impeccable foundation. The badge of a grade 3 core disciple hanging from his waist, as well as the intense water qi that I could sense from him, indicated that he was a highly skilled beast tamer, and I had to wonder if he had tamed those horses himself. However, as both of his companions were elderly False Kings who had also cultivated water qi, it seemed far more likely that the horses belonged to one of them.

As we rode, Lord Kang examined the city as it passed us by.

“Lord Su, I must say, TongBei is a rather impressive sight. Both the roads and the buildings are immaculate. It must have taken powerful cultivators quite some time to ensure everything here was of such high quality. If the place were only slightly larger, I could imagine it serving as a proper imperial capital.”

I smiled and nodded.

“Certainly. This city is the product of generations of effort.” I gave a wry chuckle. “Sadly, there wasn’t much I could do to improve the place after taking control of it.”

Lord Kang smirked. “Yes, I must thank you for that. One of my men had been scheduled to become the steward here. As a grade 1 inner sect disciple, this was about the best he could have hoped for. However, when you claimed it instead, he was given the chance to take over a city with a bit more potential for growth.”

I gave a seated half-bow. “I am glad that I could be of service, Lord.”

Lord Kang’s expression chilled slightly. “Unfortunately, this also means that I have lost control of one of the kingdom’s most important cities. With the competition to select a new steward for the kingdom approaching, this has put me in a rather difficult position.”

I maintained my pleasant façade and dipped my head once more. “I understand, Lord. However… may I suggest that this is not the appropriate place for such discussions? Please, we have almost arrived. Let us continue this inside.”

Our carriage arrived at the manor in silence, and I led everyone to a conference room off to the side of the main hall.

When I gestured for everyone to enter, Lord Kang just stared at the door warily, so I hurried to explain.

“A simple anti-eavesdropping formation, Lord. This was why I wished to wait to continue our discussion until after we arrived. To ensure its privacy.”

Lord Kang narrowed his eyes at me, but after a quick look at his companions, he strode into the room confidently.

This room contained only a single long table with three chairs on either side. Lord Kang took the center seat on the left side, and his two False Kings took the seats next to him. ShouLi took the seat in the middle of the right side, I took the seat to her left, and NiangBa took the seat to her right.

Lord Kang gave me an icy look. “Lord Su, what is the meaning of this?”

My only response was to turn my head to look at ShouLi.

She smiled at the young Lord opposite her.

“Lord Kang, I believe you may be under a bit of a misconception. When you entered the sect, your family provided you with protectors.” She gestured to the False Kings. “Lord Su Fang and Grandmaster Su NiangBa are mine.”

Lord Kang pursed his lips in annoyance. “I see. Your family sent someone capable of becoming a grade 3 core disciple to protect a mere inner sect disciple. How… extravagant.”

ShouLi chuckled lightly. “You can view it that way if you wish, but my clan’s elders have a wider outlook. While Su Fang is indeed a grade 3 core disciple, that is only because of certain advantages provided to him by his blessing. His future potential is… limited. Our elders believe that I will be the one who achieves true greatness in this sect.”

Lord Kang steepled his fingers and took several long moments to come to a decision on how to proceed.

“Very well, Miss…”

“Su ShouLi.”

“Miss Su, right. It makes no difference to me who you say is in charge here. You understand why I have come, do you not?”

ShouLi dipped her head a mere fraction of a centimeter. “Because my protector claimed a city that was meant for one of your men, potentially weakening your position in the upcoming contest for the stewardship of the Black River Kingdom.”

“And how do you plan on rectifying this situation?”

ShouLi gave Lord Kang a vicious smile. “We will support you, of course. I will be in no position to fight for the kingdom, so I will support your bid. If you desire, in the future, I will even assist you in fighting for the stewardship of the North Empire. However, there are a few things I need in return.”

ShouLi pulled out a map of the Black River Kingdom and started marking cities. “Once the fight for the kingdom is over, these cities will likely need new stewards. I want your help in ensuring that they go to my people.”

By assuming the subservient, submissive role of ShouLi’s protector, I had successfully accomplished my goal of not needing to take an active part in the negotiations with Lord Kang. However, I still needed to stay in the room with everyone to keep an eye on things.

As ShouLi and Kang started discussing the finer details of their cooperation, I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat.

Then, I stretched out my awareness to the room around us.

While the room’s anti-eavesdropping formation was only Rank 5, even an Emperor would need to be exceptionally skilled to breach it without my knowledge.

As my attention wandered, I caught the faintest hint of wind qi emanating from the ceiling.

The moment I noticed it, the wind qi disappeared, but I focused on the spot where I had initially sensed it.

As I did, I began to sense something from my space affinity.

I focused on this feeling, but as I did, it started to fade.

However, it didn’t disappear, so I focused harder.

The feeling faded further.

I put the strength of my entire soul behind my probing, and I located a pinpoint where the twinge from my space affinity originated. However, in this heightened state of awareness, I found another three such locations spread throughout the room.

Something, it seemed, had gotten the attention of the Sovereigns. Whether it was my performance or ShouLi’s, I wasn’t entirely sure. However, as I had hoped, this light touch seemed to indicate that they were willing to let things play out naturally and wait for us to reach the Summit. Sadly for them, that wasn’t going to happen.

A note from G Tolley

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Fledgling Wiki for the Story.

No new chapters next week. (Feb 17-21)

Hello all,

Recently, things have been piling up around me, and I need to take a bit of time off to get it cleared out. So, I've decided that I need to take next week off. This is partly due to the amount of editing work that I need to get done on earlier parts of the story, and it is partly due to a medical situation in my family that I need to spend time helping with.

Looking forward, I am about a month and change from completing book 5 on Patreon. At that point, I will be taking a full month off to get completely caught up on all the editing for the previous volumes so that I can get them ready for publishing. At that time, chapters on Royal Road will pause as well. Don't worry too much, though. I will fudge things a bit to make sure things aren't paused at a horrible cliffhanger.

Thanks for your continued support.

G. Tolley

Chapter 273 – Life 75, Age 23, Martial Lord 1

After Lord Kang left, I pulled NiangBa into a side room for a private conversation.

“I have a task for you.” I took out a set of six formation plates and placed them on a table next to us. “You now understand how the Affinity Hall worked, right? How I was able to raise everyone's affinities?”

NiangBa looked at the formations in thought. “Essence. The formations in the Affinity Hall gathered essence and channeled it into us.”

“Yes. The reason I haven’t recreated the Affinities Halls here is that there is no environmental essence to gather.” I tapped on the formation plates. “These, however, are a bit different. They will gather essence from the environment and store it for later use. I want you to assemble several teams to spread these formations out around in as many different kingdoms and empires as possible. This will allow us to harvest essence from across the continent instead of just relying on what is available in the local environment.”

A hint of greed appeared in NiangBa’s eyes. “So… we will be able to use this to rapidly improve our affinities?”

I shook my head slowly and spoke very deliberately. “No, these formations are not very effective. That’s why we need to use so many of them across such a large area. Even then, gathering enough essence to raise a person’s affinities above seven-star is impractical. So, for our advancements, we will need to rely on the sect’s Trials. These are for something else. This essence will be used to create a new method for generating large amounts of karmic energy.”

While I was speaking at NiangBa, my real audience was whoever might be eavesdropping on us. I wanted to place clear limits on my activities so that no one would feel the need to interfere with them.

Also, importantly, nothing I said was a lie. The formations were only Rank 3, and the materials they used for essence storage were far from ideal. For example, in the metal essence formation, instead of using the extremely potent beryllium oxide, this formation used simple iron oxide.

NiangBa dropped his head, losing much of his interest in the project. “I will see to it, Lord Su.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. If this works out as well as I hope, you’ll be able to earn enough contribution points to visit the Trials as many times as you wish.”

During the year leading up to the competition to become the new steward of the Black River Kingdom, dozens of people from my clan made the ascent to Yellow City. However, since only RuLan, the Revered Elders, and I were core disciples, we were the only ones allowed to purchase positions as city stewards before ascending further.

My leadership team had several conversations about sending people to retake the Exam in order to change this, but in the end, we decided that it would be best to hold off until later. Instead, I helped everyone gather the contribution points they needed to purchase enough karmic energy for an initial breakthrough to Martial Lord. I also set up a training center in TongBei to help them learn the skills necessary to ascend the Paths of Dragon Peak.

Then, one month before the stewardship competition was set to begin, I gathered a group of over a dozen new Lords and led them to Profound City via the Path of Soul.

As usual, when we exited, we were teleported away to speak to various elders in private about our new standings within the sect. The elder I spoke to was rather straightforward and said little more than that I would remain a Grade 3 core disciple. For the others, while no one was demoted, they were all told that if they wanted to improve their standings, they would need to visit the Exam to do so.

That would need to happen eventually, but before worrying about the Exam and the fallout it would cause, we first needed to prepare for the upcoming competition.

Each year, two of the sect’s 30 kingdoms would host a contest to choose a new steward. While everyone did their best to prepare for these competitions in advance, their formats varied from year to year, so no one knew exactly what to expect.

For us, though, things were a bit different. Yan had recorded several important bits of information about these contests, and that gave us an edge. However, we had made several significant changes to this timeline, so we couldn’t be certain that everything would play out as Yan had predicted.

‘Predicted’ was the key word here. This was the pretense that the Revered Elders and I maintained with the entire clan, including the leadership council. Yan’s strategy blessing allowed him to make predictions that bordered on miraculous. In time, it would become clear to everyone that something more was going on, but we needed to maintain this pretense as much as possible for anyone who might be watching.

It wasn’t until one week before the competition was set to begin that the rules were officially announced, and we learned that everything would proceed as expected.

The competition was both the simplest and most comprehensive option available. The steward of whichever city was able to generate the most karmic energy over the next six-month period would become the Black River Kingdom’s new steward. We could generate this karmic energy through any means necessary, but anyone who hadn’t spent the majority of their time within the kingdom's borders over the past year was not allowed to interfere.

As soon as this was announced, I set off to Lord Kang’s city with a group of 28 cultivators ranging from Martial Disciple to Martial Lord. Upon our arrival, I immediately leased seven large buildings near the center of the city. This drew the attention of the city’s management, and no doubt Lord Kang himself, but after identifying myself, I was allowed to proceed with my purchase.

Getting these seven buildings ready in short order was no easy feat, but the people I had brought with me were all professionals, and with the help of pills, formations, and qi-empowered muscles, we were able to get it all done not long after the competition for the kingdom officially began.

Once everything was ready, I made my way to the city lord’s manor to invite Lord Kang for our grand opening.

When I entered the main hall of the city lord’s manor, Lord Kang was sitting on his throne at the head of a large assembly of officials from cities around the kingdom.

I gave him a martial salute and bowed deeply. “Lord Kang, thank you for seeing me.”

The fingers of his right hand twitched in a flicking motion. “Rise.”

The room fell silent for several moments as Lord Kang carefully inspected me in qi vision. When he was satisfied with whatever he saw, he gave a sharp nod.

“Lord Su, you have been causing my ministers quite a bit of consternation. It was just announced that we would be competing to produce as much karmic energy in our cities as possible, and you bought out several of my city's largest buildings. Have you finally come to explain yourself?”

I smiled and dipped my head. “Yes, Lord. I have come to personally invite you to tour our facilities so that you may best understand the services we will offer. Also, you may wish to bring your ministers along with us so that they can begin thinking about how to best use these services to boost the karmic energy generation of the city as much as possible.”

Lord Kang narrowed his eyes at me and stroked his chin several times as he thought through his response. Finally, he pounded a fist on his armrest and stood.

“Let’s go. Show me what your Su Clan is capable of.”

I led a procession of two dozen officials to the nearest of my seven buildings.

This one was a large four-story complex made from sturdy, old-growth wood. When we had first purchased it, it was rather run-down, but over the previous week, our wood, earth, and metal cultivators had put in countless hours to completely renovate the place and make it look like new.

The outer walls were painted a vibrant red, the eaves were covered in paintings that evoked the feeling of flames, and the roof was decorated with ornaments made from the dull black iron of a well-used pill furnace. A large signboard announcing the building’s name had been placed above its entrance, but for the moment, it was covered by a cloth of golden silk.

As we approached Lord Kang appraised this building carefully.

“Your people have done impressive work. As I said when I visited TongBei, this building wouldn’t look out of place in an imperial capital.”

I bowed my head to him. “Thank you, Lord.”

Once everyone was gathered in front I waved a hand, the silk cloth covering the signboard was removed, and everyone could see the name of this new establishment.

Lord Kang cocked his head to the side as he tried to understand. “The Guild of Alchemists?”

“Yes, Lord. Please, come in. Allow me to show you around.”

In the past, both in the Eight Flower Kingdom and in the Nine Rivers Sect, I had used pill factories to generate karmic energy.

Why? What was the point?

It was because there were a lot of basic pills that many people needed but no one was willing to make. Concocting Perfect Rank 0 Nutrition Pills required a skilled Disciple Alchemist with both a peak nine-star wood affinity and a peak nine-star fire affinity. Typically, the people who needed such pills could not afford the price of commissioning an alchemist to make them, so these pills were rarely sold.

My pill factories had allowed me to mass produce these low-level pills and provide them to everyone at a price they could afford.

When I was the Lord of North Lake City in Eight Flower, this had provided me with so much karmic energy that I couldn’t even use it all. However, when I later tried to repeat this feat as the steward of NanLu City, I failed. The people of NanLu needed more than basic nutrition. They needed essence. They needed affinities that would allow them to begin to cultivate.

While I had found a way to provide the people of NanLu with the essence they needed, during my time in the Su Clan, I had thought a lot about how to distribute essence more equitably. While preparing for this competition, the solution I settled on was to create a series of guilds, one for each profession, based on the Alchemy Association that I had created during my time as Prince CaoHan’s chancellor in Red Sword City.

As I guided Lord Kang into the inaugural hall of the Black River Kingdom’s Guild of Alchemists, he seemed more confused than anything, so I did my best to explain.

“The system here is a mix between a sect and a merchant house. After joining the guild, alchemists will be able to sell any pills they concoct for either gold or contribution points, and the hall will then sell these pills to the public. We do not have any current plans to limit which pills we will accept, but this may change over time based on demand.”

Lord Kang nodded, but his confusion didn’t abate. “I understand, Lord Su… but what is the point? This city already has more than one pill hall. We don’t need another.”

I smiled and continued the tour.

“Lord Kang, the key is the contribution point system.” I guided him to a series of rooms on the second floor. “These are the Affinity Chambers. By paying a set amount of contribution points, members of the guild will be able to raise any of their basic affinities up to a maximum of peak nine-star.”

This statement caused shock in several of the ministers, but Lord Kang himself was less than impressed.

“I could see how providing a bit of essence to normal people could be beneficial, but for a skilled alchemist? Gaining a new peak nine-star affinity seems… insignificant.”

My smile didn’t fade in the slightest as I led the group back down to the ground floor and toward the back of the building where we had placed the guild’s library.

“The scrolls in this room contain all the knowledge I possess on Rank 1 alchemy. It is freely available to all members of the guild.” I moved to the center of the room, picked up a small white orb, and held it out for the group to inspect. “This is a memory orb. Are you familiar with them? This orb will grant anyone who joins us an understanding of basic alchemy. The knowledge it contains is extremely limited, but it is enough to get a person started. Anyone who wishes to become an alchemist is welcome to come here, learn, earn contribution points, and raise their affinities.”

This finally allowed Lord Kang to fully grasp my intentions.

“You leased seven buildings?”

I nodded. “Alchemy, herbalism, refining, beast taming, formations, talismans, illusions. Seven guilds. Regretfully, I cannot provide dark, light, or wind essence, so the Guild of Illusionists will be rather limited in the services they can provide, but we will do the best we can.”

Finally, one of the mortals who had been following us couldn’t hold himself back any longer.

“Anyone can come here and gain affinities? Anyone can become a cultivator?”

I smiled at him. “Yes.”

Then, I looked at Lord Kang. “As I said before, you may wish to discuss this situation with your ministers. During the six months of the competition, the citizens of this city will have exclusive access to the guilds’ services, but once the competition is over, we plan to rapidly expand across the entire kingdom. I hope that you can fully appreciate what this will mean for you.”

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 274 – Life 75, Age 24, Martial Lord 1

Establishing the guilds in Lord Kang’s city first and allowing him to claim the stewardship of the kingdom was a gift, but expanding these guilds throughout the kingdom during his tenure would be an even greater one. Even Lord Kang had to know that such gifts were never free. So, what did I want?

More than anything, I just wanted to find out if such guilds were even viable. How much essence would they need? How much karmic energy would they be able to generate? Would it be possible to establish such guilds across the entire continent and create multiple shadow empires like the Blue Wind Pavilion? These guilds held a lot of potential, but handing out affinities came with several potential pitfalls that needed to be sounded out.

However, this was only a reason to test these guilds out. Why give them to Lord Kang?

Because he would act as our shield. The guilds were first established in his city. They would first spread across his kingdom. In the future, they might spread across his empire. If anyone wanted to cause trouble, they would cause trouble for Lord Kang, not for me. Smarter, more informed people might look into things more deeply, but by then, our foundations would hopefully be solid enough to weather such storms.

While I had told Lord Kang and his ministers that anyone could join a guild and become a cultivator, anyone did not mean everyone, and it definitely didn’t mean everyone all at once. We needed to roll out our services gradually so that the guild halls were not overwhelmed.

Therefore, we did not go out and advertise the fact that we would raise people’s affinities or teach them to cultivate. When we first opened our doors, as far as the general public was concerned, the Guild of Alchemists was little more than another random pill hall. It might look fancier, and its items might be a bit more expensive than normal, but it wasn’t anything too special. The only thing we did to draw people’s attention was post a small recruitment notice next to one of the side entrances.

Wanted: 20 new assistants. No Training Required.

Of course, even this didn’t draw much attention. It was common enough for low-level professionals to recruit assistants, and it wasn’t something to get overly excited about. These jobs usually just involved doing a lot of grunt work for low wages.

This situation led to the first few days of the guild being rather slow. A few people came in to purchase pills, and there was a bit of surprise when they found out that we were selling large quantities of Perfect pills, but the fact that we were only selling Perfect pills limited the number of people who could afford them. For mortals who were unconcerned about the buildup of pill toxins, our prices no doubt seemed excessive.

So, during this period, the only visitors we had were those who had a direct connection to Lord Kang. His loyal Masters and Grandmasters had all come to us for pills, and we had hired five of his ministers as assistants. If anyone had been paying close attention, they might have noticed this strange behavior, but Kang had sealed the information about the guild from being released to the public prematurely.

It wasn’t until the fourth day when a ragged street urchin knocked on the side door to apply to become an assistant that things began to change.

He was a 17-year-old boy with no affinities and no known blessing who had spent his entire life on the outskirts of the city, barely getting by. The recent fighting caused by the stewardship competition had forced him to seek refuge within the city’s walls, and while hiding out, he happened to pass by the guild and decided to try his luck.

XuJian, who was heading this branch, gave him a small room to stay in and assigned him a few menial tasks around the guild. After a couple of days of hard work, XuJian deemed the boy had done enough to earn a low nine-star affinity, so he was given a fire affinity and taught a very basic cultivation technique.

The cultivation techniques we had decided to use for the guild were a bit… rough. As everyone was understandably a bit worried about creating a large number of cultivators with low nine-star affinities and Low-Yellow cultivation techniques, we had chosen which techniques would be offered by the guild very carefully. They were all based around turning a person into a more productive professional and caused mental effects such as focus and being more willing to listen to commands.

In a way, these could be considered semi-slave techniques, and if we had wanted, we could have used this system to effectively enslave everyone who joined us, but that was far from our goal. We wanted people to improve their skills and earn contribution points. Then, they could use those points to purchase higher affinities, better cultivation techniques, and Energy Expulsion Pills to remove the effects of their madness.

While I had created a hard rule that everyone must be warned of the risks before being given a technique, how many would be willing to pass up the chance to become a cultivator? In the end, we would just need to do our best to manage the situation and test different techniques to see which ones had the best results.

With a low nine-star affinity and a simple cultivation technique, it didn’t take long for this first boy who joined us to gather enough qi that he could activate the guild’s memory orb and absorb its contents. After that, he was able to quickly advance his cultivation base and begin earning contribution points through basic alchemy instead of just mundane tasks.

After this first boy joined us, it took another couple of weeks to fill up all 20 slots for assistants, and almost everyone who joined us was a refugee from the fighting outside the city’s walls.

After less than a month, these 20 boys and girls all knew enough alchemy that they were ready to hire assistants of their own. The guild allowed each active member to hire two assistants, and these assistants would be paid a small stipend by the guild.

After another month, most of these assistants had gained enough contribution points to purchase an affinity and learn alchemy on their own, so the original 20 were allowed to hire new assistants to replace them.

In this manner, all of the guilds were able to rapidly expand, and by the end of the competition’s six-month timeframe, they all had hundreds of members.

Unlike a sect, there were no formations or jades to keep track of who was a member of a guild or how many contribution points a person had. Everything was recorded via ink and paper, and dozens of people had been employed to keep track of it all.

While this was a bit inefficient and prone to error, it was simply another means of providing contribution points and essence to the people who had little talent for the professions themselves. The point of the Guild of Alchemists wasn’t alchemy. The point was to produce karmic energy, and that was best done by employing as many people as possible.

This strategy of having the guilds start small and ramp up their membership numbers over the course of several months prevented them from having a truly explosive impact on the stewardship competition. However, as Lord Kang’s victory had been the likely outcome anyway, the cumulative effect of the seven guilds working together was more than enough to make it a certainty.

So, to no one’s surprise, as soon as the competition ended, Lord Kang was promoted to the position of Steward of the Black River Kingdom.

Immediately after this was announced, most of the kingdom’s Lord-level stewards resigned. They already had all the Lord-level karma they needed, and without a higher position to fight over, they no longer had a reason to stay.

At the end of the competition, only three of Black River’s ten cities had stewards. The ones who stayed behind were me, one of Lord Kang’s men, and a former subordinate of one of the failed challengers.

Seven cities sat empty.

Since the next competition for the kingdom wouldn’t be for another 15 years, these seats would have usually sat empty for a while, but this time, the moment they became available, people stepped forward to claim them. Five went to members of my clan. Two went to Kang’s subordinates.

As for the city originally controlled by Lord Kang? It was purchased by ShouLi. As an inner sect disciple in Profound City, she was allowed to make such a purchase, but considering the potential for growth that the city held, a normal inner sect disciple at her level would have had a hard time convincing the elders to let them have it. Kang’s backing may have helped with this, but I suspected the sect’s upper echelons were already aware of her status as a body cultivator, and they were likely giving her a bit of special treatment.

In any case, this gave our clan control over a total of six cities in Black River, and we got right to work on expanding the guilds into each of them, as well as the three cities controlled by Kang’s direct subordinates.

With everyone in the kingdom now aware of what the guilds represented, it was extremely easy to recruit ‘assistants,’ and the different branches rapidly expanded. The only problem was that each guild only had a single memory orb that had to be shared between all of its branches.

This was a bit annoying, but as everyone was allowed to use the sect’s teleportation network to return to Dragon Peak at least once a week, we could just take the orbs with us and make the exchanges when we went. The teleportation network wasn’t supposed to be used for things like this—it was only supposed to be used for sect-related activity—but officially, we were using the network to return to the mountain on official business. These exchanges were just private trades that happened while we were there.

With guild branches in only nine cities, moving the orbs around like this was workable. Each city would have the orbs for three days each month, and anyone who needed them would be able to use them during that window. However, if we wanted to expand further, we would need more orbs, and my supply was nearly exhausted.

So, with the competition out of the way, I buckled down and got to work on improving my refining skills.

With the seven guilds active in TongBei, the city generated karmic energy at a truly insane pace, and in only four years, I was able to reach Peak Lord. I could have happily resigned at this point, but I decided to stay on for a few more years to help provide everyone with a stable home.

During this time, several members of my clan took up random positions across the North Empire, and ShouLi had even started working with Kang on his bid to compete for the position of imperial steward. I supported them where necessary, but I did my best to stay out of it. With all the advantages I had given them, if Kang and ShouLi couldn’t claim an empire without me, then they didn’t deserve it. Instead, my focus was only on mastering beast alchemy and refining.

After years of work, I was finally able to acquire enlightenments for both Rank 2 and 3 beast alchemy, catching up to RuLan. This gave me two additional discounts, one for 100,000 credits and one for 10 million credits. I also gained a basic understanding of Rank 4 refining, but I really needed to slow down and spend more time understanding the details of both topics without the distractions of needing to run a city.

So, after accumulating sufficient contribution points, I resigned from my post, purchased the karmic energy needed to ascend to Martial King, and settled down in a private courtyard in the capital of the Black River Kingdom.

Officially, Kang had hired me to provide routine maintenance of the kingdom’s formations. Unofficially, I was deep in seclusion, working on my crafts. If anyone needed me, there were several ways to contact me, but I planned to spend several years returning to my roots as a hermit.

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Chapter 275 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

During my seclusion, while my focus was on my studies, I kept abreast of news from around the sect to ensure everything continued to develop properly.

Once Yan reached Martial Lord, I gave him his orb from his second life. I wasn’t entirely sure when his soul would be developed enough to make this safe, but I felt that a Lord-level soul should be able to handle a few dozen years’ worth of memories.

Somewhat surprisingly, after absorbing everything, Yan didn’t seem to show much of a reaction at all. His notebook had already provided him with most of the information the orb contained, so the memories themselves simply made him more comfortable with certain aspects of that life. Afterward, he just promised to let me know if there were any signs of problems and went on about his work.

As for JiaQi, she was pretty much the same. She didn’t have a notebook telling her about what had happened during our second life in the sect, but she didn’t care. For her, that life had been more of a relaxing romp with her deer than anything else, so learning the details of it didn’t make much of a difference to her. However, I did notice her spend a bit more time practicing beast taming.

Others, though, weren’t quite as sanguine about the process.

Upon entering the sect, Yan took all the illusionists in my clan under his wing, including Meng LuYao. The elder who had been appointed to lead our people on the Dark Peak became his deputy. While this group did join us in TongBei, they claimed one of the outlying villages as their own and stayed somewhat separate from the rest of us most of the time.

At first, I was a bit worried about this, but a quick conversation had been enough to clear up what Yan was doing. He was giving LuYao a chance to grow up away from LiTing, and it seemed to be working.

LuYao’s talent and affinity levels were enough to make her a prodigy, and her striking looks, different from anyone else on the continent, made her extremely popular on the Light Peak. There, it was common for people to use illusions to alter their appearances, so she didn’t even stand out as anything more than a beautiful girl. However, the fact that her appearance was natural and not the result of an illusion made her a bit special.

Since she was starting as a Martial Disciple with no knowledge of cultivation, LuYao was years behind everyone else, but they lacked her talent, affinity, and determination. This allowed her to quickly make a name for herself within my clan and earn everyone’s respect. This, in turn, caused many of the men to confess their feelings for her, but at my request, Yan stepped in to prevent anything from developing.

I didn’t want to stop LuYao from entering a relationship with someone she cared about, but I needed her to understand the truth of the time loops before that happened. Allowing her to marry and have children without telling her everything first would be too cruel.

Giving LuYao this layer of protection had a strange effect, though. It seemed to turn her into some kind of unattainable fairy figure in the minds of several men. This no doubt warped her mental and spiritual development in its own way, but it was the most ‘normal’ development that I could offer her.

As for LiTing, without LuYao to latch onto, she was initially a bit adrift. She had the memories of her first life in the sect, but she didn’t have any strong need to do anything about them. She wanted to help with my clan, but her more introverted personality held her back from taking on tasks related to interacting with large numbers of strangers.

After about a year of this, she latched on to Cao MeiLan.

During my first life in the Twin Mountains Sect, Cao had been someone who I could only look up to. Her skills in both alchemy and cultivation far outstripped my own, and she had helped me develop from a boy who could only craft Basic Qi Gathering Pills into a Master Alchemist.

However, even in the Twin Mountains Sect, her skills had been near the bottom.

At the start of the loop, she was a 28-year-old Martial Master, but stagnation had already set in because of how late she had advanced, and that would never go away. Her fire affinity was only low eight-star, her talent for alchemy was lackluster, and her blessing simply enhanced her control over mortal fires.

Cao was exactly the kind of person the Twin Mountains Sect had been designed for. She was someone with a bit of talent in alchemy who would likely never achieve anything more than a basic level of competence. My hope was that she would be able to develop into a powerful Revered Elder of Fire, but that would take centuries of practice.

When she first joined us, RuLan took Cao under her wing and retaught her the basics of cultivation, but after Rulan started spending most of her time with Emperor Li, Cao was left adrift.

That was when LiTing latched onto her and the girls bonded over their status as ‘outsiders.’

When LuYao and LiTing both reached Martial Lord, I gave them their memory orbs. LiTing had been expecting this, but LuYao hadn’t. Yan had done his best to avoid tipping her off to the fact that she had been a part of our second life in the sect.

Upon absorbing these memories, the relationship between the two girls became extremely awkward. During this life, they were strangers who hadn’t interacted with each other more than a handful of times. So, finding out that they had thought of each other as sisters was difficult to process.

Worse, for LiTing, Meng LuYao no longer looked like her true self, so it was hard to connect those memories with someone who had both a different personality and a different body. For LuYao, this time, she didn’t have LiTing’s memories, so many of the impulses that those memories had given her felt entirely foreign.

The result of all this was that the girls ended up mostly avoiding each other and carrying on with the new lives that they had already established.

As for Shi YuLong…

Originally, Yulong had planned to hang around TongBei and act as a general trainer while keeping an eye on his sister. He wanted her to stay safe, but he lacked any real motivation. After absorbing his memories, YuLong retreated into seclusion for several weeks. When he emerged, his sole focus was on training his sister to make her as powerful as possible.

When she turned 16, he took her to join the Guild of Talisman Artists.

This surprised me since, in the past, YuLong hadn’t been too keen on mastering the art. However, his explanation was simple. “The power of a talisman doesn’t rely on the cultivator who uses them.”

Without a natural affinity for lightning, his sister, Shi YuHua, was at a slight disadvantage in the guild, but with a constant supply of essence from around the continent, she was able to develop her lightning affinity a bit more easily than Liang had.

I was worried about the intensity with which he was pushing her, though.

YuLong was, essentially, a 150-year-old monster at this point, and at times, he seemed to forget that his sister was only a 16-year-old girl on her first life. So, to try to help YuHua cope with the situation, I had a talk with Yan and sent a few letters back and forth with Emperor Jin via LiTing.

The next year, Cai XiaoYu and Jin ZiHan arrived in TongBei. The last time we had met, they had both been given beauty blessings, but this time, their blessings had returned to what they were when Yan and I first taught them in the Yellow Orchid Academy. XiaoYu’s gave her endless stamina, and ZiHan’s gave her a deeper understanding of mathematics. However, neither of them were aware of this as neither had been given the memories of their previous lives.

Emperor Jin used her position and power as a grandmother to order ZiHan to learn cultivation through Black River’s guild system instead of through the Yellow Orchid Academy. As for XiaoYu, Yan simply recruited her while she was still a poor orphan who didn’t know what the future might hold.

Following Yan’s and Jin’s advice, both girls enrolled in the Guild of Talisman Artists where they were placed into training sessions alongside YuHua. The one-year age gap made this a bit tricky, but everyone followed my orders and got it done.

In truth, I wasn’t entirely comfortable arranging friendships like this, but I felt that it was necessary. YuHua needed a chance to become friends with people in the loop, and these two girls were the only options that were readily available.

Finally, as for Bao and SuYin, ever since their arrival in South Gate, they had been more or less inseparable.

In their last life, SuYin’s memory blessing had allowed her to learn everything far too fast for Bao to keep up with, and the fact that Bao’s body had already entered stagnation only caused this gap to widen more quickly. The result of this disparity was that SuYin became a core disciple of Verdant Forest Sect and Bao was only able to serve as her attendant.

In this life, things were flipped. With the reversion of his cultivation and soul strength, Bao’s blessing wasn’t able to help him much, but he retained all the memories of an expert Grandmaster Herbalist. With a stagnated cultivation base, he was slower to advance than others, but with the knowledge and experience he possessed, his ascent was steady and relentless.

SuYin, on the other hand, had only patchy recollections remaining of her past life. She knew big-picture ideas about who and why, but nearly all the details had been stored in her blessed memory, and none of them had been transferred into her memory orb. So, for both cultivation and herbalism, she was constantly seeking out Bao to get his input on things.

After only a few weeks of this behavior, it seemed to reach the point where SuYin was afraid to stray too far away from his side lest she forget important knowledge that she was supposed to have.

For his part, Bao didn’t take any pride in the situation, and he didn’t use it to take advantage of the girl. Whenever SuYin asked a question, he would patiently answer, knowing that with her blessing, the same question wouldn’t need to be asked a second time.

Because of SuYin’s memory issues and Bao’s stagnation, the two of them reached Grandmaster a bit later than the other Revered Elders, but they eventually made it there and were both able to enter the sect as ungraded inner disciples. This rating, while low, was simply the result of them not caring about their standing within the sect and wanting to rush to join us. If they had stayed and cultivated in South Gate for a few more years, I was confident that they could have both achieved core disciple status.

Once inside, they spent nearly all their time secluded in Mortal City or TongBei.

The only time Bao had visited the Wood Peak was when he first entered the sect and was taken there by his guide. After that, he refused to return. That single visit had scared him more than I had thought possible.

This told me he needed to redouble his efforts with soul cultivation. If Bao was going to become an Emperor in this life, he needed to visit the Wood Peak Trial to raise his affinity, and if the voices from his blessing were stopping him from doing that, he needed to be able to block them.

He and SuYin had requested to be allowed to cultivate in my storage space, but a quick test showed that, like with regular qi cultivation, they weren’t able to control energy well enough in there to cultivate their souls properly.

So, instead, they each borrowed several stacks of books from my Soul Cultivation Library and spent their days locked away with them.

At first, they were alone in this endeavor, but as more of my clan learned the importance this sect put on soul cultivation, my two disciples slowly grew a small following. In time, this turned into a school where people could go, read, and discuss the different philosophies.

This deep focus on soul cultivation caused their attention on qi cultivation and herbalism to wane, but that was fine. Bao was already in stagnation, so he only needed to worry about reaching Lord before 90 to prevent calcification, and SuYin was already a Peak Grandmaster who could advance to Lord whenever she wished.

If the clan needed help or advice, my Revered Elders were around to offer it, but they didn’t involve themselves in its day-to-day operations. Instead, they each charted their own course through this life based on their own personal desires.

For some, like Meng LuYao and Shi YuHua, I steered things slightly from behind the scenes, but I didn’t try to dictate how anyone lived their lives. I was simply grateful for whatever assistance they were willing to provide me and my clan.

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Chapter 276 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

After securing the Black River Kingdom for Lord Kang and taking over his old city, ShouLi, like me, retreated from public life and entered a period of relative seclusion. While she still spent time guiding others from the shadows, her focus was on improving her own cultivation base.

However, unlike most Lords, ShouLi had no need to worry about regular, energy cultivation. With Kang’s old city supporting her, she was accruing contribution points at a rapid pace and would have access to as much karmic energy as she could possibly need, so reaching Martial King wouldn’t be any issue at all.

Instead, her focus was on finally taking the next step in body cultivation.

With the help of her blessing, ShouLi had been able to reach the peak of Rank 1 body cultivation without issue, but she had been blocked from going any further. She also hadn’t been able to help anyone else make similar breakthroughs.

With nearly a decade before the next competition for stewardship of the North Empire, she wanted to use this time to figure out how to take that next step.

Within our clan, it was generally assumed that the reason no one had been successful in copying ShouLi’s body cultivation technique was that we needed to find some way to create filters for wu first. Without such filters, using ShouLi’s technique meant absorbing a mixture of random toxic energies from the environment and polluting one’s body.

Finding a solution to this problem was what had consumed all of Liang’s and NiangBa's attention for the past several years. However, without even a starting point to work from, they hadn’t made any progress.

I gave them as much support as I could, but eventually, it became clear that everyone was doing little more than pounding their heads against a brick wall. Seeing this, I finally decided to step forward and offer them a solution. I had hoped we wouldn’t have to use it, but it was starting to look like the only way forward, at least for now.

The problem was that we needed a way to cultivate pure wu of a single element without pulling in any impurities. With normal cultivation, this was done with a filter, but there was another way to achieve a similar effect, and I had used it when working on a formation for growing herbs.

First, I created a kind of reverse Qi Gathering Formation that completely drained all forms of energy from a small bubble of space to create a complete vacuum. Then, I used the flame of a Yellow-Rank spirit fire to fill this space with pure wu. This created a perfect environment for cultivation, removing the need to filter energy.

After creating one of these spaces for each of the different elements, I handed them off to my clan to experiment with, but I remained concerned about possible side effects. What would happen to someone who successfully advanced in such a space and then left it? Would they begin autonomously absorbing energy from the environment, polluting their bodies? Did a body cultivator slowly use up their wu? Would they need to constantly return to these formations to replenish it and maintain their strength?

I didn’t know the answers to these questions, and that was why I had held back from providing these formations earlier. I was worried that using them would only cause more problems than they solved. I had been hoping that Liang and the others would be able to create proper wu filters. However, after several years without any progress, I felt that trying out these formations might be worth the risk.

Still, I cautioned everyone to be careful and take things one step at a time.

Unsurprisingly, my admonitions for caution did little to dissuade anyone. They all wanted to gain more power, and they were all worried about falling behind. Thankfully, though, everyone was at least smart enough not to rush into anything.

Instead of simply giving everyone free access to the formations, ShouLi chose around a dozen members of the clan who had all shown interest in body cultivation and gathered them all in a larger chamber where my formations had already been set up. While I had not explicitly been invited to this meeting, I still showed up and took a position in the corner of the room to watch over everything.

Once everyone was present, ShouLi explained the situation.

“Lord… Su Fang believes that these formations of pure wu will allow us to cultivate our bodies, but there is a high risk that something could go terribly wrong. So, we will start with only a single volunteer to see what happens. Everyone interested in participating can draw lots for this opportunity, but no one is obligated to do so.”

Not a single person was willing to step back, and they all vied for the opportunity to become the second body cultivator in our clan.

The lucky winner was one of NiangBa’s lieutenants, Gan. He was a Peak Grandmaster earth cultivator who had recently advanced to Yellow City and was preparing for his breakthrough to Martial Lord. When he heard the news about these formations, he had rushed over to take a look, and he had eagerly put his name forward for consideration.

Having studied it for years already, everyone was intimately familiar with the cultivation technique that ShouLi had created. No one other than her had been able to cultivate it successfully, but everyone knew what they were supposed to do. So, after stepping into the formation filled with earth wu, Gan immediately sat down and started circulating it.

At first, Gan’s actions were rather tentative. When people had tried using this technique in the past, it didn’t take long for various side effects to appear, so he was ready to stop and rush out of the formation if anything like that happened again.

When an entire minute passed without any apparent issues popping up, Gan set his jaw and began cycling the technique with more ferocity.

I kept a close eye on the entire process, ready to end the test at a moment’s notice, but as time passed, I began to relax.

At the one-hour mark, NiangBa stepped forward and interrupted Gan’s practice.

“Alright, Gan, step outside. We need to make sure it's working before you go too far.”

Gan stood and followed orders.

He didn’t seem to experience any side effects upon leaving the formation, and when NiangBa ran a simple mortal knife across Gan’s arm, the skin parted as normal.

Wincing in pain, Gan glanced at his leader. “Any effect?”

NiangBa shook his head. “Hard to say. Maybe, but it’s minimal. You’ll need to do more before we know for certain. Does anything feel wrong? Any itching or burning sensations?”

Gan closed his eyes and rubbed the area where NiangBa had cut him.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think the cut hurt as much as it should have, but like you said, it’s hard to be certain.”

NiangBa looked over to the corner of the room where I was standing my silent vigil.

I gave him a slow nod.

NiangBa put a hand on Gan’s shoulder. “Alright, try for the breakthrough, but if anything feels wrong, stop immediately.”

Gan smiled and rushed back into the formation. After sitting down, he started cultivating as quickly as possible.

Even while pulling in energy as fast as he could, cultivating was still a slow process, and there wasn’t much to see. Still, no one was willing to leave the room. A dozen Grandmasters and Lords simply watched as Gan cultivated, hoping to catch any details that might assist them in the future.

After a few hours, the color of Gan’s skin started to fade. At this point, I got a little worried, but as there were no other apparent side effects, I held back from intervening immediately.

After nearly three full days of cultivating in an environment rich with earth wu. Gan’s skin had gone from a healthy tan to a dull, light gray, and the energy it contained had noticeably increased.

Suddenly, he seemed to hit a wall, and the wu in his body slammed to a halt.

Gritting his teeth, Gan set his shoulders and pulled in as much energy as possible.

Wu surged through his skin, and its light gray color instantly became a shade darker. Then, an oily black tar seeped from his skin.

A moment later, Gan’s body slumped.

NiangBa rushed forward to pull him out of the formation, but I jumped in and blocked him.

“No. Not yet.”

I placed a hand on Gan’s shoulder to wake him from his concentration.

“Ances—” Gan’s eyes widened in fear, and he quickly corrected himself. “Lord Su?”

I smiled and nodded. “You’ve broken through. Stop cycling the technique.”

Somewhat groggily, Gan nodded and relaxed his mind, but it took several minutes for the wu in his body to come to a complete halt. Once it did, I gestured to NiangBa who moved forward and helped Gan out of the formation.

Outside, everyone kept a close eye on Gan, waiting to see what would happen. As time ticked away and there was no reaction, a feeling of joy began to spread.

Once everyone was satisfied that the technique had seemed to work, NiangBa took out his knife and looked at Gan.

Gan nodded, and NiangBa lightly ran the knife down his arm.

This time, the blade wasn’t able to penetrate Gan’s skin, but after only a moment, something unexpected happened. Gan’s arm started drawing in energy.

Seeing this, I rushed forward and slammed a fist into Gan’s chest, sending him rocketing back into the formation as quickly as I possibly could.

No one else had realized what was happening, so this caused a bit of a commotion, but I just looked at the man lying on the ground. His body had started pulling in wu in three different areas: the place NiangBa had cut him, where I had hit him, and where he had hit the ground.

I shook my head. “If this is going to work, you’re going to need to find a way to control that. You can’t allow your body to draw in energy while outside of the formation.”

While using these formations for body cultivation had clear drawbacks, they were not enough to stop anyone, and everyone who had gathered was eager to make breakthroughs of their own.

Of all these, though, the most important was ShouLi.

She had been paying close attention to Gan’s efforts, and it had given her new ideas of her own. So, as soon as we confirmed that the cultivation process was reasonably safe, she entered the formation containing water wu.

I stepped forward and sat down next to her as she began working.

“What are you thinking?”

She grinned. “I’ve been studying various beasts on the Water Peak. The way demon beasts cultivate wu is… different. They don’t need techniques like we do. For them, it’s all natural. Still, there are a few similarities.”

She began cycling wu through her skin.

“When I first advanced as a body cultivator, I was thinking of everything as separate. First, improve my skin. Then, improve my muscles. Something like that. The demon beasts showed me that this was wrong. Each type of beast cultivates in a different way, but there is one similarity. Moving up to Rank 2 doesn’t mean abandoning whatever part of the body they cultivated at Rank 1.”

ShouLi shifted the wu cycling through her skin and pulled it deeper into her body.

“I’ve had this idea for a while now, but I didn’t have a clear enough picture of how everything worked to make it a reality.”

At first, I thought she was pulling energy from her skin and directing it to her muscles, but that wasn’t quite right. She pulled her wu into the area between her muscles and bones. She pulled it into her tendons and ligaments.

ShouLi's breakthrough took several days, but there was nothing holding her back. She solidly advanced to Rank 2 of body cultivation. However, she didn’t stop there.

Over the course of the next several years, she advanced through Rank 2 one step at a time and reached the Peak of that realm without any difficulty.

Then, she began working to understand how to infuse energy into her bones. This process had a few extra complications, but with the enlightenments she had already received for Ranks 1 and 2, and with nearly the entire clan supporting her research, these minor problems were quickly resolved.

After a delay of only a few months, ShouLi broke through to Rank 3 in body cultivation.

Skin, tendons, bones. As ShouLi had said, each type of demon beast cultivated things in a different order, so it was possible that there were different routes for us to go down as well, but this was the order that made sense to her.

If she had tried to enhance her muscles first, her body likely would have torn itself apart. This way, she created a strong foundation that would be able to withstand the rigors of physical combat.

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Chapter 277 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

With ShouLi having mastered Rank 3 body cultivation and me having mastered Rank 3 beast alchemy, we both turned our attention to Rank 4. Unfortunately, sourcing parts from Rank 4 beasts to practice with turned out to be a bit more difficult than I had hoped.

With Ranks 1 to 3, various forms of livestock were available for purchase from numerous farms that were spread out across the entire continent. Not only were these farm-raised beasts plentiful in number, but because they were all raised under the same living conditions, these beasts were also nearly identical. This made them ideal test subjects for my research.

However, there was not a single farm on the continent that was able to provide me with a steady supply of Rank 4 beasts. One or two would occasionally become available, but as I wasn’t the only person interested in purchasing them, the prices I needed to pay for each one were astronomical.

As I had never taken the time to understand the intricacies of beast taming, I turned to JiaQi for help in figuring out what was going on.

When she heard my question, JiaQi burst out into laughter, but she didn’t explain things directly. Instead, she wanted a visual aid to help her demonstrate why the idea of purchasing a large number of Rank 4 beasts was ‘absurd.’ So, she brought me to the stables outside Dragon Peak where several high-Rank wind horses were housed.

“Why are you having a hard time finding people willing to slaughter Rank 4 beasts and give you their carcasses? It’s simple. Beasts have a Ruler Tier, same as humans. The resources it takes to raise a Lord-level Beast are, quite frankly, insane, so raising them for slaughter doesn’t really happen.”

I rubbed my chin in thought. “You’re saying that demon beasts also need karmic energy to ascend?”

JiaQi rocked her head from side to side. “Kind of. That’s why I brought you here. I could just tell you, but it will help if you see it for yourself.”

She brought me over to where a horse was grazing in a small meadow.

“Use qi vision to take a look at this girl’s muscles, especially those in her hindquarters.”

I followed JiaQi’s instructions but didn’t see anything too surprising. This horse's muscles were filled with demonic energy, making them far stronger than a mortal beast’s, but the energy was loose and unstructured, making these muscles entirely unsuitable for beast alchemy.

Seeing my confusion, JiaQi nodded. “A normal Rank 3 wind horse. Nothing special. Now, let’s go see what happens when they ascend.”

She guided me to the other side of the stables where a group of horses had been penned up on a dirt field with multiple layers of formations preventing them from roaming about freely.

Using her identity jade, JiaQi was able to get us an up-close look at one of these horses, but we were not allowed to enter the field itself.

When I first glanced at this horse, it didn’t seem much different from the first one. It was Rank 4, but most of its energy flows, especially those in its hindquarters, didn’t look much different. There was more energy, but that was all.

However, as I looked closer and concentrated on what I was seeing, I began to notice something strange. The demonic energy in this horse was… diluted. In a way, it resembled what I would expect to see in the medicinal energy of high-wu herbs, but it lacked the structure necessary to be considered true medicinal energy. It would be more accurate to say that the horse's muscles were filled with a chaotic blend of qi and wu.

Once I had seen everything I needed to see, JiaQi pulled me away and led me to a rather luxurious-looking wooden structure that had been crafted of a rich, dark gray wood and painted in various shades of blacks and blues.

“That was a normal Rank 4 wind horse. The true Lords get to live in here.”

As we entered the building, I noticed that there were no doors anywhere. Even when we got to the stables themselves, there was not a single gate to keep the horses locked in place.

JiaQi walked me up to where a large wind horse was lying on the ground, half asleep. Its fur was pitch black, and as we approached, I noticed subtle eye movements as it tracked our progress.

“This is Lord HeiJun. He is the most impressive creature in the sect. He is what all the other horses here wish they could be. If you ever have to fight a war, you should pray that you do not need to go up against Lord HeiJun.”

I gave JiaQi a confused look, but when I glanced down at the horse, I could almost feel a sense of smug satisfaction rolling off of it.

JiaQi opened her eyes wide, pursed her lips, and used her head to gesture at HeiJun intently.

I cleared my throat. “Ye… Yes… I can see what you mean. He is… quite impressive.”

Not wanting to linger any longer than necessary, I used energy vision to scan the horse’s muscles. The energy they contained was… odd. It looked almost like pure demonic energy, but it was a bit off. Most importantly, unlike the previous two horses, the energy in HeiJun felt… stagnant, like it was locked in place. It still didn’t have the structure I was looking for, but it seemed more… solid.

As soon as my inspection was complete, JiaQi shook her head sadly. “Unfortunately, you will almost certainly never be able to see the likes of Lord HeiJun take the field. We are far beneath his notice.”

After saying this, she quickly ushered me out of the building.

As we walked back to the portal to Black River, I thought about what JiaQi had shown me.

“What was the difference between the two Rank 4 horses? This first one didn’t seem too different from a normal horse, but HeiJun was more… aware.”

JiaQi nodded. “Like I said, HeiJun is a true Lord. The others are just Rank 4 beasts. They are more akin to false Lords. It’s not exactly the same, but it gives you the right idea. To ascend to the Lord realm, a beast needs karmic energy, same as a human cultivator. However, instead of creating a core, beasts infuse this karmic energy into their muscles, making them far more powerful than their peers.”

I thought back to what ShouLi had told me about different beasts cultivating their bodies in different ways. “Lords always infuse karmic energy into their muscles?”

“Eh… usually. Some do it differently, but for most beasts, for most of the ones people take as companions, anyway, yes, they break through to Lord by infusing their muscles with karmic energy.”

I nodded. “And the other horses?”

“Well, karmic energy is hard to get, right? Most people have a hard enough time earning enough energy to advance to Peak Lord themselves, so the idea of earning enough energy to raise a companion is little more than a dream. The Water Peak has ways for us to purchase karmic energy at a discount, but only for our primary companions. What about all the other poor beasts?”

“They have to advance without it? False Lord?”

JiaQi nodded slowly, but a grimace appeared on her face. “Yes, but it isn’t exactly that simple. You saw them. To advance to Rank 4, those horses needed more than demonic energy.”

I thought back. “It was mixed with qi, right?”

JiaQi took a deep breath. “Yes. But demon beasts can’t cultivate qi.”

“So…”

“So, if they can’t gather it from the environment, they have to get it elsewhere. They have to get it from their… food supply.”

I furrowed my brow in confusion. “What… Wait… Are you saying they…”

JiaQi nodded. “There are two ways for a demon beast to advance. You either have to supply them with karmic energy, or they have to eat people. They have to eat cultivators.”

We continued walking for a bit, and JiaQi gave me a few moments to think before continuing.

“So, you wanted to know why it’s difficult to purchase Rank 4 beasts, right? That’s why. Raising a herd of Rank 3 beasts can be expensive, but it’s relatively straightforward. If you want to raise a Rank 4 beast, though, there are only two options. Either you supply it with karmic energy, or you feed it the bodies of a dozen Grandmasters.”

JiaQi gave a wry snort of amusement. “Some farms have large enough herds that they can produce natural Lords, but that’s pretty rare. Most of the farm-raised Rank 4 beasts you will see come from… other sources. Every kingdom has condemned criminals they need to get rid of, after all.”

JiaQi shook her head. “In any case, getting your hands on large numbers of Rank 4 beasts is going to be incredibly difficult. No one is going to sell you their companions, and farm-raised beasts are hard to come by. Your best option is probably to send people out to hunt wild beasts in the wilderness between the empires. They’re rare, but they’re out there.”

With high-Rank beasts being so rare, mastering Rank 4 beast alchemy would be somewhat difficult. Without a steady supply of nearly identical carcasses, performing repeated experiments would be impossible, so finding a combination of ingredients that formed a viable pill would be more luck than anything else.

That being the case, I decided to hold off on further research into beast alchemy until I could create a steady source of ingredients, possibly by constructing my own farms.

That said, while my conversation with JiaQi had led to a dead end on the alchemy front, it did open doors for other topics.

ShouLi had already started researching Rank 4 body cultivation, and the insights I gained from JiaQi shed new light on how that might be achieved. If body cultivation was a human equivalent for how demon beasts cultivated, then ShouLi would have to infuse her muscles with a combination of wu and either karmic energy or qi.

While the idea of needing additional karmic energy for body cultivation was a bit burdensome, I was a little worried about what one would need to do to infuse their muscles with the proper combination of qi and wu. We could cultivate qi, but was that qi usable in body cultivation? Would we need to… eat people? Hopefully not… but…

In any case, from what JiaQi had shown me, it seemed like using karmic energy would lead to a better result, so that was where we needed to focus our efforts. There was absolutely no reason to go down the path of experimenting with cannibalism.

In lighter news, JiaQi’s introduction to the two paths a demon beast could go down, using qi or using karmic energy, made me consider my ideas for the creation of a karmic core during the advancement to Martial Lord.

There was no reason that the progression paths for humans and beasts had to be balanced, but it seemed somewhat unfair that humans would be required to use karmic energy when demon beasts had a way to advance with qi. So… was it possible to use a combination of qi and wu to create a core?

The effects such a combination had on beasts suggested that even if it existed, this path might be objectively worse than just using karmic energy. In a way, it might simply be an alteration of the advancement to False Lord that would allow people to continue advancing. This wouldn’t be ideal, but it would allow far more people to advance than would otherwise be possible.

Was there a way to make this happen? If so, what was the secret?

I blinked.

There were several farms on this continent selling Rank 3 beasts. Almost… too many.

Many of these beasts were indeed being sold off as simple foodstuffs, but was that the extent of it? I was convinced that the various kingdoms, empires, and sects on this continent relied on karmic energy to advance. I had traveled around enough, and I had interacted with enough people, that I was convinced that this was true. However…

Were the Sovereign clans holding out on us? It didn’t seem likely… but… was it possible?

I had already wanted to visit the Zhuge and Li Clans to pick up the cultivation techniques for wind, light, and dark essence. I might need to see about expanding the scope of this heist.

A note from G Tolley

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Chapter 278 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

After advancing to Rank 3, ShouLi had as difficult of a time finding a path forward with body cultivation as I had with beast alchemy. Being a tamer herself, ShouLi already knew all the information given to me by JiaQi, but simply knowing the outline of what she would need to do wasn’t enough to allow her to actually do it. Yes, she knew that she would need to incorporate either qi or karmic energy into her muscles, but how was she supposed to achieve that?

ShouLi, Liang, and NiangBa spent several years working on trying to find a way forward with this research, but eventually, they had to put it to the side. While improving the clan’s understanding of body cultivation was important, there were other projects that needed their attention. ShouLi was still the nominal head of the clan’s leadership council, and while the council’s authority had started to wane in recent years, many of our members still looked to her for guidance.

So, ShouLi turned her attention to helping the clan advance further through the Nine Rivers Sect. However, as an inner sect disciple, the actual help she could provide was somewhat limited. As an inner sect disciple, she was forbidden from ruling a kingdom, she wasn’t allowed to lead a group on the path to Heaven City, and her ability to post sect missions was somewhat restricted.

If ShouLi wanted to maintain her position as the head of our clan, remaining an inner sect disciple wasn’t going to cut it. She needed a promotion, and that meant that she needed to take the sect’s Exam.

With the amount of time that ShouLi and the others had put into improving their profession skills and cultivating their souls, I expected that several of them would easily be able to become core disciples. However, I had held them back from reattempting the Exam because I was worried about what might happen. With several people having made tangible progress in the path of body cultivation, how would the sect react?

Still, I couldn’t hold them back any longer. If the members of my clan wanted to continue advancing in this sect, they would need higher positions. So, while I was still slightly wary, I gave my consent for ShouLi and the others to retake the sect’s Exam. However, as I did so, I made a quick purchase.

“System, I want to buy a mental reversion point for the fourteen body cultivators from my clan who are taking the sect’s Exam today. Standard practice. When they exit the Exam, revert their minds to how they were upon entering.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 4.1 billion credits. 30,217,883,769 credits remaining.

This was the first time that I had ever bought such mental reversion points for someone other than myself. Usually, I didn’t see the need for it, but if the sect were going to plant impulses into anyone, it would be into my clan’s body cultivators.

Most of the time, the Exam would take no more than a few hours. So, when ShouLi and the others left in the morning, I expected them to be back no later than mid-afternoon.

When no one returned by nightfall, I started to get worried, but there was nothing I could do other than wait.

An entire day passed, and then another.

Had something gone wrong? Had ShouLi and the others been kidnapped? Was there any way I could save them?

I didn’t know.

The Sect Master was the Sovereign of the Jiu Clan. If he had decided to lock ShouLi and the others away, what could I do to oppose him?

I considered seeking out Emperor Li, but would he help me? Could he?

Finally, on the third day, everyone returned safe and unharmed. They didn’t even know that they had been missing.

With everyone’s memories having been erased, it was impossible to know what had taken so long, but I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. The sect, or more likely the Jiu Clan, had been extracting every bit of information they could about body cultivation.

The fact that everyone returned alive and well suggested that their interrogators hadn’t pushed anyone to reveal any secrets protected by Oaths, but that was likely only because none of the information on body cultivation was protected in such a way. Our clan had popped up out of nowhere, and I was certain that the Sovereigns would want to know where we had come from, but luckily, they weren’t willing to kill us to find out. At least, not yet.

As for the actual results of the Exam, those were a bit unexpected.

ShouLi, our clan’s inaugural body cultivator and its public-facing leader, had been awarded the rank of ungraded Chosen. This confirmed my suspicion that the sect was searching for information on body cultivation, but based on everyone else’s results, simply being a body cultivator wasn’t enough.

Aside from ShouLi, everyone else was given the rank of grade 3 inner sect disciple. There wasn’t a single core disciple in the entire group. My only guess was that since these people were seen as ShouLi’s subordinates, they didn’t qualify for anything higher.

With her ascension to Chosen, ShouLi’s focus turned to improving her cultivation base. She was already a Peak Lord, so to advance further she needed to become a King.

While ShouLi could have simply bought King-level karmic energy, this would have weakened her standing in the eyes of the sect, and that wouldn’t have been ideal. We wanted the Sovereigns to think that we were all playing their game properly.

Instead, ShouLi needed to gain control of a kingdom. Not only would this provide her with the karmic energy she needed to ascend, but it would also help her further safeguard our clan.

As a Lord-Steward in Black River, if ShouLi wanted to become a King-Steward, she would need to target the stewardship of the Black River Kingdom, but for that to happen, Kang would need to vacate it first. There were a few ways to make this happen, the easiest of which was simply to wait until his term expired, but instead, ShouLi opted for a quicker route. She decided to make him an Emperor.

After only eight years of ruling over the Black River Kingdom, Kang had been able to gather enough contribution points to fund his advancement to Peak King. The only thing standing in his way of going further was the competition for control of the North Empire.

When Yan first reviewed his notes and found the details of what this competition would involve, we were a bit worried, but for whatever reason, the elders changed what was ‘supposed’ to happen. Instead of an open war between all of the northern kingdoms, they decided to have the competition be nothing more than a simple martial arts tournament.

With Yan’s and ShouLi’s assistance, Kang was easily able to clinch the championship.

This elevated Kang to Steward of the North Empire, and he was allowed to appoint a successor to fill the vacancy he left behind. While there were others within his retinue who he might have preferred to give this spot to, he made the smart choice and gave it to ShouLi.

The sect had already made it clear that only a limited number of people from our clan would be allowed to become core disciples, so Yan’s idea of completely controlling the North Empire was doomed to failure. Still, he and ShouLi did what they could to put people in positions of power so that they would both be able to assist each other in times of need and so that they could pillage as many resources from the sect as possible.

With Yan and ShouLi working together, I felt no need to worry about the clan’s day-to-day operations.

With everyone around me making solid progress, I felt that it was finally time for me to advance as well. So, I gathered up a small group of people who were ready for the trek to Earth City, took them back to Dragon Peak, and guided them through the Path of Body.

This path was rather simple, and by fighting as a team, we made quick work of it.

After the final individual challenge, I stepped through a portal and was teleported in front of one of the sect’s elders.

I expected this to be a somewhat informal briefing where he quickly confirmed that my status as a core disciple hadn’t changed and then sent me on my way. However, when I arrived, there was an empty chair in front of the elder’s desk, and when I approached, the elder gestured for me to sit.

“Disciple Su Fang, congratulations on completing the Path of Body and earning a position in Earth City. This is a feat that only a small fraction of those who join this sect are able to accomplish, and you should be proud of what you have achieved.”

The elder’s words were congratulatory, but something in his tone made me concerned.

Still, there was no reason to be impolite.

I cupped my fists in a salute and gave a slight bow. “Thank you, elder.”

The elder smiled and bobbed his head a few times as he thought through what he wanted to say next.

“Disciple Su Fang, I am afraid that there is an issue we must discuss.” He steepled his hand on his desk and looked at me seriously. “When you joined the sect, you were assigned the position of grade 3 core disciple, and your performance since then has been exemplary. You have shown great skill in alchemy, you have completed several difficult missions, and you ruled TongBei City with distinction. Aside from choosing not to rule a kingdom, you have done everything that could possibly be expected of you.”

I looked at the elder and raised an eyebrow. “However…”

He pursed his lips and dropped his eyes. “However, there is an open question of whether you are truly an independent actor. If you are merely following the orders of a superior, then you do not deserve a position as a core disciple. Even if your leader is a Chosen, mere subordinates are not allowed to become core disciples. So, I must ask you, do you believe that you are worthy of being a core disciple?”

I sat back in my chair and thought through my response.

“Elder, I am not entirely clear on the distinction you are trying to make. What would make me an ‘independent actor?’ What would make me a ‘mere subordinate?’ What qualities are you looking for that would qualify me for a position as a core disciple?”

The elder sighed and shook his head. “We are not entirely certain ourselves. This situation is… rare. While not entirely unprecedented, by the time most disciples make it to Earth City, it is usually clear who are leaders and who are followers. We shouldn’t even be having this conversation, but your actions over the past several years are those of a simple protector, not those of a leader, so several elders have begun to question whether you should be allowed to continue on in your current position.”

I tapped my armrest in thought. “My desire is to work on my craft in private. As you are no doubt aware, I am skilled in multiple professions, and my time is spent mastering these various crafts. I have no desire to rule kingdoms or empires. I have no desire to lead. I wish only to be left alone to pursue the pinnacle of alchemy, formations, and refining. If that makes me ill-suited for a position as a core disciple, then so be it.”

This statement seemed to only increase the elder’s agitation.

After a moment of hesitation, he let out a breath and slumped in his seat. “Can you promise me that when you journey to Heaven City, you will be your group’s leader? Can you promise me that you will not join someone else’s team, especially not someone from another peak?”

I nodded without even thinking about it. “Yes.”

“Very well. I will assign you the position of grade 1 core disciple. This demotion will be enough to quell any discontent among the other elders, and since your focus will be on crafting, its impact will be negligible.”

I bowed my head. “Thank you, elder.”

He just let out a wry chuckle. “No need. The Master of the Fire Peak, Huo NuAn, has been advocating strongly on your behalf. I was just sent to make sure her decision was the correct one.”

After waving a hand to update the information on my identity jade, the elder gave me a small bow.

“Good luck, disciple.”

Chapter 279 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

As more and more members of my clan advanced to Martial Lord, their quick progress inevitably ground to a halt.

Upon advancing to both Lord and King, I had recorded my memories of the process into blank memory orbs. While these orbs were not nearly as good as those imbued with System-generated memories, they were good enough to allow people to continue cultivating. Everything else, though, was a problem.

Everyone’s profession skills were stuck at Rank 4. With the help of YuLong and JiaQi, a few people had been able to raise their martial skills to Rank 5, high enough to make the trek to Earth City, but at that point, they hit a wall. Not even ShouLi or NiangBa, the two most gifted members of my clan were immune from this.

Simply put, without the help of memory orbs, no one from my clan had the innate talents needed to continue advancing. From this point forward, each step they took would require an unprecedented amount of time and effort.

However, in my mind, this was a good thing.

My goal for this life was not to reach the Summit, and I had no interest in having another meeting with the Sovereigns. My goals were simply to help my clan develop, improve my skills, and plunder the sect of its resources.

Each of these goals would take time to accomplish, so it was good that everything was slowing down a bit.

After entering Earth City, I returned to my life of seclusion and only checked in on the clan once every few months or so to make sure things were progressing smoothly. There were a few people out and about who were looking to rule over cities or complete challenging missions, but for the most part, like me, people were stepping back to spend more time honing their skills.

Everything seemed to be progressing well. Everything seemed to be on track. However, with each year that passed, I was growing more nervous.

Back when I broke through to Martial Lord, I had purchased a mid five-star affinity for karmic energy. Ever since then, I had felt slightly nervous, and each year, this feeling increased.

It didn’t make me feel worried, and it didn’t make me feel afraid, not exactly. I just felt like… like something important was about to happen. Something… monumental.

This feeling made me want to run away and hide. At least once a year, I considered recalling everyone to my storage space and abandoning this timeline entirely. However, something deep within me, likely the connection to my affinity for karmic energy, told me that running away wouldn’t change anything.

I couldn’t flee. Whatever was going to happen would happen, and moving to a different timeline wouldn’t change that.

So, I just kept pushing forward to try and prepare myself and my clan for whatever awaited us.

My seclusion in Earth City lasted for more than two decades.

During this time, one day was much the same as the next, and I slowly gained a grasp of Rank 5 refining.

Even with my boosted comprehension, the idea of mastering everything there was to know about refining was a daunting prospect. Typically, like formation specialists, refiners would choose a single topic of study and focus their attention there. Only a blessed refiner like LiTing would even consider mastering everything. Given enough time, I should be able to learn everything I needed to know about refining, but for the moment, my focus was on memory orbs, and I only worried about mastering the skills relevant to their creation.

Limiting my focus in this way helped me learn the necessary skills, and I was confident that in only a few more decades, I would be able to supply myself with an endless supply of orbs.

Without access to Rank 4 beasts, my study of beast alchemy was put on hold, so instead, I filled my free time with the study of my notes on the formations that I had found underneath the Rosehill Hot Springs. It was clear to me that what I had seen was only a small piece of a much larger grand formation, and even then, I had only been able to record a small portion of the piece that I had seen. Still, my experiments were generating interesting results, and I was eager for a chance to go back to the Wastes and study these formations in more detail.

I was happy with the progress I was making, but there was still a long way to go.

Eventually, I would need to ascend to Emperor, and at that point, I would have a lot of work to do to further master alchemy, formations, and refining. I expected my seclusion to continue for decades, but unfortunately, it was unexpectedly interrupted.

Not long after turning 56 years old, I felt a slight shudder in my soul. While I had never experienced anything like this before, it didn’t take me long to figure out the cause.

The growth of my storage space had suddenly come to a halt.

It was still surrounded by the flames of the Expanding Realms Fire, and the formation in my soul was still supplying the fire seed with copious amounts of energy, but the space wasn’t getting any bigger.

I didn’t know what was going on.

In the past, I had purchased mastery of the Expanding Realms Fire, but nothing that I had learned from that purchase even hinted that the fire might suddenly stop working.

I mentally took hold of the flames of the fire seed and directed them at specific spots along the space’s exterior in an attempt to concentrate the flames’ effects, but still, nothing happened.

At a loss for how to proceed, there was only one place I could turn to for answers.

“System, why has my storage space stopped growing?”

The cost of this information is not possible to calculate at this time.

I wanted to curse, but I knew that it wouldn’t do any good. Instead, I went to my cultivation chamber and sat down to think.

“Okay, System, I don’t need a full explanation for what’s going on. Just tell me the basics. Why has my storage space stopped growing?”

Cost 1,000 credits. Discounted cost 500 credits.

That was a suspiciously low price, but it would at least make use of that 1,000 credits discount I had earned a while back.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 30,217,883,269 credits remaining.

Host’s storage space has reached the maximum size of one cubic kilometer.

“System for the rest of this conversation, automatically purchase the best answer to each of my questions with a cost of 100,000 credits or less.”

Confirmed.

“Why is my storage space limited to one cubic kilometer? That seems somewhat arbitrary.”

The original design of host’s storage space was measured in meters.

I waited a bit, but nothing more was forthcoming.

While this answer didn’t exactly satisfy me, it did suggest a deeper truth. This limit of one cubic kilometer might not be the result of some universal law. If I had originally defined the space in terms of feet and inches, the maximum size limit might have instead been a cubic mile.

Still, at the moment, there was no reason to focus on units of measurement.

“Why does my storage space have a maximum size limit? It was supposed to be able to grow continuously.”

Calculating… No such limit exists.

My cheek twitched.

“Then why has the space stopped growing?”

Host’s storage space has reached the maximum size of one cubic kilometer.

I took a deep breath.

“Alright, let’s try this from a different direction. How can I continue to grow my storage space?”

Calculating… Change the spirit fire you are using.

I nodded slowly.

“So, the problem is that the spatial fire seed I am using is only Profound-Rank? To grow the space further, I need a more powerful flame?”

Calculating… Unable to process query. Cost of answer exceeds maximum specified price.

“Is it possible to increase the size of my storage space with the Profound-Rank Expanding Realms Fire?”

Unable to process query.

“How much would I be able to expand the space using an Earth-Rank spatial fire seed?”

Unable to process query.

“Is there any way to continue growing my storage space with the fire seeds that I currently possess?”

Unable to process query.

“Increase the budget to 100 million credits. With this larger budget, can you provide me with an answer to any of these questions?”

No.

“Fine. Conversation over.”

Cost 1,200,525 credits. Discounted cost 600,263 credits. 30,217,283,006 credits remaining.

If I needed to find an Earth-Rank spatial fire seed to continue growing my storage space, my dream of creating an independent world was doomed to failure.

Even if I could find such a seed, it was bound to have limitations as well. How large of a space would it be able to create? 10 cubic kilometers? 100? More importantly, did such a seed even exist? Even if it did, what were the chances that I would be able to get my hands on it?

I had hoped to be able to create a space large enough to store multiple empires. Now, it was beginning to look like I would be lucky if it could store a single city.

Still, complaining about this wouldn’t get me anywhere. Even without a spirit fire to help me, I would still be able to use the System to expand the space further. It would be expensive, but it was possible.

I took a deep breath to regain my focus.

My storage space was now a cylinder with a height of 500 meters and a volume of one cubic kilometer. That gave it a radius of nearly 800 meters and a cross-sectional area of two million square meters. It wasn’t huge, but it was enough.

After my clan left the space to go live in TongBei, I had started neglecting it. Looking at it now, I couldn’t help but wince.

In the center of the space was a gaping hole where I had planned to store Mount Jiang. Surrounding this hole was a 150-meter-wide ring of land that I had stolen from the Flowing Mountain sect. Beyond this ring, there was a nearly 400-meter-wide ring of emptiness where the space had continued to expand.

While the clan was living in the space, they had done their best to make the land I had provided them as livable as possible, but after decades without light, water, or nutrients, all of the vegetation died off, and little remained other than barren soil.

All told, it was a rather depressing sight, but it was one I could fix.

A small smile crept on my face.

The Expanding Realms Fire wasn’t doing anything anymore, so I could replace it.

The biggest problem my storage space faced was a lack of energy. There was no qi to cultivate, and all of its formations had to be powered by spirit stones. Now, I could finally work on fixing that.

Instead of using the Expanding Realms Fire to increase the size of my storage space, I could replace it with one that would supply the space with endless amounts of qi.

What element should I start with?

In the end, it wouldn’t matter too much. As long as the space had energy, other spirit fires could be used to convert it into different forms, but that didn’t mean I should take this choice lightly. Sending endless streams of fire qi into the space, for example, would make it uninhabitable.

After long moments of thought, I decided to go with earth qi since most of the members of my clan were earth cultivators. Also, earth’s position on the wuxing cycle of creation made it an ideal choice. I could slowly cycle through earth, metal, water, wood, and then fire qi.

With this choice made, exerted my will on the seed of the Expanding Realms Fire and moved it into a jade box in my storage space. Then, I pulled out the seed of the Solid Mountain Fire, a Profound-Rank fire seed that I had obtained during our first visit to Heaven City.

Solid Mountain Fire, Profound-Rank, Elements: Earth, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Earth Qi

With an exertion of will, I absorbed the fire seed.

The moment it entered my soul, the seed exploded in a gout of energy. A wave of flames assaulted me. The energy of the fire seed wanted to break free from its confines and consume my body, but using my King-level will-lock, I kept it contained.

Finally, once the seed was stable, I moved it onto the plinth that sat at the center of my soul.

This caused the Qi Gathering Formation inscribed into the plinth to activate once more.

As energy poured into the fire seed, the seed, in turn, poured pure earth qi into my storage space.

Seeing this, I began to nod in satisfaction, but after only a moment, I froze.

The slight nervousness that had existed in the back of my mind for decades had suddenly increased by several orders of magnitude.

Something had changed.

Chapter 280 – Life 75, Age 56, Martial King Peak

After several moments passed without anything happening, I exerted my will to cut off the Qi Gathering Formation in my soul and force the Solid Mountain Fire back into my storage space.

This stopped the flow of earth qi into my storage space, but the nervousness radiating from my karmic energy affinity didn’t abate.

I once again considered abandoning this life and escaping to a fresh start. Part of me was even willing to leave my entire clan behind to do so. However, I knew that this wouldn’t do any good. Whatever the ultimate source of this nervousness was, it was bigger than a single timeline.

What should I do? What could I do?

I did my best to try to understand what I was feeling.

Whatever was going to happen… It was inevitable, but it wasn’t imminent. I still had time. I could still prepare.

Prepare for what? I didn’t know. Would my preparations change anything? Almost certainly not. But what else could I do? Hide away? That wouldn’t change anything.

Cautiously, I reached into my storage space and pulled out the seed of the Solid Mountain Fire. Then, after taking a deep breath, I shoved it back into my soul.

Nothing changed. The feeling of nervousness didn’t increase. The world didn’t end.

I nodded to myself.

Whatever was going to happen, I would survive. I just needed to create a place that would allow my clan to survive as well.

There was a lot about my storage space that needed fixing, but the first thing that I needed to do was to get some more land.

The previous ‘ground’ that I had created was a mixture of stone and soil from the territory of the Flowing Mountain Sect. I had done my best to copy the natural terrain of the region that I had pulled the materials from and created layers of bedrock, sandy gravel, and soil. This had worked, but I knew that I could do better.

I wanted to create a space capable of growing high-quality herbs, and I didn’t have the level of herbalism knowledge necessary to design such a place. So, before rushing into anything, I first paid a visit to my disciples.

As I entered the library where Bao and SuYin were busy studying soul cultivation, they stood and bowed to me.

“Greetings, Master.”

I waved this away. “Sit, sit. I need to talk to the two of you about something.”

As I moved to sit down, I cleared my mind and allowed my soul to probe the room around me. When I did, I noticed faint traces of light and dark qi as well as a tinge of spatial energy.

I nodded to my disciples. “Have you two been back to the Wood Peak recently?”

Bao shuddered slightly. “Yes… Master… It is… difficult, but I’m strong enough to go there without being overwhelmed now. I haven’t attempted the Trial yet, though.”

I bobbed my head. “Understandable, but you should at least enter and check it out. It might not be as bad as you expect. The barrier around the Trial should shield you from anything on the peak itself.”

Bao ducked his head but didn’t respond.

I turned to SuYin. “What about you? Have you tried it yet?”

“Yes, Master. I’ve been able to raise my wood affinity to peak five-star. Once I advance to Lord, I’m sure I’ll be able to go even further.”

I smiled at her. “Excellent. Though, you two should both look at ascending as soon as possible. There’s no real reason to delay, and SuYin, you only have another four years before stagnation sets in. You shouldn’t put it off any longer.”

She dipped her head. “Yes, Master.”

I clapped my hands together. “Great. Now, why don’t we get out of here? Let’s take a look around town, and you can tell me if there’s anyone in the sect that’s caught your eye.”

Pulling my two disciples along behind me, I leisurely ambled out of the library, and as we walked, I steered the conversation toward inconsequential nonsense.

Thankfully, the twinges of spatial energy didn’t follow us, and we were soon free from anyone trying to listen in on our conversation. As it turned out, walking down a busy street in the center of the capital of the Black River Kingdom provided us with more privacy than a Rank 5 anti-eavesdropping formation.

Smiling casually, I looked at my disciples as we walked. “I need your help. I’m looking to update the terrain in the world orb, and I need the two of you to help me figure out what kind of soil to use. What would be best for growing herbs? What would be best for growing regular foodstuffs? We have nearly two square kilometers of land to work with. That isn’t too much, but if necessary, we could probably set up a few different biomes for different types of plants.”

Bao just blinked, somewhat lost, but SuYin was quick on the uptake.

“I understand, Master. Can we go inside to check it out and get a better feel for what might be needed?”

“Not right now. For now, just spend some time planning things out. Also, don’t mention the world orb to anyone, not even in private. Always assume that you are being spied on. As far as anyone else is concerned, you are just looking to set up new farms around TongBei.”

“Yes, Master.”

I next went to meet with Yan and Meng LuYao. After using a similar strategy to get us some privacy, I got straight to the point.

“I want to upgrade the illusion formation for the world orb’s sky. Right now, the place is a cylinder with a height of 500 meters and a radius of 800 meters, but I plan to have a 150-meter-deep ground with 350 meters of air above. We can embed formation plates into the ground, walls, or ceiling, whatever you think will work best.”

This sudden request staggered LuYao, but Yan just nodded and tapped his fingers together a few times.

“It will be hard to mask what we’re doing, and if you send other teams to work on similar projects…”

“I know, but this has to get done. Bao and SuYin are working on designing fields for TongBei. The two of you… I’m not sure… An underground bunker?”

Yan snorted. “We’ll make it work, but no matter what we do, people are going to be suspicious. The two of us can’t do this alone. At a minimum, we’re going to need a team of formation specialists.”

“As long as they don’t stop us, suspicious is fine. Work with Mo. He’s been studying formations under Emperor Shen. His skills are a bit lacking, but he should have connections to people who can help you.”

While Yan and I had been talking, LuYao had been lost in thought, but as our conversation petered out, she finally looked at me.

“F…Fang. Can we go inside the orb? I haven’t been in there since I first joined you. I barely remember what it was like. It… would help if I could see it for myself.”

I took a quick glance around.

“Not right now. Let me fix it up a bit first. Once things are more stable, I’ll find an opportunity to let the two of you inside.”

While Bao and SuYin were busy working on figuring out the best topsoil to use, I set my sights on figuring out how to lay the best bedrock.

What kind of bedrock did we need?

Granite was rather plentiful, and since it was only a Rank 1 material, it would be easy to collect large chunks of the stuff and meld them into a single slab. But… Was Rank 1 good enough?

At the moment, I was only looking to create a foundation for people to live on, but I still needed to look to the future. Theoretically, I might want to create a massive grand formation throughout the entire storage space, and carving it directly into the bedrock might be ideal.

So, then, I had to consider… The higher the Rank of the bedrock, the more powerful of a grand formation I could create.

Still, this was only a theoretical future scenario, and I had to deal with the realities of the situation I was in. Creating a bedrock out of Rank 6 stone might be nice, but it would be insanely expensive, and melding everything together would be a significant undertaking.

After thinking through a few options, I decided on a layered approach.

The bottom-most layer would be pure quartzite. While quartzite was a Rank 4 mineral, it wasn’t a very good one. Ideally, I would use something like corundum, but sourcing a large volume of corundum was tricky. I would have to use sect missions to purchase it in bulk, and people might get suspicious when they never saw me make anything with it. With quartzite, I could just go out and steal a mountain.

Above the quartzite would be a layer of marble, then a layer of limestone, and finally, a layer of granite. With four separate layers of materials from Rank 1 to 4, I would be able to create different Ranks of formations in each one. Then, in the future, I could look at adding additional layers beneath these for higher-Rank minerals.

After running a few numbers, I decided to make each layer 20 meters thick. This would give me 80 meters of bedrock, and then, I could place another 70 meters of soil on top of it.

Once I was happy with my plan, I slipped away from the sect and went hunting for mountains.

As it turned out, finding an entire mountain made from a Rank 4 stone was a bit tricky. Most such mountains were considered precious resources, and nearly all of them were being actively mined. However, after a bit of searching, I found a quartzite mountain that no one was using in a remote corner of the Empire of Eternal Winter, YuLong’s homeland, and since YuLong had a grudge against the empire’s leadership, I didn’t feel guilty about stealing its resources.

Using my earth qi, I carved this mountain up into a series of blocks 20 meters to a side and then pulled these blocks into my storage space one after the other.

To completely cover the bottom of the space, I needed nearly 5,000 such blocks, so this took quite a bit of work, but eventually, I got it done. When I was finished, the only spaces not covered with quartzite were a large circle in the middle and the various places where I had constructed bunkers to store my personal possessions.

I didn’t stop there, though. Upon seeing this base layer of the storage space take shape, I had what I felt was a brilliant idea.

I continued carving up blocks and pulling them into my storage space.

Using these additional blocks, I created a 40-meter-thick, 300-meter-high quartzite wall around the entire space. Once the ground was filled in, this wall would only be 150 meters high, but that was more than enough.

How many apartments would people be able to carve into such a wall?

Manipulating a Rank 4 stone would be tedious, far more difficult than carving into Mount Jiang had been, but eventually, this wall might be able to provide living spaces for tens of thousands of people.

Once I was done with the quartzite, I departed the Empire of Eternal Winter and looked for other mountains to pillage. As expected, marble, limestone, and granite were much easier to find, and once found, they were also much easier to carve up and send into my storage space.

To me, this task felt like it took no time at all, but in reality, it took years to accomplish, and even upon returning to the sect, I still had work to do. Cutting up the mountains into large blocks had been necessary, but for my storage space, I wanted to meld everything together into one large, solid slab.

The only problem was that these stones had to remain in my storage space. I couldn’t take them out to work on them. Instead, I had to use my control over items inside the space to move the blocks into position, and I had to use the ambient earth qi in the space to meld them together.

In the past, this task would have been impossible, but with the Solid Mountain Fire flooding the space with earth qi, it was simply impractical.

I spent months on this task, but in the end, I gave up. Even I had my limits.

“System, how much would it cost to meld all the quartzite, marble, limestone, and granite in my storage space together?”

Cost 8.57 billion credits.

“Purchase!”

Purchase confirmed. 21,647,283,006 credits remaining.

Instantly, hundreds of rocks fused together into a single, giant stone. That stone was the bedrock upon which I would create my new world.

Chapter 281 – Life 75, Age 61, Martial King Peak

Each year, the nervousness in my soul grew, but as time passed, it became little more than a constant droning in the back of my mind. Something was going to happen, but I didn’t know when, and there was nothing I could do about it, so I did my best to put the warning from my karmic energy affinity aside while I continued with my work.

Still, I couldn’t ignore this feeling entirely. I needed to be prepared, and that meant I had to make a few choices I otherwise wouldn’t have.

The first was the choice to ascend to Martial Emperor earlier than I had planned. I had wanted to spend a few decades as a Peak King to practice my professions without the natural advantages that came with being an Emperor, but with an invisible sword dangling over my head, I felt that it was better to push into Rank 6 as soon as possible.

With all the contribution points I had amassed from completing alchemy missions for the Fire Peak over the years, purchasing the karmic energy I needed was simple enough. So, after a quick visit to Dragon Peak, I entered seclusion and prepared for my advancement.

As the Rank 6 cultivation technique I had acquired from Emperor Shen in a past life was rather simple, I expected this advancement to be straightforward, but with all the changes I had made to the design of my core, it was far trickier than I had imagined.

When I had advanced to Lord, I had set aside the tried and tested cultivation techniques and instead created something new, a core with a lace-like lattice structure.

The creation of this core had been guided by my understanding of refining and my sense of how the karmic energy ‘wanted’ to be structured. When I had advanced to King, I infused this core with King-level karma and then built upon it, creating a secondary lattice surrounding the first.

As I was preparing for the ascent to Emperor, I was expecting that I would need to do something similar, but when I looked at my core and tried to work out how to best utilize the Emperor-level energy that I had just bought, I was at somewhat of a loss.

Unlike Lord- and King-level energy, Emperor-level energy seemed beyond my ken. This might have been because I only had a five-star affinity for karmic energy, or it might have been because my understanding of refining was too limited. Either way, the result was the same. I would have to find a path forward without fully understanding what I was doing.

So, since I couldn’t rely on my affinities or my refining skills, I changed tack and tried to view my core as a strange type of formation. It had a pattern and a structure. I just needed to figure out how to extend this structure to completion.

After considering a few options, I began by infusing the inner lattice with Emperor-level energy. When I had done this with King-level energy, the lattice hadn’t changed shape. It had simply gotten stronger. This time, though, aside from simply infusing and enhancing the existing framework, I ended up forming a slight crust around its lace-like structure, narrowing the gaps between its strands of energy. Upon seeing this, I knew that I had made a mistake, but it wasn’t one I could undo. I could only keep moving forward.

Once the inner lattice was strengthened, I moved on and performed a similar operation to the outer lattice, the one that had been made of pure King-level energy. When this looked good, I then did my best to complete the lattice pattern by creating a third structure that fully encapsulated the previous two.

In the end, the ball of karmic energy that I created was rather ugly, and I had used far more energy than I had planned on, but it was fine. I still had enough left to complete my breakthrough.

After a brief rest, I pumped my core full of qi, created a hole in the world, and shattered the chains holding me back from advancing to Emperor.

As soon as this was done, I recorded the entire process into a memory orb. While I was certain that the technique I had used was far from ideal, it would hopefully be enough to allow at least a few people from my clan to ascend.

After my breakthrough, I headed over to visit Bao and SuYin. The bedrock of my storage space was in place, and I was ready to get to work on the subsoil and topsoil.

When I arrived, SuYin laid out several drawings on the table for me to review.

“Master, the area you’ve given us to work with is rather small, but we’ve done the best we could.” She gestured to a large circular map. “With only two square kilometers to work with, creating a diverse set of biomes will be difficult, but after talking with Mo and GuiMing, we decided to rely on a Bagua Formation to keep everything in balance.”

Looking at SuYin’s map, I was reminded of my time in the Eight Flower Kingdom.

SuYin explained. “The north will be for water-focused herbs, and circling around clockwise, there will be regions for metal, lightning, wind, fire, earth, dark, and light herbs. Wood energy will be concentrated in the center and radiate out from there.”

I nodded, but I was slightly concerned. “I was planning to construct a tall mountain in the center to serve as our living quarters.”

SuYin smiled. “You were looking at using Mount Jiang, right? It is made from an unusual form of blueschist with strong water properties. The water in the stone will help nurture the wood energy of the formation. It won’t be a problem.”

Bao reached over and spread out several diagrams detailing various soil profiles.

“Master, as long as herbs are provided with the correct balance of energies, they will almost always be able to grow strong and healthy. However, from my experiments, I have found that certain combinations of soil and nutrients can be beneficial to different types of herbs. These are the soil combinations that worked best for me, but I don’t know where you will be able to find them in large quantities. When I was testing them, I had to make each combination personally.”

I nodded and accepted his schematics. “This will work. Is there anything I need to be careful of?”

SuYin shook her head. “No, but don’t try to grow anything until everything is in place.”

After saying goodbye to my disciples, I hunkered down in my cultivation chamber and thought through their designs.

Using the Bagua Formation was an interesting idea, but would it work? My storage space was being flooded with earth qi, but it was almost entirely bereft of other forms of energy. I could try to use a combination of spirit fires to force the issue, but I didn’t see that happening. SuYin’s and Bao’s ideas would need to wait for some unknown future date.

However, within the bulk of the information that he had given me, Bao had provided me with an ideal short-term solution.

I pulled out the soil schematic for the earth-aligned areas. It had a detailed list of ratios for clay, sand, silt, and other component materials, but as Bao had said, finding a source of soil with this exact composition would be a daunting task.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to do that.

First, I went out and grabbed some large granite boulders to block out the area in the center of the space where I planned to erect a mountain in the future. Then, I made my purchase.

“System, use these diagrams for an earth-aligned soil composition, and fill in 70 meters of soil on top of the bedrock that has already been laid.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 24,600 credits. Discounted cost 12,300 credits. 21,647,270,706 credits remaining.

That was a bit expensive for nothing but mundane dirt, but considering the quantities involved, I considered it fair.

Looking into my storage space, I smiled.

The inside now looked like a large, flat disk. There were 80 meters of layered bedrock, 50 meters of large broken stones with sand and gravel filling the gaps between them, 20 meters of subsoil, and a thin layer of topsoil. At the center of the space was a massive, gaping hole, and around its edge was a 100-meter-tall wall.

The only thing that looked slightly off was that the entire area was completely flat. There were no hills or valleys, and there were no signs of streams or irrigation. For now, though, this was fine. Once people moved in, we could look at arranging things in a way that made more sense.

With the space’s land taken care of, I went and visited Yan and Meng LuYao.

After ensuring we were free of eavesdroppers, I used spirit stones to activate the old sky formation embedded into the space ceiling and pulled the two of them inside to take a look around.

As they walked alone in a space entirely devoid of life, LuYao and Yan both started looking uncomfortable.

I pulled out a piece of paper, wrote down a note, and sent it inside.

Say anything you want. No one can spy on you while you are inside.

LuYao nodded thoughtfully, but Yan just snorted in amusement.

Ignoring him, LuYao spun in a 360-degree circle and looked around in every direction.

“This place is just… wrong. I didn’t remember it being this bad. I guess in the past there were people, buildings, plants, and animals masking it, but now… It’s just… wrong.”

Yan nodded and pointed around at the walls. “That’s part of the problem. We’re surrounded by towering gray stone walls. That would be fine. It doesn’t feel much different from being inside a walled city. But above the stone walls is that unnatural dark gray void. With the illusion formation active, the ‘sky’ is bright blue, but it fades to that dark gray in every direction. It’s like we’re in perpetual twilight.”

LuYao quirked her lips to the side and looked up thoughtfully. “What about the sun? Suns? Just an array of bright lights… We have to fix that. The place needs a single proper sun.”

Yan tilted his head to the side and stroked his chin in thought.

“Maybe? Why not… This place is going to feel strange no matter what we do. We should lean into that. Make it feel… special.”

The two continued walking for several more minutes and eventually ended up standing at the edge of the large hole in the center of the space.

LuYao’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Fang, what is this?”

When our clan was in the Wastes, we lived on a mountain, Mount Jiang. I originally wanted to pull it in here and take it with us, but we left in too much of a hurry, and I had to leave it behind. Now, as a Ruler, I can’t go back and get it, but I will someday.

LuYao tapped this note in thought.

“I’m assuming your mountain will be taller than those stone walls? Someone at the top should be able to look out at the landscape beyond?” She looked at Yan. “That’s… going to be difficult.”

With a fresh perspective on the task that they were up against, LuYao and Yan left to discuss their options. Meanwhile, I headed to TongBei to meet with GuiMing and GuiAi.

Nearly all of our clan’s Grandmasters and Rulers were focused on their own personal development and completing missions for the sect. This left the mortals, youths, and low-level members of our clan somewhat adrift.

GuiMing and GuiAi had originally planned to step back from leadership positions several years ago, but seeing the state of things, they had stepped up to help guide the younger generation when no one else would. This made them the unofficial leaders of the portion of our clan that had not yet joined the sect.

As soon as I arrived in TongBei, they greeted me and tried to pull me into a warded room for a private discussion, but knowing that such rooms were being monitored, I waved this away and took them out to look around the city.

“Ming, Ai, I want to start pulling people back into the world orb. It’s likely that people still won’t be able to cultivate in there, but the mortals and young children need to be sent back in.”

GuiAi looked worried. “Ances… Lord Su, shouldn’t we talk about this somewhere more…”

She waved an arm around helplessly.

“No, don’t worry. I’m monitoring things. We’re safe.”

She dipped her head, but her worried look lingered.

GuiMing stepped in to take over for her. “Ancestor, if we send the youths into the world orb, what about their parents? If they can’t cultivate in there…”

I let out a sigh. “I know. Also, the orb isn’t exactly a great place to live. I’m working on it, and it’s getting better, but there’s still a long way to go. Still…”

I looked off into the distance. “Something is coming. I don’t know when. It’s not imminent, not soon, but it’s coming. I don’t like everyone being so spread out. We need… Anyone who is willing to live in the world orb is invited to do so. Give people incentives if you need to. Just… Don’t force anyone, but gather as many people as you can, alright?”

GuiMing and GuiAi looked at each other uneasily and then bowed their heads. “Yes, Ancestor.”

Chapter 282 – Life 75, Age 63, Martial Emperor 1

When GuiMing and GuiAi first floated the idea of people returning to the world orb, there was quite a bit more pushback than I had been expecting.

Originally, people had been happy to enter the orb since it was the only way to survive the assault on Mount Jiang. Then, after living there for a few years, most of the mortals were happy with the peace and safety that it offered. Even though space was somewhat limited inside, and even if there was a slight feeling of wrongness about the place, they didn’t want to leave.

As people had quickly found out, qi didn’t work correctly in my storage space. People couldn’t cultivate, and cultivators couldn't use their qi properly. So, for ordinary mortals, the world orb offered something they had never experienced before, a place of near absolute safety where cultivators were no more powerful than anyone else. For many, this was like a dream.

However, living in the sect for several decades had changed things.

First, the mortals that I had originally brought with me were rapidly aging. When we first arrived, they were all between the ages of 20 and 35, but now, they were all 65 to 80. They were all parents, grandparents, and in some cases, even great-grandparents. Most of the ‘outsiders’ allied with our clan were their descendants.

Of course, as I had hoped, many of these descendants were no longer outsiders. The members of my clan had also had children, and many of them had paired up with descendants of these mortals, expanding the scope of our clan as a whole. This was good, but it led to fewer people being willing to be locked up away from the rest of the world.

More important, though, was the fact that most of the people in these younger generations were no longer mortals. With the help of the guild halls, nearly everyone was able to achieve a nine-star affinity with whichever elements they desired, and with these affinities, they could learn to cultivate. For most, a nine-star affinity wasn’t enough to reach Martial Master, but being able to cultivate at all made them loath to enter a place where cultivation was impossible.

For the members of my clan, the situation was even worse. Those who applied themselves were given eight- and seven-star affinities so that they would eventually be able to join the sect. For them, entering my storage space would be akin to cutting off their futures.

In sum, this meant the only ones who might have wanted to go inside were the young and the elderly, but because of familial ties, they wouldn’t want to enter and be completely cut off from their parents and children.

This created a rather delicate situation, and I wasn’t willing to force anyone to enter, but my solution was simple and straightforward: Affinities.

After years of work, I had perfected Rank 4 Essence Gathering Formations, and through a bit of trial and error, I had found minerals suitable for storing large quantities of essence. These still weren’t as good as Jin’s beryllium oxide, but they were good enough. By sending NiangBa and his teams out with these new formations, I was able to harvest far more essence than before, and I used this essence as a lure to tempt people back into my storage space.

While people couldn’t cultivate inside, their bodies were still able to absorb essence. So, anyone who lived and worked inside would be allotted a portion of essence every month, and in time, everyone would be able to acquire a peak seven-star affinity. They would still need to go outside to cultivate, but this wasn’t a problem. GuiAi set up a system where people could apply for one-month vacations to the outside world.

Was all of this wise?

Originally, I had done my best to keep my storage space a secret, but with people going in and out all the time, the Sovereigns would catch on to what we were doing pretty fast. This might make them greedy, and they might come to cause trouble for me.

So, was doing this wise? Maybe not, but I felt that I had to do it anyway. Something was coming. Something big. Compared to that, the greed of a few lowly Sovereigns was nothing.

Arranging everything in my storage space took quite a bit of time, and I could only thank GuiMing and GuiAi for putting in a significant amount of effort to make it all work.

When renovating the place, I had basically destroyed everything that had previously been built, and the new residents had to construct an entirely new community from scratch. However, while people still couldn’t use their qi inside the space, building this new settlement was a bit easier than it had been the first time around.

This was mainly because I allowed people to construct buildings in the outside world. Then, once they were complete, I would pull them into my storage space. This, again, created potential problems with the Sovereigns, but again, I didn’t care. We needed to get things sorted as quickly as possible.

Another advantage we had was that ShouLi, Liang, and NiangBa had begun distributing information about the basics of Rank 1 body cultivation in an attempt both to help the clan grow and to gather new information. So, while people might not have been able to use their qi, many of them had already enhanced their bodies, so simple tasks such as constructing buildings and plowing fields weren’t a problem.

Still, bringing the living standards of my storage space up to what existed in TongBei would take time.

As for the rest of my clan, I was a bit disappointed by the progress they had made.

The first generation that I had brought with me from the Wastes had nearly all stalled out in the Martial Lord Realm, and even ShouLi and NiangBa, my two top-tier prodigies, had barely made it to Peak King. Originally, ShouLi and Yan had made plans for conquering the entirety of the North Empire, but this never came to fruition. Our clan simply didn’t have enough powerful Lords and Kings to make it happen.

In the end, ShouLi had to resign as King of Black River without ever going any further. The only bright spot was that during her reign, she had earned more than enough contribution points to simply buy the energy she needed to advance to Emperor.

Of all the members of this first generation, only three others were likely to follow suit: NiangBa, Mo, and RuLan.

Truthfully, this wasn’t too surprising. The people who had joined me were almost all the dregs of the Su Clan, so the fact that they were able to make it as far as they had was a testament to the power of learning through memory orbs. What was a bit more disappointing, though, was the second generation.

I had hoped that being born and raised in the sect would have given people greater aptitudes, but in the end, only a handful were able to succeed.

The most promising person in the entire second generation was QiQiang, the first-born son of Mo and RuLan. When ShouLi stepped down from her position as King of Black River, it was QiQiang who had stepped up to fill the vacancy she left behind. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he had been gifted with a blessing for enhanced comprehension of body cultivation, and he had been born with an unnaturally high talent for alchemy. For whatever reason, the sect didn’t make him a Chosen, but he earned a position as a grade 2 core disciple on his first visit to the sect’s Exam.

As for the third generation, most of them were still rather young, but those few who had been blessed were already showing signs of promise.

When it became clear that only a few people in my clan would make it to Martial Emperor, I made the decision to go ahead and ascend to Heaven City with only the support of my Revered Elders. Like me, they had all easily reached Martial Emperor, and with the clan having stalled out, there was no reason to wait around.

The only ones who didn’t join us were Bao and SuYin. They had spent too much time in the lower Ranks working on their soul cultivation, so they weren’t quite ready to make the trip.

Without the Master of the Lightning Peak involved, this journey up the mountain was straightforward, and we made it to Heaven City without any real trouble along the way.

When we arrived, three people were there to greet us, Shen, Jin, and Huo NuAn, the Masters of the Earth, Metal, and Fire Peaks.

After entering the privacy of Jin’s conference room, a place where not even the Sovereigns could spy on us, Huo NuAn quickly got to her reason for meeting with me.

“My time as Master of the Fire Peak Will soon be coming to an end, and I want you to take over for me. There will be a few formalities to go through, but with the elders and me backing you, there won’t be much trouble.”

I tapped on the table in thought and then looked at Shen. “What do you think?”

This deference seemed to surprise Huo NuAn. She had likely been observing me for several years by this point, and she probably knew that I had never interacted with Shen before.

Shen just snorted and shook his head. “Don’t. Becoming the Master of a Peak has its benefits, but you will need to swear an Oath. An Oath that I’m pretty sure you won’t enjoy.”

Huo NuAn looked at him angrily. “Shen, you know as well as I do that the moment he steps onto the Summit, that Oath is null and void. It is no reason not to become the Master of a Peak.”

She looked at me. “The Oath is meaningless. Once you leave the sect, it will no longer have any effect. The only real downside to becoming the Master of the Fire Peak is that once you accept the position, you will be required to serve a term of 200 years. However, while this is slightly problematic, it is nothing to worry about. As long as you are successful, the rewards are more than worth this slight inconvenience.”

I looked at Shen.

He chuckled in amusement. “No, you don’t want to take the Oath.”

I turned back to Huo NuAn. “Sorry, Peak Master, but I must follow Shen’s advice in this.”

Huo NuAn seemed to get a bit annoyed by this exchange, but eventually, she accepted my answer and left. Once she was gone, I looked between Shen and Jin.

“She seems… decent. She has helped me out a few times now, and with her position in the sect, she might be a valuable ally to have. Should we give her an orb?”

Jin tapped her fingers together. “Maybe, but we can’t tell her why. NuAn can be difficult to deal with. She’s a good person, mostly, but she likely won’t want to follow the lead of a mere child like yourself.”

I raised an eyebrow at this, but Jin didn’t retract her statement.

Shen stepped in to break the awkward moment. “How long are you sticking around this time?”

I took a breath. “I… don’t know. Something is going to happen… but I don’t know when. Hopefully not soon, but… I don’t know.”

This answer caused both elders to become contemplative.

I cleared my throat. “How long… My clan and I have been a bit noisy this time around. How long do you think I have until the Sovereigns take direct action against us.”

Shen tapped the table. “It depends on a few factors, but you’re safe until the point of stagnation. They aren’t– They won’t bother you until then.”

I nodded in thought. I had several decades before I would need to worry about stagnation, but that wasn’t necessarily what mattered. Physically, ShouLi was older than me, and once the Sovereigns could take her, they almost surely would. More to the point, Liang was only a low-level Martial King. Unless he could advance further, he would be the first to stagnate, and as one of our initial body cultivators, he would likely be a high-priority target.

That only gave us 18 years to work with. Was that enough?

The problem was Liang. If he could advance, we would have another 20 years without needing to worry about anyone interfering…

I slumped in thought and covered my mouth as I subvocalized.

“System, give everyone who was on my clan’s original leadership council a one-billion boost to both their comprehension of cultivation techniques and their comprehension of their chosen professions.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 12 billion credits. 9,647,270,706 credits remaining.

Hopefully, that would buy us an extra 20 years. With 38 more years to work with, I was certain that I could accomplish all my goals.

Of course, that was assuming whatever threat was looming on the horizon didn’t strike first.

Chapter 283 – Life 75, Age 95, Martial Emperor Peak

Within the sect, acquiring enough karmic energy to ascend to Peak Emperor was a rather daunting task.

Lower down the mountain, there were dozens of merchant associations that were willing to pay premium prices for high-quality pills, formations, and weapons. Having existed for centuries, these associations had built up large reserves of contribution points for whenever ‘geniuses’ passed by, and they would use these reserves to purchase as many items crafted by these geniuses as possible.

However, in Heaven City, this wasn’t the case. There were a few small shops, but there were no large associations, and there was no one looking to buy Rank 6 pills or formations in bulk.

So, to earn contribution points, I was forced to use the Fire Peak’s Mission Hall. The only problem with this was that the Mission Hall only offered a small number of Emperor-level missions each year. This might have simply been because few people on this continent were both in need of and able to pay for the help of a Rank 6 individual, but I felt that it was also, at least partially, a way to force people up to the Summit. With Emperor-level karmic energy being so scarce, many people would likely choose to ascend the mountain instead of waiting around to accrue enough points to advance to Peak Emperor.

This is all to say that acquiring enough energy for my advancement to Peak Emperor took time—it took decades—but eventually, by completing every alchemy mission I could get my hands on, I was finally about to make it there.

Of course, while advancing my cultivation base took time, it was time well spent. During the long stretches between missions, I focused on practicing refining and formations in order to master the art of crafting memory orbs.

As I slowly came to discover, the principles behind these orbs were rather interesting.

To make a memory orb, first, a skilled earth cultivator needed to craft a monocrystalline block of pure white jade. Then, a refiner needed to alter the core of this crystal and rearrange its molecules into an amorphous state. This ‘amorphous state’ lacked the regularity and order of the original crystalline structure, but it wasn’t random. To hold memories properly, an orb required a very precise structure for its amorphous core.

The reason why a complete monocrystalline structure was produced first was because it provided an outer shell to protect the delicate inner core. Then, once the refiner's work was done, this outer shell was where a formation specialist would need to craft two sets of formations, one for storing memories and one for retrieving them.

After years of study, I was surprised to find that nearly every part of these formations was focused on interacting with the orb’s user. There was a lot that I needed to do to create a formation that could pull people’s memories from their heads, but once the memories were retrieved, they were simply shoved into the orb’s amorphous core. The jade’s natural properties then allowed the structure of the core to shift in a way that somehow permanently recorded the memories.

To retrieve the memories, the second formation just needed to inject the core with energy. As this energy flowed through the jade, it was restructured to contain an echo of the original memories. Once shoved into a person’s soul, this energy would automatically condense into a memory construct that would provide a person with all the information the orb contained.

Memory orbs were rather large, larger than a person’s fist. The amorphous core, though, was rather small. It didn’t take much space to store a large amount of information. Instead, the reason for the memory orb’s large size was that it needed to contain space for these two formations.

After over a decade of practice, I was able to craft my first fully functional memory orbs. From there, my first thought was to mass-produce them, but as I looked at the orb, I had a thought.

Crafting countless memory orbs was a rather daunting task. Creating a perfectly formed amorphous core is both challenging and time-consuming, and carving two complex, intricate formations into an orb only a little larger than my fist took an insane amount of patience and diligence.

I wanted dozens of orbs. Hundreds. Thousands… If I could store every book, technique manual, and crafting skill I possessed in an orb, I would. However, creating so many orbs…

Yes, I had as much time as I needed, but the thought of spending an eternity crafting memory orbs wasn’t appealing. So, as I looked at the orb, I had an idea.

First, I wasn’t looking to store a lifetime of memories in an orb. I was simply looking to store a single cultivation technique. Sure, in some orbs, I wanted to store a large amount of crafting knowledge, but not in all of them. In most, I just wanted to store a single technique. So, I should be able to reduce the size of the amorphous core.

Second, I wasn’t actually recording any information in these orbs. I was purchasing the information from the system. So, why include the formation to record memories? I could just get rid of it. This would give me more room for the ‘read’ formation, and I wouldn't have to worry about the two formations interfering with one another.

After thinking through these changes, I got to work designing a new orb.

When I was finished, my final design could barely be called a ‘memory orb.’ It was a five-centimeter-tall jade slip.

While crafting the cores of these jade slips still required the expertise of an Artifact Emperor, they were much quicker and easier to mass produce than full memory orbs. So, in only a few years, I built up a massive reserve of them.

Of course, since true memory orbs still had their uses, and since I had time on my hands, I went ahead and crafted a few dozen full orbs as well, but those could now be reserved for actually storing memories. For singular techniques, I would now be using jade slips.

With each year that passed, the nervousness emanating from my karmic affinity steadily grew, but it was like a constant droning at the back of my mind. It was constant and unending, and all I could do was try my best to ignore it.

What was the point of a warning that I couldn’t do anything about?

At times, I considered ending this life. I knew that it wouldn’t do anything to change whatever was approaching, but with the points I earned, I could look at removing my affinity for karmic energy to end my suffering.

During this time, the progress of my clan in the sect had been almost entirely stagnant.

With the boosts I had purchased for the leadership council, they had shown remarkable improvements to all of their skills, but by this point, their paths through the sect had already been set. All it did was keep them from entering stagnation too early.

However, the progress of my clan in my storage space had been unexpectedly rapid.

When people first entered, they were greeted by an almost entire flat plane of dirt that was encircled by a thick stone wall. The only noticeable feature of the place was the gaping hole in its center, and whenever they looked up, they were greeted by a strange, alien sky.

At first, everyone relied on a handful of body cultivators to quickly build out an initial settlement.

Then, not long after this settlement was complete, Yan and LuYao produced a diagram from an improved sky formation. It was still far from perfect, but during the day, it would provide a blue sky that stretched to the tops of the encircling walls, and at night, it would imitate a starry sky.

The new buildings, the improved sky, and the fact that a few simple shrubs and grasses had taken root did a lot to improve people’s moods.

However, none of these was what really made a difference. No, that…

For roughly the first decade, the settlement in my soul space developed as I had expected. People did hard, manual labor to earn contribution points, they used these contribution points to improve their affinities, and then they used these improved affinities to cultivate during short vacations to the outside world.

However, after the first decade of this routine, something changed.

Ever since people had first moved in, using qi properly in the space hadn’t been possible. Even though I was flooding the space with earth qi, the energy was almost entirely unusable. I had been able to create Qi Gathering Formations that pulled in environmental earth qi, shoved it into a spirit fire, and then used the output of the spirit fire to power other types of formations, but that was it.

After a dozen years, though, things changed.

While working in a field, a young man randomly tried to use the qi in his body to help him plow a field.

It worked.

After that, while people still couldn’t use the environmental qi, and while they still couldn’t cultivate inside the space, they found that they could cultivate outside, store the energy they cultivated, and then use this stored energy upon their return. A few Lords even began using their time outside to store as much compressed qi in their cores as possible so that they could then release it back into their dantians and use it in the storage space.

However, this was only true for earth cultivators. For some reason, earth qi had become useable, but only earth qi, not any other types.

Importantly, the moment this first boy found he could use his qi, before I even knew the specifics, the nervousness in my soul increased by an order of magnitude.

A few dozen years later, not long after I mastered the ability to create jade slips, another change occurred.

Ever since earth qi became usable, people had been trying to cultivate inside the space. It had never worked, but people simply couldn’t give up on the hope that they would be able to cultivate without having to go through the trouble of requesting a ‘vacation’ first.

Each day, a handful of people would try cultivating. It never worked. Until it did.

One day, a young girl, a random Martial Disciple 2, sat down to practice her cultivation technique. She wasn’t even truly trying to cultivate. She was just going through the motions.

Only a few minutes into this practice, though, she succeeded in pulling in a small, insubstantial thread of qi.

The moment she did, something rippled out from her.

Again, I didn’t know the specifics of what happened until later, but the moment this ripple touched the edge of my storage space, my eyes widened in horror.

The nervousness that I had been feeling for decades had transformed into full-blown panic.

I immediately shot to my feet and used every movement technique I possessed to run to find Yan, ShouLi, or anyone else.

Luckily, ShouLi and several others were in a meeting. They were all gathered in one place.

I looked at ShouLi with wide, frightened eyes. “Gather everyone! Now! Everyone, anyone. Get them all here. Get them into the world orb.”

No one moved. They were all too stunned by my outburst.

ShouLi looked at me with a concerned expression. “Ances— What’s wrong?”

I was shaking in fear. “Immediately! Send messages to everyone. Get them all here. Now!”

This finally got people moving, and the assembled Kings and Emperors rushed off to fulfill my orders.

I walked outside and stood in a large, empty courtyard.

My foot began tapping impatiently.

I needed to do something. Gathering everyone would take too long, but I couldn’t leave. If I left, people wouldn’t know where to find me.

At that moment, the young girl in my storage space had found her mother and was shouting about being able to cultivate. While most people were skeptical, nearly everyone sat down and immediately tried cultivating themselves.

A few Masters were able to pull in small threads of energy. A few Disciples took a small step toward their next advancement.

With each person that began cultivating, a small ripple was released.

The panic in my soul increased.

I wanted to cry. There wasn’t enough time.

Whatever was going to happen was coming, and it wasn’t willing to wait.

“Everyone’s too spread out. They won’t make it in time. ShouLi, Liang, NiangBa, Mo, RuLan… They’ll all be lost…”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, the courtyard around me rippled. Suddenly, it was filled with people. It was filled with the members of my clan.

This should have made me happy, but it only made my anxiety grow even further, and my state of mind wasn’t helped by the fact that thick black storm clouds had suddenly appeared high overhead.

ShouLi, who was among those who had appeared, ran over to ask what was happening, but before she could even open her mouth, a crash of thunder sent her stumbling to the ground.

ShouLi, a Martial Emperor and Rank 3 body cultivator was sent to the ground by mere thunder.

No one else around me fared any better.

Not knowing what else to do, I quickly pulled everyone into my storage space.

The moment they were gone, another group appeared. I didn’t even look who had arrived. I just pulled them into my storage space.

The third time this happened, the people who appeared included Yan, LuYao, and the rest of my Revered Elders. It also included Emperors Shen and Jin.

As soon as this group appeared, a thick bolt of black lightning struck the building behind me, reducing it to rubble.

I quickly tossed memory orbs to everyone, and seeing the situation, they hurriedly filled them.

Like me, almost everyone was in a state of panic. Almost everyone, but not Shen. He calmly surveyed the situation, walked up beside me, and handed me a storage bag.

“Fang, this contains that large formation stone that I’ve been working on. After a century of work, it’s complete. Take it. I’m sure you’ll get more use of it than I will.”

I couldn’t think. I just pulled the stone from the bag and shoved it into my storage space. I could figure out what it did later.

After this third group, no one else appeared in the courtyard.

Was everyone accounted for? I didn’t know. I had just pulled in everyone that had appeared. I didn’t know who they were, where they had come from, or why they had suddenly shown up. All I could do was act.

At this point, the world around me was a wreck. Thunder and lightning had reduced everything in the vicinity to rubble.

The state of the world inside me wasn’t much better. People had been pulled from who knows where while they were doing who knows what, and they had no understanding of what was happening.

I wanted to help. I wanted to do something, but before I could act, the situation changed.

After being impacted by a series of ripples, the boundary of my storage space started glowing.

After one final, large ripple, this glow collapsed, and the boundary turned pitch black.

Then, it burst alight in a brilliant rainbow that not only washed over everyone in my storage space but also lit up the entirety of the inner garden of my soul.

The moment this happened, I couldn’t move. I was locked in place.

I was not locked in place by the will-lock of a Ruler.

No.

Something turned its attention to me. Something impossibly powerful. Something… boundless.

A voice echoed through my very soul. “What are you?”

I couldn’t respond. I didn’t need to. After only a brief moment, the voice continued.

“I see. Interesting. No rules were broken.”

With that, the pressure holding me in place vanished. However, the storm clouds above only intensified, and a peal of thunder sent me to my knees.

Before I could even properly understand what was going on, a majestic figure appeared directly in front of me. It was wearing a red robe with golden embroidery that shone with its own internal light.

I had only seen this being once before, and that was a millennium ago, but I had never forgotten its appearance.

This was the incarnation of the Earthly Dao.

The incarnation didn’t speak. It didn’t even look at me. It simply thrust out a hand and impaled me through the heart.

As I fell to the ground and gasped out my final breath, I saw several thick bolts of black lightning rain down and eradicate the incarnation from existence.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Emperor Peak – 1 trillion credits awarded.

Total Credits: 1,009,647,270,706

-----------------------------------------------------

Affinities

Peak Four-Star – Earth, Metal, Lightning

Peak Five-Star – Wood, Fire, Water, Wind, Light, Dark

Low Five-Star – Karmic Energy

Low Six-Star – Space

Resistances

Mental Effects (Cultivation Techniques) – 25,000,000 credits

Mental Library

Capacity – Rank 6

Journal (with Mental Input) – Rank 6

Perfect Transcription – Rank 6

Touch Reading – Rank 6

Scribe – Rank 3

Comprehension Boosts

Cultivation:

Cultivation Techniques – 100 billion credits

Soul Techniques – 100 billion credits

Energy Control – 100 billion credits

Teaching – 100 million credits

Professions:

Alchemy – 100 billion credits

Formations – 100 billion credits

Herbalism – 10 billion credits

Refining – 100 billion credits

Martial – 1 billion credits

Social:

Reading Emotions (True) – 25,000,000 credits

Skills

Mastery of Cold Mountain Fire, Expanding Realms Fire

Memory Implantation — Rank 1

Talisman Artistry – Rank 4 (Continent-Wide Expert)

Soul Formation Concealment – Rank 6

Enhanced Soul Growth – 20,000 credits

Pill, Formation, Herb, Talisman, Demon Beast, Refined Item, Illusion, and Gu Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive, Detailed)

Technique Appraisal – Rank 3 (Earth)

Fire Seed Appraisal – Profound

Language (Western Han)

Chapter 284 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

My eyes shot open, and I looked around in a mix of intense panic and confusion.

I was… safe…

I was in my tiny house in the Su Clan. Everything was…

I jumped to my feet, flung open the door of my house, and stared up at the sky.

It was… fine… The sky was a brilliant blue with not a cloud in sight.

After taking a few deep breaths, I reentered my house and sat down.

What had happened? Everything had been too quick, and my mind had been so wracked with panic that I had barely been able to comprehend what was even happening.

Turning my senses inward, I let out a sigh of relief. The ever-present sense of nervousness and agitation that had been consuming me over the past few decades had vanished. The momentous event that my affinity for karmic energy had been warning me about had come and gone.

But… what happened?

I had been standing in a courtyard. Hundreds of people began appearing around me. Lightning started crashing down around us. Then, the Earthly Dao showed up and killed me.

Why?

I needed to know.

I knew that my chances of getting any real answers from the System were non-existent. Whatever forces were involved in that ‘event’ were so far beyond me that I doubted I could even afford the cost of knowing just the price of an answer to even a single question.

Still… I needed something. I needed to understand something.

In the past, I had always done my best to just keep moving forward. Eventually, everything would be revealed. There was no reason to fixate on immediate answers.

This time? How could I just move on?

But… What could I ask? What questions might provide me with the answers I needed?

I took several deep breaths.

I didn’t know. That was fine… I could start by asking a few questions to get my bearings.

“System, what—”

Suddenly, a tall figure appeared and loomed over me.

It was the being that, only moments ago, had shoved its hand through my chest. It was the incarnation of the Earthly Dao.

Previously, the incarnation had always had an otherworldly aura about it that made it feel like it didn’t truly belong in this world. Looking at the incarnation now, that aura seemed greatly diminished.

I lifted my head and looked the incarnation in the eye.

I opened my mouth to speak, but the incarnation lifted a palm to stop me. I pressed on and tried to say something, but no words could escape my lips.

“Do not speak. I will not answer any questions. I am only here because your actions have drawn the attention of the Eternal Dao, and I have been ordered to provide you with certain information that it feels you are entitled to know.”

Instinctively, I tried to ask a question like ‘What is the Eternal Dao?’ but no words came out.

“Due to your recent actions, the ‘storage space’ in your soul has evolved into a true world. At the moment, it can only be considered a Rank 1 Small World, but it has begun developing its own Laws of Heaven and Earth. It has begun to form a nascent Dao. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, but because of your choices, this new world is outside the aegis of any existing Heavenly or Earthly Dao. It is… independent.”

The incarnation’s tone gave me the impression that it was both disgusted and happy about this development.

“As this world exists in your soul, as you were responsible for its creation, and as you are in near complete control of it, the Eternal Dao has decreed that you will be responsible for its growth and development. As such, there are things you must know.”

The incarnation held up a finger. “One, to grow in Rank, your world must absorb new Laws. At the moment, your world’s Laws of Heaven and Earth contain only the most basic of earth Laws. To advance to Rank 2, you must both strengthen its earth Laws and create a connection to one additional set of Laws.”

It held up a second finger. “Two, as an independent Small World, your world is not controlled by an Earthly Dao, but it does not yet have a will of its own. It is governed only by simple, unthinking Laws. As the entity responsible for the development of this world, you will be responsible for choosing which Laws to introduce to it and the order in which you introduce them. Your choices will have consequences.”

The incarnation held up a third finger. “Three, after each advancement, the maximum size of your world will be set to ten times whatever size it was prior to advancing. Previously, your world was 1 cubic kilometer, so its current maximum size is 10 cubic kilometers.”

The incarnation glared at me. “If you grow your world to 10 cubic kilometers, then upon advancing to Rank 2, its maximum size will be 100 cubic kilometers. However, if you only grow it to 5 cubic kilometers, then after it advances, its maximum size will only be 50. Advancing early like this will permanently reduce the maximum size of this new world. At Rank 3, its maximum possible size would only be 500 cubic kilometers instead of 1,000.”

After staring at me intently for several long moments, the incarnation flicked the three fingers it was holding up in a dismissive gesture.

“That is all.”

Mustering what energy I could, I forced myself to speak. “What—”

The incarnation held up a single finger to silence me.

“That is all the information I was ordered to convey. As I said, I will not answer any questions.” The incarnation stared at me. “However, I am willing to provide you with certain additional information that you might find useful. I cannot do this for free, though. That would be breaking the rules. So, how many credits are you willing to spend?”

I felt the urge to respond immediately. Part of me wanted to curse and yell at this entity that almost felt akin to a dark god, but I knew that doing so would have been the dumbest decision I could have possibly made, so I held my tongue.

I looked at the incarnation and tried to think through my answer.

It had offered me a chance to learn additional information. Not only did I personally want answers, but the fact that the incarnation had offered to provide them told me that it felt I needed them.

How much should I spend? My last death had earned me a trillion credits. Should I spend them all? Would it be worth it?

I looked at the incarnation’s single raised finger. Originally, it had raised an entire palm to silence me, but this time, it had raised only a single finger… Was that a message?

One. One what? Did it want me to spend one credit? 100? 1,000?

I closed my eyes and made my decision. “100 billion.”

The incarnation dropped its hand.

“The tribulation lightning you witnessed was not caused by your actions. It was caused by mine. If I had not intervened, your world would have advanced, and no one on this entire continent would have noticed a thing.”

If there was no danger, then why did you intervene?

I wanted to ask this, but I couldn’t speak. Thankfully, the incarnation either heard my thoughts, or more likely, it simply knew what I would want to ask.

“The advancement of your ‘storage space’ to the status of a Rank 1 Small World drew the attention of the Eternal Dao. On its own, this would not have been a problem. However, when the Eternal Dao focused on you, it caused the Heavenly Dao to turn its attention to you as well.”

The incarnation gritted its teeth. “Drawing the attention of the Heavenly Dao is not something that you can afford to do. Technically, the Heavenly Dao knows everything that happens within its domain, but its incarnations are not omniscient, and they can’t focus on everything all at once. Usually, they remain oblivious to what happens on Lower Worlds, but with the Eternal Dao involved…”

The incarnation closed its eyes momentarily. Then, they shot open, and its glare intensified.

“The tribulation clouds appeared because I teleported your people to you. The clouds were warning me to cease my interference. When I killed you, I violated the rules of the Heavenly Dao, and that iteration of myself was eradicated. This was… regrettable, but it had to be done. By escaping through time, we have evaded the notice of the Heavenly Dao’s incarnations, at least for now. However, the Heavenly Dao does know what happened. Its incarnations simply no longer know to focus on it. Do not draw their attention again.”

Silently, I nodded.

“That said, from now on, you should be able to advance your Small World without worry. Doing so will no longer draw the attention of the Eternal Dao, and thus, it will no longer draw the attention of the Heavenly Dao. Unless something unexpected occurs, there should be no cause for concern until your world is ready to advance to the status of Lower World.”

The incarnation clasped its hands behind its back. “To advance your world, you must infuse it with Laws. It first advanced to the status of Small World because you infused it with earth Laws. You should consider how you did this. You first filled it with rocks and soil. Then, you provided it with copious amounts of earth qi. These were both necessary steps, but they weren’t sufficient. Rocks and qi can help shape Laws, but they are not a source of Laws. Therefore, you should consider where these Laws originated.”

After saying this, the incarnation looked at me one last time, nodded, and then vanished.

Purchase Confirmed. Cost 100 billion credits. 909,647,270,706 credits remaining.

With the incarnation gone, I sat alone in my house and thought through what it had told me.

The information about the Eternal Dao was… beyond me. It was too much. I couldn’t allow myself to fixate on it.

Instead, I focused on the information about my storage space.

Advancing to the level of Rank 1 Small World meant that I could begin growing it again. I needed to grow it, and I needed to infuse it with ‘Laws.’

Growing my space further was the easy part, but it was also somewhat problematic. I would need to replace the Solid Mountain Fire with the Expanding Realms Fire. As a Martial Disciple, this would kill me. Of course, as this life had only barely begun, a quick death here wasn’t much of a problem. More important was the fact that removing the Solid Mountain Fire would cut off my storage space from its source of earth qi. Before doing this, I needed to speak with ShouLi and my leadership council.

Infusing my space with ‘Laws,’ though… How was I supposed to do that?

I had somehow already infused it with earth Laws. How?

“System…” I had an idea, but I was hesitant about it, unsure if I was right. “System, I have an ability that lets me analyze spirit fires and fire seeds. How much would it cost to upgrade this ability to show me information about Laws? I want to know… I want to know about the Laws contained in spirit fires and fire seeds… I want to know if my storage space has… absorbed them.”

Calculating… Cost 10 billion credits.

Slowly, I nodded. “Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 899,647,270,706 credits remaining.

I focused on the seed of the Solid Mountain Fire that was contained within my soul.

Solid Mountain Fire, Profound-Rank, Elements: Earth, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Earth Qi, Laws Absorbed: 34%

Nodding, I began examining a few of the other spirit fires and fire seeds that I had gathered over the years. From the information I received, it looked like only the actual fire seeds contained laws, and each fire seed seemed different.

Cold Mountain Fire, Yellow-Rank, Elements: Earth/Water, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Granite/Water, Laws Absorbed: 74%

Flowing Metal Fire, Yellow-Rank, Elements: Water/Metal, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Mercury, Laws Absorbed: 0%

Yellow Flood Dragon Fire, Profound-Rank, Elements: Earth/Water, Consumes: Matter, Produces: Demonic Earth Energy/Demonic Water Energy, Laws Absorbed: 12%

Expanding Realms Fire, Profound-Rank, Elements: Space, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Space, Laws Absorbed: 0%

The Flowing Metal Fire being at 0% was understandable. I hadn’t ever used it in conjunction with my storage space.

The Expanding Realms Fire being at 0% was disappointing. Did that mean I couldn’t use it to imbue my world with space Laws? If so, then I would need to find another source of such Laws.

The differences between the Solid Mountain, Cold Mountain, and Yellow Flood Dragon fires were interesting. All three were predominantly earth fire seeds. Why were they so different?

The only way I could make sense of it was to say that the majority of the earth Laws in the Solid Mountain and Yellow Flood Dragon fires were simply different. This meant that I would likely need to absorb Laws from both. As for why the percentage for the Cold Mountain Fire was so high? Likely, as a Yellow-Rank fire, it contained far fewer laws than the two Profound-Rank fires.

I had always considered fire seeds important, but these new insights into the nature of Laws made them vital. Even a random, worthless, Yellow-Rank fire seed might have additional Laws for me to absorb.

If I wanted to keep growing my storage space, I needed more fire seeds. I needed all of them.

Chapter 285 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Focusing on my storage space… Was it even right to call it a storage space anymore? I had a few bunkers for storing items, but most of the space was no longer simply for storage.

Focusing on my… ‘inner world?’ I couldn’t help but notice that its boundary was now covered in a faint opalescent glimmer. Was that a sign of the Laws of Heaven and Earth that now pervaded the world?

After taking a moment to just appreciate the changes to the world’s exterior, I focused my mind on what was happening inside of it.

To put it bluntly, people were panicking.

Everyone had just been going about their lives, and suddenly, they were all teleported into the middle of the apocalypse. Then, without even a word of explanation, I had forcibly shoved them into my inner world.

To say that people were panicking was an understatement.

I wasn’t sure exactly how many people the Earthly Dao had sent me, but there were definitely well over a thousand people in my inner world at this point, and they were all in a frenzy to find their loved ones. With everyone spread out randomly across an area of two square kilometers, this wasn’t an easy task.

As I watched, several brawls broke out between various groups of anxious individuals who were all just searching for their family members. Thankfully, even though nearly everyone was a powerful cultivator, only a fraction of people could use their qi, so the damage these fights caused was minimal. Also, several King- and Emperor-level earth cultivators, people who could use their qi, were rapidly moving through the crowds, putting an end to the fighting, and calming things down.

Unsure of what I could do that wouldn’t simply make the situation worse, I sought out ShouLi and the other members of the clan’s leadership.

When I found them in the town hall of the space’s small settlement, I was slightly surprised. I hadn’t kept track of the clan’s politics in recent years, so I hadn’t been aware that the clan’s leadership team had grown a bit.

Nine people sat around a large circular table, and they were clearly divided into three different groups. ShouLi was flanked by Liang and NiangBa, Mo sat between RuLan and Chong, one of the alchemists who had competed against Rudy, and GuiAi was joined by GuiMing and an older woman I didn’t recognize.

When I first looked in on them, Liang was in the middle of addressing the group.

“I have a group of earth cultivators out there trying to calm everyone down. They should be able to stop the rioting, but until we can tell everyone what’s happening, there are going to be problems.”

Mo shook his head. “We can’t say anything. Some of the people… They aren’t from the clan. Some are high-ranking members of the guilds, and some are random people I’ve never even seen before. I only had a few minutes to look around, so I can’t say who all has joined us, but I’m certain that there are people out there who haven’t taken the Oath. Telling them anything would mean breaking it.”

I had to wonder about this. The sanctity of an Oath was maintained by the Heavenly Dao. My inner world should be completely cut off from the Heavenly Dao, so while inside of it, breaking an Oath probably wouldn’t have any effect.

NiangBa snorted. “Even without an Oath, what would you tell them? I don’t know what’s going on, do you?”

When everyone just grimaced, NiangBa let out a wry chuckle of amusement.

Everyone at the table was a Ruler—everyone except for the old woman—so I couldn’t pull them out of my storage space to talk to them. Instead, I pulled out a brush and a piece of paper, jotted down a note, and then sent it onto the table in front of ShouLi.

As you are all aware, you are currently inside my world orb. However, there are a few things you need to be made aware of.

First, the calamity you witnessed was caused by this world advancing to become a true Small World. This should allow people to use and cultivate earth qi freely. In time, other elements will be unlocked as well, but that will take decades, possibly centuries.

Second, I must tell you an important truth. One that some of you may have already guessed at.

During the calamity of this world’s ascension, I died. That was when my blessing activated. It sent me back in time, back to when I was only 16 years old, one year before any of you were even born. Right now, I am a 16-year-old boy sitting in the middle of the Su Clan’s training compound.

After reading these words aloud, ShouLi sank into her chair with a mix of confusion, depression, and hope on her face. However, looking around the room, I didn’t see any signs of actual surprise. Even though most people had been confined to the Nine Rivers Sect during my last life, it wouldn’t have been hard to find out a bit of information about the status of the Su Clan.

Something about ShouLi’s reaction was off, though. While reading about our trip back through time, her voice was too… excited. It was also too… desperate.

ShouLi looked up at the ceiling. “Ancestor, what… what comes next?”

Right now, there is no place for us on the continent. As Martial Emperors, you cannot enter the Wastes, and you cannot rejoin the Nine Rivers Sect. While we could try to find an empire or two to conquer, doing so would attract attention, and without the protections of the sect, the Sovereigns would be free to kidnap or kill anyone they wanted.

However, I believe I have a solution. The Wastes. I am not entirely sure yet, but I believe we will be able to set up an empire within the Wastes. A place where we can freely grow without needing to worry about anyone attacking us. To the best of my understanding, not even the Sovereigns will be able to touch us here.

This will take time, though. There is a Rank 7 formation blocking anyone above Grandmaster from entering the Wastes. I have been studying it, and I am pretty sure I know how part of it works, but it will take me time to fully understand what needs to be done to alter it. For now, I hope you can all be patient.

I hope you can take this time to make a home inside the world orb.

ShouLi set down this paper with a sense of resignation and looked around at the group.

“Well?”

GuiAi nodded. “We… We can make it work. Feeding everyone is going to be a bit of a problem, and we’re going to need to find places for everyone to live, but we can make it work.”

Next to her, GuiMing had a solemn look on his face. “I can gather my old crews from when we were on Mount Jiang. If we start carving up that giant wall, we’ll have plenty of places for people to live, but if you want anything other than bare stone rooms, we’re going to need supplies. A lot of supplies.”

ShouLi nodded. “Make a list. If the Ancestor wants us to live here, I’m sure he will provide us with the resources we need.”

---------------------------------------------------

After finishing my talk with the clan’s leadership, my mind turned to my Revered Elders.

What should I do with them? They would definitely be able to help me with my plans, but what was the right way to go about this?

Ideally, I would leave Yan and the others to their own devices for a few years. They could grow up in the Yellow Orchid Academy, and then, when things were ready, I could go and retrieve them.

The problem with this idea was the Zhuge Clan.

During my time in the Academy, the Zhuge Clan had been a constant threat. They had assassinated LiTing, wiped out YuLong’s family, and made a sport out of hunting JiaQi. If I didn’t intervene, it was likely that none of them would survive.

I had to do something, but what?

After considering several possibilities, I made my choice.

“System, teleport me to the top of Mount Jiang.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,071 credits. 899,647,269,635 credits remaining.

I appeared on a plateau, high atop a mountain made of blue stone.

“System, teleport YuLong here.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 4,990,500 credits. 899,642,279,135 credits remaining.

The moment YuLong appeared, before he could get his bearings, I immediately shoved his most recent memory orb into his hand and activated my Memory Implantation ability.

After a few moments, he looked around, confused.

“F… Fang, what’s… going on?”

I patted him on the shoulder.

“Let me gather the others first so that I can tell everyone all at once.” I looked at him sheepishly. “I might need a bit of help with this.”

Looking away, I began subvocalizing.

“System, teleport the following people here: SuYin, Yan, JiaQi, LiTing, and LuYao.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 33,349,500 credits. 899,608,929,635 credits remaining.

I didn’t include Bao or Cao because they were both in the Twin Mountains Sect, and I wanted them to stay there, at least for the moment.

I also didn’t include YuLong’s sister, YuHua. She was still young, so she shouldn’t be in any sort of danger. Grabbing her now would only upset her parents unnecessarily.

The moment everyone appeared, I ran to the person nearest me, SuYin, and implanted the memories of her most recent life. As I did this, JiaQi looked at me angrily.

“What the hell are you doing?”

YuLong stepped in between us. “Please, calm down.”

Ignoring the two of them, I quickly turned to LiTing and implanted her memories as well.

JiaQi looked around like a cornered animal. LiTing and SuYin were in a trance as they processed their memories, YuLong was acting as my muscle, Yan had backed away and was eyeing everyone with suspicion, and LuYao was looking around in confusion.

Making her choice, JiaQi grabbed LuYao and pulled her away.

Ignoring the two of them for the moment, YuLong and I walked up to Yan, and I held out his orb to him.

“Take this.”

A series of thoughts flashed across his face, but eventually, he sighed and lifted the orb from my hand. The moment he did, I activated my Implantation ability.

Finally, I turned my attention to JiaQi and LuYao who were running toward the edge of the plateau like scared rabbits.

“System, teleport LuYao to my side.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 500 credits. 899,608,929,135 credits remaining.

The moment she appeared, I forced her orb into her hand and activated my ability.

“System, teleport JiaQi to my side.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 500 credits. 899,608,928,635 credits remaining.

The moment she appeared, JiaQi swung a fist at my head.

Thankfully, YuLong was there to catch it.

I pulled out her orb, pressed it against her neck, and activated my ability.

---------------------------------------------------

Even after several minutes, LiTing and LuYao were still shaking from the experience of absorbing the memories in their orbs. Memories recorded ‘in the moment’ were much more vivid than those recorded after the fact, and the memories in these orbs had been recorded during the height of a lightning tribulation.

After giving everyone a moment to calm down, I did my best to explain our situation.

“Like last time, I only want to give you all one life’s worth of memories at a time, but I thought it would be best if it was the most recent one so that you can better grasp where things currently stand. Unfortunately, this may mean you are missing some basic knowledge, but that can’t be helped.”

I took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “As for that tribulation… It was the result of interference from the Earthly Dao. I can explain things in more detail if you want, but, in short, my ‘world orb’ has advanced and people can now cultivate inside of it. Only earth qi, though.”

YuLong nodded at this, but he didn’t seem too concerned about it. “What now?”

I smiled. “Now? Now, I plan to create a new empire in the Wastes. From what I’ve seen, from what I understand, it should be possible. This will take time, though.”

I looked at Yan. “If I understand things correctly, the Wastes will provide us with a fortress that is safe from Rulers and Sovereigns alike. I want to develop our forces here, and when we are ready, I want to strike out at the Zhuge Clan. However, like I said, this will take time. You can stay here and cultivate with us if you wish, or I can send you back.”

Yan tapped his fingers together a few times and then grinned maliciously. “Send me back. I think it’s time that I finally return to the Zhuge Clan and join them. It’s the proper thing to do, after all.”

I nodded and then looked at YuLong. “What about you? I believe I can build an empire here, but for the moment, only Warrior Tier cultivators can enter the Wastes. You can stay, you can go back and try doing your own thing, or you can try bringing your family here. Your choice.”

YuLong looked down in thought for several moments. “For now, I’ll stay, but we’ll see where things stand in a few years. Joining the Nine Rivers Sect feels like it would be a mistake, but I need to get karmic energy from somewhere. If you can open up the Wastes, staying here might be for the best, but if not, I’ll have to consider other options.”

After that, SuYin, LiTing, and LuYao all agreed to stay in the Wastes.

“SuYin, I would like you to rejoin the Verdant Fields Sect. I know that the memories I gave you don’t contain any information about it, but that shouldn’t be much of a problem. I’ll give you a Wood Essence Gathering Formation, and with it, you should be able to raise your affinity high enough to deal with any problems.”

SuYin slowly nodded. “Alright, Master, but… why?”

I grinned. “I want you to take it over. I want to control the Wastes, and the sects are a part of it. For now, try not to draw too much attention from outside forces, but try to put yourself in a position where you will be able to claim the position of Sect Master.”

LiTing was too stunned to respond, so I turned to JiaQi.

As I looked at her, my eyes widened in horror. “Oh… Oh no…”

JiaQi cocked her head to the side, confused.

“LuLu.”

Mimicking me, JiaQi’s eyes widened in realization. “Oh…”

“You heard everything. You can decide what you want to do. For now, I’m sending you back.”

Immediately, I turned away and began subvocalizing.

“System, send JiaQi back to her carriage.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,884,000 credits. 899,607,044,635 credits remaining.

Hopefully, she would make it there in time to stop an Emperor-level deer from going on a rampage.

Sighing, I turned and looked around at the rest of the group.

“System, send LiTing, LuYao, and YuLong to a secluded spot in Dragon Gate City. Send Yan back to South Gate City. Send SuYin to a secluded spot in the village outside the Verdant Fields Sect.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 13,168,500 credits. 899,593,876,135 credits remaining.

Once everyone was gone, I nodded to myself.

“System, send me back to my tiny house in the Su Clan.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,071 credits. 899,593,875,064 credits remaining.

Chapter 286 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

After returning to my small house, I sat down to wait. I wasn’t sure exactly how long my conversations with the Earthly Dao, my leadership council, and my Revered Elders had taken, but I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long.

So, I just sat and thought through my plans.

The grand formation under Rosehill had been formed from four concentric rings. The outermost ring was a Rank 4 formation, and the innermost ring was a Rank 7 formation. The details of the Rank 7 formation had been hidden from me, but I had recorded the Rank 4 formation down in my journal, and I had been studying it off and on for several years now. I didn’t understand it completely, but I had a fairly good idea of what its purpose was.

The Rank 4 formation was blocking Lords from entering the Wastes. Only Lords. It wasn’t powerful enough to affect any higher-level cultivators. I wasn’t entirely sure if the inner formations would serve as backups, but I felt rather confident that if I could destroy that outermost ring, then people in the Wastes would be allowed to ascend to Martial Lord. From there, with each successive ring, Kings, Emperors, and Sovereigns would be allowed.

This last part was nothing but a mere supposition, but it made sense to me. It felt like that was the intention of the person who had originally constructed this formation.

From what I had seen, there were five locations in the Wastes that contained formations. I had already seen the one under Rosehill, and the locations of the ones under Mount Jiang and the Verdant Fields Sect were rather obvious. As for the one under the Twin Mountains Sect, it was almost certainly under one of the mountains.

That just left the formation under the Su Clan.

I had no idea where this last formation might be hiding. My guess was that it would contain a fire seed that produced copious amounts of metal and wood, but Dragon Gate City was surrounded by forested mountains. The formation could be hiding anywhere.

I had a clue, though. Small patches of herbs had been growing around the Rosehill formation. One of those herbs had been the Metal Dragon’s Tongue Fruit. The Su Clan had been able to produce an Earth Dragon’s Tongue Fruit. This suggested that they knew the location of the formation, and I just needed to extract it from them.

There were several ways I could have gone about this. I could have pulled all the Grandmasters out of my inner world and had them storm the Su Clan for me. However, this would have drawn the attention of the forces surrounding the Wastes, and while I was confident that we would be able to hold our own against them, such a fight would eventually attract the attention of even more powerful forces.

So, while I could try storming the Su Clan and taking what I wanted by force, I decided to approach the situation from a different direction. I would take over the Su Clan from within. Then, with Bao, Cao, and SuYin controlling the Verdant Fields Sect and the Twin Mountains Sect, we would have complete control of the Wastes, and ideally, it would all be done without any outside interference. From there, we could work on slowly building up an empire capable of rivaling anyone on the continent.

These were big plans, but I could only take them one step at a time.

As I thought about this, the ‘first step’ finally arrived.

A middle-aged man dressed in dark brown robes opened my door and ushered me outside.

It was time to have my affinities tested.

I walked in front of the elder at the affinity testing orb, and he gave me his normal smile filled with false pleasantness.

“What is your name?”

“Su Fang.”

“Place your hand on the orb and channel your qi into it.”

I casually lifted my right hand and did as ordered.

From my past life in the Su Clan, I had a fairly good understanding of how the clan chose its ‘elites.’ It wasn’t skills, affinities, or blessings that the elders cared about. It was a person’s background. As a poor orphan from a distant branch family, the chances that I would be chosen were nearly zero. So, if I wanted to catch the elder’s attention, I had to shine brighter than anyone else.

As I channeled the few drops of qi my body contained into the orb, I deftly manipulated my acupoints to alter the affinities that the orb would display.

At first, the orb showed nothing but a kaleidoscope of rainbow lines, but just as the elder was about to signal me to stop, I increased the intensity of my qi.

Suddenly, a dull copper ingot appeared in the middle of the orb, and the elder’s eyes widened in shock. When that ingot brightened not once, but twice, he took a step backward. When the ingot brightened a third time and then dimmed to a dull bronze, he froze stock still. When it then proceeded to brighten not once, but twice, he stopped breathing.

At this point, my qi was completely depleted, and my connection with the orb broke, so I dropped my hand to the side.

The elder took several seconds to compose himself.

“Me… Metal affinity. High… High… six-star…”

The elder seemed a bit too shaken up. Had I gone too far?

The elder turned and looked at YuanFei who was sitting at the back of the room. YuanFei had a look of deep interest on his face, but he didn’t speak. He just waved for the elder to continue.

The elder turned back to me and spoke in a shaky voice.

“What… what can you tell us about the blessing you have received?”

If this had been the past, I might have mentioned something related to profession or martial skills, but now, I knew better. I knew what I needed to say if I wanted to be given a position of importance in the clan.

“My blessing has given me a deep understanding of governance. I feel as if I possess knowledge that one could only gain from several lifetimes spent as a city lord.”

As I said this, the truth stone on the elder’s right hand remained a bright white, but he didn’t even look at it. He was in too much shock.

“That… that can be considered an exceptional blessing. The Heavenly Dao has truly blessed you today, child.”

He turned around and looked at YuanFei once more and received a nod in reply.

The elder took a deep breath, puffed up his chest, and looked down at me with as much regality as he could feign.

“Su Fang, I know your life up to this point has been difficult, but we all have challenges we must face. While you have had to struggle, know that ever since I first saw you as a baby, I knew that you would become something special one day. I believe it is finally time.” He smiled with as much false sincerity as he could muster. “It is time for you to meet your father.”

The elder looked over my shoulder at the servant who had been waiting there.

“Take little Fang to Grandmaster YuanKong’s residence. Let him rest there until his father is ready to see him.”

As the elder lifted his hand to dismiss the servant, I couldn’t help but notice that the truth stone in his ring had turned completely black.

The servant who had been somewhat haughty and disrespectful earlier had completely changed. After witnessing both my affinity test and the elder’s reaction, he had become far more obsequious as he guided me to my new home.

As we walked through the compound, he did his best to offer explanations for each door we passed.

“We are in the Training Quarter. Everything here is related to training. This is the door to one of the private practice yards the elite disciples use for training.”

I raised my chin in acceptance of the answer, and we continued walking forward.

My guide showed me several more training yards, a library, a few areas for learning formations, and various other training-related buildings. While I had spent a lot of time in this compound, it had been several decades since I was last here, and even then, I didn’t spend much time wandering around the place, so I was appreciative of the guided tour.

Eventually, we reached a crossroads where a wide boulevard cut through the street that we had been walking down.

The servant gestured to our right. “That is the path to the complex’s front gate. The buildings there are for entertaining guests.”

He gestured to our left. “That path leads to the residences of the compound's leaders. They are the seniors overseeing each new disciple’s testing. Sitting in the back of the room was Su YuanFei, the eldest son of the patriarch. The senior guiding the testing was Su HuaLong, the Second Elder.”

I couldn’t help but smile at this. I didn’t have much of an impression of Su HuaLong, but I knew YuanFei very well. When I first met him, he helped Rudy torture me to death. More recently, while we were living on Mount Jiang, I saved his life and offered him my protection. In return, he instigated a coup against me. We were good old friends.

The servant continued guiding us straight ahead.

“This area contains the residences for our Grandmasters, Masters, and elite Disciples.”

As each residence had a sign out front labeling who lived within, I no longer had to rely on my guide for such knowledge.

Eventually, after passing a dozen doors labeled with the names of random Su Clan scions, we reached our destination, the home of Su YuanKong, the third son of the Su Clan’s current Patriarch. Seeing this name made me want to shake my head, but I held it in.

In a past life, YuanKong tried to kill me when I defeated his disciple. Later, he sided with his second brother, YuanFeng, when YuanFeng killed his father and usurped the position of clan Patriarch. Then, he acted as the MC during the farce of an alchemy competition against Rudy. While I wasn’t quite as good of ‘friends’ with YuanKong as I was with his eldest brother, we did have our share of history together.

My guide led me inside, and I saw what passed for a palace built for the son of the Patriarch of the clan that dominated the Western Wastes.

Su YuanKong’s courtyard was rather spartan. There was no greenery, and the entire area was paved with gray bricks. Aside from the palace itself, the only items of note were a few wooden devices designed for martial arts training. The palace itself was well-built and had red walls with white and brown accents. For a mortal dwelling, it would have been nice, but for a Grandmaster…

The servant guided me into the front room where a sitting area with four chairs around a small table had been arranged. After seating me, he went to prepare some tea.

Left alone, I was a little annoyed. The Second Elder hadn’t assigned me a cultivation technique, so I didn’t have anything to do. Of course, I didn’t need a technique from the clan, and I wouldn’t use it even if they had given me one, but without having been given one, cultivating would have been far too suspicious.

With no better option, I sat and simply meditated as I looked around my inner world and watched my clan work.

After several hours of waiting, the front door of the house opened, and a familiar figure walked inside.

YuanKong looked me up and down with a pleased expression on his face.

“Little Fang… It’s… It’s so good to see you again after all this time. I thought we had lost you, but the Heavens saved you.”

I had no idea how to respond to that. My mouth just dropped open slightly in shock.

YuanKong didn’t seem to mind. He rushed forward and hugged me.

“Don’t worry, son. Now that you’re here, I can ensure your protection. We won’t have to worry about losing each other ever again.” He paused his speech and turned away, trying to hide his face. “It’s just… It’s a pity that your mother can’t be here with us.”

It was clear he wanted me to ask, so I did my best to add a hitch to my voice and did as he wanted.

“My… my mother? I have a mother?”

He turned back to face me with a pleading look. “No, Fang. Don’t ask about her. Your mother is… she’s part of a powerful family. If they find out that you survived, they will do everything in their power to end your life. Only by becoming stronger and strengthening the clan can we become worthy of our connection to her family.”

I put on my best sad face and looked at the ground. “I understand.”

YuanKong’s acting skills were… impressive. He almost seemed to actually believe every word he was saying. If this had been my first life in the clan, I almost certainly would have believed him.

YuanKong reached into his robe and pulled out a thin brown book.

“Fang, this is our family’s secret technique. It is a Mid-Profound cultivation technique for metal qi. If you… If you want to see your mother, you need to gather strength. This will make it possible for you to do so. No one in the entire clan has had the talent needed to cultivate this technique for centuries. With your affinity, you may have a chance.”

I nodded at him. “I understand, father.”

YuanKong smiled when I called him that.

“Let me show you to a cultivation room. Carefully study this technique before you begin cultivating it. The first step will be to create a qi filter. You need to do this as perfectly as possible so that you do not absorb any impurities. You must not allow your foundations to become corrupted.”

I hesitated. I felt that I should just agree to not give the game away, but I felt the urge to learn more about the way the Su Clan treated its elites.

“You aren’t going to teach me? How can I learn to cultivate without guidance?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, son. Your father is incompetent. I can barely understand that scroll myself. You will need to do your best to learn on your own.”

I gripped the man’s shoulder in a show of support. “I understand father, your son will not fail you in this.”

YuanKong led me to the back right corner of the house and showed me a small, windowless room that contained nothing but a mundane cultivation mat. Across from it, there was a rather nice bedroom which, on the bright side, had a rather comfortable-looking bedroll.

“Take your time. When you are tired, sleep. When you are hungry, a servant will bring you food.” He gestured to a door that led outside. “As one of the clan’s new elites, there will be a competition at the end of the month where you may be challenged for your position. Once you have a grasp on the basics of cultivation, I will help you train so that you will be prepared for this.”

I bowed my head. “Of course, father. I understand.”

With that, YuanKong departed and left me alone to my own devices.

I wanted to slap the man. Did anyone really think I would believe this nonsense? What were they trying to pull?

Still, I would just let it all play out. Being the Patriarch’s grandson should grant me a bit more freedom, and hopefully, it would allow me to wrest control of the Su Clan even sooner than I had hoped.

Chapter 287 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

The cultivation technique that YuanKong had given me was, as he had said, Mid-Profound. However, when compared to even just the other Mid-Profound techniques in my mental library, it seemed rather lackluster.

It was a basic technique for cultivating metal qi that was supposed to increase the ‘sharpness’ of one’s energy. This might be a decent choice for a soldier since it would improve the lethality of their techniques, and the Metal Peak Trial in the Nine Rivers Sect did involve a lot of cutting, but even then, I would much rather just use a technique that improved my qi’s overall power.

After flipping through the technique a few times, I set it aside.

The only reason to use it would be to demonstrate my obedience, but I doubted that anyone would even notice such a display. How many people in the Su Clan would know how this cultivation technique was supposed to affect a person’s qi flows? How many would be capable of even detecting such things?

So, instead of worrying about using my cultivation base as a demonstration for people who wouldn’t be able to appreciate it, I turned my attention to my mental library and looked for a technique that was actually worth a damn.

What did I need in this life? An essence cultivation technique might be nice, but if my dreams of empire worked out, we would likely end up being attacked by countless forces from across the continent.

I needed strength.

The triple element technique I had tried had been nice. Not only did they give me access to more elements, but I was also able to combine these elements to increase my overall power. This gave me certain advantages that I didn’t want to abandon, but I also wanted to try something different.

The essence techniques were Earth-Rank because they allowed a person to cultivate essence. The three-element techniques were Earth-Rank because they involved three elements. These were simple enough concepts to grasp. However, I had to believe that to whatever ‘Dao’ was in charge of grading techniques, all Peak Earth-Rank techniques were roughly equal. Some might be ‘more powerful’ than others, but whatever they lacked in raw power had to be made up for in other areas.

So then, what advantages could a Peak-Earth single-element technique have that would put it on the same level as the triple-element techniques I had tried? I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to find out.

As I came to this decision, I wondered if cultivating a pure metal technique might even give me additional insights into what ‘metal’ was. From early on, it was clear to me that ideas like ‘metal,’ ‘wood,’ ‘water,’ and ‘earth’ were more complex than what basic chemistry might suggest, but even after a millennium on this world, certain things about the elemental system it contained still didn’t make sense.

In the past, I hadn’t cared too much about diving into the specifics of exactly what elements were or why certain things were classified as they were, but now, things had changed. By better understanding these distinctions, I could better understand how to grow and improve my inner world.

Making my decision, I refocused on my library and sorted through the various techniques available to me.

For the next few days, I didn’t worry about cultivating. At the end of the month, the clan’s ‘elites’ would only be Martial Disciple 2, so if I rushed my cultivation too early, I would stand out more than I wanted to.

Instead, I began carefully leafing through each of the single-element metal qi techniques in my library, even the Low-Yellow ones. I wanted to understand as much about ‘metal’ as possible.

Not long into this process, I stopped focusing on metal and started pulling out earth and fire cultivation techniques as well. What were the differences between them and the metal techniques? Besides just the filters, what sets the techniques for different elements apart?

After reviewing dozens of Low-, Mid-, High-, and even Peak-Yellow techniques, the answer I came up with was simple. Nothing. There were no substantial differences between the Yellow-Ranked techniques of the different elements.

However, when I started looking into the Low-Profound techniques, things changed. I started seeing effects like increased ‘sharpness’ of qi in metal techniques and increased ‘temperature’ of qi in fire techniques. With Low-Profound techniques, the difference was subtle, but it clearly existed.

My study of Yellow and Low-Profound techniques lasted an entire week, but at that point, I ended my seclusion and dressed in the fancy clothing of a young master that one of the maids had left out for me.

There was something I needed to take care of.

With my newfound status as the grandson of the Su Clan’s Patriarch, none of the guards tried to stop me as I departed YuanKong’s courtyard and made my way to the residential area of the normal disciples.

When I entered, I saw that everyone had already gathered around the training field, and the instructor was giving them his initial lecture.

As I walked over, the bastard gave me a menacing glare, but he didn’t stop his speech.

Soon enough, it was time for everyone’s first lesson. The instructor pointed to a scrawny young man, and when the boy didn’t step forward fast enough, the instructor used his qi to force the boy into the middle of the field.

As usual, this ended with the young man lying broken on the ground.

At this point, I stepped forward.

The instructor growled at me. “What do you think you’re doing?”

I smiled at him. “This young man showed a bit of promise. I’m taking him to be my servant. That isn’t a problem… is it?”

I laced these last two words with menace, but as I was only a mundane mortal, they lacked any force behind them.

The instructor’s face contorted in rage, but he gave me a false smile and bowed his head. “Of course not, young master.”

As I started walking forward, I realized I had made one slight miscalculation. Without a cultivation base, and with the weakened body I had at the start of each life, how was I going to lift the boy?

Halfway there, I reached into my storage space and pulled out both a Nutrition Pill and a Rank 1 Strengthening Pill. To hide this from the instructor, I made both pills appear directly in my mouth.

When I did this, the energies that poured into my body made me want to scream in agony, but I had experienced enough pain in my lives that I was able to maintain a stone-faced expression.

Upon reaching the boy, I had yet to fully absorb the medicinal effects of the pills, but I had absorbed enough.

I reached down, grabbed his robe, and hoisted him over my shoulder.

However, I didn’t leave immediately. Instead, I placed the boy to the side of the training field, popped a weakened Healing Pill into his mouth so he wouldn’t die immediately, and leaned against one of the houses as I watched the training session.

Enraged by my behavior, halfway through the lesson, the instructor made his move on another one of the Disciples.

When the young girl was lying broken on the ground, before he could finish her off, I stepped forward.

“I could also use a new maid.”

The instructor’s nostrils flared, but he held his tongue.

When the lesson was finally over, I grabbed my two new charges and returned to YuanKong’s courtyard.

As soon as I arrived, I gave them both full-powered Healing Pills and sent them into my inner world. While I was willing to save their lives, I had little interest in spending the time needed to teach them personally.

Another week quickly passed, and I was slightly surprised that no one had commented on the two missing Disciples. The elders had to know that I had taken two people away, and they had to know that they were no longer in this house. So… what were they thinking? In any case, I wasn’t too concerned. I would do what I needed to do, and as long as the elders left me alone, I wouldn’t cause them any trouble–not immediately, at least.

By the end of this second week, I had only been able to complete my study of techniques up to the level of Mid-Profound, but I decided to go ahead and begin cultivating since if I didn’t, the Su Clan’s elders might start wondering if I lacked the talent to do so.

The technique I chose was called the Writ of Honed Metal. As I hadn’t yet reached the point of studying Peak-Earth techniques, this choice was somewhat random. I just picked one that sounded good with the plan of swapping it out for a different technique later.

As I began cultivating it, though, I noticed something interesting. The previous Peak-Earth techniques I had practiced used a total of 361 acupoints. This one only used 243. Why?

I made a note of this discrepancy in my journal for when I continued my study of more advanced techniques.

After quickly breaking through, I went and found YuanKong’s butler.

As I approached, he cupped his hands to me in a martial salute and bowed his head. “Master Fang, how may I assist you today?”

“I have advanced to Martial Disciple 2. Please inform my father that I am ready to begin my martial training.”

The next day, I was taken to a training field where YuanKong was already supervising the training of another young man.

A quick check showed that the boy was a Martial Disciple 2 with a rather ragged cultivation base. He was standing in front of a wooden post and repeatedly striking it with his fists.

YuanKong was smiling and nodded. “Good. But you need to concentrate your qi more. Do not worry about your speed or defense right now. Power. Focus your mind on making each punch as powerful as possible.”

I watched as the boy tried to follow YuanKong’s instructions, but the results were… disappointing. Given enough time, he might be able to achieve some level of proficiency, but bulling ahead like this would take forever.

While the Su Clan didn’t have jade slips to teach people like I did, they could at least mimic the Yellow Orchid Academy. There, it wasn’t power that people focused on first, it was defense. After taking an endless series of pummelings, cultivators would begin instinctively channeling their qi to protect themselves. Once this was accomplished, figuring out how to use it for speed and power would come naturally.

After about 15 minutes of this exercise, the boy stepped away from the wooden post. He was sweating heavily, and his breathing was labored, but when he saw me, he still had enough energy to give me a fierce glare.

“Master, since your other disciple has finally arrived, after weeks of hiding away, is it not time for us to begin sparring?”

YuanKong pursed his lips and turned to look at me.

He was supposed to be my ‘father,’ so he should have been enraged that anyone would dare to disrespect me like this, but looking at him, I could see that he had yet to fully commit to this idea.

YuanKong nodded.

“Yes, that might be for the best.” He looked at me. “Fang, before we begin, you need to understand the rules of sparring matches. While you are my dearest son, I must not give special treatment. As your elder, when the two of you fight, I must not interfere. Once you feel that you cannot go any further, announce your defeat, and that will end the match.”

I cupped my fists to the man. “Of course, father.”

The boy and I moved to a dirt fighting pit where I saluted and bowed to him. He just snorted at me and charged forward.

One step away from me, he pulled back his fist and swung it at me with all the force he could muster.

Without even trying, I slapped aside his punch. Then, I kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling to the ground. After being enhanced by a Rank 1 Strengthening Pill, a Disciple who couldn’t even control his qi was no threat at all.

The boy gritted his teeth and glared at me. Then, he looked at YuanKong.

“Master, my blessing is focused on swordsmanship. I request permission to use my sword.”

YuanKong narrowed his eyes and nodded. “Very well. A wooden one. Fang, you may choose a weapon as well.”

Smiling, I headed over to the rack where 18 different wooden weapons were waiting for us. Before I could arrive, the boy snatched the only sword and gave me a contemptuous smirk.

In return, I picked up the crescent moon spade.

YuanKong cleared his throat. “Fang, that isn’t a proper weapon. Choose another one.”

I bowed my head to him. “Father, my blessing for governance… Governing as a city lord involves fighting, so my blessing includes such information. However, the only weapon it has taught me to use is the crescent moon spade.”

Without waiting for a reply, I returned to the training field.

This time, my opponent charged at me instantly. As he approached, the blade of his wooden sword was covered in a soft blue glow.

I didn’t know what this glow might portend, but I knew I needed to avoid it.

As the boy swung at me, I did a quick side-step and slapped the back of his hand with the shovel end of my staff. Then, I raised the crescent moon and pressed it against his neck.

I smiled at him. “Thank you for letting me win.”

YuanKong cleared his throat and gave the boy the most pompous glare I had ever seen. “JieRong, you must learn to be more respectful. Fang is both my son and the grandson of the Patriarch. He is not someone you can challenge so easily.”

Then, he looked at me with a saccharine-sweet smile. “Young Fang, I am overjoyed to see how well you are developing.”

Chapter 288 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

Most of my time over the next couple of weeks was spent studying cultivation techniques, but I spent a few hours each day observing the situation in my inner world.

At several points, I considered removing the seed of the Solid Mountain Fire from my soul and replacing it with something else. As a Martial Disciple, this would have been dangerous, but as long as I first drained the seed of energy, it might have been possible.

I needed to use the Expanding Realms Fire to start growing the world again, but removing the Solid Mountain Fire would mean removing the world’s primary source of qi. Then, as the world grew, and as people cultivated and locked qi away in their bodies, the world’s qi density would gradually decline, eventually making it impossible to cultivate in the world once again. Still, growing the world was more important than maintaining its qi density.

With these thoughts in mind, I resolved to swap out the fire seed. However, that was when a new problem became apparent.

While all of the earth cultivators were able to pull in energy and store it in their bodies, Masters were unable to form meridians, and Grandmasters were unable to compress their qi. The only people who were able to advance were Disciples.

I only knew of one possible explanation for this. The world’s earth Laws weren’t complete enough.

After considering this situation, I decided to leave the Solid Mountain Fire in place so that my world could continue to absorb its Laws. To advance to Rank 2, the world would need to absorb a second set of Laws, and the Solid Mountain Fire was a pure earth seed, so there wasn’t any risk of an unexpected advancement. Also, by concentrating the energies and Laws that I was pouring into the world, I could more easily study their effects.

By the end of my first month in the clan, I had collected three more random Disciples in my soul space. Their combat instructor was far from happy with me, but my display of martial prowess had stabilized my position, so there wasn’t much that he could do to me.

As I was sitting in my cultivation room, reviewing a variety of both single- and dual-element Profound-Rank techniques, a series of three soft knocks broke me out of my concentration.

“Enter.”

The door opened to show a young woman who was wearing the brown robes of a servant.

“Yes?”

She bowed to me. “Young Master, it is time for competition between the elite disciples. Please, follow me.”

Her voice trembled as she spoke, and it was clear that she was afraid. Was it fear that I would refuse, or was it fear of what other ‘young masters’ might do to her?

Keeping my thoughts to myself, I simply stood and waved her back out the door.

“Lead the way.”

This straightforward response made her widen her eyes, and I felt a surge of panic in her, but she turned and led me out of the house.

As the young woman guided me through the maze of the complex’s towering red walls, I looked around at my surroundings and was somewhat confused. The only people I saw were servants. Where were the other elites? Shouldn’t they be headed to the competition as well?

As we walked, my guide started trembling in fear, but I wasn’t sure why. Was she leading me into a trap? That didn’t seem likely. Everyone was currently treating me as the Patriarch’s true grandson. Some of the other clan’s scions might not be happy about this, but would they be willing to make a move against me so openly?

When we entered the courtyard where the competition was to be held, the arena, balcony, and platform with its ten chairs for the elites were all in place. Everything was ready, but the only person present was a familiar old man who was using a bamboo broom to push around a pile of dirt.

I turned to my guide with a raised eyebrow.

She blushed and bowed deeply. “The… The competition won’t start until noon. We were sent out early to retrieve everyone. Eunuch Pang thought it would take at least an hour before anyone would be willing to leave with us, and he wanted to ensure that you arrived on time.”

After saying this, she didn’t rise from her bow. She stayed bent over with her head facing downward as a few teardrops leaked out and dropped to the ground. Standing there, with neck extended, she looked like she was awaiting execution.

Was this place really so hard on the servants? My focus had always only ever been on the young cultivators, and I had never seen the servants as anything more than spies for the elders. But… if the Su Clan didn’t have any compunctions about killing their own children, then how would they treat mortal servants who weren’t even related to them?

However, for the moment, the best I could do was to pretend not to notice. Anything else would only cause more trouble for the girl.

“I see. Thank him for me.”

If this Eunuch Pang had a good read on the typical ‘elite disciple,’ then sending the servants to bring us here early might have been the right call, and I wouldn’t fault a man for doing his job the best way he knew how. I just couldn’t help but feel that this girl had been put in an untenable position. No matter what she did, bringing me early or late, she risked punishment.

I turned to the platform. “Where am I supposed to sit?”

“Yes— Yes, of course. Right this way.”

The girl let out a soft, whimpering sigh, and slowly straightened. Then, she guided me to the chair reserved for the second-ranked elite.

After I took my seat, she gave me a deep bow. “Young Master, once the competition is over, I will return to guide you back.”

I waved her off. “No need. I can find my own way home.”

“But—”

I shook my head. “If you are required to serve as my guide, if leaving me to return on my own will cause trouble for you, then I will accept your assistance. If not, you may take your leave.”

“Yes, Young Master. I wish you well in the competition.”

With another bow, she departed.

I let out a deep breath. That was another thing. I wasn’t a fan of all the bowing. I had acted similarly in the past, and I didn’t mind giving someone a few bows if it helped smooth over a tense situation, but having a servant repeatedly bowing to me like this just made me uncomfortable.

Once I took control of things, I would need to look at implementing a few changes.

However, that was for later. Putting these matters out of my mind, I looked around the arena once more.

There was nothing much to see. It held the same combat stage, the same platform, and the same balcony as always, and a quick check with energy vision showed nothing of interest—except for the sweeper, of course.

For a clan that was using a Martial Master 1 with a horrible foundation to teach its Disciples martial arts, and for a clan that could only provide a Martial Grandmaster 7 to oversee this entire training complex, it was a bit strange to see a Peak Grandmaster sweeping the floors. Worse, he wasn’t even doing a good job of it. He would just wave his broom around a couple of times, glance at me out of the corner of his eye, and then take a step forward and repeat.

As I sat in my chair and waited for the competition to begin, I thought through how I should deal with this old man who was doing such a terrible job at pretending to be a sweeper. What was the right way to handle this?

After a few minutes, I finally got fed up.

I stood from my seat, let out a long, exasperated sigh, and walked over to where the old man was pretending to be busy at work.

As I approached, he planted his broom in front of him and rested a good portion of his weight on it. I couldn’t help but wince at the sight.

The moment I reached him, I held out a hand.

“Give me the broom.”

He only furrowed his brow at me in confusion, so I just reached out and took it from him.

Then, I moved to the edge of the arena’s courtyard and started sweeping.

“This is an enclosed space. You can’t just brush dirt to the side. You need to gather it together so that you can pick it up and take it elsewhere.”

The courtyard was indeed rather dirty, and it made me wonder if this elder had kicked out the regular cleaning crew so he could have his fun.

“As you sweep, don’t swing your arms about so much. Use the motion of your entire body to move the broom. Then, overlap the strokes so that nothing is left behind.” I glanced at the elder out of the corner of my eye. “And do not sweep dirt directly back onto an area you just cleaned.”

I continued sweeping for another minute or two and gathered up a decently large pile of dirt and debris.

Then, I turned back to the elder.

“You didn’t even bring a dustpan. What were you planning to do with the dirt once it was collected?”

He seemed to want to speak, but I didn’t let him.

I tapped into my earth affinity and infused the pile of dirt with my qi to form it into a solid brick. This was much harder when using metal qi instead of earth qi, but bonding a few specks of dirt together well enough that it could be disposed of wasn’t a problem.

Once I was finished, I picked up the brick and handed both it and the broom back to the elder.

He accepted them wordlessly.

“It’s a bit more work if you have to use your qi like that, but you should have more than enough to get the job done, and I don’t see any way for you to get this place clean before noon any other way.”

After saying this, I turned and began walking away, but after taking only a couple of steps, I stopped and let out a sigh.

“You know, I really wasn’t expecting to see you here so soon, Grand Elder TaiZu.”

I felt the Grand Elder’s qi flare up behind me, so I turned around to look at him.

He was glaring at me. “You knew who I was, yet you still spoke to me in such a way?”

I smirked. “Yes, Grand Elder. Yes, I did.”

I reached into my inner world and pulled out a memory orb. I looked down at it for several seconds. Then, I looked up and stared directly into TaiZu’s eyes.

“Elder TaiZu, we both know that I am no kin of YuanKong, but I’m sure you have investigated me. I may be an orphan from a branch family, but I am still a full-blooded member of the Su Clan, am I not?”

The elder narrowed his eyes at me. “From what we have been able to discover, yes. However, the fact that you were able to recognize me suggests that we might have made certain…. errors.”

I snorted. “Fine, but answer me one question. How would you feel if you found out that a distant member of a branch family decided to take over the Su Clan? Be honest.”

The elder let out a slight growl and released a strand of qi in my direction. The power it contained wouldn’t be enough to cripple me, but if I allowed it to strike me, I certainly wouldn’t be in any condition to compete against the Su Clan’s elites later.

With a mental tug, I pulled on my soul and erected a barrier.

When the attack hit this barrier, it rebounded with twice the force and flew right back at the elder.

Seeing this, TaiZu’s eyes widened in shock, and he quickly mustered his control to disperse his qi.

If his original strike had been more powerful, dispersing it wouldn’t have been possible, but since it had only been strong enough to teach a Martial Disciple a lesson in respect, the elder was able to control it without an issue.

I smiled at him. “Grand Elder, please, be civil. Just answer my question. If a powerful enough member of a branch family appeared, a full-blood member of the clan, would you have any strong objections to him becoming the clan’s new Patriarch?”

TaiZu gritted his teeth. “I will always do what is best for the clan.”

I rubbed my chin and nodded in thought. Then, I tossed him his memory orb. “Inject your qi into that.”

Instinctively, TaiZu reached out and caught the orb, dropping both the broom and the dirt brick in the process.

Holding the orb in his left hand, he stared at it, but he didn’t immediately follow my instructions. Instead, I saw his right hand twitch, suggesting that he wanted to smash the orb to bits just to spite me.

Memory orbs might be Rank 6 artifacts, but they were as fragile as any mundane jade. If he wanted to destroy it, he would be able to do so easily. If that happened, then so be it.

He looked up at me. “Why?”

“You will know once it is done.”

I hadn’t given him any reason to trust me, and no sane person would simply comply with my orders. However, for whatever reason, after glaring at me for a bit, the elder pulled on his qi and injected it into the orb.

Once the memory transfer was complete, TaiZu lifted his head and stared off into space.

I walked forward and plucked the memory orb from his unresisting hands. Then, I turned and walked back to my seat where I closed my eyes to meditate as I waited for the competition to begin.

TaiZu didn’t say anything to me.

After staring at the sky for several minutes, he looked down and stared at his broom and the dirt brick. Then, he silently walked away, leaving them behind.

Chapter 289 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

With TaiZu’s departure, I was left alone in the arena’s courtyard, so I entered a state of meditation and began flipping through a few cultivation techniques to pass the time.

After what seemed like only moments, I heard the sound of footsteps in the distance, so I returned my mind to the outside world.

To my left, a young man was led into the courtyard. When he saw me sitting alone on the platform, he froze, and a bit of anger crept onto his face. Was this just his normal reaction to seeing another one of the elites, or did he recognize me?

In the few brief moments that he stood there and stared at me, I took the opportunity to appraise his cultivation base. He was a Martial Disciple 2, and his qi purity was decent. The permanent filter that had been locked into the open acupoint on his upper right arm was well-made, so most of his impurities should have come from when he was first learning to cultivate. If he continued on like this, he wouldn’t have any trouble advancing to Martial Master in the future.

After appraising his cultivation technique, I took a moment to consider his appearance. He was wearing a bright blue robe with white embroidery. It was nice, but it was far from luxurious. It was barely comparable to the robes that I had been provided with when I was first acknowledged as YuanKong’s son, and it was a far cry from the ostentatious red and gold garments that I had been given after showing off my martial prowess. They were the robes of an elite, but they were not the robes of a noble.

As I was considering this, the young man walked onto the platform and sat down in the seat farthest to my left, the position of the tenth-ranked elite.

I nodded to him and then returned to looking straight ahead. He was an earth cultivator and earth qi was swirling around him. So, even without looking at him, it was easy for me to track his movements.

After fighting an internal battle, the young man turned to me, gave me a slight bow of his head to break the silence between us.

“Greetings. I am Su Bo.”

I turned to him and gave him a slight smile, but I didn’t bow my head.

“I am Su Fang.”

Then, I returned to facing straight ahead.

My dismissive attitude caused a range of emotions in the young man. He wanted to be mad at me for treating him so dismissively, but he was also afraid and nervous. Whether these latter emotions came from me being seated in the position of the second-ranked elite disciple or from my position as the patriarch's grandson, I couldn’t tell.

However, the conflict within the boy lasted only a moment.

He clenched his fists and looked at me with a polite smile. A glint of icy resolve was hidden deep within his eyes.

“Su Fang… Young Master Fang, it is… nice to meet you.” He glanced around the courtyard. “You should know that Young Master ShouDu is planning to target you. You are the only Disciple who hasn’t attended one of his training sessions, so he wants to use this competition as an excuse to put you in your place.”

I turned and nodded at the boy. “Thank you. I appreciate you telling me.”

Then, I turned away and allowed Su Bo to fade from my focus. I didn’t believe that he had told me this information out of kindness. He likely hadn’t had any success in cozying up to ShouDu, so he was now trying to hug my leg instead. I wasn’t enamored by the situation, but he seemed like a decent enough young man. Maybe he could be taught.

The statement about ShouDu’s training sessions was interesting. I had only been given martial arts training from YuanKong, and the only other person present during them had been YuanKong’s disciple. Why hadn’t I been told about ShouDu’s training? Were the elders hiding it from me to keep me isolated? Maybe, but that didn’t seem entirely correct.

If ShouDu had organized the training himself, the elders shouldn’t have been involved. It was likely YuanKong’s disciple who had been responsible to tell me about it, and I could just imagine him ‘forgetting’ to inform me and then going back to ShouDu and talking about how much I had insulted him. Of course, another possibility was that this was all arranged by ShouDu in the first place and that he was trying to use me as a stepping stone.

Either way, the situation was a bit interesting, but it wasn’t important. I didn’t need to play these kids' games.

My thoughts were once again interrupted by a pair of footsteps as a servant guided another young man into the arena. This time, it was a familiar face, YuanKong’s disciple. The evil snarl he gave me as he walked to his seat suggested that my idea of him attempting to sabotage my position in the clan might not be too far-fetched.

Once he was seated in the position of the ninth-ranked disciple, others began to slowly trickle in, and the seats from eight to three quickly filled. Each new person gave me looks ranging from interest to disdain, but none of them spoke to me, and I didn’t speak to any of them.

When Su ShouDu entered, he greeted each of the elites.

After greeting the third-ranked disciple with a brotherly hug, ShouDu skipped right over me and took his seat with a devilish grin on his face. I wanted to laugh at his antics, but this wasn’t the place.

The elites who knew each other chatted a bit, but as soon as the elders arrived, they closed their mouths and did their best to act like proper young men and women.

The clan’s Eighth Elder took his place on the arena’s stage, and the other five Grandmasters took up positions on the balcony. I noticed each of them glance at me, but I was too far away to hear their muttered conversations, and all I could sense of their emotions from this distance was a slightly elevated level of anticipation.

Only a few minutes after everyone was in place, the normal Disciples arrived.

The Eighth Elder gave his customary speech and asked if anyone wanted to issue a challenge. When no one did, he turned to their combat instructor who nominated someone directly.

“Su An. Step forward.”

As a skinny, short young woman with dirty hair and ragged clothing walked onto the stage, I couldn’t help but feel bad for her.

The elder looked down at her and spoke with gravity. “Who do you wish to challenge?”

The girl looked like she wanted to run, but she tentatively pointed a finger at the lowest-ranked female elite.

The female elite looked kind and unassuming, but I had seen a vicious look in her eyes when she first arrived.

She nodded politely to the elder and stepped on stage.

The fight was over faster than I had thought possible.

The elite simply stepped forward and backhanded the girl in the sternum, breaking all her ribs and sending her to the ground in a heap.

She wasn’t dead, though.

The elite looked up at the Grandmasters on the balcony, and one of the men standing next to YuanFei nodded, signaling the girl’s death.

As the elite began walking over, the girl on the ground tried to scramble away, but with her broken bones, she could barely move.

In a panic, her eyes darted around the arena as she searched for some hope of salvation. When she saw me, her eyes widened, and her mouth opened slightly.

She quickly glanced at the elite who was slowly approaching. Then, she looked back at me.

“Young… Young Master Fang.” Her lungs were filling with blood, and her voice was barely audible. “Please… save me.”

I let out a soft sigh. I had attended each of the normal Disciples’ training sessions, and I had ensured that no one died. Clearly, they had taken notice of this.

I cleared my throat loudly and looked at the ‘elite.’ “Can you please end this fight here? I would like to take this girl as my maid.”

The elite just snorted at me and continued her approach.

“Are you certain that you do not wish to give me any face? The battle between the elites comes next, and… it could get messy.”

She turned and laughed at me derisively. “What face do you have, peasant?”

I raised an eyebrow and turned toward my ‘father,’ but he didn’t react.

Finally, the elite reached her victim and slammed a foot into her chest.

As she did so, I released a strand of soul energy to protect the girl’s heart. To all outside appearances, the girl, Su An, was dead, but with my soul power in place, she would be able to survive for a few more hours.

In truth, I hadn’t wanted to do this. I had studied these soul techniques, but I had never put them into practice. I didn’t know how effective they would be, and I couldn’t help but worry about something going wrong. However, if there was any place where it would be safe to practice soul techniques, it would be here in the Wastes.

The elite turned and bowed to the elder in charge. “Apologies, I didn’t expect my opponent to pass away so suddenly. I didn’t expect her to be so weak.”

The elder smiled down at her.

“Understandable, child. The death of a trainee is unfortunate, but it happens.” He placed a hand on her shoulder to impress upon her the importance of his words. “Know this. If it had been your opponent with unstoppable strength, no one would have intervened to stop her. You would be dead, she would take your place among the elites, and none of the Grandmasters or elders here would have raised a single word of protest.”

Then, the elder turned to the platform with the other elites. “The same holds true for all of you. If anyone is defeated in this arena, no one will say a single word. Even if you die, that is your fate. Fists have no eyes.”

I smiled coldly at this little speech, knowing how little truth it held.

The elder turned back to the crowd of normal Disciples. “Does anyone else wish to challenge for a position as an elite?”

The only response he received was a group of Disciples frozen in terror.

“This is disappointing. I had hoped that we would have at least one person capable of climbing above their station this year.” He shook his head in disdain and then turned to the elites. “Does anyone wish to challenge for a higher ranking?”

Before anyone could respond, I stepped onto the stage.

The elder nodded to me. “Young Master Fang, do you wish to issue a challenge?”

I simply walked forward, hoisted the young girl’s ‘corpse’ onto my shoulder, and returned to my seat.

The elder cleared his throat. “I… see. Well then, do we—”

I climbed back onto the stage.

“I wish to issue a challenge.” I pointed to the female elite who had just fought. “I challenge her.”

The elder winced. “Young Master Fang, typically, you would only challenge those ranked above you.”

I didn’t respond. I only stared at the vicious monster that was wearing the skin of a girl.

The elder sighed. “Very well, CuiLiang, please step forward.”

The elite, CuiLiang snarled at me as she took her position.

The elder began another hypocritical speech about how fighting was dangerous, but I ignored him. I was just waiting for a single word.

“Begin!”

I rushed forward, formed my hand into a knife, covered it in metal qi, and stabbed at the girl’s chest.

My body was being bolstered by a combination of qi from my cultivation base and wu from a Strengthening Pill. The ‘elite’ didn’t even have time to react before my hand stabbed straight through her heart.

When she collapsed to the ground, dead, a thunderous shout echoed from the balcony.

“How dare you kill my disciple!?”

I turned to the Eighth Elder, cupped my fists in a martial salute, and gave a short bow.

“Apologies, elder. I did not expect my opponent to be so weak.” I let out a sigh. “Her death is unfortunate, but as you said, fists have no eyes.”

Putting on a somber expression, I returned to my seat.

Up on the balcony, YuanFei and YuanKong were struggling to restrain the girl’s former master.

As I sat down, ShouDu let out a soft chuckle. “You’ve certainly angered Grandmaster NiuLong. Was it worth it? Who was that girl? Your little peasant whore? Really, cousin, you need to have better standards. You’re supposed to be representing the main branch now.”

With one of the elites having died, the competition quickly wrapped up, and I returned to YuanKong’s house with the body of Su An in tow.

As soon as I was safely locked away in my room, I stuffed a few pills in the girl’s mouth. Once I was convinced that she was no longer at risk of dying, I retracted my soul power and sent her into my inner world.

At that exact moment, the unconscious body of a young girl appeared at the feet of ShouLi who was playing with a small demon cat.

ShouLi let out a yelp of surprise and then looked up at the sky. “Ancestor… what are you—”

A sheet of paper appeared in front of her.

Are you familiar with someone named Su ShouDu?

ShouLi stared at this name without speaking. With each moment that passed, rage built up inside her.

Finally, she spoke. Her words were quiet, but they were filled with deadly intent.

“Kill him. Kill him now.”

Chapter 290 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

Su ShouDu. Su ShouLi.

Sharing the ‘Su’ character meant that they were from the same clan.

Sharing the ‘Shou’ character meant that they were from both the same lineage and the same generation. They were either siblings or close cousins.

As I watched ShouLi stare at my question, tears welled up in her eyes, and she spoke a single name.

“Mei.”

I couldn't stop the shiver that ran through my body, but I knew that ShouLi couldn’t be talking about the person from my memories.

Tears fell from ShouLi’s eyes, and she dropped to her knees.

“Ancestor, you said… You said we went back in time. To the year before I was born. Kill him. Now. Please.”

The scene of ShouLi falling to ground attracted the attention of several people in the surrounding area, and Liang rushed over to help her up and carry her away.

I waited a bit longer to see if she wanted to say anything else. Then, I let my connection to my inner world fade.

I didn’t know what might have happened to ShouLi in the past, but I didn’t need to know. I could help her settle this debt.

After my talk with ShouLi, I went to my room in YuanKong’s house, removed all the furniture, and replaced it with a small table and a couple of chairs.

An hour later, when someone knocked on my door, I pulled out a pot of qi-infused tea and placed it in the center of the table. Then, I opened the door and gestured for Elder TaiZu to enter.

He bowed deeply to me. “Prince— Lord— What… How may I address you?”

I smiled and pointed at the chair on the right. “We will discuss that later. Please, sit.”

Saying this, I took my seat, poured us both a cup of tea, and then took a long sip.

Elder TaiZu was shaking—not in anger, in fear.

“Grand Elder TaiZu, what can you tell me about the relationship between ShouLi and Su ShouDu?”

At first, he just furrowed his brow in confusion, bewildered by the seemingly random topic of conversation. Then, his eyes widened in horror, and he nearly dropped his teacup.

“Prince— Lord— That…”

I motioned for him to calm down.

“Be at ease. I will not punish you. I only want to know what happened.” I took a sip of tea. “Who is Mei?”

TaiZu winced.

“Mei… ShouMei…” TaiZu took a deep, unsteady breath. “MeiLi… Beautiful… Su ShouMei, Su ShouLi. They were… twins. They… Prince… I am sorry.”

I clenched my teeth. “Elder TaiZu, just tell me what happened.”

“Yes… Yes… Of course. YuanFeng has two sons, WeiJi and WeiXian. ShouMei and ShouLi were the daughters of WeiXian. ShouMei was… a beautiful girl, but when she was 14, her cousin, ShouJiang, the son of WeiJi… attacked her. In response, ShouMei’s father, WeiXian, crippled him.”

I nodded. Such things were unfortunately all too common in this world. Assaulting one’s cousin went a bit beyond the pale, but such things happened, even in the more civilized areas.

TaiZu closed his eyes, unwilling to keep speaking, but he forced himself to continue.

“Su ShouDu was ShouJiang’s elder brother. After his training—at the end of this training—he was sent to the Red Sun Empire, but unlike some, he maintained close ties back home. So, when he heard that his brother had been crippled, he returned and killed both WeiXian and ShouMei. ShouLi and her mother were left unharmed, but with WeiXian dead, their status in the clan… suffered.”

I took a sip of tea. “And the Su Clan did nothing about this?”

TaiZu looked down. “ShouDu was considered a prodigy in the Red Sun Kingdom. He became friends with one of its princes and helped strengthen the ties between YuanFeng, the kingdom, and the Rising Sun Empire. As for WeiXian, he had only produced two daughters. He was… expendable.”

I nodded. “I understand. Thank you for explaining.”

TaiZu sat there silently, but when I said nothing more for several minutes, he couldn’t take it.

“Prince— Lord— what—”

I waved a hand to silence him. “Relax your mind, release your hold on your qi.”

I had tried to force TaiZu into my inner world without his knowledge, but it hadn’t worked, not even when I tapped into my space affinity. I had to assume this was because the difference in our cultivation levels was too great.

However, the moment TaiZu relaxed, he disappeared from the world around me and appeared directly in front of ShouLi.

ShouLi and TaiZu had a good long talk. I was interested in hearing what they might say to one another, but I gave them some privacy and refrained from listening in. Eventually, ShouLi led him outside and showed him around my inner world.

While it was still early days, the combined efforts of dozens of Ruler Tier earth cultivators had already transformed the place.

GuiMing and his team had carved nearly a hundred rooms into the quartzite wall that encircled the entire world. Initially, they had wanted to create suites that extended all the way through the wall so that residents would have a view out of both sides. However, when they discovered that the only thing on the far side of the wall was a featureless gray barrier, they gave up on this plan and instead focused on building apartments that had a good view of the world’s ‘inner courtyard.’

When carving out these rooms, the earth cultivators had piled up the excavated stones in designated dumping zones, creating a few small hills in the process. In the future, some of these stones could be used to construct additional buildings, but GuiAi was already talking about using them to give the world a more complex, interesting terrain.

Seeing so many powerful cultivators performing the monotonous task of hauling stones from one place to another left TaiZu in a state of shock. When he realized that these ‘powerful cultivators’ were not outsiders, when he realized that they were nearly all former members of the Su Clan that the elders had deemed worthless, he was filled with a mix of fear and shame.

When his tour was finally done, I pulled TaiZu out of my inner world and placed the oath stone in front of him.

“Now, you must swear an Oath.”

Shaken, TaiZu put his hand on the stone without a word of complaint and read the script that I had prepared for him.

“I, Su TaiZu, swear upon the Heavenly Dao that I will never reveal anything that Su Fang or his Revered Elders tell me is a core clan secret.”

I nodded. “Right now, the only core secrets are the existence of the world you just visited and the fact that I have traveled through time. Those are the only secrets that I will force you to keep. However, on Mount Jiang, you saw the consequences of allowing certain information to fall into the hands of the wrong people.”

TaiZu cupped his fists and bowed to me. “Yes, Ancestor.”

I smiled. “Good.”

When I didn’t say anything else, TaiZu looked around uncomfortably. “An… Ancestor, what now? What are your plans?”

“Now? I am nothing but a mere low-level Disciple in the Su Clan. What plans could I possibly have?”

“I… see.” TaiZu shifted in his chair. “Then…”

I waved away. “Go.”

TaiZu slowly stood and headed for the door, but as he reached to open it, I spoke.

“By the way, I would appreciate it if you could end the practice of the Disciples killing each other. Saving them is becoming tedious.”

He turned and bowed to me. “Ye… Yes, Ancestor.”

As I had hoped, TaiZu’s visit went unnoticed, and my time in the Su Clan’s training camp continued uninterrupted. While I might have been able to use him to quickly stake my claim to the position of Patriarch, I wasn’t ready for that yet. I didn’t want to rush to Peak Grandmaster until I had a better understanding of the cultivation techniques available to me.

So, with TaiZu having been dealt with, I returned to my original routine.

Three days later, Su Bo, the young man who had spoken to me before the start of the martial arts competition, arrived at YuanKong’s courtyard with a young woman in tow.

When I entered the sitting room to greet them, they saluted and bowed to me.

I nodded in response. “How may I help you today?”

The young woman looked at Su Bo who cleared his throat nervously. “Young Master Fang, we… We would like to join you.”

“Oh?”

Several muscles on Su Bo’s face twitched as he thought through what he wanted to say.

“This… This is XiaoFan. After the competition, she… replaced CuiLiang.” He paused to give me a chance to respond, but when I said nothing, he pressed on. “Both of us come from poor families, and neither of us has a place with Young Master ShouDu. So, we hope… We hope that you will accept us.”

I looked at the young woman, XiaoFan. “Is this true?”

She bowed. “Yes, Young Master.”

I stroked my chin in thought. Bo’s words sounded honest enough, but there was something a bit off about XiaoFan. Still, there wouldn’t be much harm in taking in a couple of more strays.

“Very well, you may join me for a few training sessions. If you show promise, then I will accept you.”

Over the next few weeks, I mostly stayed secluded away and continued my studies, but every few days, I would go out and spend a couple of hours training Bo and XiaoFan in both cultivation and martial arts.

The end of the second month came and went, and the competition was rather tame. No one was seriously injured, and no one seemed to even consider challenging me to a fight.

During the third month, I pushed ahead of the other Disciples and ascended all the way to Martial Disciple 5. I had yet to fully comprehend the differences between even Low-Earth techniques, so I was a bit unsatisfied with these breakthroughs, but I felt that advancing was necessary to maintain my position in the clan. I could go back and reset my cultivation base later to shore up any weaknesses.

All this time, I continued training Bo and XiaoFan, and their effort was showing results. I had yet to see ShouDu fight, so I didn’t know how strong he might be, but I was confident that both of my students could at least defeat any of the other elites.

One day before the final competition that would mark the end of the training camp, I had a final meeting with my students.

“Bo, XiaoFan, you both have shown a good deal of dedication over these past two months, so I am willing to accept you as my subordinates.”

They both bowed immediately. “Thank you, Young Master.”

I smiled. “Your training has helped you become strong, but training has its limits. Without a solid foundation, you will find it difficult to continue growing, and without a strong affinity, you will find it difficult to build a strong foundation. So, I will help you improve your affinities.”

They both widened their eyes in shock, and XiaoFan blurted out a quick “What!?”

I chuckled and then placed the oath stone on the table between us.

“It is true, but before I show you what to do, I will need you both to promise that you won’t tell anyone about this.”

They both nodded eagerly. “Of course, Young Master.”

I gestured to the oath stone. “Consider this a simple ritual. It will make your promise… official. Just place your hand on the stone and swear that you will not tell anyone that I was the one who raised your affinities and that you won’t reveal how I did it.”

Bo gave me a quick salute and slammed his hand onto the oath stone. “I swear not to tell anyone about who raised my affinity or how.”

I let out a light laugh. “That will work.”

XiaoFan looked a little nervous, but she quickly followed suit.

Then, I took them to a side room where two Rank 3 Essence Gathering Formations were waiting for them. An earth formation for Bo, and a metal formation for XiaoFan.

I had set up these formations several days earlier, so they had already gathered a large amount of essence, allowing Bo’s affinity to quickly increase by two stages and XiaoFan’s to increase by three.

Once the gathered essence was depleted, I sent them away with an admonition to cultivate diligently and not to tell anyone about what had happened.

After they were gone, I walked outside and found a nice spot to sit and wait.

Countless stars were visible in the night sky, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. Still, somehow, a thick lightning bolt appeared out of nowhere, crashed down only a few hundred meters away from me, and rocked the entire mountain.

I let out a sigh.

Had that been too cruel? Possibly. I didn’t know XiaoFan’s story, and either ShouDu or the elders could have put her in an untenable position. However, I needed to send both Bo and TaiZu a message. I would just have to look at giving her another chance in a future life.

Chapter 291 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

The next day, before the final competition, I was sitting in my cultivation chamber when the door opened without warning.

I looked up at the man standing over me. “Hello, father.”

He frowned at me with feigned sympathy. “Fang, I regret to inform you that one of the Disciples who has been training with you passed away last night.”

My brow wrinkled and I dropped my jaw slightly in a show of concern.

“What? What happened?”

The muscles of YuanKong’s jaw clenched, but he did his best to remain the model of a worried father.

“We are not quite sure. The elders were hoping that you might be able to shed some light on the situation. After all, you were the last to speak with him.”

I shook my head, the perfect picture of a devastated teenager.

“No… What… How did—” Suddenly, my brain processed what YuanKong had said. “Him? You mean…”

He nodded. “Yes, it was Su Bo. His death was so… tragic. We are still investigating the specifics of how it happened, but it appears that he was assassinated by a lightning cultivator.”

I closed my eyes, dropped my head, and took a few ragged breaths.

Did YuanKong buy this? Almost certainly not. TaiZu hadn’t even blinked when I told him to swear an Oath, so I was certain that the Su Clan’s elders were familiar with the concept. They had to know what had caused the boy’s death. If they were investigating anything, it would be how I was able to get him to swear such a powerful Oath without an oath stone. After all, such an item would be hard to hide, and neither of us had left the training compound. Though, if they knew enough, they might be more focused on figuring out how such an Oath had been enforced.

YuanKong pursed his lips. “I see. If you think of anything, please, come and speak with me.”

He turned to leave but stopped after only a single step. “By the way, Fang, son… As you know, after today’s competition, the clan will reward the elites based on their rankings. I know that you might be tempted to challenge ShouDu and try to claim the rewards for first place, but doing so would be extremely dangerous. ShouDu is a powerful warrior, and I can’t bear the thought of him injuring you. So please, promise your father that you will stay safe today, okay?”

I had to struggle not to laugh in his face. With extreme difficulty, I forced my face into a mask of filial piety.

“Of course, father. I will do as you say.”

Was YuanKong worried about my safety? Hardly. He had watched me train. He knew that I wouldn’t have any trouble taking down ShouDu. This was just more of the Su Clan’s inept politics.

Did it matter? No. I had no desire to challenge ShouDu–not today. I needed to take my time with him.

Like normal, my guide brought me to the arena a bit early, but this time, I wasn’t the first to arrive. Two others were already there.

The first was an old man who was sweeping the ground near the courtyard’s entrance. As I passed him, I handed him a note without breaking my stride. Neither of us spoke.

The second was the young woman who was sitting in the seat of the tenth-ranked elite. Her face was paler than usual, and when she saw me, she tried to back away, nearly toppling her chair over in the process. On her lap, she held a tattered old book in a white-knuckled grip.

When I climbed onto the platform near to her, I nodded in polite greeting, but she flinched away. As she did, I noticed several dark bruises hidden beneath the folds of her robes.

“Good morning, XiaoFan.” I quickly reached out and tapped the book she was holding. “What’s this?”

“No… Nothing…”

I bowed my head. “Alright. Good luck in the competition.”

Not wanting to cause the girl more anxiety than necessary, I took my seat without another word. Then, I opened my mental library to see what she had been reading.

When I saw the title of her book, I couldn't help but stare in stunned amazement. It was called “The Heaven-Breaking Sword Sovereign.” After reading a few pages, I found that the book was little more than a poorly written historical fiction. Why was she carrying it around? Why was she gripping it so tightly?

Thankfully, with my perfect copy and touch reading abilities, my mental library could make a perfect copy of any book I touched. These were not ‘ideal’ copies. They were exact replicas. So, when I had copied XiaoFan’s book, the copy that had been created contained all the flaws of the original, allowing me to quickly identify the portion of the book that she had apparently been most interested in.

JianRong placed his hand upon the oath stone and looked up into the Heavens.

“I swear by the blood of my slain children that, within a year, my blade will claim JueBin’s life. If I fail in this mission, may the Heavens strike me down.”

Flipping to later in the book, I found that upon being defeated in battle, JueBin committed suicide. Then, because JueBin had taken his own life, JianRong’s Oath was broken, and he was struck down by Heavenly lightning.

I glanced at XiaoFan out of the corner of my eye. Why had she brought that book to the competition? Was she planning to expose how Bo had died?

I cleared my throat to get her attention. “Do you still wish to become my subordinate?”

XiaoFan froze.

“You didn’t tell them. Even when they beat you, you kept silent.” I turned to face her. “I don’t care what your original intentions were when you joined me. All you need to do is tell me if, right now, you want to become my subordinate.”

XiaoFan stared forward with unfocused eyes. “Will you kill me?”

“No. You can show the elders that book if you wish. It won’t change anything. They already know what happened. However, you should be aware that doing so would be tantamount to accusing the Patriarch’s grandson of murder. While I might not care, others may not be so forgiving.”

A tear appeared in the corner of XiaoFan’s eye. “I… I don’t know what to do.”

I nodded and turned my head to stare straight ahead. “We have time. Think on it.”

An hour later, the competition began.

With the chair for the ninth-ranked elite vacant, I had thought the elders might use some novel method to fill it. Instead, they did their best to act like the empty seat didn’t even exist.

A few of the normal Disciples decided to challenge the elites, and they were swiftly defeated. However, none of them were killed.

Following this, the elder began the challenges between the elites.

The young man in the sixth seat stepped onto the stage and looked at XiaoFan with a menacing glare.

“I challenge her.”

The elder looked at XiaoFan. “Step forward.”

XiaoFan squeezed her eyes closed and then mustered the courage to step onto the stage. However, before the elder could begin the fight, she gave him a deep bow.

“I resign.”

The elder glanced at her and then turned to the balcony where YuanFei gave him a slight shake of his head. Then, he looked at XiaoFan with false compassion.

“I’m sorry, girl. You cannot resign without fighting.” The elder looked between the two contestants. “Begin!”

Having trained XiaoFan, I was well aware that she could have easily defeated her opponent, but she didn’t even move to defend herself. So, after a single hit, she was knocked to the ground.

The fight didn’t end, though. Her opponent mercilessly broke both of her arms and both of her legs in several places. The elder didn’t step in until there was a real risk that she would be beaten to death.

As he walked back to his seat, XiaoFan’s opponent gave me a look of triumph.

I turned my head to ShouDu. “Why is he so eager to die?”

ShouDu took in a sharp breath and looked at me, aghast. “Death? Cousin, are you saying that you wish to kill a member of your own clan?”

If nothing else, ShouDu’s absolute confidence in himself and his position within the clan was impressive.

Laughing slightly, I returned my gaze to the stage in front of us without comment.

When the elder carried XiaoFan back to her seat, he wasn’t exactly gentle, but he wasn't so ruthless as to cause her further injuries.

Afterward, a few of the other elites fought against each other, but none of them challenged either me or ShouDu.

When the competition was over, we all returned to our homes.

I considered going out to look for XiaoFan, but even when she was being crippled, she hadn’t called out for my assistance. She hadn’t tried to frame me for Bo’s death, but she also hadn’t asked to join me, so I would leave her to follow the path she had chosen.

The next morning, all the elites were brought to the main hall of the Second Elder’s home.

Ten mats had been arranged in front of YuanFei and the other Grandmasters, but only eight of them were occupied. Bo was dead, and XiaoFan lay on a stretcher off to the side.

Once everyone was assembled, YuanFei cleared his throat and gave us a martial salute.

“Congratulations on completing your training. With everyone in our clan being as skilled as they are, remaining an elite can be a difficult task, but it is one that all of you have successfully accomplished.”

After giving the children around me a chance to look at each other with smug smiles, YuanFei continued.

“Su ShouDu, as the first-ranked elite, you are awarded 100 gold coins, three High-Quality Meridian Builder Pills, and your choice of any martial technique from the clan’s main Technique Hall.”

“Su Fang, as the second-ranked elite, you are awarded 50 gold coins, one High-Quality Meridian Builder Pill, and your choice of a Peak-Yellow martial technique.”

YuanFei rattled off the rewards that each of the others would receive. Then, the Second Elder took the floor.

“Su ShouDu, you have shown exceptional martial prowess, and you have the blessing of a powerful warrior. As such, you will be sent to the Red Sun Kingdom to fight for the glory of our clan as a member of their army.”

ShouDu cupped his fists and bowed. “Yes, elder.”

The Second Elder looked at me. “Su Fang, you not only have a solid cultivation base, but you are also a powerful warrior. However, your blessing is that of a minister. The Grand Elder has asked for you to be assigned as his subordinate. He will teach you how you can best serve your clan and your Patriarch.”

Following ShouDu’s lead, I cupped my fists and bowed. “Yes, elder.”

Then, the elder turned to the third-ranked elite. “Su YongTian—”

ShouDu cupped his fists. “Elder, I request that YongTian to join me in the Red Sun Kingdom.”

The Second Elder smiled and nodded. “Very well—”

“I also request that you send XiangTu, YueBin, and…” ShouDu looked at me with a malicious grin. “XiaoFan.”

The elder nodded again. “Very—”

From the stretcher where she was lying, XiaoFan let out a soft cough.

“I… I want to join Young Master Fang.” She looked at me. “I want to serve as his subordinate.”

I nodded at her and then looked at the elder. “I will accept her.”

ShouDu cleared his throat. “Elder, XiaoFan needs both training and experience. From her performance, it is clear that her time with Cousin Fang has been wasted. Please, allow me to help her grow to her true potential.”

The Second Elder tapped his chin. “What you say makes sense. Very well, XiaoFan shall accompany Young Master ShouDu.”

I bowed my head in acceptance of this decision.

While I had wanted to spend some time perfecting my cultivation base, I would have to put that off for later. The Second Elder had decided that the Su Clan needed an immediate change of leadership, and I would respect his decision.

Chapter 292 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

The meeting between the elites and the elders was early in the morning, and after it was over, the elites were all provided carriages to take them down to Dragon Gate City. While I noticed a group of Martial Masters shadowing us, likely to both protect us and ensure that no one tried to run off, openly, we were being given a bit of free time to explore the city. I wouldn’t need to report to TaiZu until the next day, so I had a bit of time on my hands to get everything prepared.

During the ride, I sent a quick note to ShouLi.

Prepare three groups of Grandmasters. I need one team to help me take over Dragon Gate City, one team to create a stable position in Rosehill, and one team to start building a new city on Mount Jiang. The leaders of each team should be people who are ready to become Lords.

Also, talk to anyone who is familiar with the Su Clan’s palace complex in Dragon Gate. I need a map of the place.

Finally, if there are any young Disciples who are looking to spend some time in the outside world, I need some people to sign up as members of the Verdant Fields and Twin Mountains Sects. We are past the recruitment window for the Twin Mountains, but we might be able to find a way around that.

Before moving to conquer the entirety of the Wastes, we first needed to form a solid foundation in the Su Clan. However, by inserting a few promising Disciples now, we could begin exerting a bit of influence over the sects.

ShouLi and I talked over my ideas a bit, and once we were done, she headed off to put them into action.

As I thought through our plan, I remembered that I had yet to get Bao and Cao their memory orbs. I had put off my trip to the Twin Mountains Sect because Bao and Cao weren’t in any danger there, and a delay of a few months wouldn’t change anything. Now that I was looking to start my conquest immediately, though, I needed to take care of this.

---------------------------------------------------

I guided the carriage to drop me off in front of the city’s finest inn, and upon entering, I went straight upstairs to the suite where LiTing, LuYao, and YuLong were already waiting for me.

LiTing and YuLong looked the same as always, a diminutive girl with long, scraggly hair and a large hulk of a man.

LuYao, however, had used her illusions and light qi to create a whole new her. Her hair had a faint blue tint to it, and her nails were dark purple. Her formerly cherubic face now had high cheekbones and a sharp chin.

I couldn’t help but stare and wonder what would happen if I tried to touch these illusions. Would my hand pass through them, or would the qi be solid enough to block it?

She twirled around. “What do you think? I’m just trying it out.”

My mouth gaped open. “It’s… different.”

“Hmph.”

As quickly as I could, I tried to change the topic.

“You’ve all made it to Peak Disciple?”

YuLong let out a sigh. “Yes and no. With the memories you gave LiTing and me, we don’t remember much about early cultivation, so we’ve been relying on LuYao to teach us. We’re up to Peak Disciple with Low-Profound techniques, but our foundations are still a bit shaky. If what you’ve told us about this place is correct, we need to be ready to defend ourselves as soon as possible, but it doesn't seem like that’s going to be any time soon.”

I couldn’t help but let out a light chuckle. What he said was true. Of all the places I had visited, Dragon Gate was likely the most dangerous. How many of my lives had come to an end here?

Looking into my storage space, I saw that ShouLi’s initial preparations for our takeover of the Su Clan were well underway, so following the plan that we had discussed earlier, I pulled out the two young men and the young woman who were waiting for me.

As soon as they appeared, they cupped their fists and bowed to me. “Greetings, Ancestor.”

I gave them a salute in return. “Welcome.”

I turned to YuLong and the others. “This is KongLu, KangYu, and YueLing. All three are skilled Grandmasters. I’m looking at moving up the timeline for our takeover of the Wastes, and things might get a bit messy. These three will make sure that you all stay safe.”

LiTing frowned. “How soon?”

“I’m looking at making my initial move against the Su Clan tomorrow. As for the sects, I’m not sure. I’d like to do internal coups to prevent any outsiders from figuring out what we’re up to, but I’m not sure I want to wait that long.”

LiTing shook her head. “We… won’t be ready for that.”

I smiled. “No worries. Take your time. By now, the clan’s warriors are powerful enough to deal with anyone in the Wastes. I’ll just need your help for what comes after.”

We talked for a little while longer, then I left them to continue their work.

“System, teleport me to a secluded spot in the Twin Mountains Sect.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 759 credits. 899,593,874,305 credits remaining.

---------------------------------------------------

When I arrived, I immediately attached my sect token to my waist and went to find Bao. After returning his memories to him, we went and grabbed Cao. Then, the three of us found a remote location for a private discussion.

“Bao, Cao, I’m looking to take over the Twin Mountains Sect. Which one of you would like to become the new Sect Master?”

They both blinked at me.

Slowly, Bao raised a hand. “Master, where is SuYin?”

“She’s in the Verdant Fields Sect. She’s going to try to become the Sect Master there. I was hoping one of you would be willing to take the job here.” I focused on Bao. “Of course, if you want to head up there and join her, that’s fine as well.”

Bao looked at Cao who was still just staring at me. “I don’t want to be the new Sect Master, but I can help Cao. SuYin should be fine on her own. We did a lot of work on soul cultivation while we were in the Nine Rivers Sect, so she shouldn’t be having the same memory issues as last time.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Really?”

He nodded. “At least, that was the idea. I don’t know how well it actually worked. She was learning to use her soul to determine which memories were stored in her mind and which were stored in her blessing. A lot of her early memories would have still been lost, but she should at least remember the important bits.”

I nodded. “Good to know. So, Cao, are you willing to become a Sect Master?”

She looked between the two of us. “I… don’t know…”

I smiled at her. “No need to rush. You should already be more skilled than nearly anyone else in the sect, and Bao is here to support you. Just focus on improving your cultivation base so that you can suppress anyone who wants to cause trouble. I’ll send others here to deal with the administrative work.”

Reaching into my inner world, I pulled out a couple of jade boxes containing Profound-Rank spirit fires.

“These should help.”

Then, after a few parting words, I left.

“System, send me back to the hotel in Dragon Gate City.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 759 credits. 899,593,873,546 credits remaining.

---------------------------------------------------

Arriving back in the hotel suite with YuLong and the others, I thought through my internal list of Revered Elders.

Bao, SuYin, and Cao were in the sects, and LuYao was cultivating here in the city. They represented Wood, Fire, and Light.

As for the group that I had met at the Yellow Orchid Academy, YuLong and LiTing were here, and Yan was back in the Zhuge Clan. They represented Earth, Metal, and Dark.

Wind was set to the side, and as for Lightning, I was hoping to recruit Murong NaYun, an old man who I had only seen a single time, during a competition in this very city. I didn’t know much about him, but his blessing was top-notch. With any luck, he would be a good fit for the position of Revered Elder of Lightning.

That only left Water… I looked around… “Has anyone heard from JiaQi? I sent her back to calm down LuLu, but I don’t know what happened to her afterward.”

LiTing shook her head. “No, she hasn’t been here. Maybe she sent a message?”

Frowning slightly, I nodded. “I’ll go check.”

LiTing stepped forward. “Let me come with you.”

Smiling, I waved a hand toward the door. “Alright, let’s go.”

---------------------------------------------------

After leaving the inn, LiTing and I headed straight to the Blue Wind Pavilion since, if JiaQi was going to send us a letter, she would use their message service to do so. When we set out, I expected this trip to be rather routine, but it didn’t take long for me to learn just how wrong I was.

Halfway to our destination, we ran into Su ShouDu.

“Cousin, so great to see you.” He looked at LiTing. “Is this your new peasant whore?”

LiTing blushed and looked away, but I just laughed. LiTing might appear to be a frail little girl, but she had the necessary skills to pass the Nine Rivers Sect’s combat tests. Considering the fact that she also had a higher cultivation base than him, ShouDu wouldn’t be able to hurt her even if he wanted to.

That said, the Martial Master who was shadowing ShouDu was a bit of a different story. If he stepped in, then I might have to stop him personally.

My reaction caused ShouDu’s upper lip to curl. “Are you heading to the Blue Wind Pavilion as well? It seems that getting a bit of money has given you a taste for the finer things in life. Why don’t I show you around?”

While I didn’t want to spend any more time with ShouDu than necessary, this could be an opportunity to advance my goal of helping ShouLi repay her debt to him. So, with a nod of agreement, I followed him, and we made our way to the Pavilion together.

Upon entering the building, no one came to greet us.

For me, this had become commonplace, and while I didn’t know exactly why it was happening, I had a decent idea. For ShouDu, though, the lack of an immediate greeting was a personal affront.

“Where is our attendant? How dare you keep me waiting!?”

As ShouDu’s shout echoed across the floor of the Pavilion’s emporium, the Master who had been following us ran up and whispered into his ear.

“Young Master, we mustn’t cause any trouble here. The Blue Wind Pavilion has a powerful backer.”

Shrugging the Master away, ShouDu snarled. “I know that, fool, but just because they have a backer doesn’t mean that they can insult their overlords.”

Outwardly, I put on a look of concern, matching LiTing. Inwardly, I smiled. If ShouDu caused too much of a ruckus, it would end poorly for him, his immediate family, and potentially, the entirety of the Su Clan.

While ShouDu’s shout drew the attention of nearly everyone on the Pavilion’s first floor, still, no one rushed over to greet us.

Just as ShouDu was about to explode, a familiar young woman in the blue and silver qipao of a Pavilion attendant approached us on shaky legs.

As she looked at us, her eyes darted from one person to the next, but they refused to lock onto anyone for more than a second. Finally, she focused on me and her rapid breathing slowed.

She bowed to me. “Greetings, my name is Pei LiMei, how… how may I help you today?”

Before I could respond, ShouDu shoved me to the side. “How dare you ignore me? Do you truly wish to face the Su Clan’s wrath?”

Warily, the Master stepped forward to pull ShouDu back, but his caution made him hesitate for just a bit too long.

Staring at ShouDu, a variety of emotions flickered across Mei’s face. Chief among them were fear and anxiety. There were also flashes of a deep, abiding calm, but they were brief and were quickly overpowered.

She didn’t respond to ShouDu’s inquiry. Instead, she turned to look at me.

When she did, the fear and anxiety remained, but she was no longer being constantly pulled toward calmness. While this didn’t allow her to relax, it did allow her to stabilize herself.

Closing her eyes, Mei began to give me a bow, but before she could, ShouDu reached out and slapped her across the face.

Seeing this, the Master who was acting as his guard rushed forward and pulled him back. “Young Master—”

“You dare ignore me!?”

Finally, this commotion drew the attention of others from the Pavilion, and a man who looked faintly familiar ran over and gave ShouDu a short bow.

“Young Master ShouDu, what seems to be the issue?”

ShouDu snarled. “Manager Liu, this woman deliberately insulted both me and the Su Clan. I demand that you expel her immediately.”

Manager Liu smiled ingratiatingly. “Of course, Young Master ShouDu.”

He turned to Mei and spoke in a cold tone. “Miss Pei, your services are no longer required. Leave, now.”

ShouDu chuckled evilly. “No reason for that. She’s rather attractive. Why don’t I take care of her for you? She can help warm my bed tonight.”

The manager lowered his head. “Young Master ShouDu, Miss Pei is no longer associated with our Pavilion. You may do as you wish.”

From what he said, one might assume that acting this way to please the young master of the Su Clan, but as I studied him, I could tell something deeper was at play. He wanted to get rid of Mei, and ShouDu had given him an excuse to do so.

This finally allowed me to remember where I had met this manager before. I once spent a period of a few decades serving as an alchemist for this branch of the Pavilion. During that time, one of the managers actively worked to harm both me and WuJing. I was pretty sure that this was that manager, so he was likely targeting Mei as a way to attack WuJing.

Still, this whole situation seemed rather dramatic. Was it all a setup? Was it all the doing of Mei’s blessing? Maybe… But even if it was, I still knew what I had to do.

“Is this how the Blue Wind Pavilion deals with people who threaten its workers? I must admit, I am a bit surprised.”

Manager Liu narrowed his eyes at me. A quick appraisal of my clothing left him looking a bit unsure of how to respond.

“Who are you?”

ShouDu snorted. “He’s just an up-jumped peasant.”

This caused the manager to sneer at me. “How the Pavilion manages its business is none of your concern.”

I bowed my head to him. “Understood.”

During this conversation, Mei had scrambled away, but with my immediate capitulation, ShouDu strode toward her menacingly.

LiTing pulled on the sleeve of my robe. “Fang…”

I took in a deep breath and then let out a long sigh.

This had been a long time coming, and I had put it off for as long as I could.

I reached forward, toward ShouDu. He tried to evade, but it was no use.

I grabbed his shoulder. He tried to break free, but doing so was impossible.

“How dare you!?”

I clicked my tongue. “Go back home. Now. If you don’t, I will break every bone in your body.”

His Master-level protector tried to intervene, but with an exertion of soul power, I kept him contained.

I squeezed ShouDu’s shoulder hard enough to crack his collarbone. Then, I wrenched him off his feet and threw him into the Master’s arms.

Manager Liu's expression turned horrified. “What are you doing? How dare you behave atrociously in the Blue Wind Pavilion?”

I smiled at him. “How the Su Clan manages its business is none of your concern.”

Ignoring both ShouDu and the manager, I walked over to where Mei was still cowering on the ground and held out a hand.

“Would you please come with me, miss?”

Chapter 293 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

As I guided Mei out of the Pavilion and back to our inn, no one tried to stop us, which I was thankful for. While I had the means to deal with anyone who might want to get in our way, if I deployed them, my plans for this timeline could be ruined.

Still, while I understood that all actions had consequences, ShouDu and Manager Liu had yet to learn this lesson. As their elder by several centuries, I felt that it was my duty to teach them.

After sending Mei off to spend some time with LiTing, I entered my inn room and wrote a quick message.

RuLan, during your time with Emperor Li, did he give you any way to mark a message as being sent from his official disciple?

Not at all startled by a mysterious note appearing in front of her, RuLan nodded her head. “Yes, Ancestor.”

Good.

Taking out the finest sheet of parchment and the most expensive inkstone that I possessed, I tapped into my knowledge of talisman artistry to write a letter using the fanciest calligraphy that I could muster.

To the current manager of the Rising Sun Empire Branch of the Blue Wind Pavilion,

Regarding the Dragon Gate City Branch in the Western Wastes.

Deputy Manager Liu has conspired with Su ShouDu, son of Su WeiJi, to harm the Blue Wind Pavilion. Not only has he worked to undermine the branch’s current management, but he has also actively worked to put his own interests above those of the Pavilion’s.

I hereby order that Deputy Manager Liu, Su ShouDu, and Su ShouDu’s immediate family face appropriate punishment for their actions. As for the Su Clan as a whole, harm them as little as possible, but let our displeasure with their actions be known. Do not involve Su ShouDu’s uncle, WeiXian, in this matter. He is innocent.

RuLan, personal disciple of Li GuiYang, the Blue Wind Sovereign

After passing this letter into my inner world, RuLan signed it with a special red ink and stamped it with her personal seal. Then, she folded the letter and sealed it with a drop of purple wax. Finally, she pressed Emperor Li’s coin into the wax, leaving behind the image of a plum blossom.

Taking this letter in hand, I turned to the System.

“System, how much would it cost to teleport this letter to the center of the desk of the head manager of the Rising Sun Empire’s Blue Wind Pavilion?”

Cost 72.6 trillion credits.

My mouth dropped open in shock.

I already knew that the cost of teleporting a person was affected by their cultivation base, so the cost of teleporting an item being affected by that item’s Rank wasn’t exactly a surprise. But still… What kind of wax had RuLan been using?

I could only shake my head and place the letter into my storage space.

“Alright, System, let’s do this the hard way. Teleport me to a secluded spot next to the Blue Wind Pavilion in the capital of the Rising Sun Empire. Then, when I say ‘return,’ teleport me back here.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 29,060 credits. 899,593,844,486 credits remaining.

I appeared in a narrow alleyway. As soon as I got my bearings, I pulled RuLan out of my inner world and handed her the letter.

“Can you… deliver this for me… please?”

She just laughed and nodded.

After she left, time slowed to a crawl, and I started tapping my foot nervously.

Had this been the correct decision? Involving the Sovereigns so early might have been a mistake.

One of my goals for this life was to find an opportunity to raid the Zhuge Clan’s vaults, and if there was a chance, I would raid the Li Clan as well. Both actions would involve the Sovereigns, so hiding from them in this life wasn’t an option. Still, should I have waited? Should I have held back?

There wasn’t even any real reason to involve Emperor Li directly like this. There were plenty of other ways that I could have handled ShouDu. The only thing was… The thing was that with nearly any other path, Manager Liu would have been much more difficult to deal with. Only by exercising the authority of the Pavilion itself could I get him removed without causing a commotion.

Did I need to remove him? Maybe not, but I wanted to.

Thinking through all of this took time—too much time.

RuLan’s trip should have been rather quick. She had just needed to duck into the Pavilion and duck out again. Even if someone wanted to stop her, what could they do? She was a Martial Emperor. So, as time wore on, I couldn’t help but feel that something had gone wrong.

When a pitch-black portal appeared in front of me, I was sure of it.

When RuLan stepped out of this portal, she had a sheepish expression on her face.

When Emperor Li stepped out, he looked me up and down with his signature granite expression. Then, he wordlessly held out a hand.

In response, I took out his original memory orb. RuLan was keeping the more recent ones safe, but I had held onto the original out of an overabundance of caution.

After absorbing the information in the orb, Emperor Li snorted at me. “Disciple Fang, it seems that you enjoy causing trouble for this old man.”

I smiled and dipped my head.

He sighed.

“I will take RuLan with me. Your little letter might draw a few eyes to the Wastes, but by taking in a personal disciple, I will keep the Sovereigns focused on Blue Wind City. Just…” He studied me for a long moment. “Be careful with Little Shen’s formation. You will only get one chance to use it. Once the Saint’s Emissary knows that you have it, he will end you.”

Without waiting for a reply, Emperor Li pulled RuLan back through his portal, and I couldn’t help but raise my hands to massage my temples.

Then, I looked up at the sky and sighed. “Return.”

With this, I considered the whole episode with ShouDu to be nearly complete. If the opportunity presented itself, I would pop him into my inner world so that ShouLi could get a little personal revenge, but I wanted him to see the downfall of his small branch of the clan first.

The only thing I had left to do was grab XiaoFan.

So, after swallowing a Shadowed Soul Pill, I darted away to a remote corner of the Su Clan’s compound where she was being kept.

There were a few obstacles in my way, but they were easily avoided, and I quickly arrived at her bedside. After placing a couple of healing pills into her mouth, I shoved her into my inner world. A few minutes later, when I had a moment in a secluded location, I pulled her out.

“Do you have any family?”

The pills were still working to repair her broken body, but when she saw me, hope kindled in her eyes. “I… I…”

I held up a hand. “Right now, I need to hurry. Do you have any family?”

“Ye… Yes. Flowing River Gorge.”

Without another word, I shoved her back into my inner world.

“System, teleport me to Flowing River Gorge.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 2,650 credits. 899,593,841,836 credits remaining.

I didn’t spend long in XiaoFan’s village. I just grabbed her parents and threw them into my inner world without much of an explanation. Then, I returned to Dragon Gate City.

Purchase confirmed. Cost 2,650 credits. 899,593,839,186 credits remaining.

With everything handled, I returned to our inn and visited the room where Mei and LiTing were holed up.

When I entered, Mei's eyes were darting around the room wildly.

I looked at LiTing. “What happened?”

LiTing shook her. “I don’t know. After you left, she was able to settle down. She was fine. Then, just a moment ago, she lost control.”

I walked in front of Mei and forced her to look at me. “Calm down.”

When her eyes locked onto mine, her breathing slowed. However, the moment she glanced at LiTing, her panic began to rise once more.

“LiTing, please wait outside.”

Seeing the situation, though not understanding it, LiTing was quick to follow my command.

Once she was gone, Mei was able to calm back down.

Instinctively, I narrowed my eyes, but I did my best to put on a pleasant demeanor.

“Miss Pei, can you please tell me what is happening to you?”

Nearly weeping, she jerked her head up and down to nod at me.

“My… My blessing. It… communicates with me. It’s voices. Voices that I can’t understand. I can’t understand them, but listening to them, I know what they want me to do. I know how they want me to behave.”

I tapped my fingers in thought. This matched what SuYin had told me long ago.

“Usually… When I look at a person, one voice is dominant, and its instructions are clear. Today, though… Today… It’s like a thousand voices are all speaking at once. They are all quiet, and I don’t know what any of them want me to do, but combined, they are… overwhelming. It doesn’t matter where I look… At a person or at the floor, it’s all the same. The voices don’t stop. When I look at you, though…”

She looked at me with longing in her eyes. “When I look at you… they go silent. I was blessed a year ago, and since then… When looking at a person, usually, one of the voices is loud, and I know what it wants me to do. When I look at the ground, they fade into the background, and I can ignore them, but they are still there. But they have never… They have never been silent before.”

I couldn’t help it. I had to ask myself… Was this normal? Was her blessing doing this to her for some reason, or… or was her blessing broken?

Everything she said, it… it reminded me all too much of what had happened to Bao.

When Bao was around high-Rank plants with a weak soul, his blessing had driven him crazy. Could something similar be happening to Mei? But… there were no Rulers or Sovereigns here, were there?

The moment this question entered my mind, I shut my eyes, calmed my thoughts, and reached out with my soul to scan the area around me. Were we being spied on? I pushed my soul and my affinities to the limit, but I couldn’t sense anything in the immediate area.

When I finally eased up on the soul power that I was releasing, I noticed that Mei’s eyes had become locked on my feet, and she no longer dared to even blink.

“What’s going on?”

A frantic expression appeared on her face, but she didn’t allow her eyes to lose focus for even a second.

“I… I don’t know… It… All of a sudden, it got worse.”

I nodded. “Alright, I have one last thing to try. I’m going to send you somewhere. If there’s a problem, say so immediately.”

She didn’t respond, but she didn't need to. Wrapping her in my intent, I pulled her into my inner world.

Mei arrived in the middle of a field. From where she was, she would have been able to see a few people off in the distance, but her immediate vicinity was empty.

She looked around with her mouth open in shock.

Without saying a word, she walked toward one of the figures in the distance.

I placed a note in front of her face.

What’s wrong?

She blinked at it. “It’s… silent. Everything is… silent.”

Do you want to come back out, or do you want me to send someone to meet you?

Mei’s eyes widened in horror. “No! No… Send someone, please.”

Rubbing my chin, I tried to think who might be best in this situation.

GuiAi, I need your help…

Once GuiAi arrived, she took Mei by the hand and gave her a guided tour of my inner world. I watched for a few minutes, but Mei barely reacted to anything she saw. All she said was “It’s so quiet.”

Seeing this, I let out a sigh. I would have to figure things out with her later, but for now, the situation was stable. When I went outside to explain things to LiTing, she asked to be allowed to join Mei in my inner world, so I pulled her inside and let the three women spend some time together.

Chapter 294 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

Early the next morning, I went to the Su Clan’s palace complex to meet up with TaiZu. When I arrived, the sun had yet to rise, but several well-dressed youths and palace officials were already lined up in front of the gates, waiting for them to open.

Seeing this, I had the urge to force my way inside as I had done previously, but before I could act on this impulse a middle-aged servant in dark brown robes ran up to me and bowed.

“Disciple Fang, the Grand Elder believed that you might not be aware of the proper protocols for entering the City, so he sent me to serve as your guide.”

I looked the man up and down. He was a mortal with no cultivation base, but he had been given a few pieces of inscribed jewelry. His granite bracelet held a simplistic Rank 1 alarm formation that he could use to detect if there was anyone nearby, and his necklace contained a Rank 1 muffling formation that would prevent his movements from making any noise.

I had never noticed inscribed jewelry on the servants in the training compound, but seeing it here wasn’t much of a shock. Most people in the Su Clan were earth cultivators, so the clan should have its fair share of formation specialists. The only confusing bit was that I had never seen any of the clan’s cultivators wearing such jewelry. Was there a deeper reason behind this, or was it just that no one in the clan could make any inscribed items that a cultivator would want to use?

Uncomfortable under my gaze, the servant cleared his throat.

“Disciple Fang, please follow me. We must line up in front of the left gate.”

The line on the left was nearly twice as long as the one on the right, making it the suboptimal choice, but I didn’t protest. I just followed my guide and did as I was told.

An hour later, we were still waiting for the gates to open, and my patience was at its end.

When entering the Nine Rivers Sect, I had spent days standing in line while waiting to take the sect’s Entrance Exam. I had been fine with that. Everyone entering the sect had to take a special test, and that took time. However, waiting here served only one purpose, to show respect for the Su Clan and its Patriarch, and that was something that I had no interest in doing.

So, tired of playing by the rules, I slumped my shoulders, moved off to the side, and leaned against the complex’s outer wall. As I did this, the people around me gave me a look of pity and then quickly averted their gazes.

Wide-eyed, my guide stared at me. “Disciple Fang, you must not be disrespectful. Stand up before anyone notices.”

My original idea had been to fade from people’s view by being unobtrusive, but being ignored because I was a pariah was just as good. With only my guide looking at me, I popped a Shadowed Soul Pill into my mouth and disappeared.

The servant went slack-jawed and looked around in fright, but he didn’t shout out. He was too afraid to cause any more of a commotion.

---------------------------------------------------

After taking my leave, I ignored the gates and used a movement technique to scale a nearby wall. As a Martial Disciple without access to earth qi, this was a bit more difficult than it should have been, and I might have left a few marks behind on the stones as I passed, but no one was paying enough attention to notice.

Once atop the wall, I took out the map that ShouLi had given me and surveyed the place to try and figure out where I might find Elder TaiZu. Unfortunately, this map was somewhat incomplete.

It had an extremely detailed drawing of the western side of the complex since that was where the members of the main branch lived and several people in my clan had spent a good deal of time there. At the back of the compound, in the far northwest, there were private courtyards where the families of the Patriarch and elders resided. At first glance, I thought that this might be where I needed to go, but the map made it clear that these residences were only for their families, not for the elders themselves.

In the center of the complex were various palaces and halls, including the meeting hall, the dining hall, and the disciplinary hall.

This left the eastern side of the complex, the area reserved for the clan’s Grandmasters. This section of the map was rather bare. It only indicated that the training areas were in the south, residential areas were in the middle, and the elders’ residences were in the rear. These vague directions weren’t great, but they at least narrowed the area of my search.

So, following the tops of the walls, I headed deep into the complex. The main gate was in the middle of the southern wall, so I just needed to head to the other end while veering to my right.

The Grandmasters’ training areas were easy enough to identify since they were large open spaces where people could practice a variety of qi techniques. There were a few large buildings against the far eastern wall, and I found a group of basic residences wedged between them and the central courtyards containing the palaces.

Stealthily moving through this area was a bit of a problem. The Su Clan didn’t have a large defensive formation like most of the sects that I had visited. Instead, they relied on a series of alarm formations that had been scattered about the complex in a seemingly random pattern. If someone without the proper token entered the range of one of these formations, it would activate a series of defensive formations that would trap the intruder in place.

None of these alarm formations were anything impressive, and with energy vision, avoiding them was a simple task. However, what they lacked in quality they made up for in quantity. In several places, it was difficult to bypass one formation without triggering its neighbor.

So, as I made my way through this array of alarm formations, I was constantly running my energy vision at full power.

When I had first entered the Su Clan’s complex, my only goal had been to locate the Grand Elder and begin my coup. However, as I moved across the tops of the walls of the Grandmasters’ enclave, something caught my eye. In the far northeast corner of the complex, there was a large courtyard that contained a wide, squat building. Most of the other buildings in the Su Clan were made from wood, but this one was made from old, weathered stone. However, what really set it apart were the dozens of complex formations that had been inscribed into its walls.

Speeding up, I raced over there to take a closer look.

When I arrived, I looked around the courtyard with interest. It had an overgrown garden, a fishpond, and a dirt fighting pit. It also contained an overabundance of large metal braziers. This courtyard was an ideal training space for anyone who cultivated any of the five basic elements.

My focus, though, was on the squat stone structure at its center.

I ran my hand along the walls of this building and closely examined the formations inscribed into it. While the building was made of simple marble, a Rank 3 material, whoever had crafted these formations had lined them with dust from something a bit more powerful. This had allowed them to inscribe the marble with Rank 4 formations. They were on the low end of Rank 4, but still, for someone from the Wastes, someone who was only a Grandmaster, carving any Rank 4 formation was impressive.

As for the purpose of these formations, I wasn’t entirely sure. It was some type of complex barrier. It had a physical component that would block anyone from entering or leaving, but it also had an energy component. The energy component, though, only stopped energy from leaving the barrier, not entering it. So, if one wanted to, they would easily be able to use a blast of qi to destroy both the building and the formation.

Shrugging, I made my way to the front entrance, but I found it blocked by a thick stone slab. To the right of this slab, there was a marble plate. As best as I could tell, this plate had originally been perfectly flat, but over the years, the image of a handprint had been worn into it through repeated use.

Aside from suggesting what I would need to do to enter the building, this handprint also revealed the secret of how this door functioned. In the middle of its palm, there was a thin metal needle.

I stared at this needle for several long seconds. It wasn’t poisoned. Instead, it was designed to draw blood.

Should I try it?

It wouldn’t kill me, I was confident enough about that, but I wasn’t sure what it would do. The needle would draw my blood and send it… elsewhere. What it would do then was beyond me.

More to the point, my goal had been to meet with TaiZu and start my coup. This building had been here for centuries. There was no reason to rush to explore it. Attempting to enter it now would only risk alerting the Patriarch of my activities.

Still… This was far more interesting than playing around with the Su Clan’s pathetic Grandmasters.

Without overthinking it, I placed my palm on the plate, but as I did, the needle flexed, unable to pierce my skin. While I hadn’t actively cultivated my body, and while I was far from immune to mortal blades, the Rank 1 Strengthening Pill that I had taken had been enough to ensure that such a thin needle, dulled from centuries of use, wouldn’t be able to harm me.

Focusing, I injected the needle with a thread of metal qi and placed my palm upon it once more.

This time, it sank into my skin and pulled out a drop of blood.

Tapping into my water affinity, I did my best to track the trace of wu in this blood as it passed into the building, but after only a moment, it was too far away for me to sense.

About ten minutes later, there was a faint rumble, and the stone slab moved to the side with a horrible grinding sound.

Taking this as an invitation, I stepped inside.

I entered a large, empty audience hall. There were a few doors along each of the walls, but the only thing in the hall itself was a worn-out stone throne. Sitting atop this throne was a skinny old man who looked to be nearing the end of his natural life.

Scanning him in qi vision, I found that he was a Peak Grandmaster with a cultivation base that was comparable to nearly anyone in the Nine Rivers Sect.

Seeing this, I smiled and walked forward with a casual gait.

When I was only a few steps away, I cupped my fists in a martial salute and bowed my head. “Greetings, senior.”

The old man’s expression soured at my nonchalant behavior. “I am Su HongYi, ancestor of the Su Clan.”

Su HongYi… I had never met the man before, but during my last life in the Wastes, Su HongYi’s death had been the catalyst that led to the death of the Patriarch, the ascension of YuanFeng, and the exile of YuanFei.

I had planned to use TaiZu to assist me in the initial stages of my coup, but maybe there was a better option. While I didn’t know anything about this Su HongYi, he was by far the most skilled member of the Su Clan that I had ever met.

I smiled at him. “Nice to meet you. I’m Su Fang, the other ancestor of the Su Clan. Would you like to help me overthrow the Patriarch?”

HongYi’s sour expression turned thunderous, but before he could speak, I pulled out TaiZu’s memory orb and held it out to him.

“This might help you better understand the situation you are in.”

HongYi didn’t move, so I tossed the orb to him. When he didn’t reach out to grab it, I raised my hand and sent a wave of qi to suspend it in the air. As a mere Martial Disciple 5, I couldn’t keep that up for long, but I didn’t need to. After staring at the orb for several moments, HongYi reached out and picked it up.

Completely forgetting about his animosity from only moments early, HongYi studied the orb intently.

“The formations in this object are incredible. What do they do?”

“They interface with your mind and soul. Don’t worry, they won’t harm you, this is a simple information storage device.”

The old man spun the orb around in his hand. “Interesting. How does it work?”

“There are two indentations. Just send your qi into the larger one.”

“I see.” With one last look, he set the orb down on the armrest of his throne and then looked back to face me. “Why did you wish to depose my son?”

HongYi’s anger had abated, but his tone was still sharp.

How much should I say? There were plenty of reasons that TaiZong needed to go, but in truth, those had little to do with my reasons for wanting him gone.

Stroking my chin in thought, I looked at HongYi and nodded.

“You are a Peak Grandmaster, so I’m sure you know plenty about the Ruler Tier. What do you know about what is needed to ascend to Martial Sovereign? What do you know about the Bloodline Tier?”

A wolfish smile appeared on HongYi’s face. “Only its name. However, from your presence here, and from what I know of the Ruler Tier, I can make a few guesses. You intend to usurp my son’s position and become the new Patriarch to chase after the dream of ascension?”

I laughed and shook my head. “No…. No. I have no desire to become the new Patriarch. I know a young woman who is much more suited for such a role. No, like you, I am an ancestor, and I plan to become an Ancestor.”

I gestured to the orb that was sitting next to him. “So, what do you say? Want to join me?”

HongYi tapped his fingers in thought. After only a moment, he reached out with a strand of qi.

After absorbing all of TaiZu’s memories he nodded at me. “Yes, I think I will.”

I clapped my hands together enthusiastically. “Excellent.”

Then, I waved, and a dozen Peak Grandmasters appeared out of nowhere. “Let’s begin.”

Bonus: Su Clan Palace Complex

I originally made this back in the beginning of book 4, but at that time, Su Fang only really walked into the entrance of the palace complex and turned around, so I didn't post it. Figured this might be the right time.

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Chapter 295 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

As the sun rose over the palace complex, HongYi and I finalized our plans for my takeover of the Su Clan. Once we were done, he pulled out a small formation plate and injected a thread of qi into it.

Not ten minutes later, a harried Grand Elder TaiZu ran into the audience hall.

“Father, what’s wr–” When TaiZu noticed me and my team of Grandmasters, he froze. “An… Ancestor…”

I stood there silently as HongYi waved TaiZu forward.

“Child, I have been speaking with the… ancestor, and we have decided to work together.”

TaiZu was nearly shaking as he bowed his head. “I… I understand, father. What do you need of me?”

“Contact the other elders. Either they submit, or they die. After that, we will go through the rest of the clan’s Grandmasters. Once they have all been taken care of, we will talk to your brother.” Coldness glinted in HongYi’s eyes. “We cannot allow anything to go wrong. If he refuses to step down, he will die. In this life, he may curse me, but in the future, he will thank me.”

TaiZu lowered his head. “I… I understand, father. But…”

HongYi's eyes narrowed, scaring TaiZu, but the Grand Elder pushed forward.

“Zong may not wish to give up his position, but after everything I’ve seen, I am confident that we can convince him to do so. His sons, however, are a different story. The moment they are passed over for the position of Patriarch, both YuanFei and YuanFeng will run to the Rising Sun Empire and try to cause trouble for us, and I don’t think there is anything that I can say to stop that.”

HongYi curled his upper lip. “If that is the case, then do what must be done. We cannot allow outsiders to interfere in the Ancestor’s plans.”

I had only met HongYi less than an hour ago, but he had already become one of my most ardent supporters. Why? For the same reason as Emperor Li. He was only a few decades away from death, and after three centuries of life, the thought of giving up without a fight must have been unbearable. So, while I couldn’t exactly trust him, I could trust his desire to survive.

Having only watched up to this point, I took a step forward and held out the oath stone to TaiZu.

“Make all of the Grandmasters swear an Oath of loyalty. Make them swear that for the next five years, they will be loyal to you, Ancestor HongYi, and Ancestor Fang. Only for five years, though. After that, they are free to do as they please.”

While I found the idea of forcing people to swear Oaths to be distasteful, this was the only way for our coup to remain hidden. Even then, I wasn’t willing to force undying loyalty onto someone. In five years, we would be strong enough to weather whatever small storms anyone from the Su Clan tried to create for us, so this compromise would allow me to keep the clan safe while also holding onto a piece of my morals.

However, we needed those five years.

I looked at TaiZu with as sharp of an expression as my young body could muster. “As Elder HongYi said, if anyone refuses to swear, they die.”

TaiZu solemnly nodded, and I looked at my team of Grandmasters.

“Go with TaiZu when he visits the clan’s elders. Make sure that no one is able to sound an alarm, and don’t allow anyone to escape. Also…” I looked from my Grandmasters to TaiZu and back again. “Ensure that my orders regarding the Oath are followed precisely. No one is to swear anything other than the single, five-year loyalty Oath. Understood?”

The team of Grandmasters saluted and bowed as one. “Yes, Ancestor.”

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After TaiZu and the Grandmasters departed, I was left alone with HongYi once again.

I gave him a knowing smile. “We should have a bit of time before they are finished. Why don’t you show me around a bit? Why don’t you show me the true purpose of this building?”

HongYi nodded, having expected my request. “Very well, follow me.”

Saying this, he stood from his throne and walked to the door at the rear of the audience hall. Behind it was a stairwell that led down to a basement room that contained nothing but yet another door. This one, however, was locked by a formation.

Before unlocking it, HongYi looked at me.

“You will want to use a qi barrier to protect yourself. The air in the tunnels is filled with small particles of metal, and you do not want to breathe them in.”

I dipped my head to him and did as told.

Once he saw that I was ready, HongYi reached out and opened the door. Strangely, though, I noticed that he hadn’t raised a qi barrier of his own.

As the space beyond came into view, I smelled a familiar stench. It was like the smell of the peat bogs that surround Mount Jiang. It was the smell of rotting plant matter. Unlike Mount Jiang, however, this was an enclosed space, so the scent was far more intense.

Wincing, HongYi did his best to hold his breath as he guided me into the next room and down the spiraling staircase that it contained.

I had suspected what I would find here, and the fact that we were descending a seemingly endless staircase confirmed these suspicions. We were almost certainly headed toward the location of the formation that lay underneath the Su Clan, the earth essence formation. However, while I was more than eager to get a chance to investigate it, the foul odor in the staircase was becoming a bit of a problem. With each step, the smell only became more potent, and I had to activate my qi barrier at full power to defend myself from it as much as possible.

When we were 100 meters below the surface, I called a halt to our descent, reached into my inner world, and pulled out a metal-based spirit fire.

HongYi had warned me about the risk of breathing in metal, but the threat posed by the rotting plant matter in the air was likely nearly as great. By coating myself in a thin layer of this metal-based spirit fire, I would be able to protect myself.

Unfortunately, unlike fire seeds, spirit fires needed an external source of energy. With the limited amount of qi that my body contained as a Martial Disciple, if the toxins in the air continued to increase, it wouldn’t be long before this spirit fire was overwhelmed.

What I really needed was a metal-based spirit fire that would burn matter to create demonic energy. With such a fire, burning away the toxic metal and plant particles in the air wouldn’t consume energy, it would generate it. At the moment, I didn’t have such a fire with me, but a Yellow-Rank one wouldn’t be hard to procure.

Seeing me be so cautious about blocking out any and all contaminants, HongYi shook his head.

“The scent is rather foul, but you do not need to be overly concerned about it. The only danger in the stairwell is that of breathing in metal.” He gestured downward. “Come on. We’re nearly there.”

Once we started walking again, HongYi began giving me a history lesson.

“When I was young, our Su Clan was barely better than a family of commoners. Technically, we might have been considered members of the nobility, but we were both weak and poor. Finding this place, though… Finding this place changed everything.”

He motioned to the walls around us. “At first, I treated this as nothing more than a high-quality mine. Using my skills with earth qi, I harvested as much ore as I could and then traveled to the Rising Sun Empire to sell it. However, that was when things got a bit out of control.”

He looked back at me, and a faint wistfulness appeared on his face. “You see, this is a flerovium mine, a rare metal used in the creation of high-Rank refined weapons. When the people of the Blue Wind Pavilion found out what I was selling, they immediately locked me into an exclusive contract. I would mine the metals, they would buy them, and no one else was to know anything about it. To facilitate this arrangement, they even helped me build Dragon Gate City and established a new branch there.”

I ran my hand along the wall and felt the veins of metal deep inside the rock.

Flerovium was useful for crafting Rank 4 items, and there were a few alloys that were relevant in Rank 5, but that was about it. The metal might be valuable to Artifact Lords, but there were only a handful of them on the entire continent, and they had no need for such large quantities of the metal.

So, was the Blue Wind Pavilion purchasing this metal to ship it off the continent, or was there a deeper game at play? Knowing Emperor Li, the answer was probably both.

Eventually, HongYi and I made it to the base of the stairwell where there was a balcony that allowed us to look out over the vast underground cavern that we found ourselves in.

As expected, at the center of this cavern, I found a grand formation that was composed of four concentric rings, and above this formation, a shimmering light-green fire seed hung suspended in the air.

Thankfully, this cavern was not filled with lava. The entire floor was solid stone, and I would easily be able to simply walk up to the formation if I so desired. However, I refused to take even a single step forward. While this seed was not producing the heat of the Hot Springs Fire, it was pumping out an ominous purple cloud. My paltry spirit fire didn’t even have a chance of blocking such dense poisonous gas.

Seeing my reaction, HongYi cleared his throat. “As long as you remain on the balcony, you will be safe, but if you venture into the miasma, you will almost certainly die. As a Disciple, your qi likely won’t be powerful enough to keep it at bay, and if you approach the formations, your qi will fail you entirely. If that were to happen, not even the strength of a Peak Grandmaster would be enough to save you.”

I nodded, knowing the truth of his statement without even needing to check.

He pointed to a spot near the formation where several cultivation mats had been set up.

“That said, most of our Disciples receive blessings that strengthen their physical bodies. Those whose blessings are strong enough are able to endure the effects of the miasma, at least for a period of time, so we send them down here to cultivate.”

I glance from the formation to HongYi. “And you?”

He smirked. “My blessing makes me immune to all poisons. Both the miasma and the metal particles in the air. I can spend as long as I want down here without worry.”

I nodded. “How high have you been able to raise your earth affinity?”

HongYi’s smirk vanished, and he looked at me in shock. “How did you know…”

He cleared his throat. “Yes… Of course… It is… mid five-star. I might have been able to push it further, but over this last century, I have lost the drive to do so. Without the ability to advance beyond Grandmaster, what’s the point?”

I smiled. “What is the point indeed…”

I turned my focus to the small patch of herbs that were growing around the formation. I was certain that there were Earth Dragon’s Tongue Fruits down there, but I wasn’t sure what else might be available.

“Can you harvest a few of those herbs for me? Really, I just need the seeds. You can keep everything else.”

HongYi gave me a curious look but didn’t comment. He just leaped into the miasma. Only moments later, he returned and presented me with an armful of herbs, and I pulled them onto an empty plot in my inner world where one of our herbalists could try to grow them.

Seeing his harvest vanish before his eyes, HongYi let out a wry chuckle. “I’ve always wanted a storage bag, but I was never allowed to purchase one. They’re outlawed in the Wastes, you know?”

I smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about that. Come on. Let’s go back upstairs. While we wait for the results of our coup, I’ll make one for you.”

Chapter 296 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

Upon our return to the audience hall, I decided to show HongYi a bit of sincerity. While he might be willing to follow me to potentially preserve his life, giving him a few early benefits as well seemed like a good idea.

So, I reached into my storage space, pulled out a blank book, and copied down an instruction manual from my mental library. Then, I pulled out a small jade box and filled it with a strand of fire from the seed of the Expanding Realms Fire.

“Elder HongYi, you mentioned a desire to own a storage bag. While I said that I would make one for you, doing so as a Martial Disciple might prove a bit challenging. Instead, I will give you these. A spatial spirit fire and an instruction book on how to use it to create a storage bag for yourself.”

As he accepted these items, HongYi’s hands were twitching constantly, so I waved to one of the side rooms. “Go. Study.”

Almost before I could blink, I was left alone in his audience hall. With no pressing matters to attend to, I sat down on HongYi’s throne and wrote a few letters to ShouLi. While we had made plans previously, the situation was evolving, and I had a few new ideas for what we needed to do.

While I could use an oath stone and a group of Grandmasters to forcibly subdue the Su Clan, such measures would only work in the short term. For the long term, we needed a clear organizational structure that all members of the Su Clan, both new and old, would be able to slot into.

TaiZu and the others didn’t return until well after noon. When he saw me sitting alone on HongYi’s throne, he approached and bowed.

“Ancestor, we have successfully completed the task you set for us.”

I nodded. “How many of the Grandmasters were you able to subdue?”

“All of them in the city. 29 in total. We were able to isolate each one, and after seeing the forces arrayed against them, each one chose to submit. The only ones we have yet to contact are the Patriarch, his sons, and the few Grandmasters not currently in Dragon Gate.”

“Good. What are your plans for dealing with those who remain?”

TaiZu hesitated, glanced at one of the Grandmasters who had been working with him, and then looked back to me.

“Ancestor, TaiZong, the Patriarch, has regular meetings with the people under his command. While we could try to ambush him in private, I am not sure we could stop him from fighting back and causing a commotion. Instead, I believe that we will be more successful if we attempt to subdue him during one of these meetings. If everyone else in the meeting has already sworn to follow you, then TaiZong will have no choice but to submit as well.

I stroked my chin as an evil thought entered my mind. “Tell me, does the Patriarch hold any meetings or gatherings to congratulate top-ranked elites from each year’s training camp?”

TaiZu furrowed his brow. “No… such things are beneath his notice.”

I nodded slowly. “See if you can suggest it. We need a big gathering with all of the clan’s Grandmasters in attendance. Pitch it as both a way to congratulate ShouDu on his success and a way to give him a formal send off to the Rising Sun Empire.”

TaiZu’s mouth opened in confusion. “But…”

“Just make it happen.” I thought through how long it might take for a messenger to travel to Dragon Gate City from the Capital of the Rising Sun Empire on the fastest available mounts. “One week. That should be long enough. Try to make this happen within a week. In the meantime, subdue all of the remaining Grandmasters that you can, especially those from the training complex. Understood?”

TaiZu dipped his head. “Yes, Ancestor.”

Over the course of the next week, I continued my study of cultivation techniques, and I was getting close to a breakthrough. There was something… something I had been missing, but I couldn’t yet put it into words.

How did a cultivation technique increase the ‘sharpness’ of qi? That was the sticking point that I hadn’t been able to understand. Most Profound techniques had an effect like this, but how did they work? Why did they work? What made a technique ‘Profound?’

I was beginning to have my suspicions, and I was beginning to worry that I had been unintentionally crippling the members of my clan. I still needed time, though. Time to study Earth-Rank techniques and see if my suspicions held true.

At the end of the week, I dressed in the simple brown robes of the Grand Elder’s apprentice and followed TaiZu to the Palace of Supreme Harmony, the Su Clan’s Grand Throne Room that overlooked the entrance to the complex.

There was a lot that needed to happen this day, and there were too many variables to plan it all out ahead of time. We didn’t know how TaiZong, ShouDu, or anyone else would react, and we didn’t know what Emperor Li might do to disrupt things. We could only play it by ear.

Still, if anyone in the Su Clan was worthy of the title ‘old fox,’ it was TaiZu. He had his problems, but compared to everyone else in the clan, he could be considered a genius. I would just have to rely on him to guide things in the direction we wanted them to go.

When we arrived, the hall was already packed with people. Aside from all of the Su Clan’s Grandmasters, there were also representatives from various noble families around the Wastes present. I had thought that the sects might send representatives as well, but either they weren’t invited, or they disdained such low-level ceremonies.

While I huddled in the corner and did my best to remain inconspicuous, TaiZu proudly marched up to his place next to the throne. A moment later, TaiZong walked in at the head of a small procession and took his seat.

Then, without saying a word, TaiZong waved a hand, and far below, the center gate of the complex slowly opened to reveal a tall young man wearing gleaming robes of gold and silver.

Once the gate was fully open, he began walking forward.

Dozens of cultivators had been lined up in the courtyard to cheer his passage.

Aside from the palaces, the most notable feature of this courtyard was the stream that winded its way through it, cutting it in half. There were three bridges that would allow a person to cross this river, but the central one was reserved for the Patriarch’s exclusive use. On this day, however, that rule was broken.

Not only was ShouDu allowed to enter the complex through the center gate, but he was also allowed to approach the Palace of Supreme Harmony via the central bridge. When the surrounding cultivators saw this, some bowed, some cheered, and some cried tears of joy.

This caused ShouDu’s chin to rise even higher as he proudly crossed the remainder of the courtyard and climbed the stairs to the throne room.

Seeing this, I couldn’t hold back a smirk. TaiZu had really gone all out.

When ShouDu entered the throne room, the central aisle that led right to TaiZong had already been cleared for him.

He approached the throne, got on his knees, and kowtowed to the Patriarch.

“Great Grandfather, I have arrived. Thank you for summoning me.”

After waiting a beat, TaiZong waved a hand. “Rise.”

Then, TaiZu stepped forward. “Su ShouDu, while you are young, you have already shown extraordinary martial ability. Both the elders and the Patriarch recognize the bright future that lies ahead of you. Are you willing to swear to put the Su Clan first in all things? To place the clan before yourself? To strive only to enhance the glory and majesty of the Su Clan?”

Without hesitating, ShouDu cupped his fists in a martial salute and bowed to the Grand Elder. “Yes.”

TaiZu smiled. “Excellent.”

Then, he pulled the oath stone and held it up for everyone to see. While most people in the audience didn’t immediately recognize this stone, I noticed the faces of several of the older men and women blanch.

TaiZu walked forward, held the stone in front of ShouDu, and gave him a script.

The younger man looked confused by this, but having heard reports from the training complex, the Patriarch, YuanFei, and a couple of lower-ranked members of the Su Clan could guess what was about to happen. Still, in front of so many distinguished guests, none of them were willing to make a scene.

“I, Su ShouDu, swear by the Heavenly Dao that I will put the Su Clan first in all things. With every action I take, I will keep the prosperity of the clan in mind, and I will do nothing to harm it.”

At this, a couple of members of the audience began applauding, and that encouraged everyone else to do likewise.

The Grand Elder stepped back and retook his position next to the throne.

Then, TaiZong spoke in a powerful, imposing voice. “Su ShouDu, as reward for your achieve—”

Down in the courtyard below, the central gate slammed open, and the guards that had been stationed around it were thrown to the side.

Before anyone could react, a dozen men and women in light blue robes with silver embroidery forced their way through the center gate of the complex.

A shout echoed out from the man at their front. “Su TaiZong, get down here immediately and explain yourself!”

TaiZong’s face clouded with anger, and his gaze remained fixed on the group in the courtyard below as he addressed the Grandmasters surrounding him. “Follow.”

TaiZong stomped to the exit of his throne room, and then, in a single bound, he leapt down to stand in front of the group wearing light blue robes. Only a moment later, over two dozen Su Clan Grandmasters appeared beside him.

Once everyone was arrayed behind him, TaiZong stepped forward. “What is the meaning of this? How dare you behave atrociously in the Su Clan?”

The leader of the blue-clothed cultivators gave him a disdainful look. “The Su Clan? What Su Clan? Not only did people from your Su Clan intentionally cause trouble in the Blue Wind Pavilion, but they also conspired to overthrow a manager who is under the protection of the Blue Wind Sovereign. If your Su Clan doesn’t put the Blue Wind Pavilion in its eyes, then the Pavilion will reply in kind.”

At this, the cultivators in blue robes released a wave of qi to suppress TaiZong and his assembled Grandmasters.

While TaiZong had more people on his side, the Pavilion’s cultivators were all Peak Grandmasters with impeccable foundations. If TaiZong started a fight, there was no question who the victor would be.

Feeling the combined pressure from the blue-robed cultivators, TaiZong gritted his teeth. “What do you want?”

The leader of the Pavilion’s cultivators gave him a smile that wasn’t a smile.

“For his crimes against the Pavilion, Su ShouDu and his immediate family must be crippled.” The man flicked a pill bottle at TaiZong. “These pills will abolish their cultivation bases and ensure that they will never be able to cultivate again. After that, their life and death are none of our concern.”

TaiZong gnashed his teeth together. “You want me to cripple my most promising descendant?”

The leader shook his head slightly. “I don’t care what you do. Either you cripple him, or we destroy your clan. The choice is yours.”

“I will not allow—”

Suddenly, TaiZu stepped forward. “Patriarch TaiZong! This is not a matter that you can decide on your own.”

He bowed to the Pavilion’s representative. “Esteemed guests of the Blue Wind Pavilion. I apologize. This situation has come as quite a surprise. Please allow us time to discuss it.”

Smirking, the leader tossed TaiZu the pill bottle. “Have ShouDu and everyone from his immediate family take one. Then, they must all present themselves in front of the Pavilion by noon tomorrow. If even one person is missing, we may need to look at finding a new ruler for this region of the continent.”

While the Grandmaster of the Su Clan had all gone down to confront the group from the Pavilion, I had remained behind in the throne room with the various representatives from the noble families. This didn’t matter, though. Everyone down below had been projecting their voices, and we were able to hear everything clearly.

So, when TaiZong and the others returned, the hall was filled with excitement and righteous fury.

Before anyone else could speak, one of the noble representatives stepped forward. “Patriarch Su, you cannot allow the Pavilion to throw its weight around like this. You must stand up to them. The dignity of all our clans is at stake.”

Immediately, several others joined the call and pleaded for the Su Clan to resist the Pavilion’s demands.

“Enough!” TaiZong pounded a fist on the arm of this throne hard enough to break it. “This audience is over. Begone!”

At this, TaiZong and the Grandmasters all departed out the back entrance, and after taking a step back to fade from people’s notice, I took a Shadowed Soul Pill, vanished from sight, and followed after the group.

We didn’t go far. Right behind the Palace of Supreme Harmony was the Palace of Central Harmony, a smaller, more intimate throne room.

TaiZong looked at the assembled Grandmasters. “Get ShouDu in here. Now!”

Less than a minute later, ShouDu was thrown to the ground in front of the Patriarch. His once immaculate robes were torn and disheveled.

TaiZong glared at him. “Explain. What did you do?”

ShouDu was shaking in fear. “I… I don’t… I didn’t do anything.”

TaiZong slammed his fist down onto his armrest, breaking yet another throne. “Did you go to the Pavilion? What did you do there?”

“No… I mean… Yes… I just… When I went… their attendant insulted me… they… they insulted the clan…”

TaiZong’s glare became murderous. “What. Did. You. Do?”

“No… nothing… I… I…”

TaiZu stepped forward.

“It no longer matters. The child is a fool who insulted a Martial Sovereign. There is no saving him.” He held out the pill bottle to ShouDu. “Take one of these pills. It will cripple you, and you will no longer be able to cultivate, but you will not die.”

ShouDu stared at the bottle in horror. “No… No… I can’t…”

TaiZu pursed his lips. “This is what the clan requires of you. The only way for the clan not to be destroyed is for you to cripple yourself.”

ShouDu breath became rapid, and he scurried away in fear. “No… I am a genius. I will not. We… We are the Su Clan. We cannot let petty merchants tell us what to do. The other nobles are right. We must fight!”

TaiZu stared. “Are you sure? Is that your final answer?”

A look of frenzy appeared on ShouDu’s face. “Yes. I refuse to become a cripple. I will fight. We must fight!”

At that very moment, a thick lightning bolt shot from the clear blue sky. It struck ShouDu and vaporized him, body and soul.

Seeing this, all of the Grandmasters who had already sworn an Oath took a step back in fear.

TaiZu looked at TaiZong with a solemn expression. “We have a problem. We can no longer fulfill the Pavilion’s demands. We are unable to hand ShouDu over to them.”

TaiZong, who had watched everything with a look of horror, could only blink.

TaiZu looked around the room. “We cannot fulfill the Pavilion’s demands. So, we can only try to guide their response. The leadership of the Wastes must change.”

He looked at TaiZong. “Brother, I’m sorry, but I must request that you step down as Patriarch.”

Emperor Li and Grand Elder TaiZu had put a lot of effort into making this performance appear as natural as possible.

Had it all been necessary? Not really, but it had accomplished my goals.

The Su Clan would choose a new leader, and TaiZong had been forced from his position in a way that none of the surrounding powers would dare to question. Additionally, after seeing ShouDu’s death firsthand, no one who had sworn an Oath would dare to break it.

The Su Clan’s leadership structure was broken. Now, I just had to replace it.

Chapter 297 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

All of TaiZong’s closest supporters had already been subdued, so when TaiZu suggested that he step down as Patriarch, not one person protested. YuanFei, YuanFeng, and a couple of the Grandmasters who supported them had not yet been made to swear Oaths, but since they had ambitions of their own, they were more than happy to see TaiZong lose his position. This being the case, Su TaiZong, Patriarch of the Su Clan, had no choice but to surrender. However, that didn’t mean he was happy about it.

TaiZong glared at TaiZu. “You want to throw me away to try and appease the Pavilion? Fine. But who is going to replace me? You? You are the reason we’re even in this mess. If you hadn’t forced the brat to swear that damned Oath, he wouldn’t have died!”

TaiZu shook his head. “If he had been thinking of the clan instead of only worrying about himself, this would never have happened. The younger generation has become far too reckless. But no, I will not be taking over as Patriarch. I am not suited for such a position.”

Off to the side, YuanFei stepped forward. “As father’s eldest son, if he abdicates, then the position of Patriarch falls to me. Do not worry. Once this mess with the Blue Wind Pavilion is all sorted out, I will lead the Su Clan to a prosperous future.”

On the other side of the room, YuanFeng cleared his throat. “Do not be so hasty, brother. We must consider things carefully. As father’s most powerful son, I believe that I am the more suitable choice.”

YuanFei snorted. “It was your grandson that got us into this mess. Did you use him to frame father just so that you could usurp the position of Patriarch? I will not allow that to happen.”

YuanFeng ground his teeth together. “ShouDu was a… disappointment, but even in his folly, he is far better than any of the spawn that you have produced.”

YuanFei’s face heated up. “How dare—”

“Enough!” From his broken throne, TaiZong stared down at his two bickering children. “Are you that eager to snatch away what is mine? Be silent!”

Once the room quieted down, TaiZu released a suppressive wave of qi and took control of the conversation. “We must approach this situation with the requisite level of caution. While we do not wish to be beholden to the Pavilion, as a Sovereign-level force, they can crush us to dust with only a thought.”

While no one was happy about this, no one spoke up to directly contradict the Grand Elder, so he continued. “We must consult the ancestor. He established our relationship with the Pavilion. He will know best how we should move forward.”

TaiZong closed his eyes and nodded. “Very well, I will go and meet with father. I will let you know what he says.”

At that moment, a formation activated, and two words boomed out loud enough to cause the entire palace to vibrate. “Everyone. Now.”

Shocked, TaiZong bowed to the air and led the assembled Grandmasters to HongYi’s residence. Still hidden by the effects of a Shadowed Soul Pill, I followed them.

When the group arrived at the Hall of Ancestral Worship, HongYi was already standing in the middle of the courtyard, waiting for us. Before anyone could even greet him, he waved toward the southern exit of the compound and began marching in that direction.

Silently, the group followed after him.

While HongYi’s level of cultivation wasn’t much higher than anyone else present, his position in the hearts and minds of the Su Clan’s elders was absolute. No one was willing to challenge his authority.

Led by HongYi, the group entered the long, rectangular courtyard that lay to the south. After circling around the three-story building that served as the clan’s library and primary technique hall, we made our way to a wide, pentagonal marble platform. At each corner of this pentagon, there were buildings where the Grandmasters could enter secluded cultivation. The center, however, was empty. It held nothing but a large open square that had been paved with marble bricks.

HongYi led everyone to the center of this square and then turned to glare at them.

“I have done my best to guide this clan forward, but it is clear that I have failed. Therefore, we must seek guidance from the true leaders of our clan.” Murmuring began at these words, but HongYi released a wave of qi to silence them. “Release your grip on your qi. Calm your minds. Relax your muscles.”

Hidden from view, I waded through the crowd and examined everyone as I passed. Then, walked up to HongYi and whispered in his ear. “TaiZong, YuanKong, two Grandmasters on the left that I don’t know.”

HongYi focused his qi and blasted it toward his targets. “I said release your qi!”

With a strand of soul power spread out among the group, everyone in the square was within the bounds of my intent. When HongYi first released this blast, everyone instinctively pulled on their qi to defend themselves, but the moment they understood the reason for this attack, they did their best to release their grips and calm their thoughts.

The instant I felt everyone relax, I focused my mind, ripped them away from this place, and shoved them into my inner world.

HongYi, TaiZu, TaiZong, and all the others appeared in a stone square that was surrounded by gently rolling hills covered in shoots of young herbs. Some people stared at the herbs, some stared at the enormous stone wall that encircled them, and some stared at the sky where a halo of light circled high overhead.

HongYi, however, took a deep breath. “The qi here is so… dense. It’s like the entire place is held within a high-level Qi Gathering Formation.”

TaiZong looked around warily. “Where… are we?”

At this, a young man who looked no older than 20 approached the group with his face fixed in a firm expression. He was wearing white, formation-enhanced robes cut in a martial style, with the sleeves and legs fastened to his wrists and ankles with leather straps. When he reached the group, he did not salute or bow. He merely stood straight with his arms clasped behind his back.

“Welcome to Chang’an, the Ancestral Home of the Su Clan. Follow me.”

As the man turned to leave, mutters of discontent began to emerge from the group of old Grandmasters. “Who does he think he is? How dare a child speak to us in that manner?”

Unfortunately for them, the man who had come to meet them was one of NiangBa’s lieutenants, a true Martial King. When he heard these murmurs of discontent, he glanced back and froze the entire group of Grandmasters in place with his will-lock. No matter how hard they tried, no one could do so much as take a breath or blink their eyes.

While some property of my inner world had made it extremely difficult for anyone but an earth cultivator to control qi, the will-locks of Rulers had become substantially more powerful. In the outside world, locking down dozens of Grandmasters so thoroughly would have been a struggle, even for a Peak King, but here, NiangBa’s lieutenant was able to do it without issue.

“Follow. If you do not, that is your choice, and you will bear the consequences, not me.”

Then, he snorted, released his will-lock, and continued on his way.

The Grandmasters, scared out of their wits, hurried after him.

Over the past week, GuiMing and his team had constructed a small pavilion both to host this group of Grandmasters and to serve as a temporary meeting place for the leadership council. It had been built out of the waste materials produced from excavating the outer wall and was little more than a solid stone slab held up by a dozen pillars. However, because of the skills the GuiMing’s group had developed over the years, no one would know that by looking at it.

The floor was a simple three-meter-thick foundation gleaming white quartzite.

The canopy appeared to be a traditional wood-framed gabled roof that had been covered in yellow tiles. However, in reality, it was a solid block of carefully shaped quartzite that had been colored in shades of red, yellow, and brown.

The stone pillars that held up this roof were carved with scenes from the clan’s short history. One showed a pristine and untouched Mount Jiang, one showed the attack on Mount Jiang, and another depicted our relocation to TongBei.

All of these scenes were colored in stunning detail, but like the floor and roof, no paints or pigments had been used. One of GuiMing’s earth cultivators had been experimenting with shaping rocks to produce specific colors, and she was getting rather good at it.

When the Grandmasters arrived at this pavilion, they looked around in stunned silence. They were all earth cultivators, so while they might not have known the details, they could sense a bit of what constructing this place entailed.

Because of this, when they were brought in front of a group of three tables where nine youths who looked no older than 20 were waiting for them, they didn’t immediately lash out.

ShouLi, whose appearance was that of a 17- or 18-year-old girl, glared at them.

“Su HongYi, ancestor of the Su Clan. Su TaiZong, Patriarch of the Su Clan. Elders. Grandmasters. You have failed.” She clasped her hands on the table in front of her. “Your actions have brought ruin to your branch of the Su Clan. As such, we are taking control. The Su Clan of the Western Wastes is no more. It shall be subsumed into the Su Clan of Chang’an. Any roles or positions of leadership that you once possessed are no more.”

ShouLi gestured to the eight others around her. “We, the leadership council, are now in charge. We will appoint new elders to manage things in the Wastes. If you wish to one day reclaim your positions of importance, then you must earn them. Is that understood?”

While the setting had done a lot to overawe the Su Clan’s Grandmasters, they were, after all, old men whose minds had long since fallen to cultivation madness. Even after everything they had seen, there was inevitably someone who chose to fight back.

“How dare you, child! I will not be dictated to in such a way. I am—”

ShouLi waved a hand, locking him in place. “I do not care who you are. I am Su ShouLi. You will refer to me as Elder ShouLi. If you are too blind to recognize the power of the people before you, then your continued existence will do nothing but harm my Su Clan.”

ShouLi, a water cultivator, couldn’t use her qi within my inner world. So, she reached to the side, picked up a small stone, and casually flicked it toward the Grandmaster’s forehead. As she had long reached Peak Rank 3 in body cultivation, none of the Grandmasters were even close to being able to react to this attack in time.

After this Grandmaster’s head exploded, ShouLi looked around at the others. “Does anyone else have a problem?”

Frozen by shock, not by a will-lock, no one could respond.

ShouLi smiled. “Good. Then let’s proceed.”

While I wanted my clan’s leadership council to take control of things, the fact that they were barred from entering the Wastes because of their cultivation levels had been a bit of a problem. To resolve this, we had needed to both rework our leadership structure and establish a regular schedule for transferring people into and out of my inner world.

Each member of the leadership council was given the title of core elder, and the elders whose responsibilities lay within my inner world became our new inner elders. Our most powerful Grandmasters were promoted to positions as outer elders and tasked with taking over the Su Clan’s territories in the Wastes.

Along with these changes, the council announced the reinstatement of yearly competitions where any member of the clan could try to prove that they were worthy of a position on the council. The council was divided into three branches: the Administrative Branch, led by ShouLi, the Profession Guilds, led by Mo, and the Public Works Branch, led by GuiAi. Each branch had three seats on the council, and each year, the seat that was up for grabs would rotate between the three branches.

As for dealing with transfers into and out of my inner world, one of the arenas in the central courtyard of the Su Clan’s palace complex was designated the official transit point. At regular intervals, I would transfer anyone who was standing in this arena to Chang’an, and anyone who was standing in the square where the Grandmasters had first arrived in my inner world would be transferred to this arena.

At first, as things were getting set up, this would happen once a day. Eventually, the transfers would only occur once a week, and after the first year, they would only occur once a month. This wasn’t a perfect solution since if something came up, I might have to miss a transfer or two, but until I figured out how to make one of the Nine Rivers Sect’s teleportation gates, it was the best that we could do.

With this, I considered events in the Su Clan settled. ShouLi and the council were in charge, and the clan’s original leadership, including both TaiZu and TaiZong, were doing their best simply to remain relevant. The clan’s leadership still had to hash things out with the Pavilion, but after a token apology, that situation would quietly die down.

As for me, I stepped back and did what an ancestor was supposed to do. I entered secluded cultivation and kept out of the clan’s affairs until I was needed.

Chapter 298 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

Cultivation. For multiple centuries, I had been trying to learn to cultivate further and better, but what was cultivation?

In the most basic sense, cultivation was pulling in energy from the environment to strengthen one’s body. Typically, this was pulling in qi to strengthen one’s energy body, but various members of my clan had been experimenting with pulling in wu to strengthen their physical bodies. In either case, energy was used to strengthen a facet of one’s body.

This strengthening wasn’t free, though. When a person cultivates their body, their mind would also be affected. I had personally experienced these mental effects more times than I wished to remember. While I still didn’t know the root cause of these effects, I did know a few factors that would impact how strong they would be.

First was the purity of a person’s qi. The less pure, the stronger these mental effects would be. Second was the placement of a person’s meridians. If a person’s meridians weren’t placed correctly, the mental effects of their cultivation technique would be more severe. Third was the Rank 3 cultivation technique that a person used. A technique that strengthened one’s qi would make the mental effects stronger as well.

However, even if a person cultivated perfectly, their mind would still be affected. The only way I had learned to completely cut off these mental effects was by blocking my acupoints, essentially cutting my energy body off from my mind and soul. While not entirely ideal, this allowed me to function normally without needing to worry about the mental effects of cultivation during my daily life.

The why behind these mental effects still eluded me, though. Why did pulling in energy affect one’s mind? My supposition was that it was related to the flow of energy through one’s body, but this only told me the ‘how,’ not the ‘why.’

For Yellow-Rank techniques, this was all that mattered. The only differences between one technique and the next were their elements, the purity of the qi they produced, and the mental effects one would be subjected to.

For Profound-Rank and above, however, one also needed to take into account a variety of tertiary effects. Some techniques were said to make qi ‘sharper,’ and some were said to make qi ‘hotter.’ Some made qi ‘smoother,’ and some made qi ‘heavier.’

But, what did it even mean for qi to be ‘sharper?’ Through my experiments with metal qi attack techniques, I found that with ‘sharper’ qi, my strikes would be able to cut through targets more easily. These attacks weren’t any more powerful than attacks with ‘normal’ qi, but ‘sharpening’ my qi was akin to sharpening a blade. For whatever reason, ‘sharper’ qi was met with less resistance during a cut. If I tried to use this qi with bashing or piercing attacks, though, it was no different from normal qi.

Again… why?

I had known for a long time that different fire qi cultivation techniques produced different ‘flavors’ of fire qi, but I did not know how or why. If I wanted to improve on existing techniques, if I wanted my techniques to reach into the legendary Heaven-Rank, I needed to figure this out.

Luckily, recent events had pointed a big arrow at an important aspect of cultivation that I had unknowingly been neglecting: Laws.

From my most recent conversation with the incarnation of the Earthly Dao, I knew that by using a fire seed to pump my inner world full of earth qi, I had been imbuing it with earth Laws. This, in turn, allowed people to begin using earth qi cultivation techniques.

According to the most recent reports that I had received, while anyone who cultivated earth qi was able to draw in energy to replenish their reserves, only Martial Disciples were capable of advancing.

This told me that Laws were somehow connected to cultivation. Before anyone would be able to advance beyond Martial Disciple, the world would need to be imbued with more advanced Laws. This made sense, but I doubted things were this simple. There was something I was missing.

So, in my inner world, I constructed a new Technique Hall filled with scrolls for every Rank 1, 2, and 3 earth qi cultivation technique that I had in my mental library. Then, I talked to ShouLi, and she created a new mission for the members of my clan: cultivate everything.

Was it true that only Martial Disciples could advance, or was something else at play?

It didn’t take long for me to get my answer.

Only about 60% of the Rank 1 techniques were usable. The other 40% couldn’t be cultivated at all. Also, while it was true that none of the Rank 3 techniques worked, a handful of the Rank 2 techniques did, at least somewhat. A few techniques had allowed people to break through to Martial Master, but no one had been able to ascend past Martial Master 4.

Importantly, no one had been able to cultivate any Earth-Rank techniques. The best Rank 1 techniques that had been cultivated were Mid-Profound, and all the Rank 2 techniques that had worked were only Low-Yellow.

So, what did all of this tell me? Cultivation somehow imbued a person’s qi with Laws.

How did a person’s qi become ‘sharper?’ It was imbued with Laws of sharpness.

Why did a person who cultivated the Earth Heart Mantra believe that they could defeat anyone and everyone? Their qi was imbued with Laws of indomitability.

Why did cultivating impure qi cause people to become crazy? Their qi was imbued with a hodgepodge of messy and contradictory Laws. While the most dominant Law would still be expressed most strongly, this mixture of Laws would cause a person to lose control.

Why did cultivation work at all? Cultivation Laws or energy Laws.

Could everything about cultivation be defined in terms of the Laws at play? Maybe not, but doing so gave me a new way in which I could understand cultivation techniques.

What was the difference between a Profound-Rank technique and an Earth-Rank technique? The Profound-Rank technique needed Profound-Rank Laws, and the Earth-Rank technique needed Earth-Rank Laws.

If my guess was correct, then if I wanted people to be able to cultivate Earth-Rank techniques, I would need to imbue the space with qi from an Earth-Rank fire seed so that they would have access to Earth-Rank Laws.

What did all of this mean for me, personally? No matter how much I modified or improved an Earth-Rank technique, I would never be able to improve it to Heaven-Rank. Instead, I would need to start with a technique that was capable of tapping into Heaven-Rank Laws.

Also, even if I could find such a technique, even if I purchased it from the System, I couldn’t be certain that it would be usable. Was the Nine Rivers Continent imbued with Heaven-Rank Laws? Maybe, but the fact that I had never even heard of such a technique seemed to indicate otherwise. That being the case, I put away thoughts of acquiring such a technique any time soon.

All of these conjectures left me with one lingering worry: how did this new information affect my clan? I not only started them off with awful Low-Yellow techniques, but I also encouraged them to cultivate a random assortment of techniques that likely relied on a variety of mutually contradictory Laws.

I had believed that this was fine since they were using Energy Expulsion Pills to purge themselves of any lingering impurities. But if cultivating really did imbue a person’s qi with Laws, would such a pill be enough? When a person cultivated, was it only their qi that was imbued with Laws, or was their body imbued with them as well? If so, would these Laws linger even after their cultivation base was reset?

I needed to find out. I needed to know if there was a better way to train my people.

If we wanted to develop a new, optimal training regimen, there were a lot of questions that would need to be answered, but I already had enough work to keep me busy for a few lifetimes. So, I handed this project off to YuLong. I had bought him a boost to his training comprehension, and I couldn’t help but believe that it would come in handy.

With this Law-based framework in mind, I set about creating a new set of Warrior Tier cultivation techniques.

I had already cultivated metal qi in this life, so since I didn’t want to have to worry about absorbing contradictory Laws, I chose to stick with that element.

What metal Laws would my ideal cultivation technique possess? What options did I even have?

I spent a good deal of time trying to purchase something from the System that could help me answer these questions, but I didn’t meet with any success. Simply put, information on Laws was not something that could be purchased with credits.

So, instead, I organized the techniques I had based on my guesses about which Laws they were connected to. Then, I tried to tease out which features of each technique were connected to which specific Laws.

My goal was to center my technique around Laws relating to sharpness, quickness, and integrity. These were core aspects of several metal techniques, so my assumption was that they were core Laws for metal.

After carefully constructing a new technique that I thought would work, I wrote it down in a book and used my technique appraisal ability to evaluate it.

Unnamed, Peak-Earth Rank 1 Cultivation Technique, Metal Qi, Effects: Increases one’s integrity. Makes one more likely to react without thinking.

I wasn’t exactly enamored with that second effect, but I could see its usefulness. During a fight, the ability to react quickly was important. If it were something that I was subject to at all times, it would be a huge problem, but as long as I kept my acupoints blocked, it shouldn’t be an issue.

In any case, I could try it for a while and see if it worked. If not, I could just start over.

Picking my brush back up, I scribbled a name on the book’s cover: The Writ of Quicksilver.

Then, I took an Energy Expulsion Pill to abolish my existing cultivation base and started fresh using my new technique.

All told, including the time I spent researching, it took me a year and a half to reach Peak Disciple. Part of me wanted to continue pushing through Martial Master, but there was no reason to rush, and I had other tasks I needed to take care of first.

Chapter 299 – Life 76, Age 17, Martial Disciple Peak

Over the past year and a half, while I had been researching and developing my new cultivation technique, Mei had been living a quiet life in my storage space.

During the day, she spent most of her time in the fields, doing mundane farming work. At night, she retreated to her room and studied books on soul cultivation. While it wasn’t possible for her to actively cultivate her soul within my inner world, she had dedicated herself to learning all of the theories and philosophies involved in it.

Every so often, I would check in on her to see if she needed anything, but she seemed content. According to Mei, within my inner world, her blessing was entirely inactive, so she could relax and relearn who she was without its influence.

Was this true? Was her blessing truly inactive, or was it making her lie? Every instinct I had told me Mei was telling the truth, but I still had to pull out a truth stone to check. Even then, even after the truth stone confirmed her words, it was hard for me to shake my lingering doubts.

Still, I didn't want to define a person only in terms of their blessing. That was what the Su Clan had done, and it hadn’t led them anywhere good. I needed to be better than that.

With Mei being a year older than me, by the time I ended my research into cultivation techniques, she was already nearly 19. So, if she wanted to learn cultivation, she would only have another two years to advance to Martial Master before stagnation set in.

Even though I was a bit wary, I wasn’t willing to cripple the girl out of fear of what she might become. So, after sitting down in a stark white room that had been cleared of all furniture and distractions, I sent her a letter.

Mei,

I need to talk to you about cultivation and your choices for the future. I am going to pull you out, back to the real world. Are you ready?

After seeing this, she took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes.”

In an instant, she disappeared from the rice field she had been standing in and appeared in the white room with me.

Seeing her normally for the first time in over a year, I studied her carefully. She was wearing dirty, undyed, roughspun clothing, and her long, black hair was tied up in a loose bun. Her skin had become darkly tanned from long days outside, and her hands and arm muscles showed that she wasn’t a stranger to hard work. While she smiled at me pleasantly, I sensed that her smile was hiding a deeper sadness.

I gestured to the chair across from me. “Please, sit. If you can, try to focus only on me. That will keep your blessing from activating.”

Mei dipped her head and did as I requested. “Of course, Ancestor Su.”

There was a hint of playfulness to her tone, and unlike most people in my clan nowadays, she didn’t feel the need to avert her eyes.

“Mei, I need to know if you want to learn to cultivate. If so, I will help you.”

“That…” She paused and closed her eyes. “Yes, I would.”

“Alright. What element would you like to cultivate? Any of them will work, but if you want to cultivate inside the world orb, it has to be earth.”

Her reply was instantaneous. “Wind.”

My breath caught in my throat, and I saw the corner of her lip curl up in amusement.

I looked down and began tapping on my armrest.

Wind. Would… Would that be okay? Of all the people…

My fear wasn’t the element itself. It was the related profession—Gu Keeping.

The only things I truly needed to fear were things that could damage my soul, and soul gu had always worried me. However, I had more than enough protections in place by this point, from my soul cultivation technique to talismans to formation-enhanced refined items, that I was confident I could handle anyone below a Gu Sovereign. Even if I were infected, unless it were a Rank 7 gu or higher, I could deal with it.

Instead, I was more worried about my clan. If someone began infecting them without my knowledge, it could be extremely troublesome. While I hadn’t studied gu in-depth, I had studied them enough to know that there were gu that could turn people into puppets and gu that could kill a person if they didn’t follow the keeper’s commands. Since these only affected the body, I hadn’t worried too much about them, but they could devastate my clan.

However, even putting aside the fact that cultivating wind qi wasn’t the same as learning gu keeping, would Mei be willing to use such creatures against me?

If she did, that would be the end of her. I would never bring her into the loop again, and if what she did was evil enough, I might even end up killing her at the start of a loop and moving my reset point forward to make it permanent. Her blessing should never allow that to happen.

Of course, even with the rationalization, there was no way I was willing to immediately send her off to learn gu keeping. Learning to cultivate wind, however…

I nodded. “Alright. Wind.”

Mei smiled, seemingly knowing that she had just won some kind of victory.

I blew out a breath and tried to refocus. “Mei, I’m… working on a new path for learning cultivation, and if you are willing, I would like you to experiment with it.”

“Of course, Ancestor Su.”

I wanted to shake my head, but I remained stoic. “All I need to know is, which aspects of ‘wind’ are you interested in? What… features of wind do you wish to embody?”

Again, her response was instantaneous. “Freedom.”

I nodded slowly. “Anything else? Two more would be best.”

This time, she gave her answer a bit of thought.

“Speed and…” Mei paused. I sensed a mix of emotions from her, from worry to anger, but her next word was light and cheerful. “Vengeance.”

“All… right. Give me some time, and I’ll see what I can come up with.”

She smiled and bowed her head. “Of course, Ancestor Su.”

Over the next few months, I focused on researching wind techniques.

With only a cursory examination, I found that wind Laws could be divided into two seemingly separate groups. Some of the techniques centered around freedom, speed, and happiness while others centered around vengeance, anger, and pestilence. I had Yellow-, Profound-, and Earth-Rank techniques that contained aspects of each of these two groups, but none of the techniques had aspects of both.

This made me curious, but before delving into the topic too deeply, I created a set of three basic techniques:

Mantra of the Swift Winds, Peak-Yellow Rank 1 Cultivation Technique, Wind Qi, Effects: Makes one rasher.

Mantra of the Free Winds, Peak-Yellow Rank 1 Cultivation Technique, Wind Qi, Effects: Makes one more rebellious.

Mantra of the Vengeful Winds, Peak-Yellow Rank 1 Cultivation Technique, Wind Qi, Effects: Makes one seek revenge for any slights.

Because of my budding worry that cultivating a Low-Yellow technique might create lingering issues, I skipped them and only made techniques with Peak-quality filters. Then, I sent them to Mei so that she could begin her studies.

At this point, I had a problem, though. Mei didn’t have any affinities, I didn’t have a formation that could raise her wind affinity, and any purchases I made from the System to raise it would only be temporary.

Still, she was helping me research Law-based cultivation, and I had the credits to spare.

“System, raise Mei’s wind affinity to peak six-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 16,177,600 credits. 899,577,661,586 credits remaining.

However, I chose not to raise any of her comprehensions since, in the past, she had been able to rise to Peak Lord without such boosts. I also chose not to copy these techniques into jade slips. Learning them in such a way would only hurt Mei in the long run since the memories from slips wouldn’t stick with her through resets.

With this settled, GuiAi’s team took care of arranging a teacher and quarters within Dragon Gate City for her, treating Mei the same as any other member of the clan.

Then, I turned my attention to researching more complex wind techniques.

Creating Profound-Rank techniques was far more complicated than creating Yellow-Rank techniques had been.

When I had been studying metal qi techniques, identifying the different Laws involved in a technique had been challenging, but it all made sense to me. In a way, I could feel which parts of a technique were connected to which Laws.

With these wind qi techniques, nothing evoked a similar feeling. I had to do everything through pure logical analysis.

Why? This might have been because I was more familiar with metal techniques, but I didn’t like that answer. I wasn’t familiar with the specific techniques I had been looking at, so why would a general familiarity with metal techniques matter? Instead, I began to suspect it was, again, related to Laws.

Whether it was because I had already cultivated metal techniques in this life, or whether it was for some other reason, I had a connection to metal Laws that I didn’t have to wind Laws. This made understanding metal techniques easier.

Still, even without this connection, Rank 1 techniques were simple enough, and my comprehension of cultivation techniques was high enough, that creating a handful of techniques wasn’t a problem.

In the end, I made three techniques for each level, Low-, Mid-, High-, and Peak-Profound. Twelve techniques in total.

After that, I made a single technique for each level of the Earth-Rank with each technique combining all three of the Laws that Mei requested. This was even more challenging since vengeance didn’t mesh well with the other two, but I found a way to make it work.

Writ of the Defiant Winds, Peak-Earth Rank 1 Cultivation Technique, Wind Qi, Effects: Makes one less willing to follow orders. Makes one desire vengeance on anyone who imprisons them.

What my analysis ability didn’t say was that this technique should also make one’s qi ‘faster’ and that it should be far more difficult for someone to usurp control of it, even with a much higher affinity.

Once this was done, I handed everything off to Mei and allowed her to decide how she wanted to proceed. The clan could provide her with any teachers or resources that she might desire, but they wouldn’t come free. She would have to work and earn them like anyone else.

Then, I returned my attention to my own progress.

All of my work and study on wind techniques had given me valuable insights into how cultivation techniques worked and functioned. I wanted to use these insights to create 8 more sets of techniques, one for each element, that YuLong could use to train recruits through a Law-based methodology. However, that would have to wait. First, I needed to create Rank 2 techniques for both myself and Mei.

With everything I had learned, creating a new Rank 2 metal technique was no problem at all. It was done in less than a month.

Writ of Quicksilver, Peak-Earth Rank 2 Cultivation Technique, Metal Qi, Effects: Increases one’s integrity. Makes one more likely to react without thinking.

Creating a few Peak-Yellow wind techniques for Mei also wasn’t much of a problem. As soon as they were done, I handed them off to her so that she wouldn’t need to worry about not having them.

Creating Profound- and Earth-Rank techniques, though, was far more difficult.

Initially, I wanted to do the same as I had with Rank 1, create 12 different Profound techniques and 4 different Earth techniques. However, eventually, I decided to save time and only made 4 Profound techniques, a Low-Earth technique, and a Peak-Earth technique. I could come back and do the rest later.

Finally, after all these techniques were complete, I sat down in my cultivation chamber and focused on advancing.

Chapter 300 – Life 76, Age 24, Martial Master Peak

After several years of work, I was able to put together complete training packages for wind, metal, earth, fire, and wood qi. Each package had a series of techniques that would guide a person from Rank 1 Peak-Yellow to Rank 3 Peak-Earth. More would be needed, but that could wait. First, I needed YuLong and the clan’s trainers to see if it was worth all the effort.

While I waited, I turned my attention to other areas of interest.

During this time, under ShouLi’s guidance, my clan had fully taken over the Su Clan. While ShouLi and the other Emperors remained locked away in my inner world, they stayed in regular contact with Grandmasters on the outside to guide and shape the clan’s growth.

Aside from fortifying our position in Dragon Gate City, they had also sent people to take over control of the Rosehill Hot Springs and to build the beginnings of a city around Mount Jiang. Additionally, to create a foundation for taking over the sects, each year, the clan sent a group of highly skilled Disciples to blend in and begin climbing up the ranks of their management structures.

With the Su Clan under our control, there was no single, unified power in the Wastes that could impede our development. Several of the minor noble families that controlled smaller towns and villages did try to voice their displeasure with us, but since each clan only possessed two or three low-level Grandmasters, they were easily put in their place.

In less than a decade, we had control of three of the Waste’s five key locations.

At this point, I decided that we needed to begin looking at taking the next step. While the fact that no one above Grandmaster could enter the Wastes protected us, it also shackled us. If we wanted to continue developing, if I wanted any hope of advancing to Sovereign, things would have to change. And, if I wanted to change things, I knew where I needed to focus my efforts: body cultivation.

During our time in the Nine Rivers Sect, ShouLi, Liang, NiangBa, and about a dozen other experts in our clan had spent decades researching body cultivation. Now that all our Rulers were trapped in my inner world and unable to advance any further, attempting to master body cultivation had become a popular hobby.

At first, they met with absolutely zero success. As far as I could tell, my inner world didn’t even have the Laws needed to support basic, Rank 1 body cultivation. However, these people had a lot of time on their hands, and they eventually found a way to make it work.

The key was to use a combination of an energy barrier and a fire seed. This created a small bubble of demonic energy where a person could cultivate. The Laws in this bubble weren’t complete enough to allow a person to break through, but they were enough to allow people to draw wu into their bodies, and this was all they needed to continue their research.

Notably, the fire seeds used for these projects didn’t come from my own, personal stockpile. During their time in the sect, nearly everyone who had the ability to purchase a fire seed of their own had done so. The sect hadn’t had many for sale, but there had been enough for over a dozen random seeds to now be scattered about amongst my clan’s population.

While I was slightly concerned about this interfering with my plans for developing the world’s Laws, after thinking about the sheer volume of energy that I had needed to pump into the Solid Mountain Fire for the world to break through to Rank 1, I didn’t think there was too much to worry about. Still, at my request, the people reaching body cultivation focused their studies around a seed that generated earth wu, just in case.

Even with so many people working on the problem, developing a brand-new method of cultivation was far from easy. There were countless small problems that needed to be worked out, and even after we had a solution to one of them, that solution would then need to be refined and enhanced.

So, while ShouLi, Liang, and the other high-level members of the clan focused on trying to find the best way to combine wu and karmic energy to advance to Rank 4, others were going back over what they had already discovered about Ranks 1, 2, and 3.

Surprisingly, these efforts at low-level body cultivation were not led by actual members of my clan. Instead, the person who took charge of them was one of the random members of the guilds who the Earthly Dao had forced to join us against her will.

Unfortunately, this group hadn’t made any progress on creating wu filters that would let people cultivate outside of a specially prepared bubble. However, they had perfected the cultivation system enough so that one wouldn’t need to worry about accidentally absorbing impurities when injured. A person would still need wu to recover, but waiting until one returned to a safe environment was no longer any problem.

This left me with an important decision to make: Did I want to cultivate my body?

The effects that doing so would have on a person’s mind were still a mystery, but I was certain that it would have an effect. My supposition was that the mental effects of cultivation were caused by a person’s energy body becoming aligned to certain Laws. Body cultivation, then, should align one’s physical body to Laws in a similar way. With everyone cultivating wu directly from a fire seed, the energy and Laws they were putting into their bodies were incomparably pure, which should stop them from devolving into madness, but that didn’t mean they weren’t affected.

Worse, until we had more data to work with, I wouldn’t have any way of knowing which Laws or mental effects I might be subjecting myself to. Our clan’s cultivation techniques were too crude to direct such effects, and credits were incapable of buying such information from the System.

Was I willing to subject myself to a complete unknown just to see what would happen?

Yes… Yes, I was. However, there was no reason for me to rush into this. There were already plenty of people in my clan who had reached the limits of Rank 3 body cultivation, and I could rely on them instead of doing everything myself.

So, I sent a message to ShouLi.

I need your best Grandmaster fire cultivator who has also reached Rank 3 with fire body cultivation.

I met the Grandmaster, a young man named TongBin, at the Hall of Ancestral Worship in the northeast corner of the Su Clan’s palace complex, the place where HongYi had once resided.

After a few words of greeting, I led him inside and then down the long, winding staircase that led to the large cavern below.

When he saw the Rank 7 formation that was pumping endless earth essence into a fire seed, his mouth opened in shock.

“Ancestor… what… What is this place?”

I smirked. “This is the reason that only Grandmasters are allowed in the Wastes. This is why no one here can ascend to Lord. This is what I brought you here to change.”

TongBin took in the sight of the cavern flooded with miasma and gulped. “What do you need me to do?”

I patted him on the shoulder and then led him down into the mists.

“First, drop your protections. Stop using your qi to shield yourself from the surrounding environment. We need to make sure that your body is strong enough to endure the poisons in the air.”

TongBin nodded and then, hesitantly, did as I requested.

“Do you feel anything? Any pain? Any numbness?”

He shook his head.

“Good. The miasma is wood based. Hopefully, that means it won’t have much of an effect on your fire body. There are also metal particulates in the air, but again, your fire body should be able to handle them. I’m not certain about this, though, so you need to be careful.”

TongBin only nodded silently in response.

As only a Peak Master without any body cultivation of my own, I couldn’t be quite so cavalier about the situation. I had to keep a shell of metal qi about me at all times, and it was barely enough against some of the denser pockets of the miasma that surrounded us.

When we got to the edge of the formation, I couldn’t help but look up. I was standing under a veritable waterfall of the pink and purple mist that was pouring out of the fire seed above us.

“TongBin, are you still doing alright?”

He nodded. “Y… Yes, Ancestor.”

“Alright, good. We’re at the important part.”

I guided him around the formation until I found a shiny white gem embedded into the unknown high-Rank, gray stone that comprised the cavern’s floor.

“Hit that gem as hard as you can. I need you to break it.”

After mustering his resolve, TongBin shoved a hand forward and let loose a powerful jet of fire qi. However, the moment it got within a meter of this gem, his qi dissipated.

Tong’s face took on a look of astonishment, and I couldn’t help but shake my head. I needed to be more precise.

“No, just walk forward and punch it.”

“Oh… o…kay.”

Tong took a few steps forward and froze. “Ancestor…”

“Don’t worry about your qi. You’re fine, right? Just punch the damn gem.”

TongBin set himself, took a deep breath, and punched.

When his fist hit the gem, nothing happened.

“Harder.”

He tried again.

Still nothing.

When TongBin’s third punch also failed to produce a result, I got worried. If Rank 3 of body cultivation was insufficient, I wasn’t entirely sure what we would need to do to break this formation.

“Stop. Place your hand on the gem. Try to… Try to inject it with fire wu first.”

TongBin followed my instructions, and as he did, the luster on the gem faded.

“Strike it!”

This time, when TongBin’s punch landed, the gem shattered.

The world around us shuddered.

“Alright, follow me.”

TongBin destroyed three more white gems using this same method. With each gem he destroyed, the shuddering around us became more violent.

I pointed him toward the fifth and final gem. “Last one. I’m not sure what will happen when it’s destroyed, but I don’t think we will want to be down here to find out.”

Putting my words into action, I hurried away to the cavern's exit while TongBin prepared himself.

Once I was well away, TongBin turned to look at me, and even from so far away, I could see a worried look on his face. After closing his eyes and focusing, he turned his attention to the gem.

After corroding it with fire wu, he slammed his fist down on it with all of his might.

The world froze.

For a long second, the cavern’s swirling mists of miasma hung in the air, motionless.

I looked at the young man who was just staring down at the formation in front of him.

“Run!”

This entire situation had caused the boy to act meeker than normal, but he was well-trained.

At my command, he ran.

However, he was only able to take a few steps before a surge of power welled up behind him.

Cracks appeared on the cavern’s stone floor.

The Rank 4 ring of the formation shattered.

The cave’s miasma contracted and turned a shade darker.

When TongBin finally made it out of the mists, he was sweating, and his cheeks were flushed.

Without waiting for him to say anything, I tossed an antidote pill into his mouth. While his body could probably deal with the poisons it had been subjected to, there was no reason to take any further risks.

I patted him on the shoulder. “Good job. Now, let’s go and see if that did what I think it did.”

When we arrived back on the surface, we found the Su Clan in chaos. Our little escapade had caused a series of earthquakes, and within the palace complex alone, dozens of buildings had been severely damaged.

I paid little attention to this, though. Others were already handling it. Instead, I pulled TongBin along with me as I hurried to the Palace of Supreme Harmony where an important meeting was already underway.

When I approached the throne, the young woman who was currently serving as the clan’s outer elder in charge of Dragon Gate City bowed to me. A grin of ecstasy was on her face.

“An… Ancestor… After the quakes, I suddenly started… I’m… I’m gathering karmic energy!”

I smiled at her. “Excellent.”

I turned my attention to my inner world where a group of cultivators was waiting for me.

I pulled, and half a dozen Martial Lords suddenly appeared in the throne room.

As expected, no Kings or Emperors were able to join us, but I had tried pulling a couple of them out as well, just to make sure.

I looked around at everyone. “While everyone in the city will have felt the quakes, I don’t think anyone will know what they meant. I need you all to quickly figure out how much things in the Wastes have changed, but let’s try to keep it a secret for as long as possible. The longer we can develop without outsiders understanding what’s happening, the better.”

Chapter 301 – Life 76, Age 24, Martial Master Peak

Over the course of a few days, the limits of the changes that I had wrought became evident.

Destroying the outer ring of the formation in Dragon Gate City had not completely abolished the restriction on Lords entering the Wastes. As I had hoped, it only allowed Lords to exist within a wide circle surrounding the city. This circle extended roughly two thirds of the way to the other four formations in the north, south, east, and west.

Additionally, when I went back down to the cavern underneath the Su Clan, I found that a shield had appeared that prevented us from damaging the formation further. While I didn’t have a deep enough grasp of the formation’s inner rings to understand how this shield functioned, I had a pretty good idea of what we needed to do to get rid of it.

Once we fully understood the situation, ShouLi called a meeting of the core elders to discuss how we should proceed.

The nine elders met in the pavilion where they had previously hosted HongYi, TaiZu, and the rest of the Su Clan’s elders. This time, though, their three tables were arranged into a loose triangle.

ShouLi lifted her head and talked to the ceiling. “Ancestor, can you tell us any more about what you have learned?”

With a twitch of my thoughts, I sent her a letter which I had prepared in advance.

To allow Martial Kings to enter Dragon Gate City, we will need to destroy the second ring of the formation. To do that, we will first need to remove the shield protecting it. And to do that, we will need to destroy the outer rings of the other four formations.

However, this will completely remove the restriction barring Lords from entering the Wastes. We will need to be prepared for that.

ShouLi nodded.

To her left, NiangBa chuckled. “That shouldn’t be a problem. If it’s only a few Lords, we can handle it.”

Mo shook his head. “No. It won’t be ‘a few.’ Remember what happened back on Mount Jiang? If the Sovereigns get involved, we will be facing an entire army of well-trained Lords equipped with high-Rank items. Worse, our best warriors are all Kings and Emperors. They won’t be able to enter the Wastes to help.”

NiangBa grunted unhappily but bowed his head to concede the point.

ShouLi glanced at him then addressed the room. “We might not be able to stand against the full force of multiple empires, not yet, but as long as we prepare properly, I am confident that we can succeed.”

I sent the group another note.

I know you are all looking forward to the day when you will be able to return to the outside world, but we can’t rush this. The formation is protecting us. It will allow us to develop one step at a time without needing to worry too much about outside interference. From what I can tell… that is exactly what it was designed to do.

Even once the shield is down, we won’t be able to break the second ring of the formation immediately. Breaking it will almost certainly require a Peak Rank 4 body cultivator. To break the third ring and allow Emperors into the Wastes, we will need Peak Rank 5 body cultivators.

This whole setup is too deliberate. Someone had to have designed it to give a clan of body cultivators a place to develop where they wouldn’t have to worry about the interference of others.

After reading this note, Liang voiced the question on everyone’s mind. “Who?”

Before I could write a response, Mo answered for me. “The Nine Rivers Saint. It has to be. This large of a grand formation, one that contains multiple Rank 7 nodes…”

I hastily scrawled out a response.

I agree. While I can’t say I understand the limits of a Sovereign’s abilities, they are only one step above an Emperor. This formation feels like it would require more than that. However, the formation is old, practically ancient. It was likely constructed by one of the Saint’s predecessors. We can’t be sure the current Saint is even aware of it.

ShouLi tapped her fingers. “Possibly not, but we have to proceed on the assumption that he is. We need to work under the assumption that both the Saint and the local Sovereigns are aware of this formation and that they know what breaking one of the rings represents.”

ShouLi closed her eyes for a moment to center herself. When she opened them, they were filled with conviction.

“What happened at Mount Jiang will not happen again. Even if the Sovereigns know everything that we’ve done, even if they want to move against us, there is nothing they can do about it. We are the only group with Lords in the Wastes, and until we break more of the formations, there is nothing they can do to change that.”

ShouLi looked at GuiAi. “We need to turn Dragon Gate City into a proper kingdom. In the area that was just opened up, we need to construct at least 9 more cities large enough to generate karmic energy.”

GuiAi grimaced. “That… will be a tight squeeze, but with high-density housing, we can make it happen. The problem is going to be people. Even if you gather up everyone in the Wastes, you still might not have enough people for a true kingdom.”

ShouLi nodded. “Any ideas?”

Chang, who had been sitting next to Mo, snorted. “Pay people to start having babies. Give them enough money, and you’ll have enough babies to fill an empire in only a few decades. Just make sure you can take care of them after they’re born.”

Hesitantly, ShouLi nodded. “GuiAi, get working on the housing. Mo, start looking into what we will need to do to feed an empire. Once everything is in place… we can put a bounty on having babies.”

ShouLi took a breath to refocus. “We’ll first transform the area around Dragon Gate into a unified kingdom with 10 cities. Then, we’ll establish similar pseudo-kingdoms around Rosehill, Mount Jiang, and the sects. Only then will we look at breaking the formations to allow for further advancements. Until then, we will rely on Dragon Gate to bring people up to Peak Lord.”

While I had planned on taking things slow and keeping our development hidden for as long as possible, ShouLi was the exact opposite. She immediately took action and began transforming the Wastes in ways that would have only made sense if we were able to gather karmic energy.

I was a bit worried about this, but ShouLi and the leadership council had been in charge of the clan for decades. They understood the situation, and I wasn’t going to hold them back from doing what they felt they needed to do.

Emperor Li had already confirmed, via RuLan, that he and the other Sovereigns could not make portals into the Wastes. They had no way of inserting any Lords into our midst. So, while there was danger in being too obvious with our actions, it was unlikely that anyone on the continent would be able to punish us for them.

With the help of a sufficient number of Rank 3 and 4 earth, wood, and metal cultivators. GuiAi was able to create the bones of a city capable of housing over a hundred thousand people in only a few weeks. Located to the west of Dragon Gate City, this new city was roughly based on the layout of TongBei and was given the name TongXu.

While GuiAi’s teams focused on construction, GuiMing had teams of earth and water cultivators reshape the terrain of the Wastes to provide these new cities with water.

Mo, meanwhile, was busy designing multi-layered greenhouses to feed everyone. The Wastes actually had enough land that we would have been able to grow enough food without such greenhouses, but Mo didn’t want to waste it on mortal crops. Natural land would be used to grow herbs. Mortal foodstuffs could be relegated to cramped greenhouses.

While my clan was busy transforming the tranquil countryside of the Wastes into a sprawling urban environment, I returned to my study of cultivation.

Over the next few years, I perfected my Rank 3 cultivation technique, used it to break through to Grandmaster, and then advanced to the peak of that realm.

During this time, I kept track of important events, but I didn’t pay them much mind. As long as no major incidents occurred, I was content to sit back and let ShouLi and the others take care of things.

When I finally did step out to really look around at everything they had done, I was astonished.

Originally, Dragon Gate City had been a sprawling mass of two- and three-story houses. These had mostly been replaced with eight- to ten-story high-rises. This allowed the population to condense down into a much smaller space so that we could fit more cities into the area available to us.

As for those new cities, a total of five had been completed, and each one was already generating karmic energy.

To any outsiders who were keeping track of our actions, this would have been conspicuous enough. The fact that the official city lord of Dragon Gate City had changed three times in less than a decade would have only served to confirm their suspicions. It had to be clear to everyone that we had found a way to generate karmic energy in the Wastes.

Once my survey was complete, I turned my attention inward to discuss the situation with ShouLi.

“Ancestor, the powers outside the Wastes have yet to make a move. They haven’t even tried to contact us yet. I am betting that this is because they tried to send their own Lords into the Wastes and failed. With only Grandmasters behind them, they aren’t willing to confront us. Not yet.”

What about resistance from inside the Wastes?

ShouLi sighed. “It’s been… nonstop. We have taken over all the territory around Dragon Gate City, and the petty nobles here aren’t too happy about it. They can’t actually do anything to stop us, but they have been annoying flies that I am about ready to squash.”

What have they said? Have they sent you any demands?

She chuckled wryly. “Of course. They want cities of their own. They want the chance to advance to Lord as well.”

I tapped on my leg in thought a bit before responding.

That might be something worth considering. Not now—we need complete control over Dragon Gate—but if we want to turn the Wastes into a proper empire, we will need a total of 10 kingdoms, right? We might need to give a few of those to outsiders, and we will definitely need to give some of the cities to outsiders.

ShouLi wrinkled her brow. “But… why?”

Karmic energy. There needs to be a path of advancement open to everyone, not just the members of our clan. However… that doesn’t mean those cities and kingdoms should go to the existing noble clans. Start working on ideas for competitions where anyone, even random commoners, can earn a decade or two as a king.

ShouLi nodded. “I understand. I will bring this issue up at the next council meeting.”

How long before we will be ready to break the next formation?

“Depending on how things go… 9 years. That will give us enough time to finish building up the area around Dragon Gate and begin establishing cities around Rosehill. After lengthy discussions, we decided it would be best to break the outer four formations one at a time, and Rosehill seemed like the best option since it faces the west, away from the three great powers surrounding us.”

Isn’t that a bit dangerous? It will open us up to attacks.

ShouLi sighed. “We’re already working on fortifying the western edge of Dragon Gate as much as possible. We need to see what changes will happen when the second barrier drops before we can do much more.”

Alright, I’ll trust your judgement.

I felt like the council was rushing a bit, but it was understandable. They had been trapped in my inner world for over a decade, and they no doubt wanted out as soon as possible.

In any case, while rushing here might be dangerous, the danger was, ultimately, limited. We could let things play out and see where they went. In the worst case, it would just be a learning experience.

Chapter 302 – Life 76, Age 29, Martial Grandmaster Peak

While it should have been clear to everyone that changes had come to the Wastes, we maintained a loose facade that everything was normal.

Yes, GuiAi’s teams were building several new cities. Yes, ShouLi had implemented several policies to encourage people to have more children. Yes, the official lord of Dragon Gate City was changing every few years. But we didn’t announce the fact that we were generating karmic energy, and none of the outside forces came to ask us about it.

So, while the powers surrounding us likely knew what was going on, everyone was pretending they didn’t.

As such, we continued with one of the Wastes’ most important traditions: The Dragon Gate Festival.

Not long after I turned 29, Dragon Gate City was decorated in bright reds and golds, and vendors packed the streets to sell snacks and souvenirs. At the center of this celebration was a large stage where people would be able to display their talents in the hope of being recruited by a powerful outside force.

While we were now able to generate karmic energy, and while the powers surrounding the Wastes had to be aware of this, it was not yet common knowledge among most of the locals. Even if it were, the amount of karmic energy available was limited, and it was all reserved for use within the clan. So, talented Grandmasters were still looking outward for the hope of advancement.

Shortly before the Festival began, three sets of carriages arrived bearing the envoys from the three major powers that surrounded the Wastes: the Rising Sun Empire, the Verdant Forest Sect, and the Flowing Mountain Sect.

Each group was led by a Grandmaster who still had hopes of rising to Lord before stagnation set in.

The recruiter for the Verdant Forests Sect was a tall, beautiful woman wearing a light green hanfu. The Rising Sun Empire had sent a younger man who looked like a peacock, and the man from the Flowing Mountain Sect was a well-built man who reminded me of Emperor Shen. He looked like a craftsman who had no desire to involve himself in petty politics.

If my memory could be trusted, these were the same three recruiters who had been sent the first time I had attended this festival.

The festivities started off with competitions between Disciples. First, there was a showcase of crafting and non-combat skills. Then, there was a small tournament. The three recruiters could award prizes to anyone they saw value in, but as the host, the Su Clan was responsible for providing the bulk of the rewards.

As I had expected, the recruiters didn’t pay much attention to the contests between Disciples. Instead, they used the time to eat, drink, and enjoy themselves.

However, when they saw the lavish prizes that we were offering this year, their behavior shifted.

After one of the boys displayed a superb talent in herbalism, the host announced that he would be given a Peak-Profound cultivation technique and access to a complete inheritance for Rank 1 herbalism. When, a few people later, a girl was awarded a similar prize for formations, the man from the Flowing Mountain Sect couldn’t hold himself back.

Looking at the host, he spoke in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “I would like to see what kind of ‘formation inheritance’ the Su Clan is able to provide.”

The host bowed to him. “Honored Representative of the Flowing Mountain, I do not have the authority to grant this request. Please discuss this with one of the clan’s elders.”

The Flowing Mountain’s recruiter narrowed his eyes. “I’ll do that.”

The woman from the Verdant Forest also seemed to take a small bit of interest in this topic, but the man from the Rising Sun just waved it away as unimportant.

However, the next day, when the prizes for the Disciples’ martial tournament were announced, his jaw dropped open in shock.

“What!? You’re giving away refined weapons? To random nobodies? You dare?”

Again, the host bowed. “Honored Representative of the Rising Sun, I am only following the orders of the Su Clan. If you have any concerns, please direct your inquires to one of its elders.”

The man clenched his fists in anger but sat back down without another word.

While the Rank 1 prizes had surprised the representatives, when they found out that the Martial Masters would be given similar rewards, they were truly shocked. Upon seeing the Rank 2 refined weapons that would be given to the top five finishers of the tournament, all three of them stopped breathing.

In contrast, almost no one in the audience saw anything amiss with the situation. Warriors were being given weapons. These might be slightly better weapons than normal, but none of them understood the implications of handing out so many refined weapons.

Finally, after a week of celebration, it was time for the Grandmasters’ non-combat demonstrations.

The first person to step forward was an old man. After walking to the center of the stage, he faced the judges and gave a martial salute.

“My name is Murong NaYun. I am 273 years old this year. In my youth, I traveled the world in search of a path for advancement, but I never succeeded. If you grant me a chance to ascend to Martial Lord, I will serve loyally for my remaining days, no matter how long that is.”

At the end of his short speech, he gave a deep bow to the judges and straightened into a firm stance with both hands balled into fists.

“My blessing has benefited me greatly.” Sparks of lighting began to emerge from the old man’s arms. “I am no longer sure exactly how high my lightning affinity is, but I know that it is at least six-star.”

He began to juggle a bolt of lightning, showing his adept control of the erratic element. “However, that is only the merest fraction of my blessing. Each time I have ascended a realm, I have been granted a legacy in the art of talisman crafting. I can currently be considered a Peak Rank 3 Talisman Artist.”

After saying this, he demonstrated his abilities with talismans. When he was done, he gave a final bow and planted his feet as he waited to hear how he had been judged.

The woman from the Verdant Forest Sect was the first to speak. “You are indeed skilled, Grandmaster Murong, but my sect cannot provide a proper place for someone with your talents.”

The man from Rising Sun gave a contemptuous smirk. “You may join my empire. We will allow you to craft for us, and if you do a suitable job, we may allow you an opportunity to ascend in due time."

The man from the Flowing Mountain tapped on his armrest and nodded. “The Flowing Mountain Sect will offer you a position. As long as you teach our disciples well, we will grant you a temporary position as an elder that will allow you to advance. Whether you can keep this position will be up to you.”

The man from the Rising Sun looked like he was about to say something, but before he could, I stepped forward from the other side of the arena.

“Grandmaster Murong, I would like to offer you a place in the Su Clan. If you join us, I guarantee that you will be able to ascend to Martial Lord. Your time will be yours to do with as you please. If you wish to teach, you may. If you wish to craft, you may. Nothing will be required of you, but you will receive rewards commensurate with your contributions.”

For a long moment, everyone froze in shock.

Then, a voice broke the silence.

“What!?” The young man from the Rising Sun glared at me. “How dare you challenge the might of the Rising Sun Empire!?”

I waved a dismissive hand. “I have no interest in challenging anyone. I am simply offering Grandmaster Murong another option. He may choose it or disregard it at his leisure.”

Snarling, the young man turned to one of his guards. “Kill him.”

Immediately, the guard rushed at me.

I smiled and pulled off my outer robe, revealing the Rank 3 refined armor underneath. Then, I reached down and picked up a Rank 3 refined staff.

Seeing this, the three recruiters gawked in horror, but the guard didn’t even pause. He just continued his charge.

With a single, light swing of my staff, I knocked him senseless.

Then, I turned to the man at the center of the arena. “Grandmaster Murong, please make your choice. Don’t worry, I won’t compel you to follow me.”

Murong NaYun stared at me. He had said he had traveled outside the Wastes in his youth, so he likely knew what my weapon and armor represented, at least a bit.

He glanced at the Flowing Mountain recruiter and then back to me. “Are you certain that you can help me advance to Martial Lord?”

I nodded. “I guarantee it.”

Clenching his fists, he stood there in silence for several long minutes as he considered my offer.

Finally, he bowed. “Very well, Grandmaster Su. I will follow you.”

Each of the recruiters looked like they wanted to say something, but I only glared at them before leading Murong NaYun away.

Once we were out of sight, I pulled Grandmaster Murong into my inner world and sent him to have a talk with a couple of my Revered Elders. Then, I circled back to watch the rest of the day’s events.

After we disappeared, the host and the recruiters did their best to return a sense of normalcy to the proceedings, but an underlying tension remained.

Several more hopefuls stepped forward to show off their skills, but only one ended up being recruited. That lucky person was a middle-aged man who was dressed like a hobo and looked like he hadn’t bathed in weeks. However, I was likely the only person who knew this since he was covered in a thick layer of light and dark qi, making him invisible.

When the Rising Sun’s recruiter saw this person, he chuckled evilly and glanced at where I attacked his guard. Then, he immediately offered the man a position in his retinue.

After that, the day’s festivities came to an end.

I spent that night in a house on the outskirts of the Su Clan’s palace complex.

The next day, the Grandmasters’ martial tournament began. With a full day having passed, the tense atmosphere created by me recruiting Grandmaster Murong had dissipated, and people were able to enjoy the fighting.

However, when the recruiters saw the prizes on offer, they turned green with envy.

Perfect Rank 3 pills, Profound- and Earth-Rank combat techniques, and high-quality Rank 3 refined weapons. Even in their powerful factions, only the best of the best would have access to such items.

In a usual year, only two or three of these competitors might have had a shot at being recruited. This time, however, every single person who placed in the top 10—everyone who had received a prize—was offered a position in the Rising Sun Empire. A couple of them were smart enough to reject this offer, but most of them took it, even knowing that it would mean forfeiting their winnings.

That night, I returned to my lonely house on the outskirts of the Su Clan’s complex and sat down in the middle of my room to cultivate.

After hours of waiting there, I was starting to worry that my guess had been incorrect.

However, shortly after midnight, I was knocked to the ground by a hard kick to my chest.

Two long steel rods impaled me on either side of my body and pinned me to the floor.

I turned on energy vision and scanned my surroundings, but I didn’t see anything.

“Interesting…”

Something slapped my face, and an ominous voice echoed out around me. “Where did the Su Clan get access to so many high-quality items?”

When I didn’t respond immediately, something kicked me in the ribs. “Answer, now. Otherwise, I will kill you.”

Silently, I nodded and flicked my hand, sending out a wisp of qi to activate the room's formations.

“What? What have you done!?”

Ignoring the voice, I mentally tugged on the two rods impaling me and sent them into my inner world. Then, I looked at the corner of the room.

Using energy vision, I stared and tried to make out any details that I could. However, no matter how hard I tried, I saw nothing.

“Interesting. Your blessing gives you absolute invisibility? During the competition, were you just using light and dark qi to mask your true capabilities? What are your limitations? They must exist, right?”

“What… What do you want?” The voice was frantic, and I could sense that this person was trying to free himself, not that it mattered. He had no chance of escaping from my Rank 5 formation.

I smiled at the empty air in front of me. “You should know, there were formations in place to stop you from killing me. You never had a chance. Your employer sent you here to die.”

“What…”

I shook my head sorrowfully. “Be more honest in your next life and don’t offend those you can’t afford to offend.”

Pulling out a sword, I slashed at the empty air.

Suddenly, an unkempt, middle-aged man appeared in front of me, suspended in the air.

I sent a wisp of qi to deactivate the formation, and a headless corpse toppled to the ground.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1 – Life 1, Age 26

Chapter 2 – Life 4, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 3 – Life 4, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 4 – Life 4, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 5 – Life 10, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 6 – Life 10, Age 16, Martial Disciple 4

Chapter 7 – Life 13, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 8 – Life 15, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 9 – Life 16, Age 16, Martial Disciple 4

Chapter 10 – Life 16 Age 21, Martial Disciple 7

Chapter 11 – Life 17, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 12 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 13 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 14 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

Chapter 15 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

Chapter 16 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

Chapter 17 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

Chapter 18 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

Chapter 19 – Life 50, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 2

Chapter 20 – Life 50, Age 17, Martial Disciple Level 2

Chapter 21 – Life 50, Age 23, Martial Disciple Level 8

Chapter 22 – Life 50, Age 28, Martial Master Level 2

Chapter 23 – Life 50, Age 30, Martial Master Level 2

Chapter 24 – Life 50, Age 30, Martial Master Level 2

Chapter 25 – Life 51, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

Chapter 26 – Life 51, Age 17, Martial Disciple Level 4

Chapter 27 – Lives 51 to 57

Chapter 28 – Life 58, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 1

Chapter 29 – Life 58, Age 16, Martial Disciple Level 5

Chapter 30 – Life 58, Age 17, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 31 – Life 58, Age 17, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 32 – Life 58, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 33 – Life 58, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 34 – Life 58, Age 20, Martial Master 1

Chapter 35 – Life 58, Age 20, Martial Master 1

Chapter 36 – Life 58, Age 25, Martial Master 3

Chapter 37 – Life 58, Age 25, Martial Master 3

Chapter 38 – Life 58, Age 26, Martial Master 3

Chapter 39 – Life 58, Age 26, Martial Master 3

Chapter 40 – Life 58, Age 26, Martial Master 3

Chapter 41 – Life 58, Age 27, Martial Master 4

Chapter 42 – Life 58, Age 27, Martial Master 4

Chapter 43 – Life 58, Age 28, Martial Master 5

Chapter 44 – Life 58, Age 32, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 45 – Life 58, Age 32, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 46 – Life 58, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 1

Chapter 47 – Life 58, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 1

Chapter 48 – Life 58, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 1

Chapter 49 – Life 58, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 1

(Non-canon) Bonus Chapter – Life 58, Age 36, Marital Disciple 1

Chapter 50 – Life 58, Age 39, Martial Grandmaster 2

Chapter 51 – Life 58, Age 60, Martial Grandmaster 5

Chapter 52 – Life 58, Age 60, Martial Grandmaster 5

Chapter 53 – Life 58, Age 60, Martial Grandmaster 5

Chapter 54 – Life 58, Age 60, Martial Grandmaster 5

Chapter 55 – Life 58, Age 92, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 56 – Life 58, Age 92, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Addendum: Earning and Spending Credits (Contains Some Spoilers)

Patreon Announcement

Chapter 57 – Life 59, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 58 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 59 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 60 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 61 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 62 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

Chapter 63 – Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

Chapter 64 – Life 60, Age 17, Martial Disciple 3

Chapter 65 – Life 60, Age 17, Martial Disciple 3

Chapter 66 – Life 60, Age 19, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 67 – Life 60, Age 20, Martial Master 3

Chapter 68 – Life 60, Age 20, Martial Master 3

Chapter 69 – Life 60, Age 28, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 70 – Life 60, Age 29, Martial Grandmaster 1

Chapter 71 – Life 60, Age 29, Martial Grandmaster 1

Chapter 72 – Life 60, Age 29, Martial Grandmaster 1

Chapter 73 – Life 60, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 74 – Life 61, Age 19, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 75 – Life 61, Age 21, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 76 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 77 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 78 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 79 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 80 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 81 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 82 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 83 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 84 – Life 61, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 85 – Life 61, Age 27, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 86 – Life 61, Age 27, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 87 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Addendum: Map of the Eight Flower Kingdom

Chapter 88 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 89 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 90 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 91 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 92 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 93 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 94 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 95 – Life 61, Age 35, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 96 – Life 61, Age 36, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 97 – Life 61, Age 37, Martial Lord 2

Chapter 98 – Life 61, Age 37, Martial Lord 3

Chapter 99 – Life 61, Age 37, Martial Lord 3

Chapter 100 – Life 61, Age 44, Martial Lord Peak

Chapter 101 – Life 61, Age 45, Martial Lord Peak

Chapter 102 – Life 61, Age 47, Martial Lord Peak

Chapter 103 – Life 62, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 104 – Life 62, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 105 – Life 62, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 106 – Life 62, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 107 – Life 62, Age 16, Martial Disciple 3

Chapter 108 – Life 62, Age 79, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 109 – Life 62, Age 80, Martial Master 1

Chapter 110 – Life 62, Age 83, Martial Master 1

Chapter 111 – Life 62, Age 92, Martial Master 1

Chapter 112 – Life 62, Age 143, Martial Master 1

Chapter 113 – Life 63, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Addendum: Volume 2 Earning and Spending Credits (Contains Some Spoilers)

Volume 2 Afterword, Shameless Plug, Volume 3 Spoiler

Chapter 114 – Life 64, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 115 – Life 64, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 116 – Life 64, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 117 – Life 64, Age 20, Martial Grandmaster 1

Chapter 118 – Life 64, Age 21, Martial Grandmaster 1

Chapter 119 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 120 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 121 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 122 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

Chapter 123 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple 3

Chapter 124 – Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple 3

Chapter 125 – Life 65, Age 17, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 126 – Life 65, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 127 – Life 65, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 128 – Life 65, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 129 – Life 65, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 130 – Life 65, Age 24, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 131 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 132 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 133 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Master 1

Chapter 134 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Master 1

Chapter 135 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Master 1

Chapter 136 – Life 66, Age 20, Martial Master 2

Chapter 137 – Life 66, Age 21, Martial Master 3

Chapter 138 – Life 66, Age 21, Martial Master 3

Chapter 139 – Life 66, Age 22, Martial Master 5

Chapter 140 – Life 66, Age 25, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 141 – Life 66, Age 25, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 142 – Life 66, Age 28, Martial Grandmaster 3

Chapter 143 – Life 66, Age 28, Martial Grandmaster 3

Chapter 144 – Life 66, Age 28, Martial Grandmaster 1

Chapter 145 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 146 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 147 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 148 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 149 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 150 – Life 66, Age 30, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 151 – Life 66, Age 36, Martial King 1

Chapter 152 – Life 66, Age 47, Martial King Peak

Chapter 153 – Life 67, Age 25, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 154 – Life 68, Age 25, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 155 – Life 68, Age 25, Martial Master 1

Chapter 156 – Life 68, Age 25, Martial Master 1

Chapter 157 – Life 68, Age 26, Martial Master 5

Chapter 158 – Life 68, Age 27, Martial Master 7

Chapter 159 – Life 68, Age 30, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 160 – Life 68, Age 31, Martial Grandmaster 3

Chapter 161 – Life 68, Age 31, Martial Grandmaster 3

Chapter 162 – Life 68, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 7

Chapter 163 – Life 68, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 7

Chapter 164 – Life 68, Age 34, Martial Grandmaster 7

Chapter 165 – Life 68, Age 34, Martial Grandmaster 7

Chapter 166 – Life 68, Age 34, Martial Grandmaster 7

Chapter 167 – Life 68, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 168 – Life 68, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 169 – Life 68, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 170 – Life 68, Age 36, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 171 – Life 68, Age 38, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 172 – Life 68, Age 38, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 173 – Life 68, Age 39, Martial Lord 4

Chapter 174 – Life 68, Age 39, Martial Lord 4

Chapter 175 – Life 68, Age 43, Martial King 1

Chapter 176 – Life 68, Age 44, Martial King 1

Chapter 177 – Life 68, Age 46, Martial King 1

Chapter 178 – Life 68, Age 46, Martial King 1

Chapter 179 – Life 68, Age 46, Martial King 1

Chapter 180 – Life 68, Age 51, Martial King Peak

Chapter 181 – Life 68, Age 59, Martial Emperor 1

Chapter 182 – Life 68, Age 64, Martial Emperor 1

Chapter 183 – Life 68, Age 64, Martial Emperor 1

Chapter 184 – Life 69, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 185 – Life 70, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 186 – Life 70, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 187 – Life 70, Age 17, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 188 – Life 70, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster 4

Chapter 189 – Life 70, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster 4

Chapter 190 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 191 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 192 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 193 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 194 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 195 – Life 70, Age 25, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 196 – Life 70, Age 26, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 197 – Life 70, Age 29, Martial King 1

Chapter 198 – Life 70, Age 34, Martial King Peak

Chapter 199 – Life 70, Age 35, Martial Emperor 1

Chapter 200 – Life 70, Age 37, Martial Emperor 7

Chapter 201 – Life 70, Age 39, Martial Emperor Peak

Chapter 202 – Life 71, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Volume 3 Afterword, Volume 4 Spoiler

Addendum: Volume 3 Earning and Spending Credits (Contains Some Spoilers)

Chapter 203 – Life 72, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 204 – Life 72, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 205 – Life 72, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 206 – Life 73, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 207 – Life 73, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 208 – Life 73, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 209 – Life 73, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 210 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 211 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 212 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 213 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 214 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 215 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 216 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 217 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 218 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 219 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 220 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 221 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 222 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 223 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 224 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 225 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 226 – Life 73, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 227 – Life 73, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 228 – Life 73, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 229 – Life 73, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 230 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 231 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 232 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 233 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 234 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 235 – Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 236 – Life 73, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 237 – Life 73, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 238 – Life 73, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 239 – Life 73, Age 37, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 240 – Life 73, Age 38, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 241 – Life 73, Age 38, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 242 – Life 73, Age 38, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 243 – Life 73, Age 38, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 244 – Life 73, Age 38, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 245 – Life 73, Age 40, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 246 – Life 73, Age 40, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 247 – Life 73, Age 42, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 248 – Life 73, Age 47, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 249 – Life 73, Age 47, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 250 – Life 73, Age 47, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 251 – Life 73, Age 47, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 252 – Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 253 – Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 254 – Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 255 – Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 256 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 257 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 258 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 259 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Disciple 4

Chapter 260 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Disciple 4

Chapter 261 – Life 73, Age 50, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 262 – Life 73, Age 50, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 263 – Life 74, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Volume 4 Afterword

Chapter 264 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 265 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 266 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 267 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Grandmaster 1

Chapter 268 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Grandmaster 1

Chapter 269 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 270 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 271 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Chapter 272 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Lord 1

No new chapters next week. (Feb 17-21)

Chapter 273 – Life 75, Age 23, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 274 – Life 75, Age 24, Martial Lord 1

Chapter 275 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

Chapter 276 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

Chapter 277 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

Chapter 278 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

Chapter 279 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

Chapter 280 – Life 75, Age 56, Martial King Peak

Chapter 281 – Life 75, Age 61, Martial King Peak

Chapter 282 – Life 75, Age 63, Martial Emperor 1

Chapter 283 – Life 75, Age 95, Martial Emperor Peak

Chapter 284 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 285 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 286 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 287 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Chapter 288 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

Chapter 289 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

Chapter 290 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

Chapter 291 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

Chapter 292 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

Chapter 293 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

Chapter 294 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

Bonus: Su Clan Palace Complex

Chapter 295 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

Chapter 296 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

Chapter 297 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

Chapter 298 – Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 5

Chapter 299 – Life 76, Age 17, Martial Disciple Peak

Chapter 300 – Life 76, Age 24, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 301 – Life 76, Age 24, Martial Master Peak

Chapter 302 – Life 76, Age 29, Martial Grandmaster Peak