The Undying Immortal System

Moving my entire clan out of my storage space and into the surrounding villages 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?

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.

Purchase confirmed. Cost 189 billion credits. 250,217,883,769 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. 150,317,883,769 credits remaining.

I was a bit worried about spending too many credits and not having any to use 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 enough credits for a peak six-star affinity for karmic energy, but what if I went even further?

“System, improve my affinity for karmic energy to low five-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 116 billion credits. 34,317,883,769 credits remaining.

My body almost felt like it 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.

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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 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 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. However, 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. I knew that 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 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 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.

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