The Undying Immortal System

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.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

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.

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.”

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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, formations 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.