The Undying Immortal System

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.

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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.”