The Undying Immortal System

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.

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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

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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)

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End of Volume 1.