The Undying Immortal System

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.

Stolen novel; please report.

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.