The Undying Immortal System

Chapter 230: Life 73, Age 35, Martial Grandmaster Peak

With everything stable in my nascent clan, I felt things were secure enough that I could spend some time away without the risk of anything terrible happening. So, I wanted to take the opportunity to check in on Bao and SuYin.

However, this trip wasn’t just about ensuring that the two of them were happy and healthy. I wanted to find out what they had learned about herbalism while I was away, and I wanted to spend some time practicing the craft myself.

I would need to be back in the clan for the next year’s training camp, but that was nine months away. I could spend the time in the interim with my disciples in the Verdant Fields Sect.

First, though, I needed to ensure that my clan was prepared for my absence.

Stuck on top of a mountain, what the people in my clan needed more than anything else was access to fresh food and clean drinking water. With a massive lake surrounding Mount Jiang, there was plenty of water readily available, and I just needed to set up a formation to draw it up to the plateau. Food, however, was a bit trickier to deal with.

In the end, I decided to leave a storage bag filled with dry goods in the warehouse. It contained more than enough rice, flour, beans, dried vegetables, and other assorted foods to keep everyone fed for years to come. While this might not be the most appetizing diet, no one would need to fear going hungry.

To keep everyone busy while I was gone, I added Low- to Peak-Earth Rank 1 cultivation techniques to the Technique Hall, and I gave Mo a storage bag filled with vast quantities of all the Rank 1 crafting materials I could get my hands on.

Once everything was ready, I had a final conversation with the original six members of my clan. Then, I hopped on my horse and rode north to the Verdant Fields Sect.

I didn’t know what would happen after I left. Perhaps someone would go mad and slaughter everyone. However, I placed my trust in those I had chosen to join me. I had given them all the advantages that I could, and it was time for them to prove themselves worth my efforts.

When I had left the Verdant Fields Sect, SuYin and Bao had been planning to enter the outer sect to further their knowledge of herbalism. As they were both powerful Grandmasters with solid foundations at that point, I had expected the sect to have a few questions for them, but I doubted there would be any real problems. After all, any sect should be more than happy to find strong cultivators and skilled herbalists hidden within their midst.

As I hadn’t left them any means to contact me directly, my first stop was at the Blue Wind Pavilion in the town that was located right outside the sect. Upon entering, I paid a small fee of a few silver and retrieved the letters that had been left for me.

Most of these were from SuYin. She didn’t go into much detail, but she gave me brief summaries of everything the two of them had been up to over the years.

When they entered the sect, their herbalism was still stuck at Rank 1 since they had spent all their time with me researching different ways to improve the growth of simple plants. So, even though they were Grandmasters, they still had to start at the bottom of the outer sect.

From there, they were able to purchase lessons from skilled Master Herbalists and learn the details of how to grow Rank 2 herbs. This was where the power of SuYin’s blessing shined through. After only attending only a single lecture, she was able to remember everything, even the most minute of details. This allowed her to grasp all that the sect had to teach in only a matter of weeks.

Bao, on the other hand, ran into a few problems. The first was his lack of SuYin’s perfect memory. He did his best, but he had a hard time remembering technical details such as what time of year to plant which herbs, how best to sprout various seeds, what kind of lighting different plants required, and so on.

For the most part, these were issues that would be easy to solve through the use of a memory orb. By creating an orb filled with Rank 2 herbalism knowledge, I could lock these details into Bao’s soul so that he would never forget them.

However, there was a larger issue at play. His blessing gave him copious amounts of esoteric information about every herb, but according to SuYin, the information he got from his blessing was often at odds with the sect's teaching. I didn’t doubt the power of Bao’s blessing, but until he was able to completely comprehend the information he received from it, the contradictions between it and the sect’s methods would only cause him problems.

After a year in the outer sect, SuYin had the opportunity to advance to the inner sect, but she held back to give Bao a chance to catch up to her. However, after another year, Bao was still struggling, so they came to an arrangement. SuYin joined the inner sect, and Bao became her servant. This gave both of them access to the knowledge of the inner sect, and it allowed them to learn Rank 3 herbalism as a team.

I wasn’t overly enamored with the idea of Bao becoming SuYin’s servant, even if it was just in name, but this was their decision to make. I wouldn’t interfere in their personal lives.

All of these updates had come from SuYin. Bao had only left me a single hastily written letter, and it was the most recent one.

Master,

We’re in trouble. A disciple from the Verdant Forest Sect showed up, and he’s forcing SuYin to leave with him. She’s going to be taken away. We’re currently living on plot 3 of the northern section of the inner ring. Please come soon!

Upon seeing this, my vision turned red, but I took a deep breath to calm myself. I didn’t need to rush in blindly and attack an unknown opponent. I needed to understand the situation before taking action.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

After thinking things through, I pulled out the jade token that identified me as a nominal disciple of the Verdant Fields Sect. I couldn’t use it to reach the inner ring, but that was an easy problem to solve.

“System, change this token to give full access to the Verdant Fields Sect. I want complete authority over its sect-protecting formation.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 5 million credits. 743,018,430,897 credits remaining.

It might have been possible for me to brute force my way through the formation, and depending on its quality, I might have been able to break it entirely, but I preferred to take a stealthier approach, at least for now. Besides, while the cost was slightly annoying, I now had a jade that would let me enter the sect at will in the future.

Token in hand, I got back on my horse and rode into the sect.

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The Verdant Fields Sect was located in the middle of a seemingly endless plain. For hundreds of kilometers in every direction, the ground was incredibly flat and level, and all this land had been portioned off into a multitude of small farmsteads.

The layout of the sect was a simple three-ring structure. The outermost ring was for the nominal disciples. The land there was no different than anywhere else in the Wastes, and it was generally only good for growing simple Rank 1 herbs.

The middle ring was for the outer sect disciples. Partially because of the natural environment, and partially because of how the land had been managed over the years, the middle ring was capable of producing a large number of high-quality Rank 2 herbs, so it was an excellent place for Master Herbalists to practice their craft.

The inner ring was for the inner sect disciples. This was the smallest ring, and its environment was only slightly better than that of the middle ring. Here, Grandmaster Herbalists could attempt to grow Rank 3 herbs, but they would fail more often than not. Most of the herbs they did manage to grow were of low quality, and only a handful were good enough to meet the needs of a typical Grandmaster Alchemist.

This meant that while Rank 1 and 2 herbalists were rather common in the sect, it was exceedingly difficult to advance to Rank 3. There simply wasn’t enough land to go around, and even when a plot did become available, the cost to rent it was beyond what a normal Rank 2 herbalist could afford.

The fact that SuYin and Bao were able to reach the inner ring in only three years was more than a little impressive. It showed that they had gained a solid understanding of everything they needed to know to grow high-quality Rank 2 herbs. Based on the timing of SuYin’s letters, the fact that they were still there suggested that they had even been successful in growing Rank 3 herbs.

It wasn’t too surprising that such achievements had caught the eye of someone from the Verdant Forests Sect. I just had to hope that whoever it was hadn’t tried to do anything too reckless.

SuYin might not have been a Peak Grandmaster when I left, but after three years, she should be close. With everything I had taught her, she would be more than a match for any of the locals, and I doubted anyone who came here to recruit disciples would fare much better against her.

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Using the directions Bao had left for me, I was able to quickly locate their farmstead. When I arrived, I couldn’t help but admire the quality of the herbs they were growing.

Their field was a riot of colors and hues from a diverse collection of plants that seemed to be growing in a haphazard manner. At first glance, it felt like SuYin and Bao had simply scattered handfuls of seeds at random and were letting the plants grow wherever they pleased, but looking at the scene in energy vision told a far different tale.

Qi and medicinal energy flowed between the plants in a strange pattern that was reminiscent of a formation. Various herbs contained energy from each of the five basic elements, and as energy passed between them, it strengthened the medicinal energy at the core of each herb and cleansed them of toxins.

The sight was impressive, and I wanted to study it in greater detail, but now wasn’t the time.

Rushing into the farmhouse, I found Bao deep in cultivation. He had already reached Martial Grandmaster 7 and was pushing hard to advance to Grandmaster 8.

It wouldn’t be good to interrupt this process, but I needed to understand the situation with SuYin before it was too late. So, I took out a Calm Seas Pill and forced it into his mouth. This settled the energy in his dantian, and he was able to maintain his progress without having to focus all his attention on it.

The moment I interrupted his cultivation, Bao looked up at me with wide, frightened eyes, but when he recognized me, he became excited.

“Master—”

I held up a hand to keep him from speaking more than necessary. “I got your message. Keep working on your breakthrough. Just tell me what’s happening with SuYin.”

Bao dropped his head and returned most of his attention to his cultivation.

“About a week ago, two Peak Grandmasters came here. They said that SuYin had caught the eye of Young Master Wang. Then, they took her away. They said that she was being given a fortuitous opportunity and that if she was lucky, she would be taken away to the Verdant Forests Sect.”

“Do you know where they took her?”

Bao shook his head. “No, just that they headed to the center of the sect.”

A pained expression crossed his face. “My cultivation wasn’t high enough to stop them.”

I patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure she’s safe.”

Saying this, I turned and hurried away. I trusted SuYin’s ability to handle herself, but she wasn’t an experienced fighter. If too many people ganged up on her, she might be overwhelmed.

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One of the minor protections I had left in place on both Bao and SuYin was a small amulet with a formation that could guide me to them in times of trouble. I hadn’t activated it earlier because the excessive amount of energy it required to send signals over long distances meant that it would only work for a short time before burning out.

Now, as I headed swiftly toward the center of the sect, I activated my half of the formation and followed its lead.

As I approached SuYin’s location, the vibrant, fecund plant life that had been so abundant in the sect slowly disappeared. Green foliage turned into yellowed, withering weeds, and shortly thereafter, even the weeds disappeared. As I ran further toward my destination, the ground became dry and cracked. A dozen meters later, the earth began to darken until it became black as pitch.

When I reached the very center of the sect, I was greeted by a giant hole that drilled straight down through this black, dead soil. It was nearly half a kilometer in diameter. Taking in the scene, I noticed a small pavilion where half a dozen people were resting under an awning.

The moment I saw them, I popped a Shadowed Soul Pill into my mouth and disappeared from sight. My formation told me that SuYin’s amulet was located somewhere down below, within the massive pit, but before jumping down there to look for her, I needed more information. So, I approached the pavilion to listen in and see what I could learn.

“Young Master Wang, she’s been down there for days… should we send someone to bring her out?”

This question was addressed to a young man dressed in a simple green robe. After rubbing his chin in thought, this young man shook his head.

“No. Her defensive formation hasn't been activated, so she shouldn’t be in any danger. Absorbing enough essence to break through to a six-star affinity just takes time.” He looked at the man who had spoken and smiled slightly. “I won’t let anything happen to the girl. You don’t have to worry about losing your reward for producing a future Herb Lord.”