The Undying Immortal System

Chapter 237: Life 73, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The Su Clan’s three-month training camp proceeded without any surprises. The elders were more than happy to receive the pills that I had promised them, and they ensured that no one was killed during the sparring sessions. Unfortunately, no one had been able to locate an Earth Dragon’s Tongue Fruit, but from their demeanor, I was sure that they were doing everything they could to find it.

When the camp ended, I recruited 29 new Disciples, the most so far. Unlike in the past, I hadn’t done anything special to recruit them. I just waited until the end of their training and made my offer. With so many volunteers despite my lackluster efforts, I had to assume that someone was pushing for them to join me behind the scenes.

This made it impossible for me to ensure any kind of loyalty or moral integrity in this group, but that was fine. With a firm leadership structure in place, outside agitators would find it difficult to cause any real problems for us. In fact, with all the benefits of joining us, many of them would likely switch sides in truth.

Upon returning to my guest house to prepare for the journey to Mount Jiang, I was greeted by Su Heng. After I handed him this year’s payment, he decided to explain the situation to me.

“My father… The Grand Elder wanted me to tell you… The clan has been investigating your background. They know that you are not a member of the Proud Mountain Kingdom’s royal family. At least… they know that you are not a publicly known member of that family. Many still believe you are a hidden prince.”

I looked at Su Heng with an impassive expression. “And? What does the Su Clan plan to do with this information?”

It didn’t surprise me that they had been able to learn this. It shouldn’t have been hard to get a list of all known members of a royal family. What did surprise me was how long it had taken for them to do so. Was this due to the clan’s incompetence or was it due to the effectiveness of Emperor Li’s smokescreen?

Su Heng looked around nervously. “We… They still aren’t sure who exactly you are. You could be a hidden trump card, but the current assumption is that you are a… an illegitimate child of one of their Rulers.”

I picked up a cup of tea and sipped it without comment, so Su Heng continued.

“Without more information, neither the Patriarch nor his allies in the Rising Sun Empire are willing to make a move against you. The current plan is to drain you of as many resources as possible as quickly as they can. If they can deplete your stockpile of resources, they will feel confident in moving against you. If they can’t… then that means you have a stronger backer than expected, so they won’t move against you directly.”

I nodded. “And what does your father want in return for this information?”

“Only… He only asks for your consideration at a future date.”

I tapped an armrest in thought. It was likely that Grand Elder TaiZu still wanted to play the field a bit. If things went one way, then he might end up in a powerful position in the Rising Sun Empire. If they went another way, then he might seek me out for protection from his enemies.

Of all the elders in the Su Clan, the Grand Elder was the only one I would consider ‘smart.’ However, that didn’t mean I wanted to work with the guy. I could consider giving him a chance, but I would need to do so in a way that protected my clan from the rot of the Su Clan.

I looked Su Heng in the eye. “I will consider his request, but I will make no guarantees regarding my response. I have no desire to make blind promises.”

Su Heng bowed and cupped his fists to me. “Thank you, Prince Fang.”

Upon returning to Mount Jiang, I sent the new recruits to get settled in. With GuiMing in charge of the residential area, and the three housing enclaves well established, I no longer needed to handle any of this personally, but I did lurk in the shadows to keep my eye on everything and ensure there weren’t any problems.

With the leaders of these enclaves now having defined roles, I had expected the divvying out of new recruits to somehow align with them in some way. For example, since Mo was in charge of the workshops, those most interested in professions might be sent to join his enclave. This didn’t happen. Instead, recruits drew lots and were assigned to different enclaves at random.

In a way, this did make more sense. Yes, the leader had taken on defined roles in the clan, but that was a small part of their daily life. Instead, like everyone else, they were mostly focused on training and advancement. The enclave a person joined wouldn’t have much of an effect on their life aside from determining who their neighbors were, so why did it matter so much?

Another reason for this random assignment was likely one of the rules I had personally laid down. People were allowed to change enclaves at will, and there were to be no tests or loyalty oaths upon joining a new one. I could see a benefit from having smaller communities that people could feel more connected to, but I didn’t want these communities to create factionalized infighting within the clan.

In any case, for whatever reason, the new recruits were randomly assigned to an enclave, and the enclaves worked then together to incorporate them into the clan and get everyone up to speed on how things worked around here. ??

These 29 new members represented a more than 50% increase in the size of the clan, so getting them all situated led to a challenging few days for everyone involved, but with the experience and skills everyone now possessed, it went as smoothly as I could have hoped.

A few days later, once everyone was settled in, I called for the original five Disciples plus NiangBa to come to my house for a meeting.

I examined this group upon their arrival. Aside from NiangBa, the others were all 20 years old, so the stagnation of their cultivation bases was on the horizon. Following the advice I had given them before I had left for the Verdant Forest Sect, they were all now Peak Disciples with pristine foundations.

Mo, GuiMing, and NiangBa were all cultivating earth qi techniques. Mo’s was Low-Profound, GuiMing’s was High-Profound, and NiangBa’s was Peak-Earth. While they all had access to the same techniques, Mo’s and GuiMing’s lower talent levels had ultimately limited how complex of a technique they were able to master.

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ShouLi was cultivating a Mid-Earth water qi technique. This was somewhat surprising since her highest initial affinity had been with earth, but with the Essence Gathering Formation, that didn’t matter too much. She must have just decided that water was a better fit for her.

GuiAi was now cultivating a Mid-Profound wood qi technique. With her garden-related activities, this made sense. It left her a bit underpowered for the moment, but once herbalism knowledge was added to the library and access to the island around Mount Jiang was opened up, she would come into her own.

Liang, to his satisfaction, had been able to master a Peak-Yellow lightning qi technique. He had spent a significant amount of time mastering fire techniques to earn the points needed to increase his lightning affinity, and even after I had returned, it still wasn’t high enough for him to form a pristine cultivation base with a Peak-Yellow technique. However, over the past three months, he had used the 20,000 contribution points I had awarded him to boost this affinity further, and he had been able to properly advance to Peak Disciple just in time for this meeting.

I was more than happy with everyone’s progress. They had all started as the discarded refuse of the Su Clan. Even ShouLi, who had previously been considered one of the clan’s elites, had only been valued because she could be traded away to a hedonistic son of a foreign empire.

Now, they were all true elite warriors comparable to nearly anyone on the continent. They might not be able to compete against the few true geniuses who were out there, but they didn’t need to. Those geniuses were locked away in the Nine Rivers Sect, and they would only emerge in extraordinary circumstances.

It was time for this group to take their next step.

Reaching into my storage bag, I pulled out six scrolls containing Low-Yellow Rank 2 cultivation techniques and handed one to each of them.

“These will allow you to advance to Martial Master. Study them carefully and do your best to create the strongest foundation possible. I would suggest that you all work together to try and better understand what you need to do.”

They had looks of anticipation mixed with worry as they looked at the scroll. GuiAi was the first to voice everyone’s concerns.

“Patriarch… can we… use an orb for this?”

I chuckled ruefully. The memory orbs might have spoiled them a bit too much.

“Not yet. Do your best to learn from the scrolls first. After six months, I will evaluate your progress and award each of you contribution points based on both how far you have advanced and the quality of your cultivation base. You will get access to the new orbs after this evaluation is complete.”

GuiAi ducked her head. “Thank you, Patriarch.”

In the Yellow Orchid Academy, the test upon ascension to Martial Master was to see how far students could cultivate in only a single week. For these children, one week wouldn’t be nearly enough time to even understand the basics of forming meridians.

I could have accelerated this process by giving them access to memory orbs from the start, but I wanted to see if their cultivation talents had improved at all over the years. GuiMing being able to cultivate a High-Profound Rank 1 technique had been a bit beyond my expectations, and I was optimistic that he and others could perform similar feats in Rank 2.

After handing out the techniques, I gave them a bit of advice on what Rank 2 cultivation entailed and taught them all how to make practice meridians. While this wasn’t done at Yellow Orchid, most of the geniuses there would already know a bit of basic information about Rank 2 cultivation techniques, so I considered giving these children a bit of extra advice to be fair game.

When my short lesson was over, they all departed to begin work on their advancement.

While everyone else was working on improving their cultivation bases, I turned my attention to the island surrounding Mount Jiang.

The mountaintop was already getting a bit too crowded, and we needed access to more land. I also wanted to open up areas to practice herbalism and beast taming, and to do this, we needed to take firm control of the surrounding island.

This was a bit tricky, though. While I could simply erect a powerful defensive barrier to keep everyone away, such a formation would alert every faction in the Wastes that someone had taken possession of the island, and it wouldn’t take too much guesswork to figure out that it was us. If possible, I wanted to avoid this scenario.

After a couple of years of research and planning, I had been able to come up with an interesting solution to this problem.

Having had a chance to study the various formations I had purchased from the System, while I still didn’t have a firm grasp on how to make convincing illusions like the one that covered the mountain, I did gain a solid understanding of how to tie various kinds of formations into the greater sect-protecting formation.

To extend our reach across the island, I first laid down a grand illusion formation. While I wasn’t skilled in illusions, this one didn’t need to do anything complex. All it did was make the entire island look like it was covered in a dense layer of fog. Our activities on the mountain were still hidden by the illusion that I had purchased previously, and with this addition, as long as we didn’t build anything above the illusory fog layer, no one would know about our presence here.

So, what would people think once they found out the island was suddenly covered in dense fog? That a rare treasure had appeared. Given that the island was known for producing an abundance of rare Rank 3 herbs, most people would likely suspect that a powerful and valuable herb had appeared somewhere on the island.

This would draw a large number of treasure hunters here from around the Wastes, so the second formation I placed was a defensive barrier that would block any Grandmasters from stepping foot onto the island. This might be a little suspicious, but since Disciples and Masters would still be able to access the island freely, my hope was that this barrier would be seen as a natural formation.

Finally, before activating these two formations, I scattered a few precious Rank 2 and 3 herbs across the island. If there were no actual treasures to find, people might lose interest in the area. By hiding a few herbs around the place, I could ensure that these treasure hunters kept coming back.

Setting this all up and making sure that it all functioned properly took me several months of work. Not long after I finished, the six-month time limit I had given ShouLi and the others expired.

Upon seeing them all again, I was excited to find that they had all been able to successfully ascend. Liang had only been able to advance to Martial Master 1, and his meridians were about the shabbiest I had ever seen, but for a boy who had originally been completely incapable of cultivating, advancing at all was a major achievement.

After doling out a healthy amount of contribution points, I explained the task that now awaited them.

“As Martial Masters, it will take you longer to advance, and resetting your cultivation bases won’t be nearly as easy as it was when you were Disciples. So, while you will still be awarded contribution points whenever you reach a new level, these points will be much more difficult to obtain than they were in the past. Instead, you will need to focus on earning points in a different way.”

This made them all slightly anxious, but I didn’t keep them in suspense for long.

“If you are interested in mastering a profession, you will be able to make a significant number of points by making and selling Rank 2 items, but I know that at least a couple of you only wish to learn to fight. As such, I have set up a new challenge for you.”

I looked at them with a sinister gleam in my eye. “A number of Martial Masters will soon be invading the island surrounding Mount Jiang. You will receive contribution points for each one you defeat. No matter what they do or say, do not kill them. They are your sparring partners. If any of them are truly vile, you can cripple them as a warning to others, but for the most part, you should just attack and rob anyone who decides to invade our territory.”