The Undying Immortal System-Chapter 307: Life 76, Age 48, Martial Lord Peak

Before we could unlock the second ring under Dragon Gate, we needed a Peak Rank 4 fire body cultivator. Even with a cultivation technique in place and ample karmic energy being generated from the guilds and nearly a dozen cities, this still took time.

But that was fine. There was plenty that needed to get done in the meantime.

Most importantly, we needed to populate the cities around Rosehill. Even with the council offering various incentives to get people to immigrate from the independent cities to the west of the Wastes, this was taking time.

I wanted to advance to Martial King, and the Martial Kings in my inner world wanted a chance to get out and stretch their legs, but we all understood the dangers of rushing.

Eventually, though, Peak Rank 4 body cultivators began to make their appearance, and we were ready to take the next steps.

As Emperor Li had predicted, even though Lords could now enter our territory through our western border, none did. No armies appeared on the horizon, and none of the known spies within our cities advanced to Martial Lord. So, once everything was in place, we decided to push forward and sent a team of metal cultivators to break the formation beneath Mount Jiang.

As we had known the location and status of this formation for over a decade, this didn’t prove to be any problem. Less than a day after the order was given, the outer ring of the formation was broken.

After that, a team of formation specialists rushed in to shore up our defenses while the rest of us turned our sights on the sects.

SuYin was stationed in the Verdant Fields Sect, and Cao MeiLan was in the Twin Mountains Sect. They had both advanced to Peak Grandmaster and become elders in their respective sects, but neither had been able to infiltrate their sect’s core leadership team.

So, I called them back to Dragon Gate, gave them an infusion of karmic energy, and provided them with a manual for cultivating the Core of Fellowship.

While Cao and SuYin studied this technique, I handed off the identity jade that I had previously purchased from the System to a couple of Formation Grandmasters and sent them to find the main node of the sects’ sect-protecting formations.

These were Rank 4 formations, and I had only been able to send Grandmasters to study them. I hadn’t expected them to be able to do too much. This was only intended as a preliminary investigation. At best, I was hoping for them to produce a few extra identity tokens.

However, with only a glance, these Grandmasters were able to identify severe flaws in both formations. Without even needing my help, they were able to craft keys capable of shutting down the defenses of both sects.

At first, this seemed a bit strange. Why would the sect-protecting formation have such major flaws in them? But then, I remembered what had happened back when I was a Grandmaster in the Twin Mountains Sect.

These flaws were intentional. They were there so that the parent sects could disable the formations whenever they chose. Unfortunately for them, it also allowed us to develop that same ability.

A couple of months later, SuYin and Cao advanced to Martial Lord.

After sending warnings to our people embedded in the sects, we simultaneously dispatched a team of body cultivators to both the Twin Mountains and the Verdant Fields.

As both sects had already moved their fire seeds, their formation caverns held little danger.

The next day, the restrictions stopping Lords from entering the sects’ territories dropped.

Leading a group of Peak Lords, SuYin swiftly attacked the Verdant Fields while Cao led a group to the Twin Mountains. Without the help of their sect-protecting formations, the Grandmasters in charge of these sects were barely able to muster any resistance.

A few of the elders who had focused on studying martial combat chose to sacrifice themselves in a mad display of defiance, but most of the sects’ leadership capitulated without a fight.

Less than an hour after the invasions began, SuYin was named the new Sect Master of the Verdant Fields, and Cao was named the new Sect Master of the Twin Mountains.

This caused a bit of turmoil, but in the end, very few people actually cared who the Sect Master was. When SuYin and Cao showed off their Lord-level cultivation bases and promised the elders that they, too, would have a chance at advancement, nearly all of them instantly abandoned the darkness to join the light.

Once the situation in the sects was stable, I grabbed TongBin, who had advanced to Peak Rank 4 in fire body cultivation, and a random Lord-level earth cultivator, and we headed down to the cavern beneath Dragon Gate.

Originally, this cavern had been shrouded in the mists of a purple miasma. After destroying the formation’s outer ring, a shield had appeared to prevent us from damaging the formation further, and the miasma became trapped within the confines of that shield.

With the outer rings of all five formations now destroyed, that shield had vanished. However, the miasma hadn’t seeped back out to encompass the entire cavern. It was still concentrated in the area around the formation.

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I handed TongBin jade box inscribed with a complex formation. “First things first. We need to get rid of that fire seed.”

TongBin didn’t hesitate.

He walked over to the edge of the formation, looked up at the fire seed suspended in the air 30 meters above him, and jumped.

I was slightly worried that the formation might make things difficult for the man, but he was able to target the fire seed and stuff it into the jade box without issue.

After closing the box securely, he landed deftly on the other side of the cavern.

With the fire seed gone, the earth essence gathered by the formation was pouring upward toward the surface without interference.

Reaching into my storage space, I pulled out a 5-meter-thick, 20-meter-wide slab of olivine.

I looked at the earth cultivator. “We need to attach this to the cavern’s ceiling. You won’t be able to use your qi directly above the formation, so you won’t be able to attach it in the center. Just focus on bonding the edges as firmly as possible.”

As a Martial Lord, moving such a large block of olivine shouldn’t have been too difficult for the man, but unique restrictions imposed by the cavern’s formation made things a bit difficult. Also, as neither he nor I were body cultivators, we both had to be exceedingly cautious of the concentrated miasma that was still lingering in the cavern.

Still, with a little assistance from TongBin, we were able to position the stone, and the earth cultivator melded it into the ceiling.

From then on, all of the essence pouring out of the formation would be stored in that slab of olivine. We would just need to come down and harvest it before it overflowed.

With this task complete, I nodded to TongBin. “Do it.”

He gave me a short bow and then raced to the edge of the formation.

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After finding the five white gems embedded around its perimeter, he shattered each of them with only a single punch. This time, with his karma-infused muscles, he hadn’t needed to corrupt them with fire wu first.

When the last gem shattered, the cavern shook as a violent earthquake rocked the Wastes.

We didn’t run, though. Our earth cultivator could protect us if the cavern collapsed, and I wanted to make sure that the quake didn’t damage the olivine slab that we had attached to the ceiling.

A few minutes later, this disturbance settled down, and I smiled at my companions. “Good job.”

With the second ring of the formation destroyed, Dragon Gate City became the center of the new Dragon Gate Kingdom. While the actual square footage of this kingdom was somewhat limited, we had been able to cram enough people inside of it to generate true King-level karmic energy.

Before worrying about anything else, I first took teams to each of the formation caverns, removed the fire seeds, and attached minerals to the ceilings to capture all the gathered essence.

Because of this, the hole at the center of the Verdant Fields Sect and the underground pools in the Twin Mountains Sect were no longer capable of raising people’s affinities, but that didn’t bother me overly much. The sects were now under our control. Those who contributed to our clan’s growth would still receive opportunities to raise their affinities. Those who didn’t would find their path forward cut short.

With this settled, I returned to a life of seclusion and study while the clan around me expanded at a rapid rate.

ShouLi’s priorities shifted to focusing on unlocking the secrets of Rank 5 body cultivation, so the lieutenants who had worked under her for decades stepped forward and took control of our fledgling empire. Their main goal was to grow our population as quickly as possible. Without enough people to generate King-level karmic energy, there was no reason to unlock more of the Wastes’ formations.

At first, this was looking like it might take an interminable amount of time, but before long, the clan’s leadership stumbled upon a solution: the sects.

Asking people in one city to leave their homes and travel hundreds of kilometers just to live in a different city was a difficult proposition. Even when offered generous compensation for the move, few people were willing to agree. After all, pies didn’t fall from the sky, so if someone was willing to promise lavish rewards, there had to be a catch.

Sects, however, were different. Everyone knew that sects recruited and trained skilled disciples. So, when recruiters from the Twin Mountains Sect showed up, showcased their abilities, and stated that they were only willing to accept the 10 most talented individuals from a town or city, people were fighting each other for the chance to join.

At first, we only sent recruiters to the independent cities west of the Wastes. However, when this strategy proved to be successful, we began sending recruiters to towns and villages across the entirety of the western half of the continent.

Most towns welcomed our recruiters. Usually, a child from wealthy mortal families with low affinities and a poor aptitude for cultivation could only dream of joining a sect, and we were making that dream a reality. While most of the children we recruited would never return home, these families pinned their hopes on the chance that one of their children might one day come back as a talented alchemist.

However, some forces were not exactly happy with us stealing away their population base, so disputes would sometimes arise. The most vicious of these disputes, though, was between the recruiters of the Twin Mountains Sect and the members of the Guild of Alchemists.

As a new power that had recently risen up in the southern empires, the Guild of Alchemists was fiercely protective of its reputation as the preeminent place for people to learn and study alchemy. So, when an unknown sect popped up and started trying to recruit disciples out from under them, the guild was none too pleased.

This started a long-running feud, with members of both groups constantly challenging the members of the other side to alchemy duels.

However, because of this feud, the reputations of both groups grew. After only a few years, everyone in the southern empires was familiar with both the sect and the guild.

With the Twin Mountains Sect’s accomplishments as a guide, the Verdant Fields Sect also expanded its recruitment efforts. Then, after a few years, the leadership council chose to transform the cities around Rosehill and Mount Jiang into the Rosehill Sect and the Mount Jiang Sect. The Mount Jiang Sect would focus on beast taming, and the Rosehill Sect would focus on refining.

As a sect focused on refining was anathema to nearly every empire on the continent, the creation of the Rosehill Sect stirred up a great deal of controversy. Its recruiters were unable to leave the Wastes without being killed or captured. This even caused the recruiters from our other sects to be targeted.

However, while this severely curtailed our active recruitment efforts, the notoriety of our sects spread.

Metal cultivators from around the continent started arriving in the Wastes, and this, in turn, caused cultivators of the other elements to join them.

Eventually, the leadership council set up three more sects in the northwest, northeast, and southeast of the Wastes. These were focused on illusions, talismans, and formations. Their inaugural Sect Masters were my Revered Elders: Meng LuYao, Murong NaYun, and Shi YuLong.

This gave us a total of eight kingdoms slowly growing within the confines of the Wastes.