The Undying Immortal System-Chapter 340: Life 78, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Having millions of people crammed together in my inner world wasn’t necessarily a bright idea. However, there was something that I needed to do, and I couldn’t have people running around outside before I did it. So, I told the clan’s leadership that, because of how far back we were going, it would take us a couple of years to revert the timeline. They weren’t exactly happy about this, but with all the changes we had made to the world’s bunkers, they would survive.

Upon returning to my tiny house in the Su Clan’s training complex, I made a rush purchase to get out of there before anything could go wrong. “System, transport me to the Twin Mountains Sect.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 762 credits.

After attaching one of the sect’s identity jades to my waist, I went out and found Bao. As always, it only took a few words to convince him to follow me to a secluded location. Once there, I shoved a memory orb into his hand and activated my Implantation ability. Then, I teleported the two of us to the Blue Wind Pavilion.

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,460 credits.

Using Emperor Li’s token, I did my best to mimic the way that Bao and I had recruited SuYin a few lifetimes ago. Then, I teleported us to the Verdant Fields Sect and signed us as nominal disciples.

Purchase confirmed. Cost 2,472 credits.

Considering everything SuYin and Bao now knew about herbalism, having them grow herbs for the Verdant Fields served little purpose, and if they did too good of a job, it might raise uncomfortable questions. So, instead, I sent them to my Plane of Wood to play around while I focused on other tasks.

With up to two years of downtime ahead of me, I wanted to try out one of the many experiments that I had jotted down in my journal over the centuries. However, to do what I needed to do, I couldn’t leave the Wastes or cause any major disruptions, so experimenting with karmic energy was off the table.

So, I decided to play around with the idea of pulling wu into my energy body with the potential goal of using it to form a core. I hadn’t tried this before because I was worried that it would permanently damage my foundation, but with this timeline, I didn’t have any such concerns.

First, I cultivated a basic earth technique up to the level of Peak Grandmaster. Then, after using formations to create a bubble of pure earth wu, I lowered my qi filters and began pulling in energy through the acupoints in my left arm.

If cultivating qi was like pouring water into my acupoints, then cultivating wu was more akin to shoveling sand into them. It was gritty and messy, and once inside, the wu refused to flow through into my meridians. It just piled up and created bulges of foreign energy, disrupting my qi flows. With my high earth affinity, I could force the issue and wrestle the wu wherever I wanted it to go, but it did not want to move.

Eventually, I was able to haul a sizable chunk of the stuff to my dantian. However, once it was there, it acted like little more than a pile of wet sand. I could shape and mold it into the facsimile of a core, but none of my creations were able to hold their shape under even the slightest bit of pressure. While wu had proved useful for enhancing physical structures, such as bones and muscles, it was apparently not great at creating them.

After several attempts, I was convinced that, if this was going to work, then I needed to use some analog of medicinal energy—not just wu, but a blending of wu and qi. Sadly, though, nothing I tried was able to create a stable composite of the two energies.

By the time two years had come and gone, I had barely made any progress, but I did reaffirm two potential paths forward. If I wanted to learn how to incorporate a foreign energy into my body, then I could study how demon beasts incorporated the energy of cultivators they ate. If I wanted to learn how to combine qi and wu, then I could study how plants formed medicinal energy.

Eventually, I would need to walk both paths, but that would take time, and my time in this life was already over.

Using Shadowed Soul Pills, I snuck around the Wastes and located a few babies who had only recently been born. First, I visited Liang’s parents. Then, Mo’s. Both families had recently had sons, but they had named their children Huang and Kan. Were these just different names, or were they completely different children?

When I visited ShouLi’s parents, though, my worst fears were confirmed. Her parents had only had one child, named ShouMei. ShouLi had been a twin, and ShouMei had been the name of her sister. While I had no way of knowing if this was the ‘same’ sister—if such a concept even made sense—I was certain that this wasn’t ShouLi.

This feeling was only reinforced when I found out that GuiMing and GuiAi’s parents hadn’t had any children at all. Had the minor differences in how I had handled things been the cause of this? Was the Earthly Dao’s meddling at play? Was this just… the way things worked?

“System, is it possible for me to redo things in such a way that ShouLi and the others will be reborn?”

The cost of this information is not possible to calculate at this time.

“Is there a way for me to bring ShouLi and the others back?”

The cost of this information is not possible to calculate at this time.

“How much would it cost for you to calculate the price of those answers?”

Processing… Cost 20 quadrillion credits.

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“Just to know the cost of an answer? Why?”

Processing… Cost 1,000 shards.

As always, these requests for information left me with little more than a vague sense of how tiny the well that I was trapped within truly was. Still, there were answers out there, and one day, I would be able to learn them.

The people that I had come back to retrieve had not appeared, and my energy body was deeply corrupted with wu. Continuing this timeline served no purpose. I considered saving Bao and SuYin’s memories but decided to let them remain ephemeral. I also considered taking away little ShouMei on the off chance that she was ShouLi’s long-lost twin sister, but that seemed too cruel, both to her and to her family. So, I just popped a pill into my mouth and let this life fade from existence.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial Grandmaster Peak: 1 million credits awarded.

Total Credits: 101,229,315,656,053

Returned to the beginning once more, I first contacted my clan’s leadership council and sent out waves of cultivators to take over both the Su Clan and the Wastes. Then, I emptied my inner world of everyone who wanted to leave. Dumping several million cultivators into the Wastes took time, and it caused more than a little havoc, but that was for the clan’s leadership to sort out—not me.

Then, for a cost of around 38 million credits, I used the System to help me recruit my various Revered Elders as I had done in the past.

Once this was done, I entered secluded cultivation and raised my cultivation base as quickly as possible.

As I chose to cultivate the same earth qi technique that I had in my previous life, advancing to Peak Grandmaster was as simple as breathing. From there, I used a portion of the karmic energy that had been stored in the dantians of TongBin’s assistants to quickly ascend to Peak Emperor. Then, I cultivated my body to the peak of Rank 6.

With everything I needed for my ascension at the tips of my fingers, this process took less than ten years to complete. During this time, the council emptied out Dragon Gate City and set up new kingdoms in the surrounding territories. Finally, once our preparations were complete, one of our body cultivators broke the formation under Dragon Gate, and I ascended to Sovereign.

This time, I didn’t plan to play around.

As normal, five portals opened, and five Sovereigns walked out of them. The moment these portals closed, I sent a thread of qi into the formation plates next to my feet, simultaneously activating both a Multi-Anti-Soul Lamp Formation and an Anti-Portal Formation. Then, before the Sovereigns knew what was happening, I pulled on the seed of the Three Thousand Realms Fire and commanded it to unleash a firestorm.

All of this caught the Sovereigns completely off guard, but I needed time to tap into the power of the Earth-Rank seed, enough time that the Sovereigns were able to prepare their defenses.

Sadly for them, I wasn’t their only opponent. Not only did a handful of Peak Rank 6 body cultivators pop out of my inner world to harass them, but both Emperor Li and Ning ZeKun turned on their companions and blocked their attempts at fighting back. By the time the Three Thousand Flames Fire leapt from my soul to engulf and consume the bodies of the three Sovereign, they could only flail about in helpless agony.

After this was settled, I gave Li and ZeKun their memory orbs. Then, before anyone in the outside world knew what was happening, our group jumped to both Lang’ya City and the Summit of the Nine Rivers Sect to subdue the Zhuge and Jiu Clans.

A couple of hours later, I went out and recruited Du XiongMing. Being several decades younger, he was far more vibrant this time around, but after receiving his memory orb, he followed me back to the sect to hear what I planned to work on this life.

My goals were simple: I wanted to grow my inner world and expand my knowledge of Rank 7 formations. Our group had already been able to master the skills needed to create the Multi-Anti-Soul Lamp and Anti-Portal Formations. However, there were still several other Rank 7 formations that I had my eyes on.

Once our position on the continent was secure, the second-generation members of the clan’s leadership council stepped down to make way for the third. Like ShouLi and the others in the first generation, the second generation would assume roles as elders and continue to help from the shadows, but the reins of leadership would fall to the third generation.

While I had given the second-generation councilmembers near-complete freedom in deciding how to choose their successors, the shadows of ShouLi and the others still loomed large over Chang’an. So, they unanimously chose to follow the traditions established by the first generation.

For most positions, this resulted in competitions to prove one’s competence in either crafting or fighting. To become the new Head of the Council, though, ShouLi had decided that what a person needed more than anything else was the support of the clan’s elders.

This resulted in months of fierce politicking where the hopefuls visited the various elders to plead their case. Suliang Hao, ShouLi and Liang’s grandson, had a lot of supporters, but in the end, the position passed to Suba Kang, one of NiangBa’s descendants. While I felt a twinge of disappointment in this outcome, I did nothing to interfere with it.

Once all the official positions were taken care of, it was time to address the final person who remained from the time of ShouLi and the others, TongBin.

TongBin had been given the slightly misleading title of Minister of Karmic Affairs. While not a true member of the council—as he held no authority to dictate the clan’s policies—TongBin was still considered to be above all other elders and below only the council itself. So, when he told me how he wanted to choose his successor, I was more than a little leery.

“Ancestor, ZiChen is my most talented male descendant. His age is ideal, and his character is impeccable. He has already advanced to both Peak Grandmaster and Peak Rank 3 in body cultivation. Once you bless him with a karmic affinity, he will be able to serve you proudly.”

Making the Minister of Karmic Affairs a hereditary position—the only hereditary position—felt… wrong. However… Could a person inherit affinities? Could a parent’s affinities give their children a predisposition to certain elements?

I had never seen any evidence of this. Purported claims of inherited affinities appeared to be more related to being born in areas with higher essence levels than any genetic factors. However, belief in inherited affinities was common amongst the continent’s populace, so it was worth investigating more closely. Using TongBin’s lineage as a test case might be a good idea.

In any case, like with the others, I didn’t want to get involved in choosing people’s successors if I didn’t have to. So, I placed a hand on ZiChen’s shoulder and used an avatar in my inner world to make the purchase.

“System, give ZiChen a ‘temporary’ low five-star affinity for karmic energy.” After only a brief pause, I had a flash of inspiration and added a bit more to make this experiment more interesting. “Also, raise ZiChen’s permanent affinity to mid nine-star and TongBin’s permanent affinity to peak nine-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 11.6 billion credits. 101,217,657,640,982 credits remaining.

This purchase likely came far too late to affect TongBin in any meaningful way, but the cost was negligible.

Sadly, time continued its relentless march forward, the same for TongBin as for everyone else. After only a few more decades, he passed away. TongBin was not a member of the clan’s first generation, but in a show of respect for everything that he had done, the council chose to inter him in the first generation’s mausoleum anyway.

After the ceremony was complete, I bestowed his lineage with the name Sutong.

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