The Undying Immortal System-Chapter 350: Life 92, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Upon opening my eyes, I found myself kneeling in the courtyard of a quaint countryside villa. The building that encircled me was in good repair—all of its blue shingles were in place, and its sturdy wooden walls were coated in a pristine layer of red paint. However, the tall weeds poking up between the cobblestones suggested that the place had been uninhabited for several months.

All in all, it was the rather ordinary courtyard of a rather ordinary villa—exactly like those that could be found in countless towns and villages across the Nine Rivers Continent. The only thing that set it apart was the pitch-black void that consumed the entirety of the eastern skyline.

The absolute darkness of this void almost made me believe that I was sitting at the edge of the world itself. However, when I scrambled up to the roof of the building to get a better look, I saw the truth.

This void wasn’t the edge of the world. Instead, it was an enormous black sphere. At least, the bands of opalescent light that streaked across its surface suggested this was its true shape. Only half of the sphere was visible, though. The rest was sunk into the ground. Without a better frame of reference, I had no way of knowing exactly how large this sphere might be, but based on the way it dominated the eastern skyline, it had to be at least several hundred meters across.

After only a few seconds of staring at it, I understood what this ball of darkness must be: The Nine Rivers Continent. The black surface was similar to the spatial barriers of storage bags, and the opalescent shimmer was the same as what had appeared around my inner world when it had become a Small World.

Teleporting to the Central Continent had cost me 10,000,000,000,060. When the System had told me this price, I had a guess of what it might mean, and seeing this void confirmed it. I had needed to pay 10 trillion credits to break through the Nine Rivers Continent’s spatial barrier. The remaining 60 had been the cost of teleporting from there to this villa.

For a long moment, I couldn’t help but stare at the void that was the Nine Rivers Continent. I had been trapped in there for thousands of years. From my first moments in the Su Clan to my final life traveling the continent with Murong NaYun, all of it had been within that small spatial barrier.

It was time to leave it behind. For now, at least. However, before venturing out into the wider world…

“System, establish a temporary reset point. The next time I die, I want to be returned here.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 30 credits.

Smiling, I stood.

After spending millennia as a Martial Sovereign, I was more than ready to ascend to Martial Spirit. To do that, I needed my clan to become powerful enough to generate Spirit-level karmic energy. And to do that, I needed to find a place on this new continent where they could settle down and gain a foothold.

So, I needed information. I could try exploring this city that I had just arrived in, but what were the chances that a city built in the shadow of a Small World was just a ‘normal’ city?

With that great, big void being visible for hundreds of kilometers in every direction, I doubted that the location of this city was any kind of secret, but I also didn’t think that the Nine Rivers Saint would want outsiders sneaking around the place. So, I figured that it would be best to begin my information gathering mission elsewhere.

“System, I want you to teleport me to a secluded spot in another city.”

What did I need?

“I want it to be a large, metropolitan city—the capital of either a kingdom or an empire. A place where one might expect to find merchants and travelers from far and wide.”

How was I going to gather information? I couldn’t just be a random nobody. If I wanted to learn anything of substance, I needed an identity.

Also, I didn’t just need information about a place to settle my clan. Over my past few lifetimes, I had raised all of my profession skills to either Rank 6 or 7, but several of them had stalled out from a lack of knowledge and resources. Most importantly, I hadn’t been able to advance in alchemy since I hadn’t had access to Rank 7 herbs.

I might as well combine these goals. After all, what better identity to have than that of a Pill Emperor?

“Send me to a city with access to a well-known sect or merchant house. Maybe an organization like the Blue Wind Pavilion. A group where I could join as a Disciple Alchemist, rise through the ranks, and eventually earn a measure of respect from influential people throughout the city.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 20,500,180,510 credits. 237,965,112,269,373 credits remaining.

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Like so many times in the past, I appeared in a deserted alley. After exiting onto the city’s wide streets, I spent some time just walking around, taking in the sights and sounds of this new continent. At first, nothing looked much different from the cities on the Nine Rivers Continent. However, when I arrived in a more upscale, commercial district, the differences were obvious.

In the area where I had arrived, the buildings had all either been made from gray brick or red-painted wood. They had peaked roofs that were covered in yellow, clay tiles.

In this commercial district, however, there was an eclectic mix of styles from several different cultures. There were white brick buildings with towering minarets, and there were large, multi-story buildings with walls formed from the hides of high-Rank beasts.

It wasn’t just the architecture that was different, though.

On the Nine Rivers Continent, everyone had the same straight, long black hair and black eyes. Except for a few outliers, everyone had been roughly the same height, and it had been hard to distinguish one person from the next without looking at their faces.

Here, however, while most of the people matched this same mold, there were also people of all different shapes and… colors. Some people had green skin, some had red. Some people were entirely bald, while others were covered in so much hair that it almost looked like fur.

The looks that most of the ‘Nine Rivers’ people gave these… outsiders? Foreigners? These looks spoke of a level of disdain and distrust between the two communities. This made me a bit wary, but I wouldn’t let unknown prejudices hold me back from learning more about the people and cultures of this world.

However, I didn’t have any desire to go up and start talking to random strangers on the street. Instead, I kept my original goal in mind and looked for a place where I could make a name for myself as a Disciple Alchemist.

This commercial district had dozens of pill shops, but most of them were small affairs with only a few counters displaying their wares. They likely only had a single alchemist on staff, and while I could try joining them, my future in such a place would be limited. I needed a larger stage.

So, I walked straight to a giant, twenty-story building that towered above its surroundings. Its walls were formed from living wood that was covered in mottled white bark, and its roof was a canopy of purple leaves. It was exuding the powerful, earthy scent of an old-growth forest that I could smell from more than a block away.

While I didn’t know anything about this building, it was clear that it had to have been constructed and maintained by wood cultivators, and where there were high-level wood cultivators, there were usually high-level herbalists. When I approached and saw the sign proclaiming this building as the “Hall of the Herb Lord,” I knew that I had found the place I needed to be.

As I approached, I noticed that the building had multiple entrances. Most people were passing through the large double doors at its center, but that area looked like it was the shop floor—not exactly what I was looking for.

So, I walked up to one of the guards standing next to the entrance. He was over two meters tall, and his skin was a craggy, chestnut brown that had a texture similar to tree bark.

“Hello, sir. I wish to become an alchemist. I was wondering if this establishment recruits and trains new Disciples.”

He gave me a stoic, penetrating look, and I could sense a hint of annoyance behind it. He wordlessly lifted his spear and used it to point to the entrance off to my right.

I cupped my fists and gave him a slight bow. “Thank you.”

Upon entering the Hall of the Herb Lord, I found myself in a wide room lined with half a dozen reception desks. Picking one at random, I walked up and cupped my fists to the receptionist.

“Hello, I would like to become an alchemist.”

The receptionist, a man with dark green skin and bleach-blonde hair, raised an eyebrow at this simple statement. Having not taken time to get cleaned up, I still looked like a dirty street urchin who was dressed in the fraying tan robes of a beggar. Still, he didn’t speak out against me. He only reached behind his desk, grabbed an affinity testing orb, and placed it on the counter in front of me.

“Send your qi into the orb. We need to see if you have the proper affinity.”

Nodding, I placed my hand on the orb and constricted my acupoints so that the orb would register me as having a high six-star fire affinity. Until I had a better sense of this place, I didn’t want to show off too much, but I also didn’t want to appear too weak.

After inserting my qi into the orb, however, nothing happened. No flame appeared. There wasn’t even the normal dance of chaotic lights. The receptionist gave me a full minute to try and change this, but even after I fully opened my acupoints, nothing happened.

My mouth dropped in shock. What was going on? Was the receptionist playing some kind of trick on me? I was a bit worried that the result of my test was being displayed elsewhere, where I couldn’t see it, but nothing I saw in energy vision suggested that such a thing was happening.

The receptionist sighed and shook his head. “Zero affinity. If you wish, you may purchase a position as a pill servant. By paying 10 gold a month, you will gain the opportunity to tend to our herbs and carry out mundane tasks for our alchemists. You will even be given one lesson in basic alchemy each month. As long as you are diligent, this might allow you to develop your affinity and step onto the path of an alchemist, but nothing is certain. It will all depend on your latent talents.”

What should I do? This sounded like a complete scam. They showed me as having zero affinity, then they would help me ‘develop’ over time, likely by modifying the affinity orb. However, while the receptionist clearly didn’t think too much of me, I didn’t get the sense that he was being intentionally deceptive. This might be something more going on.

In any case, what did I have to lose? A bit of time? Even if this path didn’t allow me to ‘learn alchemy,’ spending some time in this place—with these people who all looked so very different from those I was used to—would help me learn more about this new continent.

I nodded, pulled 10 gold coins from my inner world, and placed them on the counter.

A beggar pulling so much gold out of nowhere should have been suspicious, and the fact that these were foreign coins from the Nine Rivers Continent should have sent alarm bells ringing. The receptionist, however, didn’t seem to find anything amiss. He just swept the coins behind the desk and then signaled for a servant.

“Taimoor will guide you to your residence and teach you the basics. Listen to him. The Hall of the Herb Lord is open to all, but we do not show mercy to those who break our rules.”

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