The Undying Immortal System

I had two goals to work towards, improving alchemy and improving cultivation. I didn't have enough qi to do alchemy, so I first needed to improve my cultivation, and to do that, I needed a cultivation technique. Off to the Technique Hall I went.

Inside, I found numerous bookshelves filled with different techniques, and I didn't have a clue where to start looking for a good cultivation technique or how to choose one. A guy was standing behind a counter near the entrance, so I decided to just go up to him and ask.

"Hello, can you tell me where the cultivation techniques are?"

"Cultivation? No need to look. We keep them behind the counter. The scrolls out there are all for different skills. We have a good variety of techniques you can use in alchemy out there, but our cultivation techniques are limited. What level do you want? You can go Low-, Mid-, or High-Yellow rank. If you want anything better, you're going to need special permission."

"What are the prices?"

"50 contribution points for the Low, 250 for Mid, and 1,250 for High."

"Besides just the level, are there any differences in the cultivation techniques?"

"Ah, we just got the one, the sect gives the same cultivation technique to all alchemists. It's for fire qi. If you're looking for something different, you have to put in a special request. I say there are skills ranked from Low- to High-Yellow, but it's really the same skill. The higher-ranked one is just an improved version of the lower-ranked one. Of course, a higher-ranked skill also means it's more difficult to master, so the Low-Yellow technique can be seen as a simplified version. You got the skill from the exam, right? That's the same skill. It's technically still a Low-Yellow skill, but it might better be called a Lowest-Yellow version."

I was wary of trusting anyone, but I had to ask what I cared about most. Truth or not, I wouldn't learn anything if I didn't ask. I could only hope the question wouldn't raise any red flags.

"Do they have any mental effects?"

He laughed at that question. "Oh, of course. The effects are perfect for alchemists. It helps calm and soothe the mind, allowing for a lot greater clarity in your work. You don't want to be filled with rage when you're trying to carefully concoct pills, do you? The technique helps with that. It also has a way of helping you follow the instructions in a recipe better."

I put on a pensive expression. "Any chance I could find one that didn't affect my mind?"

"Let me guess, you want a strong, high-level cultivation technique that will have no effect on your mind."

"Ideally, yes."

"Uh-huh, well I don't have one, but I do have a spear and shield to sell you." He laughed heartily at his small pun.

"Wh… what?"

"I mean it's impossible, kid. Not going to happen. Even if I had such a technique, I don't know if I'd want it. Most of the time, people are looking for those effects, ya know? Helps to have a technique that puts you in the right frame of mind."

I left the Technique Hall slightly dispirited. Did he tell me the truth? It made some sense. Cultivation had an incredible impact on the body. From that point of view, the idea that it wouldn't affect your mind was laughable. Still, there should be a difference between natural shifts in mentality and outside influences.

If I wanted a technique without mental side effects, there seemed to be only one way to get it.

"System, how much to buy a cultivation technique with no mental side effects?"

The cost of that information cannot be calculated at this time.

The same answer as always. I was getting tired of hearing 'cannot be calculated.' I wanted a real answer for once.

"System, how much would it cost for you to 'calculate' the cost of the information?"

Calculating… Relevant information. Cost 10 credits.

Relevant information… What did that mean? Should I spend my only trump card here for an unknown? This information felt important, and 10 credits weren't much of a trump card.

"Okay, go ahead and buy it."

Purchase confirmed. 0 credits remaining.

It is possible to buy a cultivation technique without any mental side effects from the System. If you want a Rank 1 cultivation technique, the cost is 1 crystal. At that price, it will be a High-Heaven technique. Additional High-Heaven techniques can also be included in the purchase without increasing the price.

"Really? Wait, crystal? What's a crystal?"

Credits contain the energy of a Mortal cultivator. Crystals are a higher form of System currency. They contain the energy of a God, a being that has surpassed the Heavenly Dao.

"So, you're saying…"

Credits expended, transaction complete.

That… I think I got it. At least, I got the message the System was giving out. The fact of these techniques affecting the mind was a law of the Heavenly Dao. It was not something I could tangle with for the foreseeable future. Time to start working within the rules instead of against them.

I needed a cultivation technique. At the moment, with my best effort, I could make two High-Purity Basic pills a day if I was lucky. That was 20 points a day, but I would lose half of that from paying for ingredients. So, was it possible to scrape together 250 for the mid-level manual in a relatively short time frame? Yes, but it would eat a huge hole in my pocket.

I decided to start by aiming for the 50-point Low-Yellow manual. That would let me start making money more quickly and easily. Would it harm my future and foundation? Did I care? No, it would only affect me for the rest of this life. Better to start moving forward than to delay indefinitely.

It was time to make some drugs.

Over the following three days, I transformed the seven peonies I had remaining into three High-Purity and four Mid-Purity pills.

As soon as I finished, I headed to the Provisions Hall. The transaction there was straightforward. The accessible area of the hall was just a small room with a single counter. I handed over my pills and they gave me points. My contribution point total jumped from 0 to 50 in an instant.

One thing that I didn't expect was that I also had a large amount of 'special' contribution points. Because I earned 15 points during the selection exam, I was given 150 special contribution points. These points were unique in that they could only be used to purchase ingredients. While they wouldn't help me learn new skills, they would provide my starting capital.

This made clear the choice that had been given to us during the selection exam. Craft more pills for a huge boost in starting capital or save the flowers and use them to earn general points later.

This new knowledge made me hesitate about rushing to buy the Low-Yellow technique. The High-Yellow one was still a bit outside the realm of possibility since after costs were factored in, I would need to sell a minimum of 250 High-Purity pills to afford it, and that was assuming I didn't make any mistakes. However, buying the Mid-Yellow technique was feasible. With my 150 special points, if I bought 30 peonies and turned them all into High-Purity pills, I would have 300 points. That was more than enough for the Mid-Yellow technique.

This idea was tantalizing, but I knew it wasn't to be. With the last seven flowers I used, I only made three High-Purity pills after three days, so how long would it take for me to make thirty? A month? Maybe, but that was assuming I never messed up or failed. Instead of trying to be the best in this life, I just needed to set myself up for success next time around.

Instead of buying any more ingredients, I took my 50 new points and rushed to the Technique Hall. The exchange for the Low-Yellow manual went smoothly, and I was about to return to my room to start cultivating when I caught myself.

I was no longer a kid trapped alone in his room, struggling on his own to make even the slightest progress. I had access to resources and teachers now. At a minimum, I could make myself pills to cultivate more quickly. Even if I was only using this Low-Yellow technique, I could still at least try to be smart about things.

It would take me a couple of hours to restore enough of my mental energy to make a pill that had a good chance of being High-Purity, so I went ahead and checked if there were any lectures on cultivation available. In the distant past, I had maximized what I could do with the Earth Heart Mantra on my own, but that didn't mean I had been using it to its full potential. There could easily be something I missed or didn't know.

After looking at the cultivation lectures available, there were indeed many options. Purchasing a seat to a lecture from a Martial Master was going for anywhere between 10 and 100 contribution points. The cost seemed to depend on the size of the class and the person teaching it.

Sitting in a lecture hall didn't interest me too much, so I instead focused on the options for personal tutoring. A few of the one-on-one lessons from a Martial Master were surprisingly affordable. Sure, some people had priced a one-hour lesson at several thousand points, but some teachers were available for as little as 50 points.

Wanting to know the reason for the price discrepancy, I went to the receptionist to ask a few questions.

The receptionist was an older woman with graying hair. She looked like the kind of person who might have been a fixture of this place for decades.

"Hi, can you explain the pricing for one-on-one lessons? The range of prices is pretty large. What do I get for paying so much?"

Her voice was kind and grandmotherly. "Welcome, no problem at all. Mostly, it just comes down to who the teacher is. If someone is asking for hundreds of points for a lesson, they're probably a low-level outer sect disciple trying to earn a little extra. The ones asking for thousands are usually quite high-ranked outer sect disciples."

The woman put on a conspiratorial expression.

"I'll tell you a little secret. Those expensive lessons aren't about learning. If you take them, don't expect a diligent teacher. They're really about making connections. If you're looking to move up to the outer sect, gifting a powerful disciple a few thousand points is a way to establish yourself there."

She gave me a quick little wink.

"Now, the cheapest options are different. 50 points is the lowest we allow them to go. Otherwise, some of them would give you an hour of their time for even less. These are all new, low-level Martial Masters who are still nominal disciples, and they're probably still learning how to make Superior pills. Each set of ingredients costs 30 points at that level, and when you keep failing, you burn through money pretty quickly. The lower the price, the more desperate they are."

She gestured toward a group of names with even higher prices.

"Above 100 points you'll find nominal disciples who can occasionally make High-Purity Superior pills. The price is higher because they're no longer in dire straits, and after they can make them consistently, you won't find them giving any lessons at all anymore. They'll be working on their alchemy."

I thanked her for the insider information and left without scheduling a lesson. Before I could afford anything, I needed to make some money.

The next several days, I dipped into my 'special' points to buy pill ingredients. It ended up only costing me 30 of them to build up the funds I needed for a lesson on cultivation. I had decided to go with a teacher that only cost 50 points for two reasons. First, they were cheap, and I didn't have any cash. Second, I figured it was better to give coal in winter. If the people offering lessons for 50 points were in more need of it, they might well put in some extra effort.

As soon as I had scraped together enough points, I went back and scheduled a lesson for later that day.

The teacher I chose was named Cao MeiLan. She looked slightly older than me, like she was in her late twenties, but with the way cultivation played with ages, I had no idea how old she really was.

Cao made clear that she was just passing on her own knowledge, and that, as she was still a beginner, she could be wrong about some things. However, most of what we covered was considered basic best practices by everyone in the sect. It might not be accurate, but it would be the same advice anyone else would give me.

The information she gave me was simple and straightforward.

First, purity of qi was absolutely vital. According to Cao, it would be better to spend five years advancing a single level with near-perfect purity instead of jumping a rank in a single day. For alchemists, it was imperative since purity affected both the quality of flames produced and the control one had over them.

At my level of alchemy, purity might not matter too much. Apply heat. and boom, you had a pill. However, for more advanced pills, it became trickier to remove all of the toxins contained within the herbs.

With some herbs, toxins could be located within a cluster of medicinal energy, so deft targeting was essential. With others, the toxins might burn at an extremely high temperature, but the medicinal power of the herb would evaporate at a low one, so an alchemist would have to retain regions of hot and cold right next to each other. Extremely fine control of heat was a necessity, and it was only possible with high qi purity.

There was a catch to all of this, though. After age 30, a Martial Disciple's cultivation base would 'calcify' and their cultivation speed would decrease sharply. If a cultivator hadn't advanced to Martial Master before turning 31, they would usually never be able to do so for the rest of their life. So, it was important to carefully cultivate a pure foundation, but doing so was a double-edged sword. Pure meant slow, and if one were too slow, they would be stuck as a Disciple forever.

After discussing cultivation, she talked about some of the techniques available for purchase and made a few recommendations on ones that I should purchase. These techniques could improve temperature, accuracy, and other basic aspects of qi control.

According to Cao, these techniques were just crutches. In the end, I needed to be able to concoct pills without relying on techniques, but if, say, one's purity wasn't high enough, the techniques were a solution.

Third, she told me something I had been wondering about. To advance from a Martial Disciple to a Martial Master one had to create 'meridians.' Disciples had qi locked in their muscles, but meridians were pathways that allowed it to flow freely from one part of the body to another.

Someone with a single meridian was considered a Half-Step Martial Master. A Martial Master 1 had two meridians, Master 2 had three, and so on. An important difference between Disciples and Masters was that while a Disciple 10 was a Peak Disciple, one had to reach Master 11 before they would be a Peak Master. This was because masters needed to form a total of 12 meridians in their bodies.

Creating meridians was completely different from cultivating as a Martial Disciple, so to advance past Peak Disciple, one would need a proper Rank 2 cultivation technique.

Fourth, Cao talked about the order to open acupoints. The order I had done it in previously, arms, chest, legs, extremities, was considered standard for most warriors since it quickly built upper body strength. However, she pointed out that for alchemists, especially for Disciples who couldn't move qi freely, the most important acupoints were those in the hands. That was where they would pull the most qi from when concocting pills.

So, there were two general schools of thought. Open the acupoints in the hands first for quick access to their qi reservoirs or open them last. Opening them last would mean not being able to rely on them as a Disciple, but it would also mean having the most cultivation experience possible before doing so and making them as pure as possible. Her suggestion was to do the upper arms first and do the hands last for the greatest balance of potential benefits.

Finally, she spent the rest of our time together helping me practice creating a better qi filter. She had used the Mid-Yellow version of the sect's technique, and even though she wasn't allowed to share it with me, knowing it allowed her to help me improve more easily. The higher-ranked technique simply used an upgraded version of the qi filter from the Low-Yellow technique, so she was able to provide valuable insights on how I could improve my own flawed filters.

Overall, I would consider the lesson 50 points well spent.

Afterward, I went back to my room to cultivate. I didn't use any pills since Cao told me not to. She said that I should worry both about the pill toxins that even High-Purity pills contained as well as the problems with properly purifying qi while it was being drawn in at an accelerated rate. According to her, I should try to avoid boosting my cultivation speed through pills until I reach a bottleneck.

This time, I cultivated slowly and deliberately. I didn't have to meet a looming deadline like that crazy Su Clan challenge. I could take my time, so I spent it working on making my qi as pure as possible.

In the end, there was only so much a Low-Yellow technique can do though. I hit a complete wall at 80% purity. It was far better than I had ever done before, but I knew it still wasn't enough. I needed a better technique.

Still, I moved forward with opening my first acupoint. It took me a month of study before I did so, but I had finally returned to Martial Disciple 2.

I only had one more month before I had to start paying rent, and I had 0 points in my account. It was time to start moving some bricks.