The Undying Immortal System

I returned to my apartment.

Before I could advance to the outer sect, I would need to ascend to Martial Master. Elder Mu had provided me with a cultivation technique to do so, but to make real strides forward in this life, I needed more than just a technique.

However, before doing any of that, I needed to make sure Elder Mu was on the level.

I picked up the scroll he had given me and looked at it.

"System, how much to identify this technique?"

Cost 1,000 credits.

"How much to purchase an identification ability that will let me understand techniques up to at least the level of this technique?"

Cost 5,000 credits.

That would be a large chunk of my remaining credits. Was it worth the cost? Should I just buy the one-time identification and save the credits for later?

I had bought the mental library ability to be able to store any technique I saw for later usage. If I could, I would use that library to record every technique in the world. Then, I would be able to choose the best one possible for any situation I encountered.

If I had to run to the System every time I wanted to know what a technique did, the cost of doing so would eventually skyrocket. I wasn't keen on spending so many of my banked credits this early, but this ability would pay for itself eventually, and it was better to let it start doing so sooner rather than later.

"Purchase the ability."

Purchase confirmed. Cost 5,000 credits. 7,040 credits remaining.

What I gained was not knowledge of how to identify scrolls. It felt more like a mental button I could press. I looked at the scroll Elder Mu had given me and hit that button.

Expanding Yang Mantra, Peak-Yellow Rank 2 Cultivation Technique, Fire Qi, Effects: Makes one less friendly and more aggressive. Makes one more suspicious of others.

It seemed like this was the sect's answer to the problems caused by their Rank 1 cultivation technique. If a disciple proved himself, they would receive a Rank 2 technique that would balance them out mentally. It seemed highly unlikely the effects would truly cancel each other out, but I could only assume that the opposing impulses would at least help regulate each other.

My problem was that the Rank 1 technique I was cultivating no longer had the enhanced naiveté of the original. While the friendliness and aggression might balance out, this technique would make me more suspicious.

That might not be a terrible thing. One of my goals was to learn more about what was going on between the sect and the Su Clan, and being more suspicious of the people around me might be of benefit in this. Additionally, my enhanced soul strength had been rather effective in limiting the impulses from my cultivation technique. So, being more suspicious of people could be good. I just had to be careful where I pointed those suspicions.

With the cultivation technique issue settled, the next step was deciding on how to proceed with cultivating it. In the past, I had studied the Mid-Yellow Rank 2 technique on my own and, after a few lifetimes, was able to cultivate it to Martial Master Peak. I would much rather cultivate this new technique properly the first time. This meant that I needed to find someone to teach me.

The problem was that finding a teacher was a little trickier than in the past. I would need significantly more contribution points to pay for someone I could trust to teach me well, and I would need a way to gather said contribution points without arousing too many suspicions from the sect's factions.

Elder Mu provided a solution to both of these problems, Deacon Ma.

Instead of visiting the regular halls to buy and sell, I was to contact Deacon Ma directly. He would provide me with ingredients, and I would turn them into pills. We would not be exchanging contribution points or gold. I was paid nothing for my pills, but when I needed something, there would be no cost. When the deacon, or possibly the elder, felt I had made sufficient contribution to be given a cultivation lesson, for example, I would be given a lesson for free.

This completely off-the-books exchange was not my favorite way of doing things, but I had understood what I was getting myself into when I agreed to it. Importantly, none of my dealings with Elder Mu were 'official.' If I decided I wasn't getting fair compensation for my work, I could end our cooperation and join one of the larger factions.

For these reasons, while I wanted to focus on raising my cultivation, I first had to concoct a series of pills.

I spread my alchemy activities out across the various workshops in the city. For one, arriving to concoct pills only once every other week would make me more forgettable, but more importantly it would give me a better chance to observe the activities of others.

From my talks with Elder Mu, it seemed clear that there was no back door to becoming an outer sect disciple. He couldn't just promote me. I had to go through the regular competition. This told me that while there may be a few who slipped in through the use of unconventional means, their numbers would be extremely limited.

Why was this so important?

Only five new outer sect disciples were chosen each year. The lifespan of a Martial Master was 200 years, and a Martial Grandmaster could live to 300. That would limit the maximum possible size of the sect to only around 1,500 people. Even adding in a few more who slipped through, when excluding the nominal and servant disciples, the sect couldn't have more than 2,000 members. Of course, this only counted the alchemy branch, but in my mind, the alchemy and martial branches were more like two separate sects.

This city housed nearly 100,000 people. If 98% of the people in the sect were in this city, it would be impossible for the politics and factionalism of the greater sect to not impact the daily lives of the people here. This city was a massive workforce of alchemists producing a substantial number of pills every day. How did the factions decide how those resources were split? Was there any evidence of it in the city?

At first, I thought finding such evidence would be a lost cause, but it turned out the method of competition was staring me right in the face all along. The city held regular competitions between the nominal disciples every month. I knew this. I had participated in such a competition before, but what I didn't take notice of before was where the competitions were being held.

There seemed to be two distinct arrangements. Most of the competitions were held somewhere in the middle of a grid section. These seemed to be intra-factional tests to see who in a given faction's area would be worth nurturing. The more interesting ones were those held on the border of sections controlled by two different factions. These inter-factional competitions could be related to resource distribution, or really, they could be for anything. However, I was convinced that, whatever the prize was, it was important.

What caught my eye was that the reward for the individual winner was given out by a deacon from the opposing faction. This seemed to be a method devised to bring wealth into the fold of the winning faction. It might also be to dissuade the winners from competing again. If someone was handed a large enough prize, they might decide they needed to focus more on their personal advancement instead of low-level competitions.

While this research into politics was potentially useful for the future, my main focus was on making pills to earn a lesson on cultivation from a knowledgeable teacher.

After two months of hard work, I was granted a lesson from an inner sect disciple.

The disciple was already waiting for me when I entered the training room.

He was a lean, young-looking man with long black hair wearing a sky-blue hanfu robe without embellishments. I noted this down in my journal as the color corresponding to inner sect disciples.

"Take a seat. Deacon Ma has asked me to teach you how to cultivate as a Martial Master. While my knowledge is incomparable to one of the elders, I am a Peak Master working on breaking through to Grandmaster. I will be able to answer any questions you have."

While he wasn't impolite, his tone was perfunctory.

I gave a slight bow. "Thank you for your guidance, teacher."

He waved away my bow. "Just call me elder brother."

"Yes, elder brother."

He didn't give his name, so I didn't ask.

"Advancing your cultivation as a Martial Master means forming meridians to guide qi as it flows through your body. Meridians are like blood vessels made from small strands of qi woven together. The warp and weft of these qi strands affect how efficiently the qi flows through the body as well as how easily it can leave the meridians when and where desired."

He held up a hand and channeled his qi. Above his palm, thin strands of energy wove themselves into the facsimile of a meridian.

"You need to cultivate Peak-Yellow meridians. The main difference between Low-Yellow and Peak-Yellow meridians is in the structure of the weave of the meridians. Those formed through a Peak-Yellow technique are significantly stronger. However, Rank 1 and Rank 2 cultivation techniques need to be paired. If the Rank 1 technique's level is lower, you will have difficulties utilizing all your qi. If the Rank 2 technique's level is lower, then you risk damaging your meridians by passing too much energy through them."

He passed a burst of qi through the meridian in his hand. The fragile weave of the false meridian burst apart.

"Before you start forming your meridians, you should practice by making simulated meridians outside your body. This will allow you to gain a better understanding of what you are doing wrong and what you need to do to fix it. Creating these false meridians is more challenging and taxing than creating real ones inside your body, so if you can master this skill, you should be able to create pristine meridians."

He held up his right hand and quickly weaved strands of qi together into a tube once more.

"This is a crude example, but it is what you need to do. Try it."

I held up my hand and began channeling my qi. It was difficult to stabilize it into the woven structure. As had he said, this was much easier to do when the qi was inside my body.

After a few minutes, I showed him my result.

His initial evaluation was brief and to the point. "Terrible."

After saying this, he studied my efforts in greater detail. "If I'm being fair, it's good for a first attempt, but if you try to use something like that as an actual meridian, you will just be crippling yourself. You need to focus a lot more on keeping the spacing of your weave even. The gaps between each qi thread should be perfectly spaced. The thickness of each thread also needs to be uniform."

He pointed out numerous places where there were obvious problems.

"This is just down to practice. Practice making meridians over and over. Each time, check the consistency of your weave. Do not form a real meridian until you can do it perfectly. However, these are minor issues that you will be able to fix with enough effort. Let's talk about the bigger problem."

He held out his hand and formed an oversized practice meridian in his palm.

"This is what you are doing. Look at the qi strands. They are round. This is what you will find in Low- and Mid-Yellow techniques. Using rounded threads makes everything easier, but you will end up with meridians that leak like a sieve. They're good enough when someone doesn't have much qi because there is less pressure trying to force the energy out of the meridians. However, if your Rank 1 technique is High-Yellow or better, such meridians are nearly worthless.

He dispersed the qi in his hand and formed another example meridian.

"This is what you should be doing. The qi strands should be more like flat ribbons. This strengthens the meridians while trapping the energy inside. When you want to expel qi, you curl the ribbons of the meridian at the point you want to expel it, creating a series of small holes. This makes it so that qi will only leave your meridians where you want it to. These are harder to form and take more work to control, but if you want Peak-Yellow meridians, this is what you have to do."

He dispersed his energy once more and looked at me.

"That's all I can teach you. From here, it all just comes down to practicing enough to be able to make the best meridians possible. Work with practice meridians, and when you are confident, start forming real ones. Just remember to take your time. If you rush at any step, you could form a useless meridian. If that happens, the best-case scenario would be spending a long time dispersing and recultivating it."

With that, the disciple left me to practice on my own. His entire lesson took less than fifteen minutes. Sure, he told me everything I needed to know, but it made me miss lessons where the teacher needed my money as much as I needed their help.