The Undying Immortal System

After the Inner Sect Challenge ended, I returned to the elder's enclave to talk with Deacon Liu. I needed more knowledge of the sect, and I wasn't getting it by trapping myself in Elder Mu's enclave.

"Deacon, I want to spend more time making pills for the sect in the village. I want to try to better understand my place here."

Deacon Liu froze for the slightest moment and then scanned me from head to toe while he thought through the situation.

"I see. This might be a good use of your time, but I hope you won't stop working with the elder during this period."

My response was instantaneous. "Of course not."

The deacon's help and the elder's library had been the greatest boons I had received in this life, and I was sure that if I maintained this relationship, I would gain access to Rank 3 manuals after reaching Grandmaster. My current mental library couldn't hold Rank 3 techniques, but I could still do my best to memorize the most important ones, and hopefully, I could create a copy of a Rank 3 cultivation technique that was small enough to fit in my storage space.

Not only would working with Elder Mu continue to benefit me greatly, but I also felt indebted to him for everything he had provided. Yes, I might have been able to reach this level on my own eventually, but it was the elder's guidance that encouraged me to spend points temporarily boosting my affinity, the elder's book that helped me learn to control my spirit fire, and the elder's library that provided me with an abundance of new cultivation and alchemy techniques.

While I might have been able to achieve all this without his assistance eventually, the fact was that I didn't. He provided me with the means to push myself forward in this life, and the benefits from that assistance would continue for many lives to come. If practicing my alchemy would serve as a down payment on the debt I owed, I was more than willing to do my part.

"Deacon, how many pills can an average Martial Master 4 create in a day?"

"It will vary a little, but you can expect the average Master to be able to make one per level of cultivation, so a Martial Master 4 would be able to create three or four pills a day."

I nodded. "Then I can plan to make four per day for the sect. That will leave me with a significant amount of free time which I can spend concocting pills for Elder Mu. Just give me a week or two's worth of ingredients at a time, and I'll make them in my spare time. If possible, you could have a servant drop them off for me in the village."

The deacon rubbed his chin in thought, "Hmm, that should be acceptable. It will cut down on the pills you can help us with, but you will still be contributing more than most of our disciples."

As Deacon Liu was speaking, an idea seemed to occur to him.

"You should also know that the elder has emphasized the importance of your entrance into the inner sect. Ascending to Grandmaster and joining the inner sect will allow you to learn to make Rank 3 pills. Given the rate at which you can concoct pills, getting you trained up to make Rank 3 pills might let us reach our goals much sooner. Going out and making a name for yourself by doing work in the Pill Hall will make it easier for us to get that promotion."

"Is there a way I can begin working through the Pill Hall without risking another incident? I would like to get my bearings before being confronted by another unusually gifted alchemist."

Deacon Liu winced.

"Yes, that would probably be for the best. Just focus on the sect's bounties. There are always a few types of pills in high demand, and the sect will buy as many as you can make at 100% of their normal value. If a pill isn't on the bounty list, you will receive significantly less when selling directly to the sect, so make sure to only focus on what's on the list. Just go to the pill hall, buy the ingredients, make the pills, and turn them in. No one will complain about you completing the standard bounties."

After a few parting words with the deacon, I left and made my way to the village.

I entered the Pill Hall once more and looked around. It wasn't too different from my first visit. Various bulletin boards had missions posted to them, and several disciples were browsing through the available assignments.

It took me a few moments of searching, but I finally found the board where the sect's bounties had been posted. The types of pills listed were all basic, but it was easy to understand why they were on the list. Rank 1 Healing Pills, Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pills, Rank 2 Healing Pills, Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pills (fire, earth), Rank 3 Healing Pills, Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills (fire, earth).

These were the most common healing and cultivation pills. Likely, these were also the pills that cultivators on the Martial Peak needed the most. Additionally, these were almost certainly the pills that were easiest to sell to forces outside the sect.

The only real surprise was that this list included Rank 1 pills. Those should mostly be handled by the nominal disciples, and these bounties were only available to outer and inner sect disciples. Once I remembered that some outer sect members weren't granted spirit fires on their advancement, I realized that these bounties were intended for them.

After considering my options, I decided to start by making a large quantity of Meridian Builder Pills until I was more familiar with the Pill Hall's system.

Purchasing the necessary herbs from the receptionist went smoothly, and no one tried to bar my path. I was free to leave, but I didn't exit the hall immediately. Instead, I slowly perused the posted missions.

I had no interest in accepting any of them. My goal was to simply wait and observe the interactions between the various disciples. After about twenty minutes, however, nothing of note had happened, so I gave up on the fruitless task.

If situations like what happened between me and Wen Hao were common, I would have plenty of chances to observe them in the future. There was no reason to rush it.

For each pill I made, I earned roughly 100 contribution points after deducting the cost of materials. These contribution points could be used to buy various resources and time with mentors, but thanks to my position under Elder Mu, I didn't need to purchase either of these. Instead, I used all the points I earned in the sect's Technique Hall.

The sheer number of techniques available there was far greater than what was contained within the elder's library, but the overall quality of these techniques was slightly inferior. It held only a single Low-Profound cultivation technique for fire qi that provided all the benefits of a standard Peak-Yellow technique while also slightly increasing the density of the user's qi.

While the elder also had a technique for improving qi density, this one did so in a unique way. It didn't increase the power of qi. Instead, it was more like a way to increase a cultivator's qi capacity, letting them use more energy for longer periods.

The cheapest manual in the Technique Hall was a Rank 1 Low-Yellow alchemy technique for only 100 contribution points. The most expensive one was a Rank 2 Profound-Rank fighting manual for 500,000.

At the rate I was currently earning points, I would need years to earn enough to purchase this technique, and that was the point. People weren't supposed to buy it. The sect made fighting techniques available, but they put up as many roadblocks as possible to stop disciples from buying them. This was annoying, but if the techniques were available, I would eventually get my hands on them. It was only a matter of time.

After looking through the available techniques, nothing seemed to be of immediate importance to me, so I didn't worry too much about what I bought. I just purchased the cheapest techniques available that I didn't already have a copy of in my library. My goal was to slowly copy down the entire collection, so it didn't matter where I started.

I wanted to get my hands on that Profound-Rank fighting technique, but I was in no rush. It was too far out of my price range, and I wasn't completely convinced it was truly worth the price. At this point, I wouldn't have been surprised if the sect were selling a defective technique at an extortionate rate to anyone who decided they wanted to learn to fight.

My time in the Technique Hall proved to me that quality techniques were expensive. However, as time passed, my mental library would slowly expand, and I would own them all.

For the next couple of weeks, I maintained a steady rhythm of purchasing a large number of ingredients, concocting pills, and returning to the Pill Hall to sell them, but I never saw any altercations break out. Had my experience been so out of the ordinary? Was choosing a mission that had already been picked by another disciple uncommon, or was it just rare to be berated for it?

As it turned out, the answer was that I was just too impatient. Spending only twenty to thirty minutes in the place for a few days over the course of a couple of weeks wasn't enough time to see the drama unfold. On the third week of my routine, I finally saw what I had been waiting for.

The moment a small, young man reached up and tore a tab from a mission, and a burly older disciple jumped in front of him. Both were wearing the robes of outer sect disciples.

The burly man's nostrils flared, and he spoke loud enough to quiet the entire Pill Hall.

"What do you think you're doing? This mission has already been claimed by me, Tao GuFei. No one else is needed!"

The young man gave the brute a slight frown. "Arrogant and arrogant. Your father doesn't need any help deciding which missions he will take."

After saying this, the young man pushed past the burly man and walked straight toward the counter, but the burly man jumped in front of him once more, blocking his path.

The brute looked at the young man with a snarl. "A frog at the bottom of a well, let me teach you a lesson in place of your parents."

The young man looked up at him. "A good dog doesn't block the way."

"You dare!"

It looked like the large man was about to take a swing at the younger guy, but at that instant, the deacon who had been silently watching from the sidelines finally spoke up. "GuFei!"

The hulking man looked at the deacon with hatred for a moment before turning back to the young man.

"Do you dare to make a bet? If I defeat you in this mission, kneel down and call me grandfather."

The smaller man just smirked. "And if you lose?"

"I won't lose!"

"Same rules. If you lose, kneel down to your grandfather."

The burly man gritted his teeth. "Fine!"

I watched the entire exchange, a bit shocked. The way the burly man acted was almost exactly the same as how that girl had acted. Was it a coincidence, or was this some kind of strange ritual? If it was a ritual, what was the point? Both participants were putting their entire reputations on the line here. This couldn't just be about someone being annoyed at someone else's mission selection.

To understand the situation better, I needed to see how it ended.

I carefully monitored the pill hall over the next few days. I had to see how this drama was supposed to play out.

On the third day, the burly man entered the pill hall early in the day and turned in his pills. After that, he stood around and talked to anyone who would listen.

"That coward doesn't dare to show his face around here. He's already abandoned the mission and run away. I want to see how the sect punishes him for treating missions in the Pill Hall as games."

About an hour after he arrived, he started berating the receptionist.

"Call the mission already. That fool is too late. It's clear he isn't coming."

This behavior continued for a long while before the shorter man finally entered. He walked right up to the counter and turned in his pills. The burly man continued to boast about his inevitable victory, but eventually, the victor was called. The younger man had won.

Once the younger man's victory was announced, the burly man began trying to sneak away, but he was blocked by a group of disciples led by the younger man.

"Running away? Are you even a man? Kneel before your grandfather!"

"How dare you! Do you know who I am? I am Tao GuFei, disciple of Elder Tang!"

"So, disciples of Elder Tang don't honor their word?"

"You!"

With a face filled with rage, the burly man knelt and growled his response. "Grandfather."

The younger man snorted and turned away. "I don't have a grandson as unfilial as you."

I could only watch in shock as the drama unfolded before me. Was this what Deacon Liu had expected me to do? While the emotions of both men seemed genuine, the entire performance was more like a play than an actual argument.

I tried to take everything I had seen and knew and put it all together into a framework that could make sense of this situation.

I thought back to what Deacon Liu had told me. It was common for disciples who rushed their cultivation to become overly aggressive. Was this entire sequence a script the sect had created and taught to the disciples as a way for them to let out their pent-up aggression? Did it give them a way to flex these impulses without causing any real damage?

Giving the disciples an actual script and telling them to recite it would be meaningless, but in the city, the sect sold novels for people to read for enjoyment. Was this how arguments were resolved in them? Were those novels intended as guides for how to act in the outer sect?

One important piece of data stuck out to me. In all my observations, I hadn't noticed anyone besides these two reach for a competitive mission. Was this interaction just the expected result of choosing one? When someone chose a competitive mission, was another disciple expected to throw down the gauntlet in this exact manner? If this was the script for when the first person agreed to the contest, was there also a way to concede early?

If my speculations were all true, why hadn't Deacon Liu told me about it? Shouldn't he have prepared me to deal with this situation? Was it all just a test to see what 'fate' had in store for me?

I couldn't help but wonder at Elder Mu's and Deacon Liu's true motives. They had been of immense help in my study of alchemy, but they had done nothing to prepare me for interacting with the other disciples in the sect.

Was there a reason for this, or was it simply a lack of foresight on their part? Unfortunately, I had no way to find out. Only time would provide me with the answers I sought.