The Undying Immortal System

For the next several months, I followed a set routine. Concoct pills from the bounty list for the sect, use my spare time to make a considerable number of extra pills for Elder Mu, observe the other disciples in the sect, and cultivate enough to advance one stage each year.

A few months into this regime, I broke through to Martial Master 5. When I did, I felt my mental state shift once more. The pathways I had initially begun to feel when I reached Martial Master 4 had become stronger, and my thoughts flowed along them more naturally, but I was still in complete control of the situation. If I wanted to, I could cut them off, but I allowed myself to use these new thought patterns to try and develop new perspectives.

This led me down the path of wondering about Deacon Liu's motives. Ever since I failed in my competition with Wen Hao, Deacon Liu had seemed different, more distant. I couldn't help but think that he felt my karmic 'fate' was insufficient and that this feeling had irreparably changed his attitude toward me. Was he still worried about what was in my best interest, or was he now only concerned with extracting as much value out of me as possible?

The strategy Deacon Liu had laid out for me was to ascend one step every year until I reached Martial Grandmaster. That would mean I would reach Martial Master Peak at age 35, and I would have a maximum of five years to learn how to break through to Martial Grandmaster. Was five years enough time? It should be, but I had never attempted that breakthrough before and knew nothing about it. Should I be giving myself more time?

Also, Elder Mu had stressed the importance of breaking through to Grandmaster before reaching 30, but by following the deacon's guidance, I would only be Martial Master 7 at that point. Was that acceptable? Even if it meant my mental state was slightly unstable, achieving the elder's goal of Grandmaster by 30 should be a priority, shouldn't it? Was Deacon Liu simply ignoring the desires of Elder Mu?

I cut off those thoughts and tried to return to my more natural thought patterns. I felt a slight resistance when doing so, but I quickly got myself under control.

There was a good reason to delay my cultivation and only advance once a year. I had agreed with the deacon when he proposed it. Rushing could easily lead to a weak foundation and a poor mental state.

On the other hand, I was privy to information the deacon didn't have. Even if he wasn't intentionally sabotaging me, that didn't mean his advice was correct in my situation.

I had been cultivating as a Martial Master for several decades, and I had constructed dozens of meridians. Even if I continuously raised my cultivation base all the way to Peak Master, I shouldn't have to worry too much about creating a weak foundation. I knew how to create meridians well enough to push forward confidently.

Also, my goal wasn't to reach Peak Master within a year. I only needed to reach it by the time I turned 30. That would only require raising my level two or three times a year.

Additionally, my soul had become much stronger over the past few decades. I could easily handle mental pressure that would cripple most of the other disciples. If I was careful and assessed my mental state after each advancement, I should be able to cultivate more quickly than Deacon Liu believed possible for a regular disciple.

Was it worth it to push for Grandmaster before 30? Maybe not. From what Elder Mu had told me, there wasn't too much to be gained by doing so.

However, the real gains I needed weren't sect points or System credits. What I needed was information. I needed to learn more about cultivation, and I needed to learn more about what was possible.

Was it worth testing myself to see what my actual limits were? It should be, as long as I was careful.

Martial Master Peak by 30 may have been a dream of golden millet, but that would be my goal. To accomplish it, I needed to advance three steps every year, so that was what I changed my cultivation pace to. After four months, I advanced to Martial Master 6. After eight, I reached Martial Master 7, and a year after I began this push, I ascended to Martial Master 8.

The entire time I was cultivating, I paid close attention to my qi and ensured that my meridians were as perfect as possible. After each advancement, I did my best to perform a mental balance test to ensure I remained mentally stable. Martial Master 8 was halfway to the goal, and after one more year of this schedule, I would reach Peak Master.

I could have continued this push, but I held back. I wanted to spend time at Martial Master 8, explore the power of my new cultivation base, and examine my mental state.

The main reason for this was that after my most recent advancement, I began to feel a powerful mental strain. My thoughts wanted to fall into the patterns created by my cultivation technique. I could still control it, but doing so had begun to require effort.

Having decided to take a break from cultivation, I decided to visit the Pill Hall. Over the past couple of years, I had started using it as a resting spot of sorts, and I wasn't the only one. Several disciples came here to spend time chatting with friends.

Unlike in the nominal disciples' city, there wasn't much to do for entertainment on the mountain, and since we were all alchemists, the Pill Hall became a natural gathering spot.

When I walked in, I saw someone I was hoping to see. "Senior Sister Jiao! How are you doing today?"

Senior Sister Jiao, or Jiao XinYan, was an older inner sect disciple I had met my first year completing missions in the Pill Hall. She had been in the sect long enough to learn a lot about its inner workings, and she was one of the best fonts of information available to me. She spent a lot of time hanging out, talking to other disciples, and just watching people work. Since she was in the inner sect, she had access to gossip from the Martial Peak, and she shared it freely.

"Junior Brother Su, nice to see you. Have you eaten yet?"

"No, I just took a break and came to visit. Has anything interesting happened?"

She sighed and shook her head. "It's been quiet all day. The deacon posted a few new competitive missions, so I was hoping for some entertainment, but no one has been willing to step forward and sign up for them."

"Oh? Anything special?"

"One is Rank 3, so it's only for the inner sect, and those always take more time. The other is for the self-proclaimed genius of the Martial Peak. Some guy named TianHuo. He's a Tiger, so there aren't too many people fighting to take his contract."

The 'Tigers' were one of the factions I had noticed in the past. They were led by Elder Hu and were mainly composed of disciples from wealthier families around the Wastes, though the Su clan was notably absent from their ranks. Of course, that wasn't a surprise since no official members of the Su clan ever joined the sect.

The Tigers were the smallest of the three factions, and they didn't have a particularly good relationship with the other two. They tended to see themselves as half-noble and above the common sect members. This attitude led to fewer people being willing to step forward and help them, so it was mainly their secular wealth and influence that sustained them. Those things couldn't be felt in the lower rungs of the sect, but they seemed more important at higher levels.

My mind returned to what Jiao had said.

"TianHuo… I think that's the guy I was making pills for when I was challenged by Wen Hao a while back."

She bobbed her head. "Makes sense. Brother Wen is a Tiger too, so I doubt he was keen on letting money leave the family. He wouldn't want a non-Tiger to complete such a lucrative mission."

"But why did you call TianHuo a 'self-proclaimed' genius? Is he not very talented?"

Jiao laughed. "No, he's got talent. But when he joined the sect, he kept talking about how he was the number one disciple. To be fair, he wasn't too wrong. From what I hear, he has an incredibly powerful blessing that can turn a large area into a fiery hellscape. He just isn't good at cultivation, so he's taking a long time to advance. He also burns through resources like crazy. Cultivating like that is expensive, but for him, the Tigers are willing to pay the price."

As we talked about TianHuo, my cultivation technique's suspicion circuits started tingling. I allowed my thoughts to travel down those paths, and I tried to understand what my mind was telling me.

Hazy memories began to flit through my thoughts. A long time ago, I encountered someone who called himself 'TianLei.' That name meant 'Heavenly Lightning,' and the very first time I entered the sect, someone launched a powerful lightning attack around the fighter's gate.

Next, I encountered 'TianBing.' He looked exactly like 'TianLei,' his name meant 'Heavenly Ice,' and he attacked me with a powerful ice attack.

Now there was 'TianHuo.' When I entered the sect in this life, there was no lightning attack in front of the fighter's gate. It was a fire attack, and 'TianHuo' meant 'Heavenly Fire.'

Were these all the same person? Did his blessing keep changing? If he was given an unusually powerful fire blessing, I could understand why he might name himself 'TianHuo,' but why did his blessing change to fire?

Was Jiao's information accurate? Maybe she was trying to trick me.

When I had that thought, I forcibly yanked my mind away from the suspicion pathways.

I looked at Jiao. I couldn't trust everything she told me since she would have her own agenda, but it would be silly to lie about public knowledge.

But… Why was I even questioning Jiao's trustworthiness? She had shared a lot of information with me over the years, and I never knew it to be wrong. She might have her reasons for sharing it, and I could consider why she would do so, but the information should be true.

I stopped myself again.

I felt my mind. The suspicion circuits were not engaged, so why did I keep drifting to that train of thought? I considered a worrying possibility.

"Senior Sister… I want to test something. Can you tell me a few things about a random disciple?"

"Huh? Okay. How about Wang Shun? Do you know him? He entered the outer sect as part of the Snakes during the last competition. He didn't do too well as a nominal disciple, but he was able to do enough to help the Snakes win a few of those competitions in the city. They probably felt he should be given a shot, so they got him promoted to the outer sect, but he didn't get a spirit fire. Right now, he's doing some hard work in the Pill Hall to try and earn a shot at getting one, but it doesn't look too promising."

I thought about what Jiao told me for a few moments, and then I took out a notebook and started writing my thoughts:

The 'Snakes' is a faction focused on personal improvement. Their core motivation is to find ways to push forward and ascend further. They want to help anyone who seems capable and is driven to improve. Based on the Snakes recruiting him, Wang Shun sounds like a traditional example of someone who is not too talented but is willing to work hard. Even though he might not be the best cultivator or alchemist, he fought for prizes in the competitions and is still fighting to try to become a Master Alchemist.

After I noted this down, I flipped on my suspicion circuits and considered the situation again. I thought about why he was recruited, and what more could be at play. After a few moments of thinking, I jerked my thoughts away from that line of reasoning and disabled those pathways once more.

I gave myself a few moments to relax, then I turned the notebook to a new page and wrote down my thoughts:

Wang Shun seems to be a hidden factor for the Snakes. He successfully hid himself in the city and only appeared when he was needed to secure a victory. Likely, he already has a spirit flame and is hiding it so other factions will remain unaware. If he appears to challenge me or is part of my Inner Sect Challenge, I need to be extremely careful.

After writing that down, I flipped back and reread my original note. It seemed extremely naïve. There was no chance that Wang Shun was just some regular hard-working disciple. He was definitely a hidden dragon.

While I was writing, Jiao gave me a strange look, but she didn't stop me or ask what I was doing. After I finished, I looked back up at her.

"Hey, thanks for the help. I need to get back to my room."

I thought hard about Wang Shun, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was a hidden trump card for the Snakes, but why did I think that? I looked back at what I wrote after Jiao told me about him, and nothing even hinted at this possibility. This told me something important about how the cultivation technique was affecting me.

I had noticed before that with the Rank 1 technique, when I was made more susceptible to suggestion, those suggestions still carried weight in my mind and informed my decisions even after I died and reset. The altered perceptions of my memories lingered even after the direct effects of the cultivation technique were removed.

The same thing seemed to hold true with these suspicions. If my mind determined that someone or something was suspicious while I was allowing myself to be influenced, the belief that they were suspicious would remain even after I removed the influence.

I wasn't sure if this was good or bad. Wang Shun could, indeed, be a plant for the Snakes, and all my new suspicions could be true. Either way, I needed to be exceedingly careful about allowing myself to fall into that suspicious mindset.