The Undying Immortal System

The elderly man at the affinity testing orb looked at me. "What is your name?"

"Su Fang."

"Place your hand on the orb and channel your qi into it."

This time, not only did I know what to do, but the action came much easier. Qi flowed from my dantian and into the orb. A dull brown stone appeared in its center.

"Earth affinity. Mid nine-star." The elderly man's voice sounded only slightly kinder than it had in the past.

Honestly, I didn't know what a 'good' result would be for this test.

"What can you tell us about the blessing you have received?"

Playing the mysterious angle didn't work at all, better to try to appear straight-forward.

"The healing and slight strengthening of my body."

"Hmm, works with the earth affinity. Very well, give him the Earth Heart Mantra and return him."

This wasn't much different from past lives, but the faint hint of praise gave me hope.

As before, I picked up the scroll and returned to my tiny house.

At this point, I didn't really need the scroll anymore since I already knew what it said. Practicing it this time, however, was different. As I followed its instructions, I could feel a significant difference.

The Earth Heart Mantra instructed me to move the qi inside my body in specific ways. The first step was to move it toward my upper right arm and create a kind of whirlpool, a qi vortex. The goal of this was to pull qi from outside the body and trap it within the muscles. At the same time, I was supposed to create a kind of filter that would only allow earth qi into my body. The higher the purity of earth qi, the more effective it would be when used.

In the past, this had been impossible for me. Concentrating my qi into one part of my body was difficult. Creating a whirlpool to pull in qi out of my reach. Creating any kind of effective filter was completely beyond my comprehension.

This time, however, it all seemed to just work. Moving the qi and creating the whirlpool was as simple as breathing, and I was able to quickly reach the point where my body would pull qi from the air.

The moment I did so, I immediately stopped. Pulling in qi at random would do more harm than good. I needed to filter it first.

Actually…

From what I could tell, it seemed like the energy I pulled in was already at least fifty percent earth-attributed. My affinity with earth was helping me automatically. It was bad to gather qi at random, but was it a dealbreaker?

Still, I knew I should try to do it correctly.

I worked to form the pattern from the scroll. My attempt looked… close? As I pulled qi through it, the pattern quickly collapsed. So, not so easy.

I would be able to do it eventually, it was just a matter of practice.

I had to ask myself the all-important question. "Is this worth the effort?"

What was the point of working so hard on a filter so that it would only pull in earth-attributed qi? As I had learned from the scroll, it was supposed to make the qi more powerful. If a chaotic mess of qi was pulled in when cultivating, it would interfere with the earth qi, negating most of its benefits. The purer the qi, the more effective it would be. An extremely high purity would result in qi that was several times as effective as low-purity qi. This was why a strong, pure foundation was important.

However, I continued to consider. Did that matter right now? What was my current goal? To become the strongest person in the world or to just advance one step forward, gaining experience and credits along the way.

The scroll said that if one's qi purity were too low, they would be stuck as a Martial Disciple forever, but it also seemed to suggest that one could become a Peak Disciple no matter how pure their qi was.

So, I could become a Peak Disciple, learn from the experience, die, and collect the credits for a high cultivation level. Then, the next time around, I could start with an even higher affinity. I would live a series of lives that slowly built upon one another.

Was I okay with this strategy? It meant I would purposefully be sending myself to my death. This wasn't suicide, and while the death was premeditated, it shouldn't run afoul of the System's restrictions. Still…

I worked to shore up my confidence. "I think it's what I have to do. As long as I have time in between deaths, I will be fine."

I thought about the viability of this plan. The qi filter was something I would need to learn to create. Even if purity wasn't something I concerned myself with at the moment, it seemed like a waste not to practice it for the future.

So, yes, I would practice it, maybe for an hour a day, but my focus needed to be on simply grabbing as much qi as possible and advancing as far as possible. That seemed like the way to gain the most from each reset.

I walked to the Martial Arts Training Yard with determination. I was still only a Martial Disciple 1, but I could feel the qi in my right arm surging. It was nearing a breakthrough. In only a few more days, I would finally see what it meant to be a Martial Disciple 2. Hopefully, I would get them.

"Now, time for a little demonstration." The martial arts trainer had a murderous air about him. "Do we have any volunteers?"

I, like everyone else, remained silent. I wasn't about to risk putting myself forward.

"Hmpf, not a single person brave enough to even demonstrate what they know. Fine. You! Step forward and show me something."

The bastard was pointing right at… someone else?

It worked… Not being seen as completely worthless by the clan had at least one benefit it seemed.

The unfortunate victim of this lesson was rather… unfortunate. Thankfully, it wasn't me this time. I just stood there with a crowd of sixteen-year-olds and watched as one of our number was beaten to death in front of us. This place was just wrong.

"This is your lesson for today. In this training, slacking for even a moment means death!" He gave us all a meaningful look. "Now, pair up and fight. I want to see if any of you have any possibility of being worthy of my clan in the future."

Slowly the crowd started to move as people began to pair off. My neighbor and I just nodded at each other and moved into position to begin sparring. At that moment, a roar ripped through the yard.

"What the hell are you doing? What was that!? I told you to fight, not play around! Looks like you didn't understand my little demonstration earlier."

The instructor charged over to a pair that was on the other side of the yard. As soon as he arrived, he kicked out and broke one guy's leg. Then, he reached out, grabbed the other guy's arm, and snapped it in half.

"If you aren't using those to fight, you don't need them anymore. Get back to fighting. And do it like you mean it!"

This was not training. This was abuse. This wasn't about teaching us to become fighters. It was about suppressing and breaking us. Was he trying to turn us into soldiers? Impossible. There was no way this could build an effective fighting force.

Still, I knew better than to openly question anything at this point. I was stuck in this place. I had to learn how to survive. Survival came before trying to understand and/or change the socio-political landscape.

I focused my mind and was relentless. I did everything I could to beat my sparring partner into a bloody pulp. None of us had any special cultivation powers. It was all about base martial prowess. As I said before, I was no professional, but I was good enough for a street fight. The child I was forced to beat down didn't have a chance.

Even though I had a clear advantage, I kept my attention on everything around me to a paranoid degree. I knew that bastard was just waiting for an excuse to take me out, so I wouldn't give him one. At least, I wouldn't let him say I was too 'relaxed.'

This 'training' lasted for two grueling hours. Finally, it was over.

"Congratulations, you survived day one. I will be back in a week. If you have not improved, you will be retired from future sessions. Consider this week my gift. Cultivate and train hard, children. Your three months have just begun."

The following days, I pushed myself as far as I could. I didn't worry about practicing martial arts. In my mind, I had enough of a lead on these kids that I wasn't worried about them getting in an extra month of practice. No, I focused on cultivating my qi with the Earth Heart Mantra to strengthen my body and lock in a few extra future credits.

Just two days after our little training session I was ready for my first breakthrough. The qi in my upper right arm's muscles became so dense that it was unable to absorb any more.

The next step was to find the acupoint in my arm. According to the scroll, it was supposed to be on the outside of the arm near where the arm muscles and shoulder muscles made a natural divot. I was supposed to be able to find this point by moving the qi around slowly and finding a place where it became 'sticky.'

This took me several days, and it was easy to get fed up with the process. I was slowly groping around in the dark trying to feel something when I had no idea what I should be feeling. It wasn't until the third day that I managed to do it somehow.

After that, the process was brutally simple. Concentrate my qi into a sharp point and stab from the inside of my arm, through the acupoint, and outside my body. This seemed like something only the reckless would try without proper guidance and supervision, but I didn't have that luxury. I also didn't care if I messed it up. I just needed to learn from the process and do it better the next time.

As I stabbed, I could feel qi pour out of me. Nearly everything I had worked for so long to gather vanished in only a few heartbeats. There were no visible signs that I had even done anything , but I felt like there was a gaping spiritual wound in my arm. The dregs of my remaining qi began to trickle out through this opening.

Finally, with what little energy I had remaining, I reconstructed the qi whirlpool in my arm, pulling energy in instead of letting it flow out. Again, I was supposed to create a qi filter over this acupoint so that only earth qi was pulled in, but I didn't bother. That was something I would deal with in the future.

Qi poured into my muscles at several times its previous rate. Before, it had taken me days to fill my arm with qi. Now, it took only a few hours. In what felt like no time at all, I was back to my peak with one arm brimming with qi.

Before I broke through, I had to consciously hold the qi whirlpool in place and focus on cultivating. After breaking through, this became more of an autonomous bodily function. The qi in my right arm would constantly replenish itself whenever it ran low. Like with breathing, I could speed this process up by actively cultivating, but doing so was no longer a necessity.

I had reached Martial Disciple 2.

There was no time to sit around. I needed to start on the left arm.

By the time our week of training was over, I had made what I thought was considerable progress on reaching Martial Disciple 3.

It was a bit harder to pull energy into my left arm than it had been when working on my right arm. It felt like there was almost a form of magnetic repulsion at work, but each day, my qi was becoming denser. It was only a matter of time before I could break through once more.

As we arrived at the training yard, the instructor looked at me in surprise. An honest-to-gods smile appeared on his face. It seemed like he was actually happy, not just derisively happy, when he saw me. Since I was the only one that generated this reaction, I could guess that I was the only one to make a breakthrough this week. I felt proud of myself.

"Alright, pair off and fight!"

This time, he gave a few pointers on how to fight better. Shocking.

A couple of kids did end up getting brutally beaten by him, but no one died. I didn't know if I was adapting or just developing Stockholm's syndrome, but things did seem to be looking up.

"Stop! Circle around!" he finally shouted after a few hours.

"Some of you are progressing nicely, so I have good news. In two weeks, it will be the end of your first month of training. At that time, there will be a small competition. You may have noticed that several of the Disciples you started with are no longer here. During their evaluation, they were graded as having exceptional potential, so they have been receiving specialized training. At the end of this month, you will be free to challenge them for their positions. If you can defeat one of them, you will get their spot and all the resources that come with it. Train hard."

We were dismissed, so everyone began to walk back to their homes. As I was turning to leave, I was stopped by our instructor.

"Keep up with your current efforts." His voice sounded happy and encouraging. "I look forward to seeing you challenge for a spot as an elite Disciple at the end of the month."

I smiled and bowed to him.

It was a rough start, but maybe everything was beginning to work itself out.