The Undying Immortal System

Unlike with the Rank 1 techniques, it took me years to perfect the sect's Rank 2 alchemy techniques. The primary problem came down to managing my fire seed. The sect had several techniques and methods for working with a normal spirit fire, but I was forced to adapt and change them to work properly with the seed.

During these years, my focus was on alchemy, but I also spent enough time cultivating that I was able to save up enough qi to push myself to Martial Grandmaster 2. This had involved filling my dantian to the limit and then compressing the energy it contained until it stabilized into a denser form of qi. Jiao guided me during this process, but her assistance wasn't necessary. Everything went smoothly and I was easily able to advance.

This breakthrough made my qi more powerful, so I needed to use less of it when concocting pills, but I also had to cultivate for longer periods to restore my energy afterward. In the end, my advancement had little impact on how quickly I could produce pills.

For a fighter, advancing was important because it meant they could use more concentrated qi to send out more powerful attacks, but that wasn't important to me. All I cared about was how efficiently I could use my time to concoct pills, and advancing did nothing to improve that. I would still need to advance to ensure I earned as many credits from this life as possible, but after learning how little of an effect it would have on my alchemy, I no longer saw it as a priority.

My main task these years had been producing pills for my faction. We all implicitly understood that everything I made truly belonged to the faction, but everyone maintained the façade that it all belonged to me and that I was willingly selling it to the sect for contribution points. Because the produced pills were 'mine,' I was allowed to send a small portion of them to Bao for him to sell in the outside world.

Since I wanted to maintain my polite fiction with the sect, what I sent him was just a tiny fraction of what I made, but a steady supply of nearly perfect Rank 2 pills was a fortune in this part of the world. Bao used the profits from selling these pills to set up a small intelligence-gathering organization to gather any information I might find useful.

Selling only Rank 2 pills didn't provide him with enough resources to extend the reach of this organization outside the Wastes, but paying for dozens of mortals to gather information inside of it was nearly free compared to what I could produce.

This organization gathered an assortment of random bits of information about happenings around the Wastes, but it was all pretty tame. The only bit that really interested me was that there was about to be a large festival where sects from outside the Wastes were coming to recruit new disciples. According to Bao's information, such an event happened once every 10 years.

This looked like it might be a different path I could use when I decided to leave the Wastes in the future. Working my way up in the Twin Mountains Sect might have advantages, but being directly recruited by the Flowing Mountain Sect would certainly be faster.

On a related note, Bao was also able to get me solid information about the powerful organizations that existed in the Wastes. These were the Su Clan, the Blue Wind Pavilion, the Twin Mountains Sect, and the Verdant Forests Sect. Where the Twin Mountains Sect was focused on alchemy and martial arts, the other, the Verdant Fields Sect, focused on herbalism.

This limited number of powerful forces in the Wastes was part of why Bao had a hard time purchasing information about the outside world. Any information would have to come through one of these four powers. The two sects didn't share information with outsiders, and the Su Clan outright rejected any and all overtures from Bao's people, so the only source of information was the Blue Wind Pavilion. They were willing to sell it, but it didn't come cheap.

Even with the steady stream of Rank 2 pills I was able to provide him, Bao had to carefully choose what he spent his money on, and he chose to focus most of it on buying the techniques I had requested.

Over the years, he was able to gather a handful of Rank 1 and 2 herbalism techniques and a few Rank 1 formation techniques. The quality of these manuals seemed questionable, and he hadn't been able to get me any information at all on beast taming or refining, but I just had to accept that such techniques were out of my reach for the moment. While I couldn't use the techniques he bought for me without the appropriate qi, I still diligently copied them down for the future.

Aside from what Bao was able to get for me, I also pillaged everything I could from the faction's Technique Hall. There wasn't much new there, but they did have the Rank 3 version of the Mid-Profound dual-element wood and fire cultivation technique.

Since it was a Rank 3 technique, I couldn't copy it into my library, so instead, I painstakingly copied it onto small ten-centimeter by ten-centimeter sheets of paper. I had to write as small as I could, and there were several diagrams in the book that were difficult to copy accurately, so this process took a significant amount of time, but I was persistent. Each time I finished a sheet, I tucked it safely away in my storage space, and over the course of years, I managed to copy the entire manual.

At the end of six years, I determined that my practice with Rank 2 techniques was sufficient. It was time to move on.

When I told Jiao I was ready to start working on Rank 3 alchemy, she seemed more than a little excited. She quickly ran out and brought back a jade box containing a couple of sets of ingredients.

But before handing anything over, she calmed down and checked if I was really ready.

"Alright, you have the foundation you need now, right? This should have all been taught to you by Elder Mu, but… Well… Anyway, you're ready now? You've got all the techniques memorized, right?"

I gave her a confident smile. "Yes."

I had tried using Rank 3 techniques on Rank 2 herbs, but they were far too powerful. The low-Rank herbs simply couldn't withstand that level of energy, so I hadn't been able to practice them properly. However, I had studied them enough that I felt I had a solid understanding of how they were supposed to work.

Rank 3 techniques differed from the Rank 2 ones a bit, but these differences mainly centered around focusing and directing significantly higher quantities of qi. The basic ideas of how they worked and when to use each technique weren't any different.

Jiao reached into the jade box, took out an herb, and carefully handed it to me.

"Okay, here, take a look."

It had the same mess of toxins that I had seen in the ones the last time we did this.

"So, there are pockets of toxins trapped within the medicinal energy, right? You have two options there. Do them first or save them for last. Doing them first allows you to throw away the herb if you mess up without wasting time on the rest of it. That's what most skilled alchemists do. But you need practice more than anything. Clean up the easy spots first as practice, then do the harder bits. Save the enclosed bits for last. If you burn off too much efficacy there, it is what it is. You will just need to do better the next time."

I did as she suggested. Using a combination of spirit fire and fire qi, I began by burning away the toxins at the edges. My flame made quick work of them, slicing and incinerating them cleanly. Then, I slowly approached the medicinal energy and methodically cleaned the toxins surrounding it.

I had learned a technique to make my flame incredibly smooth on one side so that it could get right up against the medicinal energy and clean it without any risk of damaging it. The downside of the technique was that it made the opposite side of the flame wild and completely uncontrollable, so I had to ensure that it was always pointed away from any other pockets of medicinal energy.

After that, I had to work on the bits of toxic energy that formed a kind of weave with the medicinal energy. This was more difficult since having any part of the flame uncontrolled in such tight confines would be a disaster. Instead of boring through the weave, I trimmed it on one side and then the other, slowly flipping back and forth until all the toxins were gone.

Finally, I had to do the globs of toxins that had been completely surrounded by medicinal energy. There was no perfect way to handle this. Ideally, I would have affinities that would let me control the medicinal energy and expel the toxins to where they could be more easily eradicated, but I didn't have that luxury.

I formed my spirit fire into a thin needle and used it to puncture the medicinal energy. Instead of creating a small pinprick, a large hole opened up. I slowly passed my flames through this hole and into the cavity beyond to remove the toxins trapped within.

At that point, my concentration slipped, and I made a mistake. The needle that was guiding the energy into the cavity sputtered and a small lick of flame danced out and hit the side of the opening. After that, a series of chain reactions caused the herb to completely collapse.

The herb had turned to ashes, but Jiao didn't look upset. "That was good. Really good. You did great. Once you have some practice with Rank 3 herbs, you shouldn't have any problems at all."

"Thanks." I gave her a chagrined smile. "It was difficult, but it didn't take nearly as much qi as I had expected. Once I get this down, I should be able to manage making several pills a day."

A grin spread across Jiao's face. "That's the spirit, but remember, Rank 3 herbs are expensive, and you can't destroy too many. Our goal is to make money, not burn it, right? So, be a little more careful. You were doing your best to make a top-of-the-line High-Purity pill there. You wanted to eliminate everything and make the best pill possible, but that isn't exactly necessary."

I blinked in confusion. "Wh… What? Isn't that the goal? Get rid of all the toxins?"

Jiao shook her head sharply. "No. The goal is to make money. Burning herbs in pursuit of perfection is not how you do that. If some of the toxins are difficult to cleanse, leave them be. A Mid-Purity pill is always more valuable than no pill at all. You didn't have to worry about this much at lower levels, but these herbs are significantly more valuable, so we need to be more careful."

She was right, of course. I had long since stopped making anything but High-Purity pills. In my book, anything else was defective, but now, I was entering a new stage with exponentially more expensive herbs. I needed to make everything count, and if that meant avoiding toxins that appeared too tricky to deal with, that's what I would have to do. Some trapped toxins would have to just remain trapped if the cost of destroying them risked the collapse of the entire herb.

Don't let perfection be the enemy of good enough.

With that thought in mind, I returned to work.

A week later, I presented my first Rank 3 pill to Jiao.

"What do you think?"

Jiao picked it up and examined it closely. "Mid-Purity. I'd say it has an efficacy of about 72%, but I'll need to take it to one of the deacons to be sure.

My smile dropped a bit. That estimate was a bit lower than I expected. I was hoping for something closer to 80%.

Seeing my expression, Jiao laughed. "Don't worry too much. This is more than good enough. The herbs we're sending you aren't the best, so this kind of result is expected. If they were easier to work with, you might have been able to achieve a higher level of purity, and I'm sure the efficacy would be much better. 72% is pretty good for the materials you're working with. Most importantly, it's profitable."

I let out a light sigh. "Alright, I understand."

"How many of these do you think you can do in a day?"

I wasn't sure what a normal disciple could manage, and that hurt me in negotiations here. I couldn't lowball my answer or it could be scrutinized too much, but I didn't want to commit to spending all my time on alchemy either. Thinking about all the energy costs and comparing them to my regeneration speed, I figured I could easily make twelve pills a day right now, but there was still a lot of room to improve my efficiency.

"Eleven. Right now, I believe I can make eleven pills like this one a day. With better herbs that require less work, maybe a few more, I'm not sure. I need to work on my efficiency. I'm not sure how far I can take it, but I should be able to reduce how much I have to spend on each pill by quite a bit."

Jiao tapped her chin in thought. "Hmm, improving your alchemy is important, but you should be able to work quicker after you advance your cultivation. Let's put the number at ten pills a day for now. Then, once you make a bit more progress and can make solid High-Purity pills, we can look at getting you some ingredients to make a couple of Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills for yourself as well, but we shouldn't do that now. No reason to add extra pill toxins to your body unless you have to."

Whether it was just the faction being cheap or whether they were really concerned about pill toxins, I still had to agree with the sentiment. I had no need to rush my cultivation. Aside from any problems that may come from doing so, my main concern was that it would mean I would need to spend more time making pills every day, and that would chew into my free time for my extracurricular studies like learning fighting techniques.

I had pillaged everything I could from the libraries on the Alchemy Peak, and I had already set my sights on visiting the Martial Peak. As an inner sect disciple, I was allowed to do so, but from what Jiao had told me of the place, I couldn't help but feel that visiting the Martial Peak with zero knowledge of combat techniques was simply a death wish.

Before I went there, I needed to be prepared.