The Undying Immortal System

As I stepped through the archway, the world twisted once more.

I looked around.

From the landscape, it looked like I hadn't moved. The mountains were in the same place as before, and it didn't seem like the position of the sun had changed. The courtyard around me looked exactly the same, but all of the workbenches and busy young alchemists had utterly vanished.

My head ached slightly, and as the pain grew, the world in front of me expanded. Trees and forests vanished. They were replaced with a multitude of buildings in a variety of different styles. Directly in front of me, a young man wearing the robes of a sect disciple was surrounded by half a dozen of the hopefuls from the previous trial.

As I looked at him, the pain in my head cleared. He nodded once he saw that I was ready.

"Wait here. We need ten recruits before we can get going. It shouldn't be long."

It wasn't. Within only a few minutes, three more hopefuls had already joined us.

"Alright, everyone's here, let's begin. Congratulations on passing the first test. Having done so, you will be given the privileges and responsibilities of a nominal disciple of the Twin Mountains Sect. Please remember that you are not full disciples. If you break any of the sect rules, your status as a nominal disciple will be revoked. None of us want that to happen."

He looked at everyone with a serious expression, trying to emphasize his point.

"As for the rules, they haven't changed much. They are basically the same rules you were under in the trial. One, pills you turn in must come from the sect's ingredients. Two, absolutely no fighting. No bullying, no duels, no secret brawls, nothing. Three, no pressuring people to give or sell you any pills they concocted. Four, no interfering with someone else's pill-making. The elders take these rules very seriously, so do your best to follow them, okay?"

After looking us in the eyes one by one, he nodded and continued.

"Okay, let's head to your new apartments. Each of you will have a roommate who will fill you in on the rest of how the sect works. They've all been here for at least a year, so they will be able to get you up to speed in no time."

The disciple began leading down the street. The more I looked, the more amazed I became. There had to be hundreds of buildings here. I hadn't been able to see even a hint of such a place when we were back in town. Now, as I looked, I realized that a thick cover of trees walled off this entire city in all directions. It was like we were in our own private world.

Within the city, people were wandering about everywhere. Most of them were young, only a few years older than me, but there were people of all ages from sixteen up. Only young children were missing. The entire town was bustling with activity.

I couldn't help but ask our guide about it. "How many people live here?"

"I don't know. I guess every year we get five or six thousand newbies, but most don't last too long. At least half are gone by the end of the first year. Still, the numbers add up over time. If I had to guess, I would say we got around eighty or ninety thousand living here, but I could be way off."

"They're all members of the sect?"

"Oh, no. This city is mostly just for us nominal disciples. We aren't true members of the sect. The sect members who do live here are just servant disciples. It's a little better to be a servant disciple than a nominal disciple, but if you head down that route, you're giving up the chance to become a true member of the outer sect someday. Better to keep the dream alive, right?"

We kept walking and were brought to what could only be described as a block of apartment buildings. That's what they obviously were. They had a façade of more traditional architecture, but they wouldn't be completely out of place in a modern city. They were tall, seven or eight stories each, but they didn't reach the level of a high-rise.

I could tell that I wasn't the only one stunned by the sight. These buildings rivaled the Blue Wind Pavilion in Dragon Gate City for height, though not for elegance. The rest of the hopefuls with me had probably never seen a building larger than two stories.

The disciple guiding us grinned at our reactions.

"Impressed? Space is tight around here, so we have to build up instead of out. Got a few guys with earth qi who were able to make some great buildings for us. That was before my time, of course."

He reached into his robes and pulled out several large keys.

"Anyway, these are the keys to your rooms. They have your room number on them, so you should be able to find the right place. The first two numbers are for the building, next is the floor, last two are your room. Simple, right? Alright then, I'm 'a take off now. Your roommate will handle the rest."

After he left, our group began to break up. My room number was 18 7 12. Most of this group were going to be in building 18, so we all began heading the same way.

Building 18 was on the edge of the apartment complex, right next to the tree line. When we got there, I realized that all the other hopefuls were also on either floor 7 or 8. We would all have nice views overlooking the open landscape below.

That seemed strange to me. Aren't the top floors usually the best? Why would they give them to newbies?

A few minutes later, I had a pretty good idea. With elevators, high floors are nice, but walking several flights of stairs every day was going to kill me. I needed to start cultivating. Cultivation didn't seem to improve my body overmuch, but it did give me extra energy, and that was what I needed if I was going to be walking up and down stairs all the time.

I found my room and opened the door. The apartment was surprisingly spacious, far bigger than anything I had in the Su Clan.

Inside, a large young man was waiting for me.

"Welcome, come on in! I'm Bao Wen, nice to meet you!"

I was startled by the warm greeting and barely managed a reply. "Hi, I'm Su Fang."

"Ah, so it's Brother Su, great, great. Well, this is the room. Not much to see, right?" He pointed to a couple of things around the room. "There's your bedroll, and if you need to store anything you have a chest over there. If you want a proper cultivation mat, you'll have to buy one yourself. They aren't provided, and I never have any extra cash for one, so I just sit on the bedroll. It works well enough. Other than that, well, we got a balcony with a pretty view, but that's about it."

He spoke fast, but his meaning was clear enough.

"So, that's the grand tour. Have you eaten?"

"No, we just got done with the exam."

"Great! Follow me. The cafeteria has great food. Well, I don't know what you're used to, but it's much better than anything I'd ever eaten before I came here."

I followed Bao back down the stairs and past the rows of apartment buildings. Again, the long walk made it very clear why this place was for the newbies.

Bao brought me to a building situated in the middle of several residential blocks. Inside was a large, open room filled with countless small dining tables. Many of them were filled with people enjoying a meal. Along one side wall were several partitioned spaces where workers were serving up meals.

Bao led me to one of the serving areas.

"This one's got my favorites. You got your identity jade, right? Just pop it here on the reader." He showed me what to do by placing his own jade on a thick black stone. The stone gave an audible beep, and the worker filled a tray with food before handing it to Bao.

"It's that easy. You can find something different if you want, but this is pretty good. Rice, tomatoes and eggs, shredded potatoes, and a bit of pork curry."

We both grabbed a meal and sat down. We kept the conversation at the table light and didn't talk about the sect. Bao told me about his background, and I gave him a mix of half-truths and blatant lies about my past. He was friendly, but it was best not to say too much.

Bao told me that he came from a poor family in a small village. While he was growing up, his parents struggled to even put food on the table. Things changed for the better when he turned 16 and got his blessing.

Bao's family were peony farmers. From what he explained, most of the poorer families in these parts worked on peony farms, or farms for other low-level herbs. After getting blessed, Bao found that he had a supernatural understanding of herbs. That led him to try and join a sect and become a cultivator. When presented with the option of becoming an alchemist or fighter, he immediately chose alchemist.

He failed on his first attempt to join the sect, but after returning home and practicing the cultivation technique for a year, he succeeded on his second attempt. That was five years earlier, and he had remained a nominal disciple ever since.

Once our meal was complete, I wanted to learn more about how the sect functioned.

"Do you know why you were chosen to be my roommate?"

"Hah, let me bring you somewhere."

We left the dining hall, and he led me to another block of several large buildings. He pointed at the largest ones, which were the size of multistory aircraft hangers.

"Those are the Alchemy Workshops. If you want to concoct pills, that's where you can do it. First two floors have an open layout with plenty of workbenches. It might get crowded around midday, but there are usually at least a few spaces available. Using benches in the general area is free, but if you want one of the private rooms on the upper floors, it will cost you contribution points."

He pointed to another building. "That's the Provisions Hall. It's more or less the most important place here. If you have pills to sell, you sell them there. If you need ingredients, you buy them there. They only deal in contribution points. Don't try to sell anything made with outside ingredients there, easy way to get into trouble."

"What are contribution points?"

"In short, they're money. Gold is worthless in the sect. Contribution points are king."

Bao led me to a secluded area with a few benches and shade provided by a couple of giant trees. After sitting down, he looked at me seriously.

"Alright, so, you've gotten a bit of a tour, seen your apartment, and eaten the food. Time for the harsh truth. Nothing here is free. It all costs points. On the surface, everything looks nice here, but honestly, most of us are just barely scraping by."

A hint of worry crept into his voice.

"Every month, you'll be charged 30 contribution points for food and rent. If you don't have the points, you'll be expelled from the sect. You asked why I'm your roommate, right? I volunteered. Living with you, helping you out for the year? That gets me a 10-point discount on room and board. As a new recruit, you get to stay here three months for free, but then you'll take a hit every month. For me, 10 points isn't too much, but it's more than a mosquito leg."

He pulled a jade bottle out of his robes and waved it at me.

"For nominal disciples, there's only one way to get points. You have to sell pills. Pricing is the same as that test. For Basic pills, it's 1, 5, and 10 for Low-, Mid-, and High-Purity. Damn peonies will cost you 5 points each, though. Outrageous, right? But that's the price they sell it for. According to the guy who runs the Provisions Hall, it's because everything but High-Purity pills is worthless to the sect, so they don't want people wasting precious ingredients on anything worse."

I was confused. "How are new disciples supposed to survive? They let in people who could only make Low-Purity pills. Aren't they going to go bankrupt immediately?"

"Well, they have three months to learn to make High-Purity pills, and it's generally recommended to study before jumping directly into pill-making. If they study for a few months, the talented among them should be able to make it through."

"Still, it seems like most would run out of points and be expelled…"

"Ah, yes, but also no. You did listen to the rules, right? About how you can't force people to sell you pills? They are practically telling outright that you can sell your pills. Well, I am decent as a nominal disciple. Not great, but I can make Basic pills easy enough. So, you want some points? How much gold you got? I'll sell you some pills."

"Wait, I thought you said gold was worthless."

"Sure, here it is, but outside it isn't. There are plenty of disciples willing to hand over a few of their pills for gold. We can't go out and spend it until we become outer sect disciples, but we can still send it back to our families."

He patted me on the shoulder and stood up.

"Anyway, let's finish up the tour."

He took me to one last block of buildings and pointed at a couple of buildings.

"Those are the lecture halls. There are occasional public lectures you can attend, or you can get a private tutor. They mainly focus on alchemy or cultivation, but it's possible for other topics to come up. Of course, learning costs points, especially private lessons. The next few months there will be free public lessons for you new guys, but they're only focused on getting you to be able to produce High-Purity Basic Qi Gatherers consistently."

He pointed to another building. "That's the Technique Hall. They got the basic cultivation manuals, from Low-Yellow to High-Yellow, along with a lot of other techniques for controlling fire qi. You'll probably be spending everything you earn there. Lots of great stuff inside."

Bao turned to face me.

"That's about it. Any questions? Nope. Good. Glad to meet you, Su Fang, but now I got some pills to make. I'll see you later."