The Undying Immortal System

Our first five years in Mortal City quickly passed us by as we stayed hidden away in our remote corner of the city's outer ring.

In the sect, little of note occurred.

While a few of our people offended Lord-level powers on their short jaunts to their peaks, none of these incidents produced anywhere near the level of the fallout that XuJian's initial trip to the Fire Peak had. Somehow, several of the PangBo Association's slaves had gained access to an endless supply of Rank 4 talismans that were capable of cleansing people of soul gu, and they had been spreading them about freely, causing havoc. This had absolutely nothing to do with us, though, so I made sure that none of my people got involved in the mess, and we certainly didn't help anyone who was being chased escape to Mortal City.

Of more importance was ShouLi's study of body cultivation. Based on the knowledge she gained from her enlightenment, ShouLi claimed that while it might have looked impressive, the initial breakthrough that she had made was only the equivalent of advancing to Martial Disciple 2. However, since this breakthrough had only used up a fraction of the energy in her body, ShouLi was able to continue advancing without delay, further refining and enhancing her skin with each step.

Over the course of only a few years, she had made a total of nine such advancements, climbing all the way to the equivalent of Peak Disciple, but this was where she got stuck. Without an understanding of what came next, she had made no progress in breaking through to 'Body Master.' So instead, she had shifted her focus to trying to help others make breakthroughs of their own.

This, as it turned out, was a bit more complicated than we had initially expected.

ShouLi's blessing had given her a significant advantage. She hadn't thought in terms of fire wu or wood wu. She had just cultivated 'wu.' She used Strengthening and Feasting Pills to pull in as much energy as possible, from any sources available, and incorporated it into her skin. When others tried to replicate this process, it resulted in a chaotic mix of energies that caused people's skin to burst into flames, rot away, or worse. Whenever this happened, we needed to cut away these infected areas and regrow them using a combination of a few different types of healing pills.

My people hadn't given up, though, especially not Liang and NiangBa. They wanted to become stronger, and they were willing to endure the suffering that came with these early experiments in body cultivation if that was what it took to do so.

At first, they tried to simply get around the issue of elemental purity by only consuming beasts with wu of a single element. Unfortunately, since the technique ShouLi had created also pulled a modicum of wu from the environment, this didn't work. So, they turned their focus to figuring out how to create 'wu filters,' similar to the qi filters in regular cultivation techniques. Having attempted to purchase such a thing from the System in the past, I suspected that no such filter designs existed in this world, so I could only wish them the best of luck.

As for the rest of my clan, things were going a bit more smoothly.

Within my storage space, several children had turned 16 and needed to learn the basics of how to cultivate. These were not children born to members of my clan, the oldest of those had only reached 13. These were a few of the family members that I had pulled in after leaving Mount Jiang. Since qi acted strangely in the storage space, I dropped these children off in our manor in South Gate City to receive their blessings and learn to cultivate.

This caused the overcrowding issue in the manor to become even worse, but the council stepped in to handle things. Instead of spots in the manor being handed out on a rotating basis, they started charging contribution points for them, and to earn these contribution points, people would need to contribute to the development of the settlement within the storage space.

Various levels of rewards were set for different activities, such as teaching, farming, and construction work, but with all of them, the message was clear. If you want to be able to go outside and cultivate, you need to make the inside world a better place to live.

By the end of my first five years in the sect, all my Revered Elders had been able to advance to Grandmaster 1, and most of them had joined the sect. YuLong, however, remained behind to take care of everyone in South Gate.

In the past, I had used the System to give him a talent for teaching, and that was proving to be far more useful than I had planned. While everyone gained an initial understanding of how to cultivate from memory orbs, because these were not their own, personal memories, they still needed time to incorporate this knowledge into themselves to truly understand it. With his System-enhanced teaching skills, YuLong had been able to learn methods to shorten this time and make the absorption process more complete.

Overall, we were making solid, steady progress.

One interesting note was that only a year after sending RuLan to Blue Wind City, she returned via a pitch-black portal that opened up in the middle of our manor's sitting room. As soon as she arrived, she immediately requested to be sent into the 'world orb,' and it wasn't until the next day that she was ready to explain things.

Once we were alone, she gave me a martial salute, and her face contorted in a look of embarrassment.

"Se… Senior Brother, our… our master has sent me back here to continue my studies in private."

RuLan's awkward address made me smile and let out a soft chuckle. I was a bit surprised that Emperor Li had decided to still recognize me as his disciple after I had handed his coin to someone else, but it made sense. Even if he had a connection to me through RuLan, his blessing wouldn't want him to lose our direct master-disciple relationship.

For me, this didn't make any difference. Emperor Li had helped me rise from a struggling Grandmaster Alchemist to a skilled Pill Emperor. For that, I would always consider him my benefactor. I just might not always express it in the ways more common to this world, like calling him 'master.'

"Of course, Junior Sister." This caused RuLan to wince, but I ignored it. "How long will you be staying?"

She squeezed her eyes closed and dropped her head. "I'm… not sure. Master said… He said that he would contact me when he needed me. He knows where we are, so he can open a private portal here without raising any suspicions. However, I'm supposed to keep a low profile."

I nodded in understanding. "Don't worry about that too much. If necessary, I can modify your appearance to get around some of these issues. The bigger problem will be earning contribution points from the sect. If you're hiding your identity, this could be tricky."

"I… That isn't necessary. Master has had me doing several missions over the past few months. For now, I just want to spend time alone with Mo and Qiang'er and experiment in peace."

"No worries. Just let me know what you need. As for experiments… You should consider taking some time off. Just relax for a bit and improve your cultivation base. No need to push to uncover all the secrets of beast alchemy so quickly."

I gave her a wide, comforting smile, but she only returned it with a look of confusion.

"Al… Alright."

Once our conversation was over, I sent RuLan to spend some time with her husband and child in my storage space, where performing alchemy wasn't possible.

While most of my time in Mortal City was spent researching beast alchemy, near the end of my time there, I started preparing for what came next.

For the Sovereigns and sect elders, losing people on the path to Yellow City might be considered a good thing. Anyone who died on this path had overestimated their abilities, and it was good and proper to get rid of them before they wasted any of the sect's karmic energy.

I didn't care about these games, however.

Based on my people's natural talents, and considering the circumstances of their births, almost none of them had any business joining the Nine Rivers Sect. If any of them had entered blind and unprepared, they would have quickly met their end. Simply put, they were not among the geniuses who the Sovereigns were looking to recruit.

But again, I didn't care about this. I would keep them safe, and I would ensure they thrived. To make that happen, I established strict rules for those who wanted to ascend the mountain.

Normally, cultivators would be expected to blindly guess if they had the skills needed to complete one of the three paths to Yellow City. If one guessed wrongly, then they would either die or be trapped on the path forever.

To prevent this from happening, I set up a series of preliminary tests that the members of my clan would need to pass before they would be allowed to ascend. These weren't perfect, but by overestimating the level of skill required to complete the path successfully, we would be able to keep everyone safe.

The easiest of these tests to set up was the one for the Path of Body. I just created two formations. The first tested a person's maximum attack power, and the second tested a person's endurance. These two factors alone wouldn't guarantee everyone's safety, but when combined with oversight from a competent elder, they would be good enough.

The test for the Path of Soul was a bit trickier. At first, I thought I might need to rely on testing a person's soul indirectly, through something like testing the strength of their soul attacks, but then I remembered the formations that I had won in a bet during my first climb up the mountain. Those formations were capable of exerting pressure directly on a person's soul, just like the path did.

While these formations had been destroyed when a small-scale tornado wreaked havoc in my storage space, I had made a series of notes on how they worked, and Emperor Shen's book on Rank 4 formations provided all the details that I had missed. So, after a bit of experimentation, I was able to create my own version of them.

Therefore, to be allowed to walk the Path of Soul to Yellow City, people would just need to endure similar soul pressure from one of my formations. Calibrating this pressure so that it matched the path would take a bit of work, though, so to keep everyone safe, I set the level of pressure that these formations exerted to be a fair bit higher than what I remembered encountering on the path.

As for the Path of Mind, this test was broken up into seven sections, one for each profession, excluding gu keeping. I had more than enough experience with the alchemist test to recreate it easily, and my Revered Elders provided me with everything I needed for the illusionist, refiner, beast tamer, and talisman artist tests. This only left the tests for herbalism and formations, but with Bao and SuYin's knowledge of herbalism, and my knowledge of formations, we were able to create tests that could at least ensure that anyone who wanted to ascend to Yellow City was qualified to do so.

After these preliminary tests were in place, it was time for me to leave Mortal City, and I would be leaving on my own. No one was ready to join me.

I considered waiting so that I wouldn't have to be separated from everyone, but I wasn't willing to do that. The people in my storage space had been stuck in there for far too long already, and I needed to claim ownership of a city so they could be let out.

Establishing myself as a city lord would also be beneficial to many of the Grandmasters who had already joined the sect since I would be able to start funneling them contribution points. To purchase entry into the sect's Trials, one had to use points they had earned through official duties, and working for my city would count as an 'official duty.'

So, while I was slightly hesitant to leave everyone behind, I knew that it was the right choice.

After a final meeting with my council and elders, I headed out of the city and up the mountain.

This time, I chose to take the Path of Mind and be tested as a formation specialist. I wanted to experience this path personally so that I would be able to create a better preliminary test for our people in Mortal City. Taking a test for a profession other than alchemy might lower the evaluation the elders on the Fire Peak had of me, but I had completed more than enough alchemy missions over the years, so I had already more than proved my abilities as an alchemist. Completing the path for a secondary profession should be nothing but a positive.

The test for a formation specialist was rather simple. I just needed to identify a few basic formations and reconstruct them. So, only a few hours after leaving Mortal City, I arrived at the gates of Yellow City.