The Undying Immortal System

Chapter 189: Life 70, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster 4

Upon leaving the Metal Peak, I found JiaQi standing near the Gateway Plaza and waving at me. After a quick greeting, she led me to an apartment complex where everyone else had already settled in.

Upon entering, I didn’t speak and instead immediately set about laying down a formation to protect us from eavesdroppers. I also wanted to lay down a powerful defensive formation, but we were supposed to be safe in Mortal City, and going overboard on our defenses would only draw unwanted attention to our little group.

Once everything was configured to my satisfaction, I looked around at everyone and grinned.

“How did you all do?”

LiTing held up her badge.

“Yan and I were made grade 3 core disciples. We’re assuming you were as well.”

I held up my badge in confirmation and turned to JiaQi.

She gave me a slightly sheepish expression. “I only got ungraded core. I have enough beast taming knowledge to pass the path to Yellow City, but that’s about it. Whoever’s in charge must’ve figured that wasn’t enough to warrant anything better.”

Her words sounded slightly bitter, but I could tell she didn’t care. Her position in the sect was meaningless to her. Still, I patted her on the shoulder in a show of sympathy.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make a proper beast tamer out of you in the future. You have plenty of time to learn.”

She rolled her eyes at me, but I ignored it and moved the conversation along.

“Meng LuYao, how did you do?”

She blushed. “I… I was only rated as a grade 1 inner sect disciple. I still have a lot to absorb from LiTing’s memories. All the information is there, but I have a hard time accessing it sometimes.”

LiTing smiled happily and put an arm around her. “Yaoyao’s doing great. Don’t worry, she’ll be a proper First Disciple in no time, Teacher.”

Her words were playful, but they bothered me deeply. Even if she spoke in a joking tone, there was something deeper going on.

I couldn’t even fix my own psychological issues. How was I supposed to help someone else? There was no simple System purchase to fix this situation. I could only push forward and hope for the best. In the worst case, I would just have to end this life and pretend it never happened.

However, if Meng LuYao was going to be brought into the time loops, I needed to get her a life on her own away from LiTing. One where she could develop as her own independent person in a stable, happy environment. Setting something like that up in this insane world would be a challenge, but I would try to find a way to make it happen.

Making a note about Meng LuYao in my journal but deciding to leave well enough alone for the moment, I turned my focus to Yan.

“Have you made any plans yet?”

He shook his head. “Nothing solid. We need to reach Peak Grandmaster, but that’s just a matter of time. We should all also raise our affinities to peak five-star while we have the safety net of Mortal City supporting us. To do that we’ll need to complete some missions. What are you thinking?”

“Before that, let me share some advice I just received. It’ll help us plan things out a little better.” I gave everyone a careful look. “We need to become city lords. When we enter Yellow City, we shouldn’t directly go buy karmic energy. We need to become city lords first and only use the contribution points from that to purchase the energy we need to advance. Anything else will affect our position in the sect.”

Yan cocked his head to the side and put on a calculating expression. “How much will it affect us?”

“Not sure. I was only told that it’s important. From what I experienced last time, I would say that if we don’t become lords in Yellow City, we may be dropped a grade or two. If we don’t do so in Profound City, we’ll be dropped to the inner sect.”

LiTing spoke up to offer her thoughts. “Yaoyao and I don’t need to worry about that. We can drop to the inner sect, right?

She turned to the other girl for confirmation, and Meng LuYao nodded hesitantly.

I looked at her. “If you’re interested in becoming a core disciple, it isn’t a problem. We can make it work.”

“N… No. It’s fine. I need to understand things better first.”

I gave her my best reassuring smile and looked at JiaQi who just waved a hand.

“No need. I’m not interested in running a city. Might need to figure that out in the future, but I’ll just have fun this time around.”

I looked at Yan. “So, just you and me?”

He drummed his fingers on the table in thought.

“No, I’ll step back too. You can handle things in this cycle, and I’ll act as your lieutenant. I have a few ideas to try, but I mainly want to study how you run a city and compare it to what I saw from ChenKun. It should help us find ways to maximize karmic income in the future.”

I raised an eyebrow at this, but he didn’t feel the need to explain any further.

“Fine. Then that’s our plan. I’ll take on a position as city lord, you can all be my ministers.” JiaQi wanted to object, but I didn’t give her a chance to speak. “Let’s prepare well while we’re in Mortal City. I don’t know how much a lordship will cost, but with the way things work in this sect, I’m certain it won’t come cheap.”

Everyone signaled their agreement, even the somewhat recalcitrant JiaQi.

“While we have the protection of Mortal City, we need to do as many missions as we can to earn contribution points. I talked about this with LiTing last time, and I would like to focus our efforts on defensive missions. I don’t want us to be the ones causing mortals to suffer. If you find one that looks good, one that we can all do together, sign us up.” I gave a small smirk. “I’d rather not do so through the Lightning Peak. I don’t want to earn any credit for its Master.”

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Yan nodded. “Any preference.”

“Actually…” I chuckled as I realized that I could use this to help repay another debt. “Look for anything relating to the PangBo Merchant Association. Any missions targeting them, ones that won’t hurt the civilians under their control. If we’re doing missions, let’s use them to grind that organization down as much as we possibly can.”

The problem with defensive missions was that they were slow. After accepting one, our group was required to hole up in a city for days or weeks and wait for it to be attacked. The advantage of defensive missions was that this provided us with ample time to cultivate.

After half a year of constantly visiting various cities to thwart the PangBo Association’s plans, I had advanced to Martial Grandmaster 6 and earned enough contribution points to enter a Trial.

I considered visiting the Lightning Peak Trial, but since the Metal Peak was going to be far easier to deal with, I decided to get it out of the way first.

Carrying Jin’s coin, I entered the portal to the Metal Peak. Before anyone had a chance to notice me, I was whisked back through the portal and brought to the same private conference room as usual.

“Su Fang, it’s good of you to come. I assume you’re here for the Trial?”

“Yes. Before I go… Will anyone other than you be able to watch what happens in there? Can I… go all out?”

Jin laughed. “There are a few others who have access, such as the Saint and the Sect Master, but you don’t need to worry. No one will bother checking in on you unless they already suspect something. At that point, it wouldn’t matter what you did anyway. So, feel free to do your worst.”

I bowed my head slightly to that.

“But, before you go off and destroy my Trial, we need to talk about something.” Jin’s face turned serious. “Shen got a visit from old man Li, and we think it’s something you need to know about.”

“There shouldn’t be any connection between us… Is there a problem?”

“Yes and no. Li visited Shen and talked about how he didn’t have a disciple. He went so far as to say that in only a little over a decade, it would be too late. He talked about how there wasn’t any time left and said that ‘if it’s going to happen, it has to happen before then.’ This was rather out of character for the old man, and nothing like this happened last time. We think his blessing was behind it.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you think it means?”

“We think… There are a few different possible interpretations, but we think it means his blessing wants you to reach the Summit before he dies.” A look of concentration appeared on Jin’s face as she parsed her words carefully and obviously. “A group will meet you there. His blessing likely wants him to be in that group, not his successor.”

“I see… Li once told me that it’s dangerous to read into a blessing’s intent. All we know is that his blessing wanted him to tell Shen those words. We don’t know if it wants me there, it wants me to double guess it and not arrive, or something else. Possibly, its only intention was for you to pass on this message.”

Jin breathed out in defeat. “I hate information blessings. The Earthly Dao is an inscrutable being with inscrutable goals. It may be trying to help us. It may not be. Either way, it’s much nicer when its strings aren’t so apparent.”

“I’ll talk to the group about this. We were looking at ascending quickly anyway, so the idea is worth consideration. I’m just not sure we can reach Peak Emperor in such a short window.”

“It’ll be difficult, that’s for sure. It helps that you all know what you’re doing and won’t have to spend any time studying, but gathering enough qi and karmic energy so quickly will be difficult. If you need any help, let me know.”

“Thanks. For now, I better just get to work then. Where’s the Trial?”

With no one other than Jin able to monitor my activities, I was able to waltz through the Metal Peak Trial without any difficulties. There were metal elementals, cutting tests, and other obstacles, but none of them proved to be a challenge.

This was because I was wearing Rank 4 armor and holding a Rank 4 weapon that LiTing had made in our last life. The moment I entered the Trial, I pulled them both out of my storage space and equipped them. After that, nothing in the Trial was able to cause me any real trouble, and anything too annoying to dispatch with a slash of my staff was quickly burnt away by my Profound-Rank fire seed.

Higher-Rank Trials might become slightly more challenging, but I doubted it. The only reason I limited myself to Rank 4 weaponry was because of the excess weight of the more powerful equipment. My storage space was stocked with everything I would need to complete this Trial as a King without too much difficulty.

Using these items was somewhat against the rules. Even though LiTing had made them and she was on my ‘team,’ no one would believe that. However, all of it was brought in through my storage space, and there wasn’t anyone who could both see what was happening inside the Trial and would care what I did in there.

On my very first visit to the Grandmaster-level Metal Peak Trial, I reached stage 117 and only stopped because my affinity broke through to peak five-star.

Once that was done, I returned to my group, and we discussed the situation with Emperor Li. If we were going to reach the Summit, I had to admit that I would rather have them there to greet us than whoever his replacement would be. However, reaching Peak Emperor before his death would be extremely difficult. I didn’t want to just throw everything away to chase after ghosts.

Yan shared a few of his thoughts about what might be going on, but he didn’t have any clearer picture of the situation than I did. No one else seemed to care much either way. In the end, our final decision was to not make a decision. We would continue on as normal and see what happened. If we were close to reaching the Summit in time, we would consider rushing near the end, but for now, creating a solid foundation was more important.

After several more months, I reached Grandmaster 8 and headed to the Lightning Peak Trial.

This time, I couldn’t allow myself to use LiTing’s refined items, not even one she had made during this life. I didn’t want to give the Master of the Lightning Peak any more information than I had to.

This Trial was filled with lightning elementals, lightning strikes, and lightning traps. Most Grandmasters, even skilled ones, would have found this Trial difficult, but while I wasn’t willing to use refined items, I didn’t hesitate to show off one of my other advantages.

My active fire seed was the Profound-Rank Slicing Winds Fire. It was a wind-based fire that naturally shaped itself into arcs of slashing wind blades. While lightning elementals were difficult for most cultivators to deal with, they couldn’t stand up against a powerful wind attack.

Since my wind affinity was only peak seven-star, I had difficulty controlling the fire properly, but with its natural destructive tendencies, I only needed to aim it at my enemies. The fire took care of the rest by itself.

My first time through the Lightning Peak Trial, I reached stage 82 before exiting for safety reasons. The second time, I reached stage 76 and claimed a peak five-star lightning affinity as my own. I was slightly worried when the Master of the Lightning Peak didn’t choose to contact me during either of these attempts, but he might have just been better at biding his time than Shen.

As time passed, everyone in our group reached Peak Grandmaster and boosted their affinities to peak five-star. Roughly a year after entering the sect, Yan made a trip outside to deliver Cai XiaoYu’s memory orb, but little else of note had happened during this time.

Besides the Trial, my presence on the Lightning Peak had been minimal enough that I didn’t draw any attention. I had found this peak to have a far greater martial focus than the Earth Peak, and disciples would routinely challenge each other to duels to fight for benefits directly from the Master of the Peak. Since I had no interest in these games and no reason to fight for these benefits, I faded into the background.

My position on Dragon Peak was a bit of a different story. Our group had waged a silent war upon the PangBo Merchant Association, and there was little chance they didn’t know who we were. Sadly, there wasn’t much they could do to stop us.

The sect rules prevented them from attacking us in Mortal City, and even when we were out on a mission, they were prevented from sending a horde of high-Rank cultivators against us. They only tried to break this prohibition a single time, and that resulted in half a dozen Peak Lords going missing in the forests surrounding the city we were defending. As it turned out, the ‘wildlife’ in that area was unusually vicious, especially the deer.

Fifteen months after entering the sect, with everyone having reached the limit of what we could accomplish in Mortal City, it was time to move on.