The Undying Immortal System-Chapter 304: Life 76, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

With the clan rapidly expanding its influence and fixing many of the chronic issues that had plagued Dragon Gate City, karmic energy was being generated at a rapid pace. It only took four years for the first person assigned to the position of city lord to gain enough karmic energy to break through to Peak Lord. After that, a dozen people rotated into and out of the seat, each gathering enough energy to make a single breakthrough.

Once things settled down and people became used to the idea that their ‘official’ city lord would be changing on a regular basis, I signed up for a time slot as the city’s nominal lord and waited in the queue like everyone else.

I could have used my position as the clan’s ancestor to skip the line, but I wanted to keep a lower profile than that. Most people in the clan only knew that they needed to obey the order of an Ancestor Fang. Aside from the people who can come back in time with me, very few people knew that I was the elusive ‘Ancestor Fang.’ With potential hidden Lord-level assassins in play, I wanted to keep it that way.

So, instead of skipping the line, I arranged for ShouLi to have others skip the line in front of me, pushing me further back. Eventually, though, I made it to the front of the queue and spent a solid nineteen months gathering the energy needed to make the initial breakthrough to Martial Lord.

This was far longer than anyone else had needed, potentially signaling that I was somehow special and breaking my cover, but it couldn’t be helped. After I started gathering my karmic energy, I noticed an anomaly and needed more energy to conduct a few experiments.

Up until this point, most of the karmic energy that I had used had come from the Nine Rivers Sect. And ever since I had purchased an affinity for karmic energy, all of the energy I had used had come from the sect.

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That energy had always been the same. Yes, there was a difference in… potency between Lord-, King-, and Emperor-level energy, but that didn’t change the ‘feel’ of the energy. Karmic energy was karmic energy, and I had never given it much more thought than that.

As the Lord of Dragon Gate City, however, I was personally gathering energy from a city for the first time since my time in Eight Flower, and the energy I was getting was far from the homogenous mix that the sect had always provided me.

This energy didn’t arrive in a steady stream. Instead, it was more like discrete chunks. Each time a person had a breakthrough, or ‘their destiny changed,’ or whatever caused karmic energy to be generated happened, I received a packet of energy. Each of these chunks had its own distinct feel, but after a few months of absorbing them, I found that they could be separated into three distinct groups.

The first group was what I considered ‘normal.’ Each chunk in this group was different, but none of them felt particularly special. Once in my dantian, this group of energy all mixed together into the same homogeneous mixture that I was used to.

The second type of energy felt more… solid. When manipulating it, I felt a deeper connection to it, and it was a bit easier to shape than normal. As far as I could tell, this second type of energy would be able to form a far better core than the first type. However, since only about a third of the energy that I was receiving was of this second type, it took me a year and a half to gather enough of it to form an entire core.

The final type of energy I was receiving was the scarcest. Only a small fraction of the energy chunks I received fell into this third group. However, what this group lacked in quantity was made up for in quality. I felt an inherent connection to this energy. Even with no affinity for karmic energy at all, this energy would be easier to manipulate than the first type was with my current mid five-star affinity.

So, what was the difference between these three types of energy? Intuitively, I had a guess, and if necessary, I would proceed on the basis that my guess was correct. However, I decided to check with the System, just to see if it would be nice and provide me with the true answer.

“System, I have identified three different types of karmic energy within my dantian. I want to know why they are different.”

Cost 10 million credits.

I narrowed my eyes.

That was a relatively low cost. The System would rarely, if ever, sell me important information about the intricacies of cultivation. This made me a bit more confident that my initial guess had been correct. Still, there was no reason not to confirm it.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 899,567,661,586 credits remaining.

There is no meaningful distinction between the three types of karmic energy that the host has identified. The only difference is the connection between the host and the person who generated the energy.

The first type was generated by someone without any connection to the host other than ruler and subject. The second type was generated by someone connected to the host’s body. The third type was generated by someone who is connected to both the host’s body and soul.

Credits expended. Transaction complete.

I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my face.

In the past, Emperor Li had said that, to ascend to Martial Sovereign, I needed to rely on karmic energy that was generated by people connected to me through both body and soul. At the time, I hadn’t known what that meant. Even now, I was sketchy on the details. However, this new information gave me a starting point that I could work from.

Who was generating the first type of energy? The bulk of the population of Dragon Gate City. What was generating the second type? The people of the Su Clan.

These questions were easy enough to answer. However, who was generating the third type? The sheer fact that this third type of energy was being generated told me that there were people in Dragon Gate City who were connected to me through both body and soul, but who were they?

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The small amount of energy I was getting from them suggested that their numbers had to be relatively small. However, that wasn’t necessarily the case. It could actually be that they had stagnated for some reason and were thus not generating any energy. But if they had a connection to my body, then they had to be members of the Su Clan. At the moment, the Su Clan was prospering. Which members of the Su Clan would be stagnant?

Framed in the way, the answer was clear: the people who had come back in time with me.

They were low in number, and nearly all of them were simply waiting around for a chance to gather karmic energy. The only ones who were able to advance were the youngsters who had yet to reach Peak Grandmaster.

This information seemed valuable, but what could I do with it?

“System, how can I create a connection between a person and my soul?”

The cost of this information cannot be calculated at this time.

I sighed. I was on my own.

After thinking through several possibilities, I sent a letter to ShouLi.

We need to make a few new rules.

I want as many of the clan’s children to be born and raised within the world orb as possible. Give the families whatever benefits you feel necessary. Tell them that children born in “Chang’an” will have higher affinities. Just do whatever is needed to get them there. I’ll provide the essence required to make this a reality.

Also, all earth cultivators need to stay in there as long as possible. They shouldn’t try to advance in the outside world until conditions within the orb make that impossible.

Finally… there needs to be an initial blessing ceremony within the world orb. I know that this hasn’t worked in the past, and I don’t think anything has changed, but from now on, we need an initial ceremony in the orb and then a second one outside of it.

Which, if any, of these changes would cause people to be more connected to my soul?

The first seemed most likely. Having children literally born inside of me seemed like it should create a close connection between us, but it wasn’t certain. The other two were just ideas that seemed plausible.

In any case, there was little more I could do other than wait and see what would happen. So, I turned my attention back to my advancement to Martial Lord.

While I would have liked to form a core composed of nothing but karmic energy that was generated by people connected to me through both body and soul, getting my clan to a state where that would be feasible would take decades. So, instead, I chose to make a core using the second type of energy, energy generated by people connected to my body. This would leave me with a large reserve of karmic energy with no connection to me at all, but I would be able to use that energy for further experiments in the future.

With this settled, I sat down in my cultivation chamber to think through what I was about to do.

In the past, I had felt that something had been off about the Ruler Tier cultivation techniques that I had been using. After everything I had learned in this life, I finally had a fairly good idea of what that was.

During Ranks 1 to 3, I had focused my cultivation techniques around metal Laws. And even though I hadn’t known about Laws in the past, when I had cultivated, I had still been attuning my body to specific elemental Laws. But, what about when I had advanced to Martial Lord?

None of the Rank 4 cultivation techniques I possessed were element-specific. They were all centered around karmic energy. A person’s qi was compressed to form a ‘hole in the world’ and then used to ‘break the chains,’ but the element of that qi didn’t matter.

So, if I used a standard Rank 4 cultivation technique, would I still be imbuing my body with metal Laws? Possibly. The element of one’s qi probably had some effect on the Laws involved. However, if I had to guess, then I would say that most of the Laws involved in these standard Rank 4 techniques were karmic Laws.

That raised the question: Should I look for ways to advance to Martial Lord without karmic energy?

Again, possibly. From the experiments I had conducted on myself and others, I believed that focusing one’s cultivation base around a specific set of Laws would lead to the best outcome. A metal cultivator with a metal-based core should be more powerful than someone with a karma-based core.

However, aside from the fact that I didn’t know how to make a metal-based core, my goal in this life was to become a Sovereign. According to Emperor Li, there were no cultivation techniques that could help people ascend to that level, and the only known way to advance from Emperor to Sovereign was to flood one’s core with karmic energy.

If I didn’t start adapting my body to karmic Laws as a Lord, would making that breakthrough to Sovereign be possible? Maybe, but I didn’t know. So, for this life, if I wanted to make sure nothing went awry, I could only tread the well-worn path. In my next life, however, with a Sovereign-level number of credits to work with, I could explore other options.

Still, I wanted to make my core as perfect as possible. So, pulling on my reserves of Type 2 karmic energy and my karmic affinity, I set about making the best core that I could.

After creating the base of a core, I used my knowledge of and aptitude for refining as a guide as I built up the rest of the structure.

Like last time, this resulted in a core composed of a lace-like structure. However, the pattern of this lace was far different than it had been previously. Where the last one had been a series of connected diamonds, this was a mixture of octagons and rectangles.

Why was it different? Was it because the karmic energy I had used was different?

Instead of completing the core, I dismantled it and started again.

I created a base and then followed my instincts on how to build it out from there. This time, the result was a non-geometric pattern that looked more like flowers.

Concerned, I quickly dismantled the core and sat back in thought.

I needed to know why I had created three entirely different patterns.

I could try asking the System, but it was unlikely I would get an answer. However, there might be a better way to learn what I wanted anyway.

“System, improve my technique analysis ability to Rank 4.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 4,999,500,000 credits. 894,568,161,586 credits remaining.

Taking out a blank book, I hastily scribbled down the process of forming the core with the octagonal pattern. For the latter stages of the technique, weaving together threads of qi and karmic energy and throwing it at the ‘chains,’ I simply copied the information for a random technique in my library.

Then, I analyzed it.

Unnamed, Low-Yellow Rank 4 Cultivation Technique (Broken), Karmic Energy, Effects: Makes those connected to this core more productive. Makes those connected to this core more ambitious. Makes those connected to this core more nervous.

Nodding, I quickly changed the pattern to the floral arrangement.

Unnamed, Low-Yellow Rank 4 Cultivation Technique (Broken), Karmic Energy, Effects: Makes those connected to this core more productive. Makes those connected to this core want to spend more time outdoors. Makes those connected to this core more aggravated.

With some testing, I found that the ‘Broken’ affix was because the weaves sent to break the chains didn’t match the design of the core. This was also the cause of the tertiary mental effect.

With even more testing, I found that these different lace patterns were caused by small discrepancies in the initial base I was starting from.

After a significant amount of trial and error, I found a lace pattern that I was happy with. It was formed from a series of tightly packed irregular shapes.

Once my core was in place, I then spent even more time designing a weave for breaking chains that would complement it.

In total, this took me several years of effort, but upon seeing my final result, I felt that it was time well spent.

Core of Fellowship, Peak-Yellow Rank 4 Cultivation Technique, Karmic Energy, Effects: Makes those connected to this core feel an enhanced sense of community.