The Undying Immortal System

After Lord Kang left, I pulled NiangBa into a side room for a private conversation.

“I have a task for you.” I took out a set of six formation plates and placed them on a table next to us. “You now understand how the Affinity Hall worked, right? How I was able to raise everyone's affinities?”

NiangBa looked at the formations in thought. “Essence. The formations in the Affinity Hall gathered essence and channeled it into us.”

“Yes. The reason I haven’t recreated the Affinities Halls here is that there is no environmental essence to gather.” I tapped on the formation plates. “These, however, are a bit different. They will gather essence from the environment and store it for later use. I want you to assemble several teams to spread these formations out around in as many different kingdoms and empires as possible. This will allow us to harvest essence from across the continent instead of just relying on what is available in the local environment.”

A hint of greed appeared in NiangBa’s eyes. “So… we will be able to use this to rapidly improve our affinities?”

I shook my head slowly and spoke very deliberately. “No, these formations are not very effective. That’s why we need to use so many of them across such a large area. Even then, gathering enough essence to raise a person’s affinities above seven-star is impractical. So, for our advancements, we will need to rely on the sect’s Trials. These are for something else. This essence will be used to create a new method for generating large amounts of karmic energy.”

While I was speaking at NiangBa, my real audience was whoever might be eavesdropping on us. I wanted to place clear limits on my activities so that no one would feel the need to interfere with them.

Also, importantly, nothing I said was a lie. The formations were only Rank 3, and the materials they used for essence storage were far from ideal. For example, in the metal essence formation, instead of using the extremely potent beryllium oxide, this formation used simple iron oxide.

NiangBa dropped his head, losing much of his interest in the project. “I will see to it, Lord Su.”

During the year leading up to the competition to become the new steward of the Black River Kingdom, dozens of people from my clan made the ascent to Yellow City. However, since only RuLan, the Revered Elders, and I were core disciples, we were the only ones allowed to purchase positions as city stewards before ascending further.

My leadership team had several conversations about sending people to retake the Exam in order to change this, but in the end, we decided that it would be best to hold off until later. Instead, I helped everyone gather the contribution points they needed to purchase enough karmic energy for an initial breakthrough to Martial Lord. I also set up a training center in TongBei to help them learn the skills necessary to ascend the Paths of Dragon Peak.

Then, one month before the stewardship competition was set to begin, I gathered a group of over a dozen new Lords and led them to Profound City via the Path of Soul.

As usual, when we exited, we were teleported away to speak to various elders in private about our new standings within the sect. The elder I spoke to was rather straightforward and said little more than that I would remain a Grade 3 core disciple. For the others, while no one was demoted, they were all told that if they wanted to improve their standings, they would need to visit the Exam to do so.

That would need to happen eventually, but before worrying about the Exam and the fallout it would cause, we first needed to prepare for the upcoming competition.

Each year, two of the sect’s 30 kingdoms would host a contest to choose a new steward. While everyone did their best to prepare for these competitions in advance, their formats varied from year to year, so no one knew exactly what to expect.

For us, though, things were a bit different. Yan had recorded several important bits of information about these contests, and that gave us an edge. However, we had made several significant changes to this timeline, so we couldn’t be certain that everything would play out as Yan had predicted.

‘Predicted’ was the key word here. This was the pretense that the Revered Elders and I maintained with the entire clan, including the leadership council. Yan’s strategy blessing allowed him to make predictions that bordered on miraculous. In time, it would become clear to everyone that something more was going on, but we needed to maintain this pretense as much as possible for anyone who might be watching.

It wasn’t until one week before the competition was set to begin that the rules were officially announced, and we learned that everything would proceed as expected.

The competition was both the simplest and most comprehensive option available. The steward of whichever city was able to generate the most karmic energy over the next six-month period would become the Black River Kingdom’s new steward. We could generate this karmic energy through any means necessary, but anyone who hadn’t spent the majority of their time within the kingdom's borders over the past year was not allowed to interfere.

As soon as this was announced, I set off to Lord Kang’s city with a group of 28 cultivators ranging from Martial Disciple to Martial Lord. Upon our arrival, I immediately leased seven large buildings near the center of the city. This drew the attention of the city’s management, and no doubt Lord Kang himself, but after identifying myself, I was allowed to proceed with my purchase.

Stolen novel; please report.

Getting these seven buildings ready in short order was no easy feat, but the people I had brought with me were all professionals, and with the help of pills, formations, and qi-empowered muscles, we were able to get it all done not long after the competition for the kingdom officially began.

Once everything was ready, I made my way to the city lord’s manor to invite Lord Kang for our grand opening.

When I entered the main hall of the city lord’s manor, Lord Kang was sitting on his throne at the head of a large assembly of officials from cities around the kingdom.

I gave him a martial salute and bowed deeply. “Lord Kang, thank you for seeing me.”

The fingers of his right hand twitched in a flicking motion. “Rise.”

The room fell silent for several moments as Lord Kang carefully inspected me in qi vision. When he was satisfied with whatever he saw, he gave a sharp nod. 𝑅Á𝐍ꝋᛒΕ𝐬

“Lord Su, you have been causing my ministers quite a bit of consternation. It was just announced that we would be competing to produce as much karmic energy in our cities as possible, and you bought out several of my city's largest buildings. Have you finally come to explain yourself?”

I smiled and dipped my head. “Yes, Lord. I have come to personally invite you to tour our facilities so that you may best understand the services we will offer. Also, you may wish to bring your ministers along with us so that they can begin thinking about how to best use these services to boost the karmic energy generation of the city as much as possible.”

Lord Kang narrowed his eyes at me and stroked his chin several times as he thought through his response. Finally, he pounded a fist on his armrest and stood.

“Let’s go. Show me what your Su Clan is capable of.”@@novelbin@@

I led a procession of two dozen officials to the nearest of my seven buildings.

This one was a large four-story complex made from sturdy, old-growth wood. When we had first purchased it, it was rather run-down, but over the previous week, our wood, earth, and metal cultivators had put in countless hours to completely renovate the place and make it look like new.

The outer walls were painted a vibrant red, the eaves were covered in paintings that evoked the feeling of flames, and the roof was decorated with ornaments made from the dull black iron of a well-used pill furnace. A large signboard announcing the building’s name had been placed above its entrance, but for the moment, it was covered by a cloth of golden silk.

As we approached Lord Kang appraised this building carefully.

“Your people have done impressive work. As I said when I visited TongBei, this building wouldn’t look out of place in an imperial capital.”

I bowed my head to him. “Thank you, Lord.”

Once everyone was gathered in front I waved a hand, the silk cloth covering the signboard was removed, and everyone could see the name of this new establishment.

Lord Kang cocked his head to the side as he tried to understand. “The Guild of Alchemists?”

“Yes, Lord. Please, come in. Allow me to show you around.”

In the past, both in the Eight Flower Kingdom and in the Nine Rivers Sect, I had used pill factories to generate karmic energy.

Why? What was the point?

It was because there were a lot of basic pills that many people needed but no one was willing to make. Concocting Perfect Rank 0 Nutrition Pills required a skilled Disciple Alchemist with both a peak nine-star wood affinity and

My pill factories had allowed me to mass produce these low-level pills and provide them to everyone at a price they could afford.

When I was the Lord of North Lake City in Eight Flower, this had provided me with so much karmic energy that I couldn’t even use it all. However, when I later tried to repeat this feat as the steward of NanLu City, I failed. The people of NanLu needed more than basic nutrition. They needed essence. They needed affinities that would allow them to begin to cultivate.

While I had found a way to provide the people of NanLu with the essence they needed, during my time in the Su Clan, I had thought a lot about how to distribute essence more equitably. While preparing for this competition, the solution I settled on was to create a series of guilds, one for each profession, based on the Alchemy Association that I had created during my time as Prince CaoHan’s chancellor in Red Sword City.

As I guided Lord Kang into the inaugural hall of the Black River Kingdom’s Guild of Alchemists, he seemed more confused than anything, so I did my best to explain.

“The system here is a mix between a sect and a merchant house. After joining the guild, alchemists will be able to sell any pills they concoct for either gold or contribution points, and the hall will then sell these pills to the public. We do not have any current plans to limit which pills we will accept, but this may change over time based on demand.”

Lord Kang nodded, but his confusion didn’t abate. “I understand, Lord Su… but what is the point? This city already has more than one pill hall. We don’t need another.”

I smiled and continued the tour.

“Lord Kang, the key is the contribution point system.” I guided him to a series of rooms on the second floor. “These are the Affinity Chambers. By paying a set amount of contribution points, members of the guild will be able to raise any of their basic affinities up to a maximum of peak nine-star.”

This statement caused shock in several of the ministers, but Lord Kang himself was less than impressed.

“I could see how providing a bit of essence to normal people could be beneficial, but for a skilled alchemist? Gaining a new peak nine-star affinity seems… insignificant.”

My smile didn’t fade in the slightest as I led the group back down to the ground floor and toward the back of the building where we had placed the guild’s library.

“The scrolls in this room contain all the knowledge I possess on Rank 1 alchemy. It is freely available to all members of the guild.” I moved to the center of the room, picked up a small white orb, and held it out for the group to inspect. “This is a memory orb. Are you familiar with them? This orb will grant anyone who joins us an understanding of basic alchemy. The knowledge it contains is extremely limited, but it is enough to get a person started. Anyone who wishes to become an alchemist is welcome to come here, learn, earn contribution points, and raise their affinities.”

This finally allowed Lord Kang to fully grasp my intentions.

“You leased seven buildings?”

I nodded. “Alchemy, herbalism, refining, beast taming, formations, talismans, illusions. Seven guilds. Regretfully, I cannot provide dark, light, or wind essence, so the Guild of Illusionists will be rather limited in the services they can provide, but we will do the best we can.”

Finally, one of the mortals who had been following us couldn’t hold himself back any longer.

“Anyone can come here and gain affinities? Anyone can become a cultivator?”

I smiled at him. “Yes.”

Then, I looked at Lord Kang. “As I said before, you may wish to discuss this situation with your ministers. During the six months of the competition, the citizens of this city will have exclusive access to the guilds’ services, but once the competition is over, we plan to rapidly expand across the entire kingdom. I hope that you can fully appreciate what this will mean for you.”