The Undying Immortal System

As more and more members of my clan advanced to Martial Lord, their quick progress inevitably ground to a halt.

Upon advancing to both Lord and King, I had recorded my memories of the process into blank memory orbs. While these orbs were not nearly as good as those imbued with System-generated memories, they were good enough to allow people to continue cultivating. Everything else, though, was a problem.

Everyone’s profession skills were stuck at Rank 4. With the help of YuLong and JiaQi, a few people had been able to raise their martial skills to Rank 5, high enough to make the trek to Earth City, but at that point, they hit a wall. Not even ShouLi or NiangBa, the two most gifted members of my clan were immune from this.

Simply put, without the help of memory orbs, no one from my clan had the innate talents needed to continue advancing. From this point forward, each step they took would require an unprecedented amount of time and effort.

However, in my mind, this was a good thing.

My goal for this life was not to reach the Summit, and I had no interest in having another meeting with the Sovereigns. My goals were simply to help my clan develop, improve my skills, and plunder the sect of its resources.

Each of these goals would take time to accomplish, so it was good that everything was slowing down a bit.

After entering Earth City, I returned to my life of seclusion and only checked in on the clan once every few months or so to make sure things were progressing smoothly. There were a few people out and about who were looking to rule over cities or complete challenging missions, but for the most part, like me, people were stepping back to spend more time honing their skills.

Everything seemed to be progressing well. Everything seemed to be on track. However, with each year that passed, I was growing more nervous.

It didn’t make me feel worried, and it didn’t make me feel afraid, not exactly. I just felt like… like something important was about to happen. Something… monumental.

This feeling made me want to run away and hide. At least once a year, I considered recalling everyone to my storage space and abandoning this timeline entirely. However, something deep within me, likely the connection to my affinity for karmic energy, told me that running away wouldn’t change anything.

I couldn’t flee. Whatever was going to happen would happen, and moving to a different timeline wouldn’t change that.

So, I just kept pushing forward to try and prepare myself and my clan for whatever awaited us.

My seclusion in Earth City lasted for more than two decades.

During this time, one day was much the same as the next, and I slowly gained a grasp of Rank 5 refining.

Even with my boosted comprehension, the idea of mastering everything there was to know about refining was a daunting prospect. Typically, like formation specialists, refiners would choose a single topic of study and focus their attention there. Only a blessed refiner like LiTing would even consider mastering everything. Given enough time, I should be able to learn everything I needed to know about refining, but for the moment, my focus was on memory orbs, and I only worried about mastering the skills relevant to their creation.

Limiting my focus in this way helped me learn the necessary skills, and I was confident that in only a few more decades, I would be able to supply myself with an endless supply of orbs.

Without access to Rank 4 beasts, my study of beast alchemy was put on hold, so instead, I filled my free time with the study of my notes on the formations that I had found underneath the Rosehill Hot Springs. It was clear to me that what I had seen was only a small piece of a much larger grand formation, and even then, I had only been able to record a small portion of the piece that I had seen. Still, my experiments were generating interesting results, and I was eager for a chance to go back to the Wastes and study these formations in more detail.@@novelbin@@

I was happy with the progress I was making, but there was still a long way to go.

Eventually, I would need to ascend to Emperor, and at that point, I would have a lot of work to do to further master alchemy, formations, and refining. I expected my seclusion to continue for decades, but unfortunately, it was unexpectedly interrupted.

Not long after turning 56 years old, I felt a slight shudder in my soul. While I had never experienced anything like this before, it didn’t take me long to figure out the cause.

The growth of my storage space had suddenly come to a halt.

It was still surrounded by the flames of the Expanding Realms Fire, and the formation in my soul was still supplying the fire seed with copious amounts of energy, but the space wasn’t getting any bigger.

I didn’t know what was going on.

In the past, I had purchased mastery of the Expanding Realms Fire, but nothing that I had learned from that purchase even hinted that the fire might suddenly stop working.

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I mentally took hold of the flames of the fire seed and directed them at specific spots along the space’s exterior in an attempt to concentrate the flames’ effects, but still, nothing happened.

At a loss for how to proceed, there was only one place I could turn to for answers.

“System, why has my storage space stopped growing?”

The cost of this information is not possible to calculate at this time.

I wanted to curse, but I knew that it wouldn’t do any good. Instead, I went to my cultivation chamber and sat down to think.

“Okay, System, I don’t need a full explanation for what’s going on. Just tell me the basics. Why has my storage space stopped growing?”

Cost 1,000 credits. Discounted cost 500 credits.

That was a suspiciously low price, but it would at least make use of that 1,000 credits discount I had earned a while back.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 30,217,883,269 credits remaining.

Host’s storage space has reached the maximum size of one cubic kilometer.

“System for the rest of this conversation, automatically purchase the best answer to each of my questions with a cost of 100,000 credits or less.”

Confirmed.

“Why is my storage space limited to one cubic kilometer? That seems somewhat arbitrary.”

The original design of host’s storage space was measured in meters.

I waited a bit, but nothing more was forthcoming.

While this answer didn’t exactly satisfy me, it did suggest a deeper truth. This limit of one cubic kilometer might not be the result of some universal law. If I had originally defined the space in terms of feet and inches, the maximum size limit might have instead been a cubic mile.

Still, at the moment, there was no reason to focus on units of measurement.

“Why does my storage space have a maximum size limit? It was supposed to be able to grow continuously.”

Calculating… No such limit exists.

My cheek twitched.

“Then why has the space stopped growing?”

Host’s storage space has reached the maximum size of one cubic kilometer.

I took a deep breath.

“Alright, let’s try this from a different direction. How can I continue to grow my storage space?”

Calculating… Change the spirit fire you are using.

I nodded slowly.

“So, the problem is that the spatial fire seed I am using is only Profound-Rank? To grow the space further, I need a more powerful flame?”

Calculating… Unable to process query. Cost of answer exceeds maximum specified price.

“Is it possible to increase the size of my storage space with the Profound-Rank Expanding Realms Fire?”

Unable to process query.

“How much would I be able to expand the space using an Earth-Rank spatial fire seed?”

Unable to process query.

“Is there any way to continue growing my storage space with the fire seeds that I currently possess?”

Unable to process query.

“Increase the budget to 100 million credits. With this larger budget, can you provide me with an answer to any of these questions?”

No.

“Fine. Conversation over.”

Cost 1,200,525 credits. Discounted cost 600,263 credits. 30,217,283,006 credits remaining.

If I needed to find an Earth-Rank spatial fire seed to continue growing my storage space, my dream of creating an independent world was doomed to failure.

Even if I could find such a seed, it was bound to have limitations as well. How large of a space would it be able to create? 10 cubic kilometers? 100? More importantly, did such a seed even exist? Even if it did, what were the chances that I would be able to get my hands on it?

I had hoped to be able to create a space large enough to store multiple empires. Now, it was beginning to look like I would be lucky if it could store a single city.

Still, complaining about this wouldn’t get me anywhere. Even without a spirit fire to help me, I would still be able to use the System to expand the space further. It would be expensive, but it was possible.

I took a deep breath to regain my focus.

My storage space was now a cylinder with a height of 500 meters and a volume of one cubic kilometer. That gave it a radius of nearly 800 meters and a cross-sectional area of two million square meters. It wasn’t huge, but it was enough.

After my clan left the space to go live in TongBei, I had started neglecting it. Looking at it now, I couldn’t help but wince.

In the center of the space was a gaping hole where I had planned to store Mount Jiang. Surrounding this hole was a 150-meter-wide ring of land that I had stolen from the Flowing Mountain sect. Beyond this ring, there was a nearly 400-meter-wide ring of emptiness where the space had continued to expand.

While the clan was living in the space, they had done their best to make the land I had provided them as livable as possible, but after decades without light, water, or nutrients, all of the vegetation died off, and little remained other than barren soil.

All told, it was a rather depressing sight, but it was one I could fix.

A small smile crept on my face.

The Expanding Realms Fire wasn’t doing anything anymore, so I could replace it.

The biggest problem my storage space faced was a lack of energy. There was no qi to cultivate, and all of its formations had to be powered by spirit stones. Now, I could finally work on fixing that.

Instead of using the Expanding Realms Fire to increase the size of my storage space, I could replace it with one that would supply the space with endless amounts of qi.

What element should I start with?

In the end, it wouldn’t matter too much. As long as the space had energy, other spirit fires could be used to convert it into different forms, but that didn’t mean I should take this choice lightly. Sending endless streams of fire qi into the space, for example, would make it uninhabitable.

After long moments of thought, I decided to go with earth qi since most of the members of my clan were earth cultivators. Also, earth’s position on the wuxing cycle of creation made it an ideal choice. I could slowly cycle through earth, metal, water, wood, and then fire qi.

With this choice made, exerted my will on the seed of the Expanding Realms Fire and moved it into a jade box in my storage space. Then, I pulled out the seed of the Solid Mountain Fire, a Profound-Rank fire seed that I had obtained during our first visit to Heaven City.

Solid Mountain Fire, Profound-Rank, Elements: Earth, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Earth Qi

With an exertion of will, I absorbed the fire seed.

The moment it entered my soul, the seed exploded in a gout of energy. A wave of flames assaulted me. The energy of the fire seed wanted to break free from its confines and consume my body, but using my King-level will-lock, I kept it contained.

Finally, once the seed was stable, I moved it onto the plinth that sat at the center of my soul.

This caused the Qi Gathering Formation inscribed into the plinth to activate once more.

As energy poured into the fire seed, the seed, in turn, poured pure earth qi into my storage space.

Seeing this, I began to nod in satisfaction, but after only a moment, I froze.

The slight nervousness that had existed in the back of my mind for decades had suddenly increased by several orders of magnitude.

Something had changed.