The Undying Immortal System

Each year, the nervousness in my soul grew, but as time passed, it became little more than a constant droning in the back of my mind. Something was going to happen, but I didn’t know when, and there was nothing I could do about it, so I did my best to put the warning from my karmic energy affinity aside while I continued with my work.

Still, I couldn’t ignore this feeling entirely. I needed to be prepared, and that meant I had to make a few choices I otherwise wouldn’t have.

The first was the choice to ascend to Martial Emperor earlier than I had planned. I had wanted to spend a few decades as a Peak King to practice my professions without the natural advantages that came with being an Emperor, but with an invisible sword dangling over my head, I felt that it was better to push into Rank 6 as soon as possible.

With all the contribution points I had amassed from completing alchemy missions for the Fire Peak over the years, purchasing the karmic energy I needed was simple enough. So, after a quick visit to Dragon Peak, I entered seclusion and prepared for my advancement.

As the Rank 6 cultivation technique I had acquired from Emperor Shen in a past life was rather simple, I expected this advancement to be straightforward, but with all the changes I had made to the design of my core, it was far trickier than I had imagined.

When I had advanced to Lord, I had set aside the tried and tested cultivation techniques and instead created something new, a core with a lace-like lattice structure.

The creation of this core had been guided by my understanding of refining and my sense of how the karmic energy ‘wanted’ to be structured. When I had advanced to King, I infused this core with King-level karma and then built upon it, creating a secondary lattice surrounding the first.

As I was preparing for the ascent to Emperor, I was expecting that I would need to do something similar, but when I looked at my core and tried to work out how to best utilize the Emperor-level energy that I had just bought, I was at somewhat of a loss.

Unlike Lord- and King-level energy, Emperor-level energy seemed beyond my ken. This might have been because I only had a five-star affinity for karmic energy, or it might have been because my understanding of refining was too limited. Either way, the result was the same. I would have to find a path forward without fully understanding what I was doing.

After considering a few options, I began by infusing the inner lattice with Emperor-level energy. When I had done this with King-level energy, the lattice hadn’t changed shape. It had simply gotten stronger. This time, though, aside from simply infusing and enhancing the existing framework, I ended up forming a slight crust around its lace-like structure, narrowing the gaps between its strands of energy. Upon seeing this, I knew that I had made a mistake, but it wasn’t one I could undo. I could only keep moving forward.

Once the inner lattice was strengthened, I moved on and performed a similar operation to the outer lattice, the one that had been made of pure King-level energy. When this looked good, I then did my best to complete the lattice pattern by creating a third structure that fully encapsulated the previous two.

In the end, the ball of karmic energy that I created was rather ugly, and I had used far more energy than I had planned on, but it was fine. I still had enough left to complete my breakthrough.

After a brief rest, I pumped my core full of qi, created a hole in the world, and shattered the chains holding me back from advancing to Emperor.

As soon as this was done, I recorded the entire process into a memory orb. While I was certain that the technique I had used was far from ideal, it would hopefully be enough to allow at least a few people from my clan to ascend.

After my breakthrough, I headed over to visit Bao and SuYin. The bedrock of my storage space was in place, and I was ready to get to work on the subsoil and topsoil.

When I arrived, SuYin laid out several drawings on the table for me to review.

“Master, the area you’ve given us to work with is rather small, but we’ve done the best we could.” She gestured to a large circular map. “With only two square kilometers to work with, creating a diverse set of biomes will be difficult, but after talking with Mo and GuiMing, we decided to rely on a Bagua Formation to keep everything in balance.”

Looking at SuYin’s map, I was reminded of my time in the Eight Flower Kingdom.

SuYin explained. “The north will be for water-focused herbs, and circling around clockwise, there will be regions for metal, lightning, wind, fire, earth, dark, and light herbs. Wood energy will be concentrated in the center and radiate out from there.”

I nodded, but I was slightly concerned. “I was planning to construct a tall mountain in the center to serve as our living quarters.”

SuYin smiled. “You were looking at using Mount Jiang, right? It is made from an unusual form of blueschist with strong water properties. The water in the stone will help nurture the wood energy of the formation. It won’t be a problem.”

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Bao reached over and spread out several diagrams detailing various soil profiles.

“Master, as long as herbs are provided with the correct balance of energies, they will almost always be able to grow strong and healthy. However, from my experiments, I have found that certain combinations of soil and nutrients can be beneficial to different types of herbs. These are the soil combinations that worked best for me, but I don’t know where you will be able to find them in large quantities. When I was testing them, I had to make each combination personally.”

I nodded and accepted his schematics. “This will work. Is there anything I need to be careful of?”

SuYin shook her head. “No, but don’t try to grow anything until everything is in place.”

After saying goodbye to my disciples, I hunkered down in my cultivation chamber and thought through their designs.

Using the Bagua Formation was an interesting idea, but would it work? My storage space was being flooded with earth qi, but it was almost entirely bereft of other forms of energy. I could try to use a combination of spirit fires to force the issue, but I didn’t see that happening. SuYin’s and Bao’s ideas would need to wait for some unknown future date. 𝐫ἁＮỔΒĚṩ

However, within the bulk of the information that he had given me, Bao had provided me with an ideal short-term solution.

I pulled out the soil schematic for the earth-aligned areas. It had a detailed list of ratios for clay, sand, silt, and other component materials, but as Bao had said, finding a source of soil with this exact composition would be a daunting task.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to do that.

First, I went out and grabbed some large granite boulders to block out the area in the center of the space where I planned to erect a mountain in the future. Then, I made my purchase.

“System, use these diagrams for an earth-aligned soil composition, and fill in 70 meters of soil on top of the bedrock that has already been laid.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 24,600 credits. Discounted cost 12,300 credits. 21,647,270,706 credits remaining.

That was a bit expensive for nothing but mundane dirt, considering the quantities involved, I considered it fair.

Looking into my storage space, I smiled.

The inside now looked like a large, flat disk. There were 80 meters of layered bedrock, 50 meters of large broken stones with sand and gravel filling the gaps between them, 20 meters of subsoil, and a thin layer of topsoil. At the center of the space was a massive, gaping hole, and around its edge was a 100-meter-tall wall.

The only thing that looked slightly off was that the entire area was completely flat. There were no hills or valleys, and there were no signs of streams or irrigation. For now, though, this was fine. Once people moved in, we could look at arranging things in a way that made more sense.

With the space’s land taken care of, I went and visited Yan and Meng LuYao.@@novelbin@@

After ensuring we were free of eavesdroppers, I used spirit stones to activate the old sky formation embedded into the space ceiling and pulled the two of them inside to take a look around.

As they walked alone in a space entirely devoid of life, LuYao and Yan both started looking uncomfortable.

I pulled out a piece of paper, wrote down a note, and sent it inside.

Say anything you want. No one can spy on you while you are inside.

LuYao nodded thoughtfully, but Yan just snorted in amusement.

Ignoring him, LuYao spun in a 360-degree circle and looked around in every direction.

“This place is just… wrong. I didn’t remember it being this bad. I guess in the past there were people, buildings, plants, and animals masking it, but now… It’s just… wrong.”

Yan nodded and pointed around at the walls. “That’s part of the problem. We’re surrounded by towering gray stone walls. That would be fine. It doesn’t feel much different from being inside a walled city. But above the stone walls is that unnatural dark gray void. With the illusion formation active, the ‘sky’ is bright blue, but it fades to that dark gray in every direction. It’s like we’re in perpetual twilight.”

LuYao quirked her lips to the side and looked up thoughtfully. “What about the sun? Suns? Just an array of bright lights… We have to fix that. The place needs a single proper sun.”

Yan tilted his head to the side and stroked his chin in thought.

“Maybe? Why not… This place is going to feel strange no matter what we do. We should lean into that. Make it feel… special.”

The two continued walking for several more minutes and eventually ended up standing at the edge of the large hole in the center of the space.

LuYao’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Fang, what is this?”

When our clan was in the Wastes, we lived on a mountain, Mount Jiang. I originally wanted to pull it in here and take it with us, but we left in too much of a hurry, and I had to leave it behind. Now, as a Ruler, I can’t go back and get it, but I will someday.

LuYao tapped this note in thought.

“I’m assuming your mountain will be taller than those stone walls? Someone at the top should be about to look out at the landscape beyond?” She looked at Yan. “That’s… going to be difficult.”

With a fresh perspective on the task that they were up against, LuYao and Yan left to discuss their options. Meanwhile, I headed to TongBei to meet with GuiMing and GuiAi.

Nearly all of our clan’s Grandmasters and Rulers were focused on their own personal development and completing missions for the sect. This left the mortals, youths, and low-level members of our clan somewhat adrift.

GuiMing and GuiAi had originally planned to step back from leadership positions several years ago, but seeing the state of things, they had stepped up to help guide the younger generation when no one else would. This made them the unofficial leaders of the portion of our clan that had not yet joined the sect.

As soon as I arrived in TongBei, they greeted me and tried to pull me into a warded room for a private discussion, but knowing that such rooms were being monitored, I waved this away and took them out to look around the city.

“Ming, Ai, I want to start pulling people back into the world orb. It’s likely that people still won’t be able to cultivate in there, but the mortals and young children need to be sent back in.”

GuiAi looked worried. “Ances… Lord Su, shouldn’t we talk about this somewhere more…”

She waved an arm around helplessly.

“No, don’t worry. I’m monitoring things. We’re safe.”

She dipped her head, but her worried look lingered.

GuiMing stepped in to take over for her. “Ancestor, if we send the youths into the world orb, what about their parents? If they can’t cultivate in there…”

I let out a sigh. “I know. Also, the orb isn’t exactly a great place to live. I’m working on it, and it’s getting better, but there’s still a long way to go. Still…”

I looked off into the distance. “Something is coming. I don’t know when. It’s not imminent, not soon, but it’s coming. I don’t like everyone being so spread out. We need… Anyone who is willing to live in the world orb is invited to do so. Give people incentives if you need to. Just… Don’t force anyone, but gather as many people as you can, alright?”

GuiMing and GuiAi looked at each other uneasily and then bowed their heads. “Yes, Ancestor.”