The Undying Immortal System

As the sun rose over the palace complex, HongYi and I finalized our plans for my takeover of the Su Clan. Once we were done, he pulled out a small formation plate and injected a thread of qi into it.

Not ten minutes later, a harried Grand Elder TaiZu ran into the audience hall.

“Father, what’s wr–” When TaiZu noticed me and my team of Grandmasters, he froze. “An… Ancestor…”

I stood there silently as HongYi waved TaiZu forward.

“Child, I have been speaking with the… ancestor, and we have decided to work together.”

TaiZu was nearly shaking as he bowed his head. “I… I understand, father. What do you need of me?”

“Contact the other elders. Either they submit, or they die. After that, we will go through the rest of the clan’s Grandmasters. Once they have all been taken care of, we will talk to your brother.” Coldness glinted in HongYi’s eyes. “We cannot allow anything to go wrong. If he refuses to step down, he will die. In this life, he may curse me, but in the future, he will thank me.”

TaiZu lowered his head. “I… I understand, father. But…”

HongYi's eyes narrowed, scaring TaiZu, but the Grand Elder pushed forward.

HongYi curled his upper lip. “If that is the case, then do what must be done. We cannot allow outsiders to interfere in the Ancestor’s plans.”

I had only met HongYi less than an hour ago, but he had already become one of my most ardent supporters. Why? For the same reason as Emperor Li. He was only a few decades away from death, and after three centuries of life, the thought of giving up without a fight must have been unbearable. So, while I couldn’t exactly trust him, I could trust his desire to survive.

Having only watched up to this point, I took a step forward and held out the oath stone to TaiZu.

“Make all of the Grandmasters swear an Oath of loyalty. Make them swear that for the next five years, they will be loyal to you, Ancestor HongYi, and Ancestor Fang. Only

While I found the idea of forcing people to swear Oaths to be distasteful, this was the only way for our coup to remain hidden. Even then, I wasn’t willing to force undying loyalty onto someone. In five years, we would be strong enough to weather whatever small storms anyone from the Su Clan tried to create for us, so this compromise would allow me to keep the clan safe while also holding onto a piece of my morals.

However, we needed those five years.

I looked at TaiZu with as sharp of an expression as my young body could muster. “As Elder HongYi said, if anyone refuses to swear, they die.”

TaiZu solemnly nodded, and I looked at my team of Grandmasters.

“Go with TaiZu when he visits the clan’s elders. Make sure that no one is able to sound an alarm, and don’t allow anyone to escape. Also…” I looked from my Grandmasters to TaiZu and back again. “Ensure that my orders regarding the Oath are followed precisely. No one is to swear anything other than the single, five-year loyalty Oath. Understood?”

The team of Grandmasters saluted and bowed as one. “Yes, Ancestor.”

---------------------------------------------------

After TaiZu and the Grandmasters departed, I was left alone with HongYi once again.

I gave him a knowing smile. “We should have a bit of time before they are finished. Why don’t you show me around a bit? Why don’t you show me the true purpose of this building?”

HongYi nodded, having expected my request. “Very well, follow me.”

Saying this, he stood from his throne and walked to the door at the rear of the audience hall. Behind it was a stairwell that led down to a basement room that contained nothing but yet another door. This one, however, was locked by a formation.

Before unlocking it, HongYi looked at me.

“You will want to use a qi barrier to protect yourself. The air in the tunnels is filled with small particles of metal, and you do not want to breathe them in.”

I dipped my head to him and did as told.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Once he saw that I was ready, HongYi reached out and opened the door. Strangely, though, I noticed that he hadn’t raised a qi barrier of his own.

As the space beyond came into view, I smelled a familiar stench. It was like the smell of the peat bogs that surround Mount Jiang. It was the smell of rotting plant matter. Unlike Mount Jiang, however, this was an enclosed space, so the scent was far more intense.

Wincing, HongYi did his best to hold his breath as he guided me into the next room and down the spiraling staircase that it contained.

I had suspected what I would find here, and the fact that we were descending a seemingly endless staircase confirmed these suspicions. We were almost certainly headed toward the location of the formation that lay underneath the Su Clan, the earth essence formation. However, while I was more than eager to get a chance to investigate it, the foul odor in the staircase was becoming a bit of a problem. With each step, the smell only became more potent, and I had to activate my qi barrier at full power to defend myself from it as much as possible.

When we were 100 meters below the surface, I called a halt to our descent, reached into my inner world, and pulled out a metal-based spirit fire.

HongYi had warned me about the risk of breathing in metal, but the threat posed by the rotting plant matter in the air was likely nearly as great. By coating myself in a thin layer of this metal-based spirit fire, I would be able to protect myself.

Unfortunately, unlike fire seeds, spirit fires needed an external source of energy. With the limited amount of qi that my body contained as a Martial Disciple, if the toxins in the air continued to increase, it wouldn’t be long before this spirit fire was overwhelmed.

What I really needed was a metal-based spirit fire that would burn matter to create demonic energy. With such a fire, burning away the toxic metal and plant particles in the air wouldn’t consume energy, it would generate it. At the moment, I didn’t have such a fire with me, but a Yellow-Rank one wouldn’t be hard to procure.

Seeing me be so cautious about blocking out any and all contaminants, HongYi shook his head.

“The scent is rather foul, but you do not need to be overly concerned about it. The only danger in the stairwell is that of breathing in metal.” He gestured downward. “Come on. We’re nearly there.”

Once we started walking again, HongYi began giving me a history lesson.

“When I was young, our Su Clan was barely better than a family of commoners. Technically, we might have been considered members of the nobility, but we were both weak and poor. Finding this place, though… Finding this place changed everything.”

He motioned to the walls around us. “At first, I treated this as nothing more than a high-quality mine. Using my skills with earth qi, I harvested as much ore as I could and then traveled to the Rising Sun Empire to sell it. However, that was when things got a bit out of control.”

He looked back at me, and a faint wistfulness appeared on his face. “You see, this is a flerovium mine, a rare metal used in the creation of high-Rank refined weapons. When the people of the Blue Wind Pavilion found out what I was selling, they immediately locked me into an exclusive contract. I would mine the metals, they would buy them, and no one else was to know anything about it. To facilitate this arrangement, they even helped me build Dragon Gate City and established a new branch there.”

I ran my hand along the wall and felt the veins of metal deep inside the rock.

Flerovium was useful for crafting Rank 4 items, and there were a few alloys that were relevant in Rank 5, but that was about it. The metal might be valuable to Artifact Lords, but there were only a handful of them on the entire continent, and they had no need for such large quantities of the metal.

So, was the Blue Wind Pavilion purchasing this metal to ship it off the continent, or was there a deeper game at play? Knowing Emperor Li, the answer was probably both.

Eventually, HongYi and I made it to the base of the stairwell where there was a balcony that allowed us to look out over the vast underground cavern that we found ourselves in.

As expected, at the center of this cavern, I found a grand formation that was composed of four concentric rings, and above this formation, a shimmering light-green fire seed hung suspended in the air.

Thankfully, this cavern was not filled with lava. The entire floor was solid stone, and I would easily be able to simply walk up to the formation if I so desired. However, I refused to take even a single step forward. While this seed was not producing the heat of the Hot Springs Fire, it was pumping out an ominous purple cloud. My paltry spirit fire didn’t even have a chance of blocking such dense poisonous gas.

Seeing my reaction, HongYi cleared his throat. “As long as you remain on the balcony, you will be safe, but if you venture into the miasma, you will almost certainly die. As a Disciple, your qi likely won’t be powerful enough to keep it at bay, and if you approach the formations, your qi will fail you entirely. If that were to happen, not even the strength of a Peak Grandmaster would be enough to save you.”

I nodded, knowing the truth of his statement without even needing to check.

He pointed to a spot near the formation where several cultivation mats had been set up.

“That said, most of our Disciples receive blessings that strengthen their physical bodies. Those whose blessings are strong enough are able to endure the effects of the miasma, at least for a period of time, so we send them down here to cultivate.”

I glance from the formation to HongYi. “And you?”

He smirked. “My blessing makes me immune to all poisons. Both the miasma and the metal particles in the air. I can spend as long as I want down here without worry.”

I nodded. “How high have you been able to raise your earth affinity?”

HongYi’s smirk vanished, and he looked at me in shock. “How did you know…”

He cleared his throat. “Yes… Of course… It is… mid five-star. I might have been able to push it further, but over this last century, I have lost the drive to do so. Without the ability to advance beyond Grandmaster, what’s the point?”

I smiled. “What is the point indeed…”

I turned my focus to the small patch of herbs that were growing around the formation. I was certain that there were Earth Dragon’s Tongue Fruits down there, but I wasn’t sure what else might be available.

“Can you harvest a few of those herbs for me? Really, I just need the seeds. You can keep everything else.”

HongYi gave me a curious look but didn’t comment. He just leaped into the miasma. Only moments later, he returned and presented me with an armful of herbs, and I pulled them onto an empty plot in my inner world where one of our herbalists could try to grow them.

Seeing his harvest vanish before his eyes, HongYi let out a wry chuckle. “I’ve always wanted a storage bag, but I was never allowed to purchase one. They’re outlawed in the Wastes, you know?”

I smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about that. Come on. Let’s go back upstairs. While we wait for the results of our coup, I’ll make one for you.”