The Undying Immortal System

With my newfound understanding of karmic energy, I had ShouLi alter our pricing structure for buying the energy needed to advance to Martial Lord.

We lowered the cost of purchasing a stint as a nominal city lord substantially. However, each year, I would visit the current acting lord and harvest all of the energy generated by members of the Su Clan and half of the energy generated by everyone else. Leaving them with only about a third of the energy they had initially gathered.

I kept the energy generated by the Su Clan for myself, and the rest was sold off at a slight markup. Because of this, if anyone was using the rotation of our city lords to judge how many Martial Lords we had, they would end up severely underestimating us.

After I reached Peak Lord, any further Su Clan energy could also be sold off, though at a rather steep markup. Was using such energy when advancing as a Ruler beneficial? Maybe not, but I wanted to use it just in case, and I was pretty sure that many people in my clan would feel the same way.

With this new structure in place, I returned to my study of Laws and cultivation techniques.

Before long, the nine new cities surrounding Dragon Gate were fully operational. While their defenses might not have been impenetrable, they were at the limit of what our Formation Lords could accomplish with the somewhat sparse qi of the Wastes.

Additionally, the bones of 10 more cities had been constructed around Rosehill, and 10 more had been started around Mount Jiang. Before these cities could generate any karmic energy, we would need to increase their populations substantially. However, with the defenses we had in place, our flanks were secure.

We were ready to unlock the next section of the Wastes.

The primary danger in the cavern underneath the Rosehill Hot Springs was the immense heat generated by its spirit fire. Without access to qi, the only people who would be able to withstand the temperatures down there were Rank 3 body cultivators. However, if we wanted to break the outer ring of the cavern's formation, we would need to be a bit more selective with who we sent.

To break the formation underneath the Su Clan, we had needed to destroy five white gems. These gems had been infused with metal energy, making them incredibly sturdy. So, to damage them, we had first needed to infuse them with fire wu.

While I had only seen the Rosehill formation a single time, I was certain that the key to breaking it would be shattering five dark blue gems around its perimeter. And before these gems could be shattered, they would likely need to be infused with earth wu.

Therefore, we needed to send an earth cultivator.

However, the fact that the formation was surrounded by a lake of lava made me worried that something might go wrong, so we sent a team of five Peak Rank 3 earth body cultivators just to be safe. Working together, they would be able to shatter all five gems at once and, hopefully, escape before anything bad happened.

After sending this team on its mission, I joined a group of Martial Lords and waited at the border between Dragon Gate City and the Rosehill Hot Springs.

The wait was interminable.

Hours passed one after the other.

It wasn't until sixteen hours after the team of earth cultivators had set out that a powerful earthquake rocked the Wastes. When this earthquake subsided, a brilliant shimmer appeared in the air, high above Rosehill.

However, this shimmer only lasted for a moment.

Once it was gone, the group of Lords I was with looked around at each other.

A younger man nodded silently, took a deep breath, and cautiously walked toward Rosehill with both hands extended.

At first, he slowed down with each step, but after passing the 10-meter mark without obstruction, he began to speed up.

As soon as it was clear that we would be able to enter Rosehill's territory, he turned around and waved.

Then, all of the body cultivators among our ranks raced forward at a blistering pace, eager to begin enhancing the territory's defenses before outsiders took the opportunity to invade.

I was in an even greater hurry than these body cultivators, but as I had yet to spend much time on body cultivation, if I wanted to travel at the swiftest possible speed, I was relegated to using a carriage.

Still, I needed to hurry. If I didn't, I would miss an important meeting with an old acquaintance. Opening up Rosehill had taken longer than I had hoped, and I was almost out of time.

As I approached the western edge of the Wastes, I carefully scanned my surroundings for any sign that I was being watched.

Twice, I noticed a small anomaly in the flow of environmental qi that caused me to take a detour. While these anomalies might have been nothing, with Emperors and Sovereigns in play, I didn't want to take any chances.

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Finally, I reached a prearranged meeting spot at the edge of the Wastes.

When I was only a step away from losing the protection of the Wastes' formation, a black portal suddenly appeared in front of me.

The first person to walk out of this portal was RuLan.

Upon seeing me, she cupped her fists in a martial salute. "Greeting, Senior Brother."

While RuLan appeared normal enough, I could sense a deep sadness hidden beneath her cheery façade.

Understanding the seriousness of the situation, I saluted her back. "Greetings, Junior Sister."

Then, she stepped to the side, and a decaying old man walked out of the portal. His elegant blue robes looked two sizes too big, and his skin hung loosely from his bones. However, his body was still filled with an indescribable aura of power.

Upon seeing me, he snorted. "You finally decided to make your appearance, you unfilial disciple."

I cupped my fists and bowed to him. "Greetings, Emperor Li."

He waved a dismissive hand. "We don't have much time. Send RuLan away before she's noticed."

I moved to do as he said, but before I could, RuLan held up a hand to stop me.

She turned and gave Emperor Li a deep bow. "Thank you for your training, Master. I will do my best to make you proud."

As she stood back upright, tears flowed down her face.

Emperor Li just grunted. "Don't cry, girl. We'll see each other again. Though, at that time, I might be the one saying goodbye to you. Spend these years well. Live them without regret."

She bowed again. "Yes, Master."

Seeing their conversation was at an end, I flicked a finger and sent RuLan into my inner world.

The grandfatherly look on Emperor Li's face vanished, and a predatory glint appeared in his eyes. He looked me up and down, appraising me.

"So, you're finally ready to become a Sovereign."

I nodded silently.

Emperor Li smirked. "Good. With any luck, I might finally get to leave this wretched place."

Li looked up and stared into the distance. Then, he turned and looked me in the eye.

"Our time is almost up. You don't need to worry about the breakthrough to King. No one is going to send their Lords into this deathtrap. Once the Wastes is open to Emperors, though, you will need to be more careful. As for the final breakthrough to Sovereign, make sure that you are fully prepared. The moment after you advance, they will come for you."

Without waiting for me to respond, Emperor Li walked back through his portal.

Worried that someone might be on their way, I turned around and fled deeper into the Wastes at the fastest possible speed.

Taking Emperor Li's words to heart, I talked to ShouLi about accelerating our plans.

To unlock the next section of the formation, we would need Peak Rank 4 body cultivators. Having been trapped within my inner world for over two decades, ShouLi had been unable to advance her cultivation base, so, instead, she had spent every spare minute trying to understand what would need to be done to advance to Rank 4 of body cultivation.

While her research wasn't exactly complete, it was complete enough for her to attempt a breakthrough.

So, without informing anyone of our plans, I slipped out of the Wastes and snuck into a small village along its northern border. Once I was hidden inside someone's rundown barn, I set up an anti-eavesdropping formation and pulled out ShouLi, Liang, and a couple other body cultivators.

As everyone was already aware of our purpose here, Liang and the others formed a semicircle around ShouLi without needing me to prompt them.

I walked up to ShouLi and placed a hand on her abdomen. "Relax your mind."

Then, I pushed all my stored-up Su Clan karmic energy into her dantian.

ShouLi took a deep breath and sat down in the lotus position.

She looked at me, and I handed her a storage bag.

Opening it, she pulled out a hunk of raw meat from a Rank 4 demon beast.

After a shiver of disgust, she started eating.

With each bite, she pulled a thread of karmic energy from her core and infused it into the meat.

When the meat reached her stomach, her blessing extracted the combination of wu and karmic energy and infused it into her skin.

ShouLi then directed this energy into her tendons, her bones, and finally, into her muscles.

This process continued, one bite after another.

After eating nearly three kilos of raw meat, something within ShouLi snapped. Her muscles rippled violently, and black oil oozed out of her pores.

She turned to look up at Liang, but before she could, her body froze in shock as an enlightenment poured into her.

Finally, she slumped to the ground.

After a nod of satisfaction, I sent everyone back into my inner world, dismantled the formation, and headed back into the Wastes.

While creating an entirely new cultivation technique was difficult, ShouLi had benefited greatly from the assistance of her blessing. It had been able to extract the energy of the raw beast meat and convert it into an ideal power source for her advancement.

Taking her technique and transforming it into something that was usable by the entire clan, however, was a different challenge entirely.

The key to making her technique work had been a realization that when a demon beast died, the karmic energy in its body evaporated while the demonic energy remained behind. By infusing the raw meat with new energy, ShouLi had, essentially, used a shortcut to create a proper blend of demonic and karmic energy that her body could then absorb.

This was why she had needed to eat the meat raw. Cooking it would have disrupted the demonic energy, causing the infusion process to fail.

However, without ShouLi's blessing, none of this would have worked. Trace amounts of incompatible demonic energy in the beast meat would act as potent impurities, poisoning anyone else who tried this. Additionally, small-scale tests prove that absorbing karmic energy from meat was far more difficult than ShouLi made it look. Without a proper cultivation technique, it was, essentially, impossible.

That said, for every problem, there is a solution.

I was of the belief that there had to be a way to reach Rank 4 of body cultivation without relying on beast meat, but as it was, such a method would take several more decades to develop. So, instead, our clan focused on raising beasts within enclosures that had been flooded with only a single type of wu. This negatively impacted their growth, but it made it impossible for them to absorb impurities.

As this was one of the first initiatives ShouLi set up after our takeover of the Su Clan, several beasts had already reached Rank 3 and were nearly ready for harvest.

In contrast, creating a cultivation technique that would allow a person to draw karmic energy from meat was far more challenging. But with the enlightenment she had received, ShouLi was able to piece together what needed to be done.

So, five years after ShouLi's initial breakthrough, we returned to that abandoned barn, and Liang became the second person in our clan to advance to Rank 4 in body cultivation.

With that, it was only a matter of time before we would be ready to take down the next ring of Dragon Gate City's formation and allow people to advance to King.