Chapter 32 – Life 58, Age 20, Martial Disciple Peak - The Undying Immortal System
I spent three years practicing what I learned from the inner sect disciple. I could have advanced to Martial Master in a short period of time, but the consistency and uniformity of my meridians never felt good enough. I wanted to push for perfection, but I always fell short.
My problem, I finally conceded, was my fire affinity. Low eight-star affinity was simply not high enough for the delicate work I was trying to do. Higher affinity meant more delicate control of qi. I could force fire qi to move much more easily than when I first started cultivating, but even having practiced my qi control for centuries, I still wasn't able to exert the fine control needed for weaving a perfect meridian.
I did have the credits to boost it. Peak nine-star had been sufficient for cultivating as a Disciple. To cultivate to the limit as a Master I might need peak eight-star. I didn't have anywhere near the credits to permanently boost my affinity that high, but I could do a temporary boost. That would raise it for this life, but when I died those credits would just disappear. This felt wasteful, so I avoided doing it.
At this point, I did consider jumping up to Peak Master with a weak foundation to get more credits, but that felt like admitting defeat. Others in this world were able to make progress without relying on a golden finger at every step, so I should also be able to find a path forward.
I believed that, with enough practice, I would be able to step into Martial Master through hard work. It may take several years of practice but advancing to Master granted 100 more years of life. I believed there was no reason for me to rush.
Aside from practicing forming meridians, I spent time creating countless pills for Deacon Ma. He didn't give me any reward for this. Every week he would just hand me a bundle of ingredients and I would hand him the pills I had made over the past week. I didn't mind the lack of reward. I just treated it all as free practice.
I was able to keep a few energy recovery pills for myself each week to speed up my practice, though. I didn't consider them payment, since I had to make the pills myself, but maybe Deacon Ma did? Anyway, they allowed me to use more qi while practicing meridians without needing to wait as long in recovery.
This is how I spent my time. Practicing, making pills, and, of course, studying the people around me.
After three years of this routine, Deacon Ma finally stopped me. "You've just turned twenty, right?"
"Yes, Deacon Ma," I said unsurely. "That should be right."
"The outer sect competition is in five months. You need to advance to Martial Master before then and move up to the outer sect this year. If you don't you will lose a lot of your value to the elder," he said firmly.
"What? Why?"
"You're twenty. After twenty, if a Martial Disciple hasn't advanced to Master, the energy in their body begins to stagnate, wasting their potential. If you haven't advanced by thirty, it will begin to calcify. The older you get, the harder it is to make progress. To be seen as valuable outside, you must reach Master by age twenty and Grandmaster by age forty. Preferably, you will hit Grandmaster before thirty, but that isn't crucial."
"I… I understand. I can advance now, but my foundation will be weak. I am still not able to form perfect meridians."
"Yes, this is a problem the elder has considered. Your affinity is too low. Even if you become a Peak Master, it will be difficult for you to advance to Grandmaster, and even if you did, you would be at a significant disadvantage."
He paused to give me a moment to consider my situation. It wasn't good. It felt like it may have been a waste to raise all my affinities to low eight-star instead of focusing on fire. The other affinities had helped my alchemy but at the cost of my ability to advance my cultivation.
"The elder has decided to give you an opportunity," he finally continued. "A baptism pool is about to be opened that is capable of greatly enhancing the fire affinity of anyone who enters. If someone with a low eight-star affinity were to enter the center of the main pool, they might be boosted to mid or even high seven-star."
"Of course," he said, cutting off any premature dreams, "you will not even be allowed to enter the main pool, let alone the center of it. Inner and outer sect disciples have been competing for placements in the pool for months. You don't qualify. However, the elder has been allocated a spot in a secondary pool, and he has decided to give it to you. The benefits are not nearly so great, but you should still be able to advance one or two steps."
"I hope you understand. The value of this opportunity far exceeds what you have given us so far. You have provided a lot of Rank 1 pills, but even Perfect Rank 1 pills still only have a limited value. This reward is a sign that the elder has recognized your diligence. Be sure to repay him."
I didn't know the value of an opportunity to raise an affinity, but I could guess the deacon wasn't completely wrong about the relative value. Still, it seemed strange for him to mention repayment like this. Was he resentful that I was given the opportunity?
After that meeting, I had to make a decision I had been putting off.
I had wanted to find my path forward without needing to rely on the system at every step. I knew there must be a way forward with hard work, and I wanted to find it. If I had as much time as I wanted, I might be able to do so, but it didn't look like that was possible.
I had no reason to distrust anything Deacon Ma told me. I had experienced firsthand that as I aged, my speed of cultivation would slow significantly. I hadn't realized the starting point of this slowing would be so soon, though. This explained why I had been guided to advance before thirty my first life in the sect. The real deadline being only twenty was surprising, but I could believe it.
So, I needed to advance as soon as possible. A foundation of mud would be no good. It would be just as bad as letting my body calcify. That was no path forward. So, I had to raise my affinity.
Entering the pool to raise my affinity two steps would be great, but it would only put me at high eight-star. If I wanted to be competitive, I needed to go further. Elder Mu said I needed at least a seven-star affinity to be taken seriously. That was my goal.
"System, permanently raise my fire affinity to mid eight-star."
Permanent Mid, 8* Fire Affinity. Confirmed. Cost 2,500 credits. 4,540 credits remaining.
Now, the question was how much would the baptism affect me. I could guess that the higher my starting affinity, the less effect it would have. I didn't like the idea of spending credits for a temporary boost, but if I wanted to make this life count, I needed to make a hard investment. I just needed to reach Grandmaster for it to pay off.
"System, raise my fire affinity for this life to peak eight-star."
Temporary Peak, 8* Fire Affinity. Confirmed. Cost 1,250 credits. 3,290 credits remaining.
"How much to raise it to low or mid seven stars?"
Temporary Low, 7* Fire Affinity would cost 1,000 credits. Mid would cost an extra 2,500.
So, I could only afford a single boost. There were too many unknowns about how this baptism would work for me to be confident.
It was possible that I would be boosted one step regardless. So, purchasing the cheaper upgrade to low seven now would be best.
It was possible this secondary pool could advance me from peak eight to low seven, but not from low seven to mid seven. In this case, purchasing another boost after the pool would be best.
It was even possible I would be boosted two steps now, but only one step if I advanced to low seven. In that case, it would be best to make no purchases at all.
I decided to wait until after the baptism. That would hopefully guarantee me a mid seven-star affinity, and even just a low seven-star affinity would be enough to smoothly advance through Martial Master.
Affinity enhancements complete, I returned to my practice making meridians. This practice went significantly smoother than before. At peak eight-star affinity the qi was easy to command. It would only be a short period of time before I was ready to advance.
It was a month later when Deacon Ma came to take me to be baptized.
"Put this on," he said, handing me a mask. "After you advance to the outer sect, you can be more open about your connection to the elder, but fighting over nominal disciples is fair game. We would rather avoid that. Best no one knows who Elder Mu gave this opportunity to."
After I donned the mask, he led me out of the city. We walked along a forest path. It was exactly the same as when I went to gather the Cold Mountain Fire. The path was perfectly straight, and I saw nothing but trees that twisted as they left my vision.
The path ended at a large forest clearing where a number of people had already gathered. Deacon Ma took me to the side and didn't allow me to approach or be approached by anyone else. I noticed several sky-blue robes of inner sect disciples, but most were wearing robes of a paler shade. Possibly outer sect disciples?
The scene was eerily quiet. I heard no one talking, only the sounds of the forest. With so many people, that seemed impossible, but clearly, there was nothing to hear but the forest. I saw people's mouths move, but… no, just forest sounds.
When the group started moving, Deacon Ma pulled me along. It was hard to tell with the thick cover of trees, but it felt like we were walking away from the mountain. I don't know how long the trek lasted, maybe a few hours, but always we walked in a perfectly straight line.
Finally, we arrived at a cave opening. It looked just like the one that led to the fire seed, but it couldn't be the same one. The distances didn't match.
Several deacons and a few elders stood around the cave. Someone from our group went up to them, but they didn't seem to say anything. After a moment, he gestured for us to enter. Deacon Ma took me inside. While most of the group proceeded forward, he sent me down a small branch path.
"Okay," he said, "go straight from here. When you get to the pool, stay on the outside edge. You are not allowed to go any further, and it will only cause trouble if you try."
I nodded and did as he said.
The cave looked natural and had a generally musty smell to it. However, the further I walked, the more I began to notice a faint sulfurous stench. It wasn't long before I found the pond I was looking for.
A small cavern opened with a pond maybe twenty meters in diameter. A group of young men and women were already sitting in the water, fully clothed. No one even opened their eyes as I moved to join them.
I sat down in the water, staying right at the edge as I had been told. I wasn't sure how this was supposed to raise my affinity, though. Deacon Ma seemed to think I should have just known what to do. As I sat, nothing seemed to happen.
I decided to look at the water through qi sight.
The difference was astounding. Large flecks of red energy floated everywhere in the water. They seemed to bubble up from the very center. The disciples sitting there would then pull as much as they could into their bodies. Only a scarce handful escaped all the way to the edge where I was.
I began to cycle my cultivation technique. This pulled the flecks of energy from the pond into my body. I didn't feel much different, but I had to assume this was how my affinity would be raised.
The process went on for hours. I felt like I was only eating breadcrumbs dropped from the mouths of hungry vultures. I could only hope it would be enough to improve my affinity.
The energy in the pool was not qi. I didn't know what it was. In a way, it was like the medicinal energy in herbs. The red energy in some herbs was some type of fire energy, and my fire affinity could affect it, but it was distinct from fire qi. This was a third form of fire energy.
I didn't know where this energy was coming from or why it could increase affinity, but it did give me a new goal for the future. Once my storage space was large enough, could I store a pool like this inside? Then, upon my rebirth, I would be able to quickly raise my affinities without ever spending credits on them. I wasn't sure about the feasibility of the idea, but it was worth keeping in mind.
Eventually, the fire energy was spent and no more entered the pool. I left the pool and rejoined Deacon Ma. We took our leave from the group, and he led me back to the city. On the trip, I began subvocalizing commands to the System so the deacon couldn't hear me.
"System, how much to upgrade my affinity to low seven-star?"
Calculating… … The cost of that information is… 500 credits.
My steps paused at that response. Deacon Ma looked at me, and I hurried to fall back in step.
"How much to upgrade to mid seven-star?" I asked finally.
The cost of that information is 500 credits.
Why did asking for a price cost credits now? This was the first time I had ever seen that.
I think I understood. When we got back, Deacon Ma would likely test my affinity to see how it changed. The results of that test would affect how he and Elder Mu treated me going forward. If I saw that low seven-star affinity cost zero credits, that would inform my actions between now and being tested. So, the information on cost would, ultimately, affect the actions of a Grandmaster. That is why I had to pay for it.
I needed to shine as much as I could at this point to set up my future as a Grandmaster. The more I was valued, the more resources would be poured into me, taking me further. Did it matter if I couldn't know the price beforehand? I had already invested heavily into this life, and as they say, the best choice is not to do something, but the second-best choice is to not stop.
"System, give me a temporary upgrade to mid seven-star."
Temporary Mid, 7* Fire Affinity. Confirmed. Cost 2,500 credits. 790 credits remaining.
I was now all-in on this life. How far could I get? Martial Grandmaster Peak? Martial Lord? Either would be a huge step forward.
Was jumping from low eight-star to mid seven-star in one go a bit too much? The elder might not be completely sanguine about the large change. Maybe, but in Elder Mu's mind, it should at least justify the importance WuJing put on me.