Chapter 309 – Life 76, Age 72, Martial King Peak

After ShouLi advanced to Rank 5 of body cultivation, it wasn’t long before others began racing to join her.

The first hurdle that needed to be overcome was adapting ShouLi’s Rank 5 technique so that someone without her blessing would be able to use it. In the past, this had been a challenge, but with the experience that our body cultivators had in modifying her previous techniques, it was rather straightforward.

In only a few years, this task was complete, and we just needed to wait for the clan to accumulate a sufficient amount of King-level karmic energy. Unfortunately, as each level of Rank 5 body cultivation involved consuming a Rank 5 demon beast, the amount of karmic energy needed for this was substantial.

That said, accumulating a large amount of King-level energy to pour into our body cultivators wasn’t as challenging as it might have been.

Most of the sects and several of the guilds were now producing King-level energy. In total, we were generating enough of the stuff that, if concentrated, we could raise one or two people all the way from Peak Lord to Peak King every year.

At the same time, after an initial surge, the demand for King-level energy for regular, energy cultivation was beginning to drop off since most of our people lacked the talents and affinities required for high-level cultivation.

In the lower Ranks, we had gotten around this through the use of Essence Gathering Formations and memories orbs. For Rank 5, however, that wasn’t going to work. I had never heard anyone even suggest that karmic essence might exist, and paying the System to imbue even a single jade slip with the details of just one Rank 5 cultivation technique would cost a trillion credits.

I was still able to pass out orbs containing my personal memories, but these were far less effective than System-produced orbs. Worse, I could only imbue memories related to the Core of Fellowship, and that was far too complicated for most people to create. Therefore, nearly everyone was forced to learn their Rank 5 techniques through books and scrolls, and since most of our people only had a mediocre level of talent for cultivation, this was a lengthy process.

All in all, this meant that with each year that passed, the rate at which our Martial Kings consumed karmic energy slowly decreased.

Surprisingly, though, the speed at which our body cultivators were consuming energy was increasing.

No one in the first group of body cultivators to reach Peak Rank 4 faced any difficulties when breaking through to Rank 5. And after they did break through, the only thing that stopped them from directly advancing to the Peak of Rank 5 was our lack of King-level energy and Rank 5 demon beasts.

Even beyond this first group, most of our people found that advancing as a body cultivator was surprisingly easy. Unlike energy cultivation, body cultivation just… made sense to them.

Why? Was body cultivation simply easier? This was possible, but it seemed unlikely.

ShouLi, Liang, and others had needed to develop an entirely new cultivation system from scratch.

When I first met Liang, he hadn’t even been able to so much as understand a single word in a Rank 1 Low-Yellow cultivation technique. With the help of memory orbs, a bounty of essence, and a System-purchased improvement to his cultivation talent, he had been able to advance to Martial Emperor, but it had been a struggle. How had such a boy been able to advance to Rank 5 of body cultivation so easily?

Most of the people in the Su Clan, Liang included, had never been able to understand what their blessings did. For the most part, they were treated as never having been blessed at all.

What if their blessings were a boost to their comprehension of body cultivation?

Knowing what I did about the Earthly Dao, this wouldn’t surprise me. I had known for a while now that it was playing a rather deep game.

Still, whether this was all a part of the Earthly Dao’s plans or not, it wouldn’t change what I needed to do. If I wanted to reach Martial Sovereign without selling my soul to a group of evil cultivators, I could only keep pressing forward.

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Once TongBin achieved Peak Rank 5 of fire body cultivation, I took him back down to the cavern beneath Dragon Gate, and he destroyed the third ring of the formation.

Like always, this caused a minor earthquake. When it was over, we returned to the surface and headed to the elders’ meeting hall in the back of the Su Clan’s palace complex. Once there, I pulled ShouLi and the rest of the leadership council out of my inner world.

I smiled at everyone. “How does it feel to finally be free?”

NiangBa gave an exaggerated sigh. “Ancestor, please, don’t do that to us again. I know that you were only trying to protect us, but six decades…”

Off to the side, GuiMing grunted. “At least you got to go out on trips to harvest essence.”

GuiAi slapped him on the back of the head. “At least you’re an earth cultivator. You don’t know what it was like in there for the rest of us. Six decades without even being able to replenish our qi…”

ShouLi waved a hand. “We can talk about this later. Right now, we need to discuss the situation in front of us.”

Nodding in agreement, everyone took their seat.

ShouLi cleared her throat. “For now, only Dragon Gate is open to us. If you try to go beyond the kingdom’s boundaries, the formation covering the Wastes will stop you. After a long discussion with the Ancestor, we’ve decided it needs to remain this way, at least for now.

GuiMing winced as if he had been struck. “How long?”

ShouLi shook her head. “I don’t know. Decades, possibly longer.”

This caused several people to grimace, so ShouLi gestured for me to explain.

“We have two problems: the Sovereign Clans and the Nine Rivers Sect. Until we erase the final ring, the Sovereigns themselves shouldn’t pose much of a threat, but we don’t know how powerful the clans under their control might be. More importantly, we do know that the Nine Rivers Sect’s Earth City is home to hundreds of Emperors and tens of thousands of Kings. Nearly all of them are old men and women who have had centuries to master their skills. If the sect releases a mission to attack us, we will quickly be overwhelmed.”

This statement made the elderly mortal councilwoman next to GuiAi knead her hands in worry. “Ancestor… you’ve… taken down our protections against Kings, right? What if they don’t wait? What if they invade now?”

I shook my head. “It’s possible, but it’s unlikely. If they were going to strike, they would have done so the moment we broke the formation in the Twin Mountains Sect. Since they haven’t done so, they are likely waiting for us to open the Wastes to Emperors. Though, they might even wait until the formation is down entirely.”

What I didn’t say was that this was my interpretation of Emperor Li’s message to me. By breaking the third ring of Dragon Gate’s formation, I could ascend to Peak Emperor. Now, we needed to bide our time and build our strength before proceeding any further.

I looked at Mo. “I want the entirety of Dragon Gate Kingdom surrounded in Rank 6 formations. With the low qi density in the Wastes, providing power to such a formation will be difficult, so we also need to look into creating some form of large-scale qi storage. In the interim, we can rely on spirit stones.”

I turned to Liang. “Over the last few decades, we’ve been pulling in everyone we can from everywhere on the continent. The sects are likely teeming with spies and traitors. Don’t rush to purge them, but we will need enforcers capable of taking people down before they can cause any trouble.”

I look at GuiAi and GuiMing. “Now that everyone can leave the world orb, I’m going to look at doing a bit of remodeling in there. However, this time, I don’t want us to abandon it. I plan to add some additional new territory on the outside of the wall, and we can move all our farming activities out there. I want to turn the area inside of the wall into a true city. If possible, I want Chang’an to house enough people that it can start generating karmic energy.”

“Ancestor…” GuiAi looked like she wanted to weep. The thought of housing over a hundred thousand people within a space of only two square kilometers was nearly too much for her to bear.

I waved away her concern. “Just see what’s feasible. A true city is the goal, but if that’s not possible without more space, then it’s not possible.”

After this, we talked through a few smaller objectives, but the main point of them was the same. We needed to find new ways to increase our strength. For ShouLi and NiangBa, this meant improving the body cultivation techniques. For GuiAi and GuiMing, it meant increasing the rate at which we generated karmic energy. For Mo and RuLan, it meant crafting more Rank 6 items. For me, it meant increasing my personal strength so that I would be able to stand against the Sovereigns.

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Once this meeting was over, I secluded myself away in a remote corner of the Su Clan’s Hall of Ancestral Worship and faded from public view.

I was certain that as soon as the final rings of the Wastes’ formations were broken, the Sovereigns would invade. At that point, we would have Peak Rank 6 body cultivators, and there was no doubt in my mind that the Sovereigns would do everything they could to learn what we knew.

Why hadn’t they invaded already? It might have been because they were worried about walking into a trap, but it was likely because they wanted to see how far we could advance first. Once we reached Peak Rank 6 and were able to break the final rings of formations, the Sovereigns would swoop in and claim the rewards for all of our hard work.

However, I had no intention of making a wedding dress for someone else. I intended to break through to Sovereign, fight them off, and then raid their treasuries.

To do this, though, I would need the ability to fight against four—possibly five—cultivators whose levels might be as high as Peak Sovereign. This was a nearly impossible task. To have even the slightest hope of being successful, I needed to be far more powerful than ever before.

Within the Wastes, I couldn’t ascend past Peak Emperor, so if I wanted to become stronger, there was only one path open to me.

“System, increase my comprehension of body cultivation by 100 billion credits.”

Purchase confirmed. 149,567,548,524 credits remaining.

Then, I took out all of the notes I had compiled on the various techniques and refinements that ShouLi and the others had produced over the years.

I needed to ascend to the Peak of Rank 6, but there was no need to rush. I could take things one step at a time.

Using my analysis ability, I examined ShouLi’s Rank 1 technique.

Skin Refining, Low-Yellow Rank 1 Body Cultivation Technique (Broken), Wu (Any Element), Effects: Makes one more obsessed with body cultivation. Makes one more obsessed with growing stronger.

Seeing this, I nodded. It made sense. This cultivation technique had basically been inscribed into ShouLi by the Earthly Dao. And what did the Earthly Dao want? It wanted people to grow stronger, and, based on everything I had seen in the Wastes, it wanted people exploring body cultivation.

I, however, had no interest in inheriting these obsessions. So, I began modifying, refining, and enhancing this technique one step at a time.