Chapter 308 – Life 76, Age 54, Martial Lord Peak

Upon first being established, Dragon Gate Kingdom was producing enough karmic energy for a Lord to break through to King once every 8 months. At this rate, a King 1 could advance to King 2 in only 4 months, and a King 9 could advance to Peak King in about 9 months. This meant that Dragon Gate Kingdom was producing enough karmic energy for a person to ascend from Peak Lord to Peak King in a little over 5 years.

Compared to the other kingdoms on the continent, this was rather impressive. For our needs, however, it was only a drop in the bucket. We had dozens of Lords waiting for a chance to ascend, ShouLi and others needed King-level energy to experiment with Rank 5 body cultivation, and our beast tamers needed King-level energy to breed Rank 5 beasts.

Therefore, we split the karmic energy into 5 portions. The current acting city lord would be allowed to keep the first portion. The second would be reserved for Lords wanting to breakthrough to King, and the third was for Kings who were looking to advance. The fourth and fifth portions were for the body cultivators and the beast tamers.

With only Dragon Gate Kingdom supplying us with King-level energy, splitting it in 5 different directions like this meant that anyone who wanted energy would need to wait an excessively long amount of time. However, once the population bases of the Twin Mountains Sect, the Guild of Alchemists, and the Guild of Refiners reached the point where these organizations could start producing King-level energy as well, this was no longer much of a concern. Once more of the sects and guilds were producing energy, it wouldn’t be an issue at all.

That said, balancing the various interests of the different groups involved was somewhat tricky. Ideally, all of the karmic energy would flow to members of the Su Clan, but that would cause fewer people to be willing to join us, and that would cause our karmic energy generation to plummet. So, ShouLi, the guild leaders, and the Sect Masters had to find a balance between helping our people and helping the people who joined us.

Thankfully, though, as the clan’s ancestor, I had no place in these conversations. I just needed to focus on cultivation and look for ways to increase the clan’s overall strength.

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While the sects and guilds were great for generating large amounts of King-level energy, there was one major problem with them. Almost none of their members were part of the Su Clan, so the karmic energy they generated was generic energy that had no connection to either my body or soul.

I had no reason to believe that using this energy while advancing as a King would be a problem, but as a Lord, I had only used energy generated from members of the Su clan. I hadn’t noticed any real benefits to doing this, but on the off chance that it might be important during my ascension to Martial Sovereign, I wanted to keep it up.

So, even as karmic energy flowed in from multiple directions, I focused only on slowly accumulating the small portion of energy that was generated by members of my clan. Because of this, it took me nearly two years to accumulate enough energy for my initial breakthrough to Martial King.

Once I was ready, I entered seclusion and focused on upgrading my Core of Fellowship.

With my knowledge and experience, I was confident that I could develop a Rank 5 technique equal to what I had done in Rank 4. There was just one problem: if I made any mistakes, it would be incredibly difficult to fix them.

When developing the Rank 4 version of the core of fellowship, I had constructed several partial cores, but because I didn’t complete them, I had been able to disassemble them without issue.

To advance to King, I would need to upgrade the core that I already had. If I made a mistake in this process, I might need to somehow disassemble my entire core to fix it, and I wasn’t sure if that was even possible. So, to try and prevent any problems from cropping up, I wanted to advance my karmic affinity as much as possible.

At the moment, I had a low five-star affinity. Because of the insane multiplier involved, permanently increasing this affinity was a bit out of the question. That didn’t mean I was out of options, however.

“System, give me a temporary boost to my karmic affinity that will last only for the remainder of this life. Raise it to peak five-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 150 billion credits. 744,567,548,524 credits remaining.

A tingling sensation filled me. Then, as it subsided, I stretched my senses to see if there was any hint of the nervousness that I had felt in the past. Thankfully, no such feeling presented itself.

That being the case, I focused on the task at hand, crafting a Rank 5 core.

First, I infused my existing core with King-level energy. Then, once it was saturated, I slowly extended the energy outward, creating a secondary lattice that wrapped around the first.

I had no reason to rush, so I took my time and made each strand of this new lace lattice as dense and as thin as possible.

In total, crafting my new core took over two years of nearly constant effort. This was significantly longer than I had spent in past lives. However, because I took things slowly, I made fewer mistakes, and when I did make a mistake, I caught it early enough that I could fix it without needing to dismantle everything.

Once my core was complete, I then worked up upgrading the weave of qi and karmic energy used for shattering the chains while ascending.

After another year, I was somewhat confident in my creation, but without any way to verify it, I was hesitant to use it. So, taking a deep breath to fortify my nerves, I chose to spend the majority of my remaining credits on enhancing my appraisal ability.

“System, improve my technique analysis ability to Rank 5.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 495 billion credits. 249,567,548,524 credits remaining.

Then, I scribbled down a set of instructions into a blank book and examined it.

Core of Fellowship, High-Yellow Rank 5 Cultivation Technique (Broken), Karmic Energy, Effects: Makes those connected to this core feel an enhanced sense of community. Makes those connected to this core feel a slight sense of unease.

I couldn’t help but grin. It had been expensive, but upgrading that ability had been the right call.

Over the next month, I made continual refinements to the technique until I produced exactly what I was looking for.

Core of Fellowship, Peak-Yellow Rank 5 Cultivation Technique, Karmic Energy, Effects: Makes those connected to this core feel an enhanced sense of community.

Once it was complete, I was ready to begin advancing.

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While I was focused on ascending to Martial King, ShouLi, Liang, NiangBa, and others were focused on figuring out the secrets to Rank 5 of body cultivation. Without a source of King-level karmic energy, they hadn’t been able to do much, but with energy now pouring in from several sources, advancing had become their sole focus.

This dedication may have been the result of madness induced by their body or soul cultivation. Alternatively, it may have simply been a natural drive to grow stronger. In my mind, though, the most likely explanation was that they knew reaching Peak Rank 5 of body cultivation would allow them to shatter the third ring of the Wastes’ formations. This would allow Emperors to enter the Wastes, and they would no longer be stuck hiding within my inner world.

Whatever the case may be, their dedication was commendable, and it didn’t take long for this dedication to pay off. Before I could even complete my ascension to Martial King, ShouLi requested a trip to the barn along the Wastes’ northern border.

In truth, her plan to advance from Rank 4 to Rank 5 wasn’t exactly complicated. The biggest challenge had been raising a demon beast to Rank 5. Once that was done, the beast was slaughtered, and we were on our way.

After arriving in the barn, I again set up an anti-eavesdropping formation. Then, I pulled out our high-level body cultivators, and ShouLi sat down to begin her advancement.

As I and a group of body cultivators watched in horrid fascination, ShouLi took large hunks of raw Rank 5 beast meat, infused them with King-level karmic energy, and consumed them.

Like last time, ShouLi’s blessing pulled the energy from this meat and infused it into her skin. Then, she pulled it out and threaded it through her body. From her skin to her tendons. From her tendons to her bones. From her bones to her muscles. And, finally, from her muscles to her nervous system.

When she had advanced to Rank 4, a copious amount of thick, black oil had streamed out of her pores. This time, though, since the volume of her nervous system was significantly smaller than the volume of her muscles, only a thin layer of that black oil had appeared.

After advancing, ShouLi received her next round of enlightenment. Then, I pulled everyone back into my inner world and rushed away.

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Once within my inner world, NiangBa looked at ShouLi with a cunning glint in his eyes. Without needing him to say a single word, ShouLi nodded and followed him to the arena.

In an all-out fight, ShouLi wouldn’t stand a chance against NiangBa. Only earth qi could be used in my inner world, and NiangBa was an earth cultivator while ShouLi was a water cultivator. With her body cultivation and an Emperor-level will-lock, ShouLi wasn’t exactly defenseless, but there was no way she would be able to defeat someone like NiangBa.

They weren’t heading to the arena for an all-out fight, though.

Once there, they bowed to each other and took up fighting stances.

Then, at nearly the exact same moment, they rushed forward.

As they neared each other, both combatants readied their punches.

They both struck out at the same time, and their fists collided.

This caused NiangBa to be pushed back two meters while ShouLi was pushed back only one.

ShouLi was stronger, but not that much stronger.

Then, they rushed forward once more.

This time, though, upon seeing NiangBa make his move, ShouLi quickly reoriented, shifted her weight, and swung a leg at his midsection.

ShouLi’s strike landed before NiangBa could even react, and he was sent rocketing backward.

When he finally came to a stop, NiangBa grinned wildly. “It worked?”

ShouLi just nodded and prepared for her next attack.

With Ranks 1 to 3 of body cultivation, a person’s body became more resilient. After a person toughened their skin, tendons, and bones, they were nearly impervious to mortal weapons. If a Peak Rank 3 body cultivator were struck with a steel sword, they would remain unscathed, and the sword would end up bent and broken. Only a refined weapon at or above Rank 3 would have any chance of harming them.

However, while their defenses might be impressive, their offensive prowess would be rather lacking. The only real offensive advantage to being a Rank 3 body cultivator was that one would be able to attack without worrying about taking damage in the process.

With Rank 4, a person refined their muscles, and things changed. They would be able to run hundreds of miles without tiring, leap dozens of meters into the air, and punch with enough strength to shatter even low-level Rank 4 refined armor.

Again, though, there was a problem. While ascending to Rank 4 enhanced a person’s muscles, they lack control. They might have had incredible strength, but actually making use of that strength in a fast-paced battle was incredibly difficult since their bodies couldn’t react quickly enough.

So, during her advancement to Rank 5, ShouLi had enhanced her nervous system.

The fight between ShouLi and NiangBa continued for several more minutes, but ShouLi’s advance was obvious. NiangBa wasn’t that much weaker than her, but he couldn’t land a single strike.

So, NiangBa shifted his tactics.

He wrapped a layer of dirt with earth qi, compressed it into a hardened spike, and shot it toward ShouLi’s back.

Since he had only used Grandmaster-level energy, ShouLi was easily able to pivot and smash the spike apart with a single blow.

Then, NiangBa shot out a spike with Lord-level energy. The result was the same.

It was only when he used King-level energy to compress and harden a spike that ShouLi could no longer smash it with a single punch. However, because the spike was so large and dense, its speed was lacking, and ShouLi was easily able to dodge it.

After a few more tests, NiangBa then covered himself in stone and went on the attack.

This stone armor enhanced both his offense and defense while reducing his speed. With it in place, ShouLi could easily strike him, but by tanking her blows, he was able to land a few of his own.

In the end, while NiangBa limited his strength to that of a low-level King, he still had the energy reserves of an Emperor and was able to wear ShouLi down.

Still, while she lost the fight, ShouLi was happy. By standing toe-to-toe with NiangBa, she had been able to prove the efficacy of body cultivation.