Chapter 268 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Grandmaster 1

The last time we were in the sect, Yan had written down a significant number of notes in a book that he had asked me to carry back in time with me. While I was hesitant to overload his soul by giving him the memories of that life too early, I had given him this notebook so that he could review what had taken place.

Using these notes, he did his best to pick out a location for our headquarters in Mortal City. The place he chose was in the city’s outer ring, located near one of the outlying cultivator districts. This area wasn’t too popular, and we would need to travel quite a ways to visit our peaks or the city’s larger shops, but it would give us the peace and quiet we needed as we silently developed our clan.

Since I had needed to wait a few hours for XuJian to get through the Exam and take his tour, most of the others were able to make it there before me, and ShouLi had already rented the place out by the time I arrived. While everyone else worked on cleaning the place up a bit, I set up a series of defensive formations to protect us from eavesdroppers or other covert attacks. Mortal City was supposed to be safe, but I had no desire to take any unnecessary chances with the lives of people who couldn’t be brought back.

Once everything was settled, I gathered the leadership council for a short meeting.

I looked around at the group. “How did everyone do?”

Not a single person seemed happy as they held up their tokens for me to inspect.

ShouLi shook her head. “RuLan was the only one to get a spot as a core disciple. Several of us got spots as inner disciples, but most are outer. Our illusionists were only rated as servants.”

I nodded. “This should be expected. Cultivation, profession, soul. I told you, if you want to become a core disciple you need all three. The light and dark cultivators were hurt by their affinities, but once we become city lords, we can funnel them extra contribution points, and they should be able to fix this problem through the sect’s Trials. As for the rest of you, your cultivation bases are solid enough, but you need to work on your professions and soul cultivation.”

No one looked at me, they all just stared at the ground and mumbled. “Yes, Ancestor.”

I smiled. “Don’t think too much about it. You’re all only 35. You’re still young and have more than enough time to improve. However… I only plan to stay in this city for five years. In five years, I will advance to Yellow City so that I can become a city lord and establish a safe place to let people out of the world orb. During this time, work on your professions, cultivate your souls, and do your best to raise your affinities to mid five-star through the sect’s Trials.”

ShouLi dipped her head. “Yes, Ancestor.”

“My focus will be on returning to Peak Grandmaster and practicing my own professions, but I will establish a new Soul Cultivation Library in the world orb, and I will open the Technique Hall back up. If there’s anything else you need, let me know.”

After a few parting words, I took my leave while the council stayed behind to hammer out the details.

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While arranging everything in Mortal City was the duty of the council, there was one job that I had to take care of myself.

I walked into a side room and found RuLan waiting for me there, alone.

“Mo decided not to join you?”

RuLan shook her head. “No, he… he is going to stay here and take care of Qiang’er.”

QiQiang, or Qiang’er, was RuLan and Mo’s 2-year-old baby boy.

“I’m… sorry. I should have thought about that before asking you to become Emperor Li’s apprentice.”

RuLan gave me a sad smile. “It’s fine. I… I want to go. I want to learn. I just… I hope he lets me come back here every now and then.”

I dipped my head. “If it’s possible, I’m sure he will. The situation with the other Sovereigns is a bit tense, but I’m sure Old Li will be able to make it happen.”

I handed RuLan a storage bag containing six memory orbs. One for Emperor Li, two for Emperor Jin, two for Emperor Shen, and one of Jin ZiHan’s. It also contained the massive stone block, a partially complete formation that Emperor Shen had asked me to bring back for him.

“Give these to your master. There is a letter inside that tells him what to do with them. Also… please ask him to tell Emperor Shen that I brought Emperor Li a new disciple and that I hope he will continue to follow our deal.”

Mo needed to stay in the sect, and he would need to take care of Qiang’er, but surely, he would have some spare time to learn from a Formation Emperor, right?

This left RuLan slightly confused, but I just smiled and patted her shoulder.

“Ready to go?”

As soon as she started to nod, I began subvocalizing.

“System, send the two of us to a secluded alley near the main Pavilion in Blue Wind City.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 490,490,000 credits. 439,262,493,769 credits remaining.

The cost to teleport two Grandmasters only a modest distance was far from cheap, but my goal was to completely hide RuLan’s origins, and this was the only way I knew how to do it.

When we arrived, I pointed to the alley’s entrance.

“Head straight to the large pagoda. Your master should take care of the details.”

After she started walking, I turned my attention back to the System.

“Send me to a spot where I can see the exit of this alley as well as the entrance of the Pavilion.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 10,000 credit. 439,262,483,769 credits remaining.

I appeared high atop a nearby building that overlooked the street in front of the Pavilion and watched as RuLan exited the alley, walked to the base of the pagoda, climbed dozens of marble steps, and entered inside.

Only moments later, several people rushed out of the Pavilion and entered various buildings in the surroundings.

A few seconds after that, people began rushing to the alleyway RuLan had exited from.

I chuckled at this. It was a good thing I had disappeared when I did. Those who knew about Emperor Li’s blessing may claim not to believe him, but it seemed like they weren’t willing to take any chances.

“System, send me back to our manor in South Gate.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 44,600,000 credits. 439,217,883,769 credits remaining.

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With the council and elders managing everything, I was able to turn my focus to unlocking the secrets of beast alchemy. RuLan had taken a strong lead over me by snatching enlightenments for both Rank 1 and 2 pills, but I refused to be outdone.

Using her notes as a starting place, I began performing experiments on parts from every Rank 1 beast that I could get my hands on. In the process, I discovered recipes for a dozen or so new pills, but none of them triggered an enlightenment. This made me start to worry that there had only been one available, but then, while working with a mixture of powdered tiger bone, the dried rhizome of the fortunei plant, and the dried leaves of a barrenwort, I finally stumbled on a pill the RuLan hadn’t beaten me to.

System Alert: A novel pill recipe has been created.

Rank 1 Bone Mending Pill. Would you like to submit this recipe to the Dao?

“Yes!” 

Submission successful. Contribution confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 1,000 credits.

Note: Rank 1 pill recipes will no longer qualify you for further discounts.

The discount was rather pathetic, but since I was simply adding an extra recipe to an already expanding list, I hadn’t expected much. In any case, the discount wasn’t what I was interested in.

Just as I braced myself against my workbench, a flood of information poured into my mind and filled in countless small gaps in my understanding of Rank 1 alchemy.

When it stopped, I felt exhausted, but I was smiling. RuLan might have gotten here first, but with this new knowledge, I would quickly catch up to her. 

I looked down at the pill in my hand, and my face twisted in disgust.

I couldn’t believe that I had been so sloppy. I quickly crushed it to hide my shame.

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Perfect Rank 1 Bone Mending Pill. 107% Medicinal Efficacy. Value: 25 contribution points.

After several attempts, I was finally able to make a pill that I was proud of. 107% was the limit of what my ingredients could produce, and I would need the beast tamers to figure out how to improve a tiger’s bones a bit before I could make any further advances with it, but breaching the threshold of 100% efficacy was enough.

As for the value… that was a bit strange. 25 contribution points was what I had decided to sell it for to my clan, and the System had automatically filled this value in. This meant the System was probably reading my mind, which was a little concerning, but I quickly decided to ignore it. Either it was a problem, or it wasn’t. Either way, the situation had gone on for long enough that it wouldn’t make any difference at this point.

As for the pill, I was interested in seeing how its effects differed from a standard Healing Pill, but this meant finding someone with broken bones to test it on. While I was somewhat hesitant to break someone’s bones just to test out a pill, there was one person who might be willing to act as my test subject for this one.

After leaving my workshop, I headed directly to the council chambers where a meeting was currently in session. 

Upon my arrival, everyone stood and gave a quick bow.

ShouLi smiled pleasantly at me. “Ancestor, how may we assist you today?”

I help up my pill bottle. “ShouLi, I would like to discuss something with you in private, if I may.”

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Five minutes later, I sat alone with ShouLi and Liang in a side room.

ShouLi had a pensive look on her face as she stared at the bottle. “Are you… certain this will work?”

I shook my head, sadly. “No, it might not do anything at all, but it’s worth a try.”

When ShouLi had first joined me, her feet had been broken and bound to make them look smaller, to turn them into ‘lotus feet.’ At first, I had thought that this would be an easy problem to solve. I just needed to give ShouLi a Healing Pill, and it should fix her up, right? Unfortunately, no.

What the Su Clan had done to her was worse than I had imagined. Not only had they broken and reshaped her feet, but they had also removed several shards of bone and used their own Healing Pills to fuse everything together into the shape they deemed appropriate. Fixing that was beyond me. High-Rank pills could repair fractured bones, but regrowing them was beyond the ability of a normal pill.

ShouLi closed her eyes to try and build up her courage and then stuck out her hand.

“I understand. I’m willing to give it a try.”

I didn’t move.

“ShouLi… if we want to give this the best chance of working…”

A tear began to form in the corner of her eye. “Alright…”

We had discussed this possibility in the past, so she knew what I planned to do. Liang stepped beside her and placed an arm around her.

I held out another pill. “This will help with the pain, but it might interfere with the healing.”

She waved it aside. “Just do it.”

I took a deep breath and focused on ShouLi’s feet. Then, I began breaking them as quickly and precisely as I could. If we wanted any chance of them healing properly, they had to be repositioned correctly first.

This caused ShouLi to scream in agony, but I didn’t pause.

I focused on her feet with energy vision so that I could see her bones directly. Then, I used dozens of long silver needles to reposition every last shard until the energy patterns in her feet looked correct. As expected, there were several fragments that were missing, and I could only hope that my pill would be able to help.

Once everything appeared to be in perfect alignment, I handed ShouLi the pill, and she swallowed it immediately.

Starting from her skull, energy surged through ShouLi’s body and traveled through her entire skeletal system. As soon as the first tendril reached her feet, all the energy from the pill began converging and pouring into them.

At first, this energy only healed the smaller fractures caused by the breaking and repositioning of everything, but once enough of this energy was present, the small shards of bones began to expand.

This caused ShouLi to let out another wail of pain, but as soon as she was able to get herself under control, she turned her head back down and stared at her feet.

It might not have been necessary, but as these small shards of bone grew, I held them in place with my silver needles to ensure the surging energies didn’t dislodge them.

When the first two shards touched each other, there was a slight bit of resistance, but then they quickly merged into a larger whole.

This process continued for nearly ten minutes, and when the energy from the pill ran out, ShouLi’s feet were only partially healed, so I handed her another one.

It was only after the fourth pill that her feet were able to return to normal.

I had expected that after the healing was complete, ShouLi would be crying tears of joy, but ever since giving her the second pill, she had done nothing but wordlessly stare at her feet.

As soon as the healing was complete, she dropped from her chair, sat on the floor, and began cultivating at a manic pace.

Liang moved to pull her up, but I grabbed his shoulder to stop him.

He flashed me an angry look, but I just shook my head and pointed.

“Watch.”

ShouLi cycled a cultivation technique that I was almost entirely unfamiliar with. It looked nothing like any technique I had ever seen before, and the only reason I knew what she was doing was because I had been the one who had given her my notes on Jin ZiHan’s and Cai XiaoYu’s ‘beauty blessings.’

ShouLi’s blessing had allowed her skin to absorb wu extremely easily, but it only soaked into her skin and sat there. ZiHan’s and XiaoYu’s blessings had been different, but trying to mimic their energy flows directly hadn’t worked. Something was missing.

It looked like healing her feet had given ShouLi that missing piece she had needed.

As a torrent of energy cycled through ShouLi’s skin, a black film started to emerge from it. At first, this was barely noticeable, but after only five minutes, it looked like the girl was covered in tar, and the entire room began to smell like a cesspit.

Again, Liang tried to move to stop her, but I held him in place.

After another ten minutes, ShouLi slowly opened her eyes.

“An… Ancestor? Li… Liang?”

Liang once more tried to move to her, but I yanked him back once again.

Suddenly, ShouLi looked to have been struck by lightning and nearly collapsed to the floor.

When she was finally able to sit back up, I smiled at her.

“Congratulations. It looks like you have developed a new technique for cultivating your physical body. Be sure to share it with everyone.”

With that, I left the two youngsters alone in the room. It smelled far too foul to stay in there any longer.