Chapter 238 – Life 73, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

With the first group of Disciples advancing to Martial Master, there were a few expansions that needed to happen to our settlement on Mount Jiang, and the first one I wanted to tackle was an extension to our Technique Hall.

At the moment, the hall was a rather empty single-story structure. It only contained the three bookcases with the Rank 1 cultivation techniques and one bookcase with the orbs containing basic crafting and martial skills. This limited selection of techniques had been sufficient in the clan’s early days, but I had hundreds of techniques filling up my mental library. There was no reason to let them go to waste.

However, there was one major problem. My mental library could only be used by me. If I wanted to make the knowledge it contained available to others, I would need to first write it all down by hand, and I had no desire to hand copy countless technique scrolls. So, I could only turn to the System for a little assistance with this.

There were a few options for how to do this, so I decided to go ahead and check out the feasibility of my more outlandish idea first.

“System, how much would it cost for me to gain the ability to project my mental library into the physical world so that anyone could read the books it contains?”

Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

This answer wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it was still a bit disappointing. My second idea was no doubt doomed to failure as well.

“System, how much would it cost for me to gain the ability to automatically create memory orbs similar to those that I purchased for the Rank 1 cultivation techniques? I would want to be able to select an orb and technique and then have this ability fill the orb with all the information needed to use the technique properly. It only needs to work with Rank 1 techniques, and it only needs to include knowledge I already possess, but I want the quality and breadth of information to match what is in the orbs I previously purchased.”

Cost is not possible to calculate at this time.

Unfortunate, but I knew that I had been asking for a lot. That kind of ability would have needed to actively make decisions about what information to include, and such a feature went well beyond the abilities I had purchased previously.

“Alright, System, what about a similar technique that, again, only works on Rank 1 techniques, but this time, I just want it to be able to directly copy information from the technique scrolls in my mental library.”

Cost 1,000,000 credits.

That wasn’t too bad, and the cost should remain reasonable with higher-level techniques. There were enough advantages to learning techniques from memory orbs instead of scrolls that I saw a lot of value in this kind of ability, but I just didn’t have enough orbs to make it worthwhile for the time being.

“Okay, System, what about an ability that can copy information from my mental library directly onto a blank book or scroll? Again, it only needs to work on Rank 1 information.”

Cost 10,000 credits.

“How much if it works up to Rank 3?”

Cost 1,000,000 credits.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 743,416,360,897 credits remaining.

That would let me do the bulk of what I wanted to do, but I still needed to deal with the Rank 2 cultivation techniques. I wanted to provide new Martial Masters with easy access to all the information they needed to create a strong foundation, and that meant purchasing new orbs that contained the necessary knowledge.

Unfortunately, my supply of fresh memory orbs was quickly dwindling. I only had 45 left by this point, and I needed them for more than just teaching people basic techniques. After running the numbers several times, I had to concede that I just didn’t have enough orbs to do everything I wanted to do. I would only be able to provide orbs for the most basic techniques, and they would need to learn everything else from scrolls.

I riffled through my mental library and found the 9 Low-Yellow Rank 2 cultivation techniques that matched up with the Low-Yellow Rank 1 techniques I had purchased previously. Then I took out nine orbs and placed them down in front of me.

“System, copy all the knowledge necessary to cultivate these techniques properly into these orbs, including information on training methods such as the use of practice meridians. I also want you to include information on how to deconstruct and disperse meridians to abolish one’s cultivation base. The orbs only need to contain knowledge I already possess.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 9 million credits. 743,407,360,897 credits remaining.

This would only provide the members of my clan with a starting point for Rank 2 cultivation, but it should be enough to give them a huge head start when compared to others on the continent.

Orbs in hand, I went to each of the six new Martial Masters and had them each absorb the memories from the proper orb. Then, sent them to cultivate in seclusion. After that, I ran over to Dragon Gate City, purchased a variety of supplies, and got down to redecorating the Technique Hall.

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Designing and building the kind of library/Technique Hall that I envisioned was no simple task. It needed to be able to hold hundreds, if not thousands, of books and scrolls, and all these books needed to be sorted and arranged so that a person could quickly find what they were looking for.

If I tried to do everything myself, this was a task that could take me decades to accomplish. So, wisely, I didn’t do it. Instead, I simply built out the basic framework for a Technique Hall and placed a wide assortment of books and scrolls inside.

I expanded the bottom floor of the hall by a few hundred square meters and built a second floor for storing the Rank 2 techniques. On each floor, I created a single large bookcase for each profession and filled it with any techniques that seemed useful. Then, I filled several more bookcases with random cultivation techniques. There was one bookcase each for the Yellow-, Profound-, and Earth-Rank techniques of each element, for a total of 27 additional bookcases on each floor.

Later, I would need to talk to ShouLi in her role as head of the leadership council about designing a proper Technique Hall and finding someone to be a librarian, but I wouldn’t disturb her cultivation for such a mundane task.

With a basic library setup in place, I next expanded the number of professions that were available for studying.

“System, fill 3 memory orbs with all the Rank 1 knowledge that would be expected from someone of this continent on herbalism, beast taming, and illusions.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 3 million credits. 743,404,360,897 credits remaining.

“Fill 7 orbs with similar Rank 2 information on each of the seven professions excluding gu keeping.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 700 million credits. 742,704,360,897 credits remaining.

While I still didn’t know what kind of setup would be necessary for illusionists or beast tamers to practice their craft, with the knowledge in these orbs, the members of my clan should be able to figure it out for themselves. 

However, I did have a solid idea of how to establish areas to practice herbalism. We could ape the Verdant Forest Sect.

The island around the base of Mount Jiang was perfect for growing all kinds of herbs, from Rank 1 up to Rank 3. The only problem was that my barrier and fog formations had drawn the attention of countless treasure hunters. If anyone even attempted to set up an herb field down there, it would likely be looted and destroyed before the seed even had a chance to sprout.

This didn’t make setting up such a field impossible, though. Any herbalist who wanted to do so would just need to pay warriors and formation specialists to protect it. Rank 1 herbs might not be valuable enough to make this worthwhile, but since warriors training their martial arts skills would want to be down there fighting invaders to earn contribution points anyway, protecting an herb field while doing so would just be a way to make a few extra points.

Since Mo had already taken charge of the workshops, I let him decide how to handle this. At the same time, I also told him to designate areas for private gardens, either on top of buildings or in open spaces around the plateau, so that herbalists could do small-scale experiments without needing to worry about invaders.

With the library and workshops ready to go, I next worked on upgrading the Affinity Hall.

While I hadn’t yet seen any degradation in the rate at which people’s affinities were improving, I was still getting a bit worried about depleting the area’s ambient essence. The low affinity levels that people in the Wastes were typically born with showed that there wasn’t much free essence in the environment to begin with, and constantly running Essence Gathering Formations couldn’t be helping things.

Long term, I needed to set up gathering formations around the continent, store the essence, and then bring it back for my people to use, but that would require a significant amount of work to both set up and maintain.

A better option would be to find some type of essence spirit fire, but various inquiries to the System on that topic made me that that finding one wasn’t very likely. Not in the short term, at least.

Essence and affinities would no doubt become a problem in the future, but to settle things for the moment, I moved the Affinity Hall with the Rank 1 formations to the northeast corner of the plateau and built a new Rank 2 Affinity Hall on the southwest corner. I could only hope that this separation would be enough to delay any problems with essence depletion long enough to let me solve the problem for good.

Next to these halls, I constructed brand new Cultivation Halls with Rank 1 and 2 Qi Gathering Formations. While I wasn’t expecting any problems with qi depletion any time soon, I didn’t see any reason not to ahead and separate these just in case.

Finally, I had to deal with creating a formation that could scan a Martial Master’s energy body and award them contribution points based on how well they had cultivated. The complexity involved in this was a bit beyond me. What criteria should I even use when determining how many points to award?

Ideally, meridian placement would be an important factor in such judgments, but if a person’s Rank 2 cultivation technique didn’t match up well with their Rank 1 technique, meridian placement became extremely difficult, and there typically wasn’t a ‘good’ way to do it.

So instead, I decided to just have the formation focus on the quality and regularity of the weave of a person’s meridians. This was only a small part of what it meant to cultivate as a Martial Master, but it should be sufficient for my purposes. Proper placement could then simply become a requirement for being allowed to advance to Grandmaster.

Unfortunately, I still didn’t have the necessary schematics for creating such a formation, so I could only turn to the System for assistance.

“System, I want a formation to test a Martial Master’s cultivation base. It should be similar to the one I previously purchased for testing a Disciple’s. Points should be awarded based on the weave and regularity of a person’s meridians, with a total possible reward of 1,000 points per level.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 5 billion credits. 737,704,360,897 credits remaining.

With that in place, I considered my upgrades to the clan’s infrastructure complete. So, I decided to take a bit of time off and take some of the kids to Rosehill for a day out.

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At the start of the new year, I returned to the Su Clan’s training compound for the next round of recruiting.

Everything seemed somewhat normal at first, but I soon realized a problem. More than ninety children showed up to participate in this year’s blessing ceremony. That was nearly double the usual amount.

When I confronted Su Heng about this discrepancy, he looked somewhat abashed.

“Prince Fang… As you may know… The Su Clan is a large family that has ruled the Wastes for centuries…”

I nodded slowly, but I kept my eyes locked on the man.

“Well, in that time… We often have to… cut away branch families.” He winced at the piercing glare I gave him as he said this. “Don’t worry. These are all still blood members of the Su Clan. They are just distant relatives. The clan just doesn’t have the resources to support them all.”

I chuckled slightly and did my best to impart a bit of menace into it. “So, the clan elders have decided to try and pass these discarded branch members off as true members of the Su Clan to drain more resources from me?”

“That… No… It’s just…” Su Heng dropped his eyes to the ground. “Yes.”

This situation went a bit beyond my expectations, and it brought up interesting questions about the nature of the ascension to Sovereign. Would karma generated from these distant branch members be good enough to allow me to ascend? Emperor Li had said that I needed to be related to the people I drew karma from by blood, but how close did that relationship need to be? Was a single drop of blood enough?

The only information I had on the Bloodline Tier came from guesswork, supposition, and cryptic hints. I didn’t have any strong reasons to believe that these distant relatives would be any better or worse at generating karma than members of the Su Clan’s main branch. In fact, as a descendant of a distant branch myself, some of these people might be more closely related to me than someone like ShouLi.

Making my decision, I focused back on Su Heng.

“As long as these trainees are blood members of the Su Clan, I can accept them. However, I will be checking this. Don’t even think about trying to cheat me.”

Su Heng dipped his head in a quick bow. “Of course, Prince, of course.”

In truth, I didn’t care too much about whether all my recruits were blood members of the Su Clan or not. Even if a few of them weren’t, they would be surrounded by true Su Clan members, so they would almost certainly marry into the clan anyway.

However, I didn’t want the Su Clan’s elders to think that I was an easy mark. I would have to make a show of checking everyone with a truth stone to verify their status.

Aside from this unusual spike in the number of children present, the three-month training camp proceeded mostly as normal. At the end of it, I walked away with 58 new recruits.