Chapter 222 – Life 73, Age 32, Martial Grandmaster Peak

When I left five young cultivators, three of whom had poor foundations and one of whom had an absolutely terrible foundation, alone on top of a mountain for five days, I had expected there to be problems. This was intentional. It was part of their training.

While this wasn’t the ideal way to train new Disciples, I wasn’t looking to turn these kids into future Emperor-level powerhouses. I just needed them to be able to reach Peak Grandmaster. To me, it was more important that they be capable of reaching such a level without needing me to guide them at every step along the way. If these children couldn’t even survive on their own for five days, this entire experiment was doomed, and I would need to start all over with a different strategy.

So yes, I expected there to be problems. The group might not mesh together well, and there might be arguments. With cultivation techniques in the mix, there might even be fights. However, based on who I had chosen to join me, I didn’t expect anything to get too far out of hand.

When I returned to Mount Jiang and found Liang’s broken and unconscious body lying on one of the lower cliffs of the mountain, I had to admit that things had gone a bit beyond my expectations.

Upon reaching him, I popped a Rank 2 Healing Pill in his mouth and shoved him into my storage space. After climbing up to the plateau on top of the mountain, I took him out and carried him over to the area where everyone had been building their new houses.

These houses were in various stages of construction, but I didn’t spend much time looking at them. I just walked to the rough center of the group of buildings and started shouting.

“Get out here! Now!”

Only a moment after my call, three young cultivators rushed out to greet me.

“Where’s GuiMing?”

My tone was as frosty as I could make it, and they all backed up a step at my words.

Under the pressure of my presence, his sister, GuiAi, could only shakily raise a finger to point to the house that she had just come out of.

I walked over, looked inside, and found the boy lying half-dead on the ground. I pushed a pill into his mouth and carried him back to the group.

Then, I took out a chair, sat down, and waited for both boys to regain consciousness.

GuiMing was the first to come around. When he sat up and tried to ask a question, his sister silenced him and pointed in my direction. He lowered his head to me and slowly stood up on shaky legs.

A couple of minutes later, Liang regained consciousness, and Mo pulled him to his feet.

When Liang saw me, he did not bow or lower his head at all. He just gave me a disdainful sneer.

I looked around at everyone and studied their reactions.

“Explain.”

My command was simple, but from the faces that greeted me, I could see that none of them wanted to be the first to speak.

Finally, it was ShouLi who stepped forward.

“Prince Fang—”

I gave her a thunderous look, and she corrected herself.

“Patriarch… After you left, we did as you asked and began constructing our new homes. Liang was the first to finish. With nothing else to do, he entered seclusion and spent all his time cultivating. After breaking through to Peak Disciple, he informed us that he intended to go down the mountain to explore.”

I nodded to her. This was a bit beyond my expectations. Liang had only been a Martial Disciple 8 when we arrived here, so I hadn’t expected him to both be able to construct a house and advance two levels in the brief time I was away.

Looking at him, I saw that the way he achieved this rapid advancement was by completely ignoring his qi filters. The two new acupoints he had unblocked were almost entirely filled with impurities.

“Fine.” I turned my attention from ShouLi to GuiMing. “That explains him. How did you get injured?”

“Pa… Patriarch…”

GuiAi stepped up to explain for him. “When Liang decided to head off into the wilderness alone, Ming tried to stop him. You told us not to leave, and Ming was doing his best to follow your orders. That… That bastard nearly killed him for it.”

Her eyes were red, and tears were running down her face.

I looked around the group. “Did anyone else try to stop him?”

They all shook their heads.

“Did anyone try to protect GuiMing?”

They all looked down and again shook their heads.

I turned to ShouLi. “You were trained as one of the Su Clan’s elites. You might only be a Martial Disciple 4, but you should have had the skills to stop Liang. You should have at least been able to protect GuiMing. Why didn’t you?”

“I…” Her eyes wandered around the scene, stopping briefly on both boys. She seemed both angry and confused. “It wasn’t my place to get involved. Liang ignored your orders, but he is your First Disciple. It wasn’t my place to stop him.”

I nodded at her and turned to Mo.

“What is your part in all of this?”

“I… just kept working on my home. There was nothing I could do…”

Seeing GuiAi, I could tell that she had been caring for her brother, so I skipped over her and focused on Liang.

“Why did you decide to leave?”

He snorted. “I wanted to challenge the cultivators below. You said they’re powerful, but I will prove you wrong.”

Nodding in agreement, I pulled out an Energy Expulsion Pill and flicked it into the boy’s mouth before he could say anything else.

Suddenly, energy burst forth from Liang’s body, and his cultivation base vanished.

He stared at me in horror. “What... What did you do?”

I smiled at him. “Tell me again. Why did you decide to leave the mountain?”

“Patriarch… I…” He stammered and looked around confused. His eyes darted everywhere around him. “I thought…”

I waved him to silence. “This is a lesson for you all. I am encouraging you to advance as rapidly as possible so that you can experience what this does to your mind. Rapid advancement, especially advancement at the cost of qi purity, will drive you insane. I want you all to experience this. I want you to feel what it’s like, to understand these impulses, and to try to control them. Then, I will give you a pill to reset your cultivation to Martial Disciple 1, and you will start again.”

I gestured to Liang. “You have reached Peak Disciple with a Low-Yellow earth cultivation technique. You may now choose to practice a Mid-Yellow earth technique, or you may choose a Low-Yellow technique of a different element. I do not know which will be easier for you to learn, but you should take your affinities into account during this selection.”

Folding my hands together in front of me, I looked around at the group. “This will be your training cycle. Rise to Peak Disciple, destroy your cultivation base, and then start again. You may stop this cycle at any time, but I will only provide you with a Rank 2 technique if your cultivation base is pristine and free of impurities. If you are incapable of achieving this, you are destined to remain a Martial Disciple for the rest of your life.”

This speech didn’t fill anyone with a desire to grow stronger like I hoped it would. Instead, it seemed to push them more toward despair. That being the case, I thought it was about time to hand out some rewards.

“If you have questions about cultivation, you can come and ask me about it in the future. For now, let’s look at what each of you have built.”

I stood and made my way to their houses.

Liang, GuiAi, and GuiMing claimed that theirs were ‘complete.’

Liang’s house reminded me a lot of his cultivation base. It was a simple stone hut with four walls, a roof, and a dirt floor. He hadn’t spent any time on niceties. He just got it done as quickly as possible. This showed me once again that he had no interest in learning anything to do with earth qi. His narrow focus was a bit problematic, but I would let him make his own choices. I just wouldn’t reward him for them.

GuiAi’s and GuiMing’s houses were nearly identical, and it was clear that they had discussed their plans with each other before and during the building process. These houses had a raised stone foundation that provided a solid, flat floor, and as a whole, these homes were rather well built. Like Liang’s house, these were small one-room cottages, but they showed much more care in their construction.

After reviewing the completed buildings, I took a look at Mo’s.

The biggest reason why he wasn’t finished yet was because he had spent a significant amount of time compacting the soil beneath his house to create a solid stone floor that was flush with the earth around it. The layer of soil on top of the mountain was extremely thin, and Mo didn’t have the strength needed to flatten out the blueschist beneath it, so constructing a perfectly flat floor without raising it above ground level was a bit of an achievement.

This design would be problematic during a rainstorm since water would easily be able to seep beneath the door and flood the house, but it showed that Mo had put in a bit of extra thought about how the earth-moving technique could be used.

Finally, looking at ShouLi’s house, it was clear that she was used to being a princess of the Su Clan. Having the best cultivation base and the most training of anyone here, she had been able to quickly construct a basic three-room house and had been spending most of her time carving intricate reliefs into every wall.

This showed a dedication to detail, but the method she used to create these reliefs was nothing special. It was the same action she would have used when initially cutting the blocks from the original boulders.

I appraised each of these houses but refrained from sharing my thoughts. Once I had a clear understanding of where things stood, I motioned to the western side of the mountain.

“Follow me.”

Upon reaching the base of the small, raised plateau where I planned to build my house, I took out a large stack of lumber and placed it on the ground.

“Without earth qi, it’s difficult for me to show you how to use the earth-moving technique more effectively, but the Rank 1 wood-shaping technique is not too different. Anything that I can do with wood, you should be able to do with stone.”

I lifted a long, square beam and channeled my energy into it. The length of the beam shrunk, and its density increased by several times.

When it was only half a meter long, I threw it into the ground, and it embedded itself in an upright position. I did this several more times, creating a square grid of evenly spaced poles.

I then threw more beams and boards onto these poles and manipulated them to form floor joists, a floor, walls, and then a roof. The wood of this building wasn’t fastened together with nails. Instead, I used my qi to merge everything together into a single composite piece of wood. This process took a bit of concentration, but since I was only working with basic, mortal lumber it required almost no energy.

With that done, I moved close to the wall and ran a hand across it while channeling my qi. The wood darkened in places to form a simple geometric pattern. Then, instead of carving features into the wood, I pressed my hand into it to mold it into a somewhat pleasing design. I was no artist, and I was working rather fast, so the end result didn’t look great, but it showed off what was possible with a basic Rank 1 technique.

 After placing a few steps leading up to the door and adding a couple of finishing touches, I turned to the five Disciples who were watching in amazement.

“I intend to make our clan a dominant force on this continent, and we have to look the part. There is still a lot I need to do to make this building look as good as possible, but this is good enough for now.”

I waved at the doorway. “Enter.”

Once everyone was inside, I took the stone discs inscribed with Essence Gathering Formations out of my storage space and placed them around the room.

“This building will serve as our new Affinity Hall. In the past, I required Liang and Mo to advance together to earn time here. That will no longer be necessary. Any time you advance your cultivation base, you will earn one hour in this room which you can use to raise any of the available affinities that you wish.

“Su Liang, you have advanced two stages, entitling you to two with any formation you desire. For constructing a substandard house, you are awarded an additional fifteen minutes.

“Su GuiAi, you are a Martial Disciple 4 and did not have an opportunity to visit the hall when we were at the Su Clan, so you are entitled to an initial four hours. As you have built a decent house, you are awarded an additional thirty minutes.

“Su GuiMing, you will also be given four hours for your cultivation base and thirty minutes for your completed home. You will also be given an additional four hours for attempting to stop one of your clan members from killing himself.”

A wave of shock gasps could be heard at this pronouncement, especially from Liang, but I didn’t stop.

“Su ShouLi, you are granted four hours for your cultivation base. However, you are deducted two hours for failing to assist your fellow clan members in any way when you had the ability to do so. Do not let it happen again.”

I tossed a pill bottle to ShouLi. “You are using a High-Yellow cultivation technique, but as you have seen, I would prefer it if you started with Low-Yellow and worked your way up. You may continue with your current technique if you wish, but it will slow the rate at which you can earn time in the Affinity Hall.”

I turned to Liang. “The new Technique Hall will be constructed shortly, and you will need to decide upon a new technique to cultivate. Consider this choice carefully and use your time here to improve your affinity with the element that matches that technique. I know you want to cultivate lighting qi, but you need to think about if that is truly the right next step for you. Raising your affinity with lightning will take significantly longer than raising your affinity with any other element. I doubt you have enough time saved up to acquire even a low nine-star affinity with it.”

I looked around at each of them. “If you want advice, I will give it to you, but your choices are your own. I will not interfere with them.”

With that, I turned and left them alone to consider their options.