Chapter 152 – Life 66, Age 47, Martial King Peak

As I was reviewing the things that I needed to get done before the end of my life, I realized something. Tie Yang must be furious with me. I might have ruined the mission he spent so much time and effort on.

When I became a Martial Lord, I had been demoted to the outer sect because my skills with formations were lacking. Tie Yang had diligently trained me so that I could rejoin the inner sect, but I got so lost in everything else that I forgot to do so.

With my ascension to not only King but Peak King, I wouldn’t be surprised if my lack of relevant skills resulted in my demotion to servant disciple. No one had come to inform me of such a change, but they didn’t tell me about my demotion to the outer sect until I was about to enter Profound City. If such a demotion wouldn’t occur until I entered Earth City, then it was nothing I needed to worry about.

Still, I had an opportunity to gain a few insights into the sect’s Exam, so I considered taking it as a King to see what would happen. This time, I could try to record information in my journal so that even if I didn’t remember anything, I still had a record of it.

This idea was killed in its infancy by a harsh reality.

“System, how much to create a mental reversion point for the moment right before I enter the sect’s Exam Trial?”

Cost 10 billion credits.

I still didn’t know if such a purchase was necessary, but I didn’t want to take any chances with something that I knew affected my mind, so I had to give up on attempting the Exam again in this life.

In any case, as an outer sect disciple, I still had access to the resources I needed.

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For quite some time, I had been wanting to learn more about spatial bags. It was one of my primary considerations for joining the Earth Peak.

Back in the Academy, Instructor Yuan had promised to provide me with a tutor capable of teaching me about them. However, that never materialized. After entering the sect, I had wanted to study this topic, but the timing was never right. It seemed like I always had something else to do.

Here at the end, I had a plethora of contribution points and a higher cultivation level than most people in the sect. If I was going to learn about this topic, there was no better time to do so.

After considering all of my options, I paid a hefty price for a private lesson from an inner sect Formation King. This might have been overkill for what I needed, but I wanted the most reliable source of information I could get.

Repeating what I had been told previously, she informed me that spatial bags were relatively straightforward to make. The only real difficulties came in properly designing the formation stones that maintained them. I noted down the information about these formation designs for later study, but they weren’t too important to me, so I shifted the focus of the lesson.

“What could cause items to lose their energy when I put them inside a spatial bag? For example, putting a spirit stone inside causes it to lose all of its power and crumble to dust.”

She snorted in amusement. “Yeah, that can happen. The problem is with your formation stone. You created a barrier to keep the space stable and make sure everything stays inside, right? Well, you have to make it so qi and other types of energy can pass through. If you don’t, you end up with a massive space devoid of energy. This energy vacuum will rip the power out of anything you put inside to try and achieve an equilibrium.”

She handed me a bag and pointed out these features. “See, this creates an opening in the barrier to let the inside of the bag maintain the same qi density as the outside environment.”

This was going to be a problem. I could try to have the System make the storage space energy-permeable, but I wanted to keep its insides hidden from the Earthly Dao. I didn’t know if it was possible to do both.

Looking at things another way, if I kept the space as it was and found a way to pump the insides full of energy, I could make an environment that was extremely energy-dense. This ‘feature’ didn’t have to be a negative.

I moved on to another question.

“What about growing the space? We just need to pump energy into the spatial flame, and it grows, but if I want to make an extremely large space, is there any trick to grow it faster?”

She raised an eyebrow at this. “How large a bag do you want to make? As a King positioned inside a Qi Gathering Formation, you should be able to grow one to an immense size with just a day or two’s work. Do you really need a trick for this?”

“I…” What should I say? “I’m just interested in what would be possible.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Are you thinking about creating a new Trial? I don’t know everything involved, but I do know that a King can’t make such a thing. To answer the question, you just have to set up a modified Qi Gathering Formation that sends its energy directly into the spirit fire. It’s tricky to get everything working right, but that’s what you got to do. However, you should know that this isn’t the difficulty when creating a Trial. The formation stones involved are insane, and I have no idea how to even begin creating those gateway arches.”

That… that gave me a terrible idea for the future. I wouldn’t and couldn’t do anything about it for the time being… but in the future…

She touched on a few more subtleties about actual spatial bags, but I didn’t pay too much attention. I had the information I needed.

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After my lesson, I performed what was starting to become an end-of-life ritual. I secluded myself for a month and pumped all the energy I gathered into my spatial fire seed to expand my storage space. Using the Rank 5 pills and formation, the space grew at an incredible rate, and when I was done, it had a radius of nearly two meters and a volume of slightly over 30 cubic meters.

I didn’t have any ideas yet for increasing the overall energy density of the space. There were possible ways of manually moving a bit of environmental energy inside by trapping it in a jade box somehow, but that seemed like way too much effort for very little gain.

However, there was an idea I wanted to try out that was rather low-effort at this point. It may just be a way to set fire to my contribution points, but it also might lead to interesting results.

I converted a large fraction of my accumulated wealth into spirit stones and proceeded to crush them inside the space. This released all of the energy they contained into the surrounding environment. It felt like I was using a platinum-plated teaspoon to fill a bucket with liquid gold. 

After I was finished, I couldn’t tell if there was any difference in the space just by looking. I would have to experiment with it at some point to find out. That being the case, stopped worrying about filling the space with energy and turned to filling it with materials.

With a significant amount of extra room for storage, I completely restocked my gold, spirit stones, and Rank 1 to 4 pills. I kept a few Rank 5 pills for possible personal use, but since they were low-quality, I didn’t care too much about them. I could potentially sell them for a bit of profit, but doing so would be problematic until I was a Martial King. If I sold them earlier, it would signal that they had been given to me by my benefactor, and that would cause uncomfortable questions about why he would give me junk pills.

After that, I stowed away several odds and ends, especially those useful in formations.

I considered contracting someone to make me a Rank 5 Qi Gathering Formation plate, but I learned such things weren’t practical. Rank 5 formations were only usable in areas of high qi concentration such as the Earth Peak. In other places, they wouldn’t be any better than a Rank 4 one. In the near term, it wouldn’t be of any use, and long term, I wanted to make my own.

My next stop was the sect’s Scripture Pavilion. I used nearly every contribution point I had left to purchase a variety of Rank 4 and 5 cultivation techniques. I also threw in a few formation, alchemy, and martial techniques that seemed valuable.

The final cost of everything was, quite frankly, absurd, and the deacon in charge of the pavilion gave me the stink eye as he processed my purchases.

“You know these will vanish in a month and you aren’t allowed to give them to anyone else, right?”

I nodded and motioned for him to continue. The sect had the same rules as the Academy when it came to sharing knowledge. Unfortunately for them, these rules weren’t designed around someone like me.

With copies of everything I wanted in hand, I had to make a couple of purchases to handle it all.

“System, improve my mental library and perfect reading to Rank 5.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 99 million credits. 560,699,004 credits remaining.

I wanted to improve my touch reading to make things faster, but looking at my credit count, I knew that wouldn’t be happening. I had to save the rest for later. Instead, I spent several days reading through each of the manuals. I didn’t have to be too careful because the ‘perfect reading’ ability ensured pristine copies were always sent to my mental library, but it still took time.

With that task complete, everything I needed to take care of in the sect was finished, so I left for South Gate City to handle my final two errands.

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As I was not on a sect mission or taking the Exam, I couldn’t use the sect’s portals, so traveling to South Gate City was a bit of a chore. 

While I had short distance movement techniques, I didn’t have any that would allow me to cover large distances quickly. As a Martial King, I could directly empower myself with qi run faster and longer than an average person, but my physical shell was still only mortal. I would be able to make the trip quicker, but my speed would still be quite limited.

This small problem was solved by a stable on the outskirts of Mortal City. Using the small amount of contribution points I had kept in reserve, I rented a beast tamer-raised Rank 4 Wind Horse. It wasn’t a portal, but it wasn’t too much worse.

When I arrived at South Gate, I stabled the horse and went to the Bluewind Pavilion where I was greeted by a cheerful attendant.

“How may I help you today, sir?”

“Yes, I had arranged to have several letters delivered here. A fair bit of time has passed since then, but I’m hoping that they are still available.”

“Of course, sir. We are very familiar with the habits of cultivators entering seclusion. There will be an extra storage fee attached, but rest assured, they have not been discarded.”

After taking my name, the attendant retrieved several dozen letters that had been sent to me over the years. There were letters from LiTing and YuLong up to the point of their deaths, and there were a few from JiaQi from up to a year or two after the time I had met with Yan.

There was nothing from Zhuge Yan himself. Not from before our meeting or after.

I placed all of the letters into my storage bag without opening any of them. I didn’t know how I wanted to deal with them yet, and I felt it might be better to leave them in their pristine, unopened state since simply touching them copied their contents to my mental library anyway.

Letters in hand, I rented a room at an inn on the outskirts of the city to deal with my final task.

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Based on past experiences, I had been extremely worried about playing around with spirit fire seeds unless I was prepared to die. Now, as a Peak King who should be able to contain them properly and at the end of my life, I was ready to give it a try.

In my storage space, I already had a large jade box prepared. With a small exertion of will, I sent the spatial seed out of my soul and directly into that box. The transfer went incredibly smoothly and didn’t cause any problems.

With it stowed away, I felt safer.

“System, increase my space affinity to mid eight-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 500 million credits. 60,699,004 credits remaining.

I felt a twinge in my soul where the storage space was located, but not the sharp pain from the last time. Whether because I already had a basic affinity or because the seed wasn’t there to exacerbate the effects, the increase in my affinity did not cause me to lose consciousness.

Once I was sure everything was fine, I began testing my fire seeds.

First, I placed the seed of the Cold Mountain Fire into my soul. It had somewhat recovered since I first put it in my storage space, but I hadn’t fed it any more spirit stones after stabilizing it.

When it entered my soul, it didn’t create the blast of energy I had expected. Instead, it began trying to suck up any energy it could from the environment. Considering the test a success, I stored it in its jade box once more.

Next, I pulled out the seed of the Flowing Metal Spirit Fire that I had bought from the sect and placed it into my soul. This time, my soul was rocked by an explosion of energy. The firestorm was intense enough to crack open my soul, but I was able to easily seal it up with strategic will-locks. After running a few tests on the fire, I stored it away once more.

Finally, I took out the seed of the Expanding Realms Spirit Fire. When it touched my soul, there was an explosive release of energy far more intense than that caused by the Flowing Metal seed. The cracks in my soul that had barely begun to heal were violently ripped open, and it took everything I could manage to keep the spirit fire from escaping and burning my body to ash.

I only managed to contain it because the burst of energy was not quite as intense as it had been when Du XiongMing first shoved it into my soul.

These tests confirmed that moving a seed out of my soul wouldn’t be a problem and I could do it at any time. Moving a depleted seed into my soul would likewise not cause any problems. However, if I tried to move an energized seed in, I needed to be a Martial Lord, and if it was a Profound-Rank seed, Peak King was a minimum requirement.

I considered swapping to one of my Yellow-Rank seeds since I couldn’t casually use the spatial fire, but I decided against it. Yellow-Rank flames were becoming underpowered for my needs. They might be useful early on, but I could just stockpile pills for those levels. I might as well keep the spatial flame in my soul to slowly, passively expand my storage space.

After making that decision, I sighed. I had expected to die when playing around with the seeds. Not having done so, I needed to find a different way to bring this life to a close.

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I returned to Dragon Peak and made my way to the path to Earth City. At the crossroads, I didn’t hesitate. I walked straight toward the Test of Body.

The path led up a steep incline and into a dense jungle environment. I carefully monitored my surroundings, expecting a demon beast to jump out of the foliage and attack me.

I wasn’t careful enough. 

I was prepared for wild beasts, but I was not prepared for the five cultivators that walked out from behind the trees and instantly surrounded me.

The man in the lead gave me an evil grin.

“Hand over all your possessions and we’ll leave you with an intact corpse.”

I was debating whether to try and fight them or simply suicide when the man to his left started shouting.

“Po, hey Po! Look at him! Do you know who that is? It’s that guy the elder’s been after.”

The grin on Po’s face widened. “Oh ho. I didn’t think we would capture such a prize. People’ve been waiting for you to come out here for years, and we were the lucky ones. I’ll have to thank you for that.”

He gave me a mock salute.

“I don’t know where you got the balls to murder a descendant of an elder of the Wind Peak, but we have to teach you a lesson or we’ll lose all respect. You might’ve been protected in the city, but they can’t save you here. You should be happy. This means you get to survive.”

When I registered his statement about the Wind Peak, I no longer hesitated. I couldn’t afford any mistakes when dealing with them.

I quickly reached into my storage space and pulled a poison pill into my mouth.

My heart was beating rapidly in fear, but my enemies had only just started to react when I got the message I was waiting for.

You have died. Calculating…

You died as a Martial King Peak. 10 billion credits awarded.

Total Credits:  10,060,699,004

Affinities

Mid Five-Star – Earth, Wood, Fire

Peak Six-Star – Water, Metal

Peak Seven-Star – Wind, Lightning, Light, Dark

Peak Eight-Star – Karmic Energy

Mid Eight-Star – Space

Mental Library (Updated)

Capacity – Rank 5

Perfect Transcription – Rank 5

Touch Reading – Rank 4

Comprehension Boosts (Updated) 

Professions:

Formations – 500,000,000 credits

Skills (Updated)

Pill Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive)

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Complete Status Page

Affinities

Mid Five-Star – Earth, Wood, Fire

Peak Six-Star – Water, Metal

Peak Seven-Star – Wind, Lightning, Light, Dark

Peak Eight-Star – Karmic Energy

Mid Eight-Star – Space

Resistances

Mental Effects (Cultivation Techniques) – 25,000,000 credits

Mental Library

Capacity – Rank 5

Journal – Rank 3

Perfect Transcription – Rank 5

Touch Reading – Rank 4

Comprehension Boosts

Cultivation:

Cultivation Techniques – 520,000 credits

Soul Growth – 20,000 credits

Qi Control – 20,000 credits

Nurturing Disciples – 500,000 credits

Professions:

Alchemy – 520,011 credits

Formations – 500,000,000 credits

Herbalism – 20,000 credits

Martial – 10,000,000 credits

Social:

Reading Emotions (True) – 25,000,000 credits

Skills

Pill Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive)

Technique Appraisal – Rank 3 (Earth)

Language (Western Han)