The Undying Immortal System Chapter 288: Life 76, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

Most of my ti over the next couple of weeks was spent studying cultivation techniques, but I spent a few hours each day observing the situation in my inner world.

At several points, I considered removing the seed of the Solid Mountain Fire from my soul and replacing it with sothing else. As a Martial Disciple, this would have been dangerous, but as long as I first drained the seed of energy, it might have been possible.

I needed to use the Expanding Realms Fire to start growing the world again, but removing the Solid Mountain Fire would an removing the world’s primary source of qi. Then, as the world grew, and as people cultivated and locked qi away in their bodies, the world’s qi density would gradually decline, eventually making it impossible to cultivate in the world once again. Still, growing the world was more important than maintaining its qi density.

With these thoughts in mind, I resolved to swap out the fire seed. However, that was when a new problem beca apparent.

While all of the earth cultivators were able to pull in energy and store it in their bodies, Masters were unable to form ridians, and Grandmasters were unable to compress their qi. The only people who were able to advance were Disciples.

I only knew of one possible explanation for this. The world’s earth Laws weren’t complete enough.

After considering this situation, I decided to leave the Solid Mountain Fire in place so that my world could continue to absorb its Laws. To advance to Rank 2, the world would need to absorb a second set of Laws, and the Solid Mountain Fire was a pure earth seed, so there wasn’t any risk of an unexpected advancent. Also, by concentrating the energies and Laws that I was pouring into the world, I could more easily study their effects.

By the end of my first month in the clan, I had collected three more random Disciples in my soul space. Their combat instructor was far from happy with , but my display of martial prowess had stabilized my position, so there wasn’t much that he could do to .

As I was sitting in my cultivation room, reviewing a variety of both single- and dual-elent Profound-Rank techniques, a series of three soft knocks broke out of my concentration.

“Enter.”

The door opened to show a young woman who was wearing the brown robes of a servant.

“Yes?”

She bowed to . “Young Master, it is ti for competition between the elite disciples. Please, follow .”

Her voice trembled as she spoke, and it was clear that she was afraid. Was it fear that I would refuse, or was it fear of what other ‘young masters’ might do to her?

Keeping my thoughts to myself, I simply stood and waved her back out the door.

“Lead the way.”

This straightforward response made her widen her eyes, and I felt a surge of panic in her, but she turned and led out of the house.

As the young woman guided through the maze of the complex’s towering red walls, I looked around at my surroundings and was sowhat confused. The only people I saw were servants. Where were the other elites? Shouldn’t they be headed to the competition as well?

As we walked, my guide started trembling in fear, but I wasn’t sure why. Was she leading into a trap? That didn’t seem likely. Everyone was currently treating as the Patriarch’s true grandson. So of the other clan’s scions might not be happy about this, but would they be willing to make a move against so openly?

When we entered the courtyard where the competition was to be held, the arena, balcony, and platform with its ten chairs for the elites were all in place. Everything was ready, but the only person present was a familiar old man who was using a bamboo broom to push around a pile of dirt.

I turned to my guide with a raised eyebrow.

She blushed and bowed deeply. “The… The competition won’t start until noon. We were sent out early to retrieve everyone. Eunuch Pang thought it would take at least an hour before anyone would be willing to leave with us, and he wanted to ensure that you arrived on ti.”

After saying this, she didn’t rise from her bow. She stayed bent over with her head facing downward as a few teardrops leaked out and dropped to the ground. Standing there, with neck extended, she looked like she was awaiting execution.

Was this place really so hard on the servants? My focus had always only ever been on the young cultivators, and I had never seen the servants as anything more than spies for the elders. But… if the Su Clan didn’t have any compunctions about killing their own children, then how would they treat mortal servants who weren’t even related to them?

However, for the mont, the best I could do was to pretend not to notice. Anything else would only cause more trouble for the girl.

“I see. Thank him for .”

If this Eunuch Pang had a good read on the typical ‘elite disciple,’ then sending the servants to bring us here early might have been the right call, and I wouldn’t fault a man for doing his job the best way he knew how. I just couldn’t help but feel that this girl had been put in an untenable position. No matter what she did, bringing early or late, she risked punishnt.

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I turned to the platform. “Where am I supposed to sit?”

“Yes— Yes, of course. Right this way.”

The girl let out a soft, whimpering sigh, and slowly straightened. Then, she guided to the chair reserved for the second-ranked elite.

After I took my seat, she gave a deep bow. “Young Master, once the competition is over, I will return to guide you back.”

I waved her off. “No need. I can find my own way ho.”

“But—”

I shook my head. “If you are required to serve as my guide, if leaving to return on my own will cause trouble for you, then I will accept your assistance. If not, you may take your leave.”

“Yes, Young Master. I wish you well in the competition.”

With another bow, she departed.

I let out a deep breath. That was another thing. I wasn’t a fan of all the bowing. I had acted similarly in the past, and I didn’t mind giving soone a few bows if it helped smooth over a tense situation, but having a servant repeatedly bowing to like this just made uncomfortable.

Once I took control of things, I would need to look at implenting a few changes.

However, that was for later. Putting these matters out of my mind, I looked around the arena once more.

There was nothing much to see. It held the sa combat stage, the sa platform, and the sa balcony as always, and a quick check with energy vision showed nothing of interest—except for the sweeper, of course.

For a clan that was using a Martial Master 1 with a horrible foundation to teach its Disciples martial arts, and for a clan that could only provide a Martial Grandmaster 7 to oversee this entire training complex, it was a bit strange to see a Peak Grandmaster sweeping the floors. Worse, he wasn’t even doing a good job of it. He would just wave his broom around a couple of tis, glance at out of the corner of his eye, and then take a step forward and repeat.

As I sat in my chair and waited for the competition to begin, I thought through how I should deal with this old man who was doing such a terrible job at pretending to be a sweeper. What was the right way to handle this?

After a few minutes, I finally got fed up.

I stood from my seat, let out a long, exasperated sigh, and walked over to where the old man was pretending to be busy at work.

As I approached, he planted his broom in front of him and rested a good portion of his weight on it. I couldn’t help but wince at the sight.

The mont I reached him, I held out a hand.

“Give the broom.”

He only furrowed his brow at in confusion, so I just reached out and took it from him.

Then, I moved to the edge of the arena’s courtyard and started sweeping.

“This is an enclosed space. You can’t just brush dirt to the side. You need to gather it together so that you can pick it up and take it elsewhere.”

The courtyard was indeed rather dirty, and it made wonder if this elder had kicked out the regular cleaning crew so he could have his fun.

“As you sweep, don’t swing your arms about so much. Use the motion of your entire body to move the broom. Then, overlap the strokes so that nothing is left behind.” I glanced at the elder out of the corner of my eye. “And do not sweep dirt directly back onto an area you just cleaned.”

I continued sweeping for another minute or two and gathered up a decently large pile of dirt and debris.

Then, I turned back to the elder.

“You didn’t even bring a dustpan. What were you planning to do with the dirt once it was collected?”

He seed to want to speak, but I didn’t let him.

I tapped into my earth affinity and infused the pile of dirt with my qi to form it into a solid brick. This was much harder when using tal qi instead of earth qi, but bonding a few specks of dirt together well enough that it could be disposed of wasn’t a problem.

Once I was finished, I picked up the brick and handed both it and the broom back to the elder.

He accepted them wordlessly.

“It’s a bit more work if you have to use your qi like that, but you should have more than enough to get the job done, and I don’t see any way for you to get this place clean before noon any other way.”

After saying this, I turned and began walking away, but after taking only a couple of steps, I stopped and let out a sigh.

“You know, I really wasn’t expecting to see you here so soon, Grand Elder TaiZu.”

I felt the Grand Elder’s qi flare up behind , so I turned around to look at him.

He was glaring at . “You knew who I was, yet you still spoke to in such a way?”

I smirked. “Yes, Grand Elder. Yes, I did.”

I reached into my inner world and pulled out a mory orb. I looked down at it for several seconds. Then, I looked up and stared directly into TaiZu’s eyes.

“Elder TaiZu, we both know that I am no kin of YuanKong, but I’m sure you have investigated . I may be an orphan from a branch family, but I am still a full-blooded mber of the Su Clan, am I not?”

The elder narrowed his eyes at . “From what we have been able to discover, yes. However, the fact that you were able to recognize suggests that we might have made certain…. errors.”

I snorted. “Fine, but answer one question. How would you feel if you found out that a distant mber of a branch family decided to take over the Su Clan? Be honest.”

The elder let out a slight growl and released a strand of qi in my direction. The power it contained wouldn’t be enough to cripple , but if I allowed it to strike , I certainly wouldn’t be in any condition to compete against the Su Clan’s elites later.

With a ntal tug, I pulled on my soul and erected a barrier.

When the attack hit this barrier, it rebounded with twice the force and flew right back at the elder.

Seeing this, TaiZu’s eyes widened in shock, and he quickly mustered his control to disperse his qi.

If his original strike had been more powerful, dispersing it wouldn’t have been possible, but since it had only been strong enough to teach a Martial Disciple a lesson in respect, the elder was able to control it without an issue.

I smiled at him. “Grand Elder, please, be civil. Just answer my question. If a powerful enough mber of a branch family appeared, a full-blood mber of the clan, would you have any strong objections to him becoming the clan’s new Patriarch?”

TaiZu gritted his teeth. “I will always do what is best for the clan.”

I rubbed my chin and nodded in thought. Then, I tossed him his mory orb. “Inject your qi into that.”

Instinctively, TaiZu reached out and caught the orb, dropping both the broom and the dirt brick in the process.

Holding the orb in his left hand, he stared at it, but he didn’t imdiately follow my instructions. Instead, I saw his right hand twitch, suggesting that he wanted to smash the orb to bits just to spite .

mory orbs might be Rank 6 artifacts, but they were as fragile as any mundane jade. If he wanted to destroy it, he would be able to do so easily. If that happened, then so be it.

He looked up at . “Why?”

“You will know once it is done.”

I hadn’t given him any reason to trust , and no sane person would simply comply with my orders. However, for whatever reason, after glaring at for a bit, the elder pulled on his qi and injected it into the orb.

Once the mory transfer was complete, TaiZu lifted his head and stared off into space.

I walked forward and plucked the mory orb from his unresisting hands. Then, I turned and walked back to my seat where I closed my eyes to ditate as I waited for the competition to begin.

TaiZu didn’t say anything to .

After staring at the sky for several minutes, he looked down and stared at his broom and the dirt brick. Then, he silently walked away, leaving them behind.