The Undying Immortal System Chapter 48: Life 58, Age 33, Martial Grandmaster 1

After showing the important places in the Sect Master’s enclave, Jiao took to my new residence.

“Here we are, what do you think?” she asked.

The house she had brought to was in a corner of the enclave with several small hos. The place wasn’t large, but it t my needs. It was clean, it had well-made wooden floors, the walls were covered in a smooth chalk plaster, and several windows allowed natural light. The only problem with the place was a complete lack of furniture.

“It’s good,” I said, “but what about a bed and things?”

“You have to buy those yourself, of course,” said Jiao with a small laugh. “You can’t expect the sect to just give you everything, right?”

“I guess not, but…” I had to think about how to phrase my worries. “When I was given a place in Elder Mu’s enclave, I was warned that anything I did, including adding furniture, would cause other disciples to challenge for ownership of the place, and if I lost, I would lose most of what I put in there.”

“Really?” asked Jiao. “Were you given one of the top places to stay or sothing?”

“No, it was a tiny hole in the ground.”

“Strange. Still, you don’t have to worry about that here. Not with this place at least. There are luxury residences that you can challenge for if you want, and the living conditions are a bit better, but it’s mostly about establishing your status. This is just a basic ho, though, so you won’t be challenged over it. Feel free to make it as lovely as you wish. As long as you have the points for it, at least.”

After a short discussion, Jiao left and allowed to get settled. I needed to decide what kind of furniture to buy, and I needed to move my nice cultivation mat over from my place in the village, but that could be a job for future . Instead, I needed to take stock of where I was and what I needed to accomplish.

I thought back to the list of goals I made at the start of this life. I had obtained good Profound-Rank cultivation techniques for both Rank 1 and 2, but they would be useless without the matching Rank 3 technique. I had gotten the earlier ranks from Elder Mu, and with him out of the picture I wasn’t sure if I could find a copy of the Rank 3 technique, but I needed to try.

I had learned to use my fire seed, and I could make Rank 2 pills exceptionally well. Now I needed to move forward and learn Rank 3 alchemy, and I wasn’t sure what twists that would involve.

I had learned a lot about the Wastes and the political pressures surrounding it, but it would be good to get more information on the topic.

As far as information about the fight at the Su clan, I had learned TianLei was a mber of the Tigers and was thus related to a rich, noble family sowhere around here. So, it was possible the fight had nothing to do with the sect but was so kind of power grab by these noble families. Those events would occur in 60 years, and I wasn’t sure I would be in the sect at that ti.

The only goal I had made absolutely no progress on was finding a spatial spirit fire seed. I needed to keep my eyes and ears open there.

Did I need to add any goals?

I needed to clean out the faction’s technique hall and visit the Martial Peak to pillage what I could there. I regretted not being able to store Rank 3 techniques in my ntal library, but the cost to do that before this life had just been too extravagant.

I also wanted to keep an eye open for any information I could get related to auctions of valuable goods, hidden treasures uncovered, or any important discoveries. I needed so basic information gathering for things that might be of interest to later. Doing this would be a hassle, but there was no reason I had to do it myself. If I was allowed to leave the sect freely, I could use my alchemy abilities to hire people to collect information for . It shouldn’t even be that hard, since I was mainly interested in open, freely available news about the recent past. I would just need to sort through the information to find the bits I could use.

Learning Rank 3 alchemy would be a major ti sink, so I didn’t want to add too many goals, but one final item I decided to short-list was at least learning information about joining the Flowing Mountain Sect. I wouldn’t put my hopes on moving up and claiming a city this life, but I did want to know the requirents so I could consider pursuing that path in the future.

I took out my ntal journal and jotted down so notes.

Get the Rank 3 Profound techniqueLearn Rank 3 alchemyGet more information about the areaLearn about the Su Clan?Look for information about spatial fire seedPillage techniques (faction, fighters, more?)Gather valuable intelLearn more about the Flowing Mountain Sect selection

Satisfied with my plans, I put them all aside for the rest of the day and got busy with decorating.

“Alright,” said Jiao, “so, Grandmaster Alchemy.” She began tapping her chin with one finger while thinking about how to explain. “There isn’t much to say about it. Let’s just get so ingredients and get to work.”

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“Wait… what?” I asked.

“Yeah, you got the basics, really, it’s just more of the sa. Nothing much changes between Master and Grandmaster. Burn away the toxins, combine the energy, compress into a pill. Boom, you’re done.”

“Then, why did Elder Tao say I would need support to learn it? I should just be able to do it now, right?”

“Sure,” she said, “as long as you’re good enough. Go ahead.”

I wasn’t quite sure what that ant.

“Wait here a mont,” she said before running off sowhere. It took a few minutes before she returned with a box in hand. “I got so herbs. Let's grab a cauldron and see what you’ve got.”

We walked into one of the private work areas, and Jiao pulled out the herbs she had brought.

“These are for a Rank 3 Regeneration Pill,” she said. “It’s one of the easiest pills, so it’s a good place to start. Basic sequence of tal, water, wood, and you’re done.”

I picked up the herbs and began to get started, but when I looked at them in qi sight, I was stunned.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“Rank 3 herbs,” said Jiao. “Get to it.”

The herbs she had given were the nastiest things I had ever seen. Not in regular sight, though. In normal vision, they were perfectly normal plants, but in qi vision, they were living nightmares.

Normally, herbs would be a core of dicinal energy surrounded by a layer of toxins, and you only had to burn away the toxins. Working with Rank 1 herbs, I had learned that there were flecks of toxins mixed in with the dicinal energy, so it was nearly impossible to completely cleanse it, but that was just a matter of a few flecks here and there.

These herbs were demonic Rorschach tests. The toxins and dicinal energies twisted upon each other in random ways. There were so globs of dicine stuck in layers of toxins, but also so globs of toxins stuck in layers of dicine.

There was no way to utilize all the dicinal energy in these. So of it had to be destroyed just to access the toxins it was protecting.

“Don’t just stand there,” said Jiao. “Get to work.”

I set my mind to the task and began.

The herbs she had given had been mostly contaminated with tal-based toxins. Even the toxins in the tal herb she gave seed to be mainly tal-based. That seed odd, since from what I knew, the herb should have absorbed that energy, but I didn’t have the herbalism background needed to understand it.

The fact that it was all tal-based, though, made it a lot easier to deal with. Fire lts tal, so my fire qi, which had just gotten an upgrade and was easiest for to control, would be excellent here. I focused my qi and sent a strand to start its work.

Nothing happened. The qi just bounced off the toxins.

I increased the strength of qi, then doubled it, then doubled it again. Finally, the toxins started to evaporate, but the drain on my qi had beco very noticeable. I could complete the pill at this rate, but it would take a lot out of .

I continued slowly until finally the first area of dicinal energy was nearly exposed. I wasn’t used to performing alchemy with this intensity of qi though, and a small strand of my energy split off and hit the tal-based dicinal power. In a flash, all the dicine in that entire region vanished. While the toxins had beco significantly more robust, the dicinal power had beco equally as fragile.

At that point, the tal herb was waste material, so I put it down.

“Try the next one with your spirit fire,” suggested Jiao.

My spirit fire was earth-based, and it was usually a poor idea to use earth against tal, but I followed her advice. At first, the spirit fire had no effect, but the more I opened the floodgates of my soul, the more powerful it beca. Usually, earth would make tal stronger, but there was a breaking point where earth overwheld it.

“What are you doing?” asked Jiao. “Use your qi to control it properly.”

I had never practiced using my fire seed like spirit fire users did. I had developed my own ways of manipulating it that were impossible for people without a fire seed, and they had worked well in Rank 2, but maybe Rank 3 would take more.

Instead of just controlling the direction and intensity with my soul, I began to also use threads of qi to empower and direct it. This combined force would have been complete overkill in Rank 2, and it likely would have ended with instantly turning the herb to ashes, but for Rank 3 it was what I needed. With both thods combined, the fire started cutting through the toxins like butter.

My lack of control with this thod was my undoing. While it cut through the toxins cleanly, the intense power contained within also completely vaporized the dicinal energy whenever it even got close.

“Let’s put the third herb away for now,” said Jiao, “I think you’ve learned what you needed to.”

I looked at the herbal remnants in front of . “I’ve learned that I’m completely incapable of Rank 3 alchemy, but how does that help ?”

“Now, it’s ti for you to go to the technique hall. There are a lot of helpful techniques in there that you need to start using. I watched you during the Inner Sect Challenge, and you didn’t use any techniques when concocting besides Empowernt. That’s normal at your level. You haven’t needed them before, but now you do.”

I thought about all the alchemy techniques I had copied down in my ntal library. I had dozens of them, but I never even considered using them because I didn’t see the value. Why use a technique to help see, or one to help control the flow of qi, when I could do everything without them?

Without a strong advantage for Rank 3, I would need to rely on those techniques to help bridge the gap. I hoped that eventually I wouldn’t need them, since they added complications to the process, but I already knew the truth. Eventually, I wouldn’t need them for Rank 3, but things would only get tougher from there. Once I advanced again to Rank 4, I would need those techniques and better, so it would be best to get used to using them now.

“What do I need to access the technique hall here?” I asked. “Rank 3 techniques must cost a significant amount of contribution points.”

“For the faction, it’s free. You can access any alchemy techniques you want, but you may be limited if you want to look at other techniques. The higher-ups want you to focus on alchemy. The sect’s hall has a larger selection of techniques, which will cost, but you should hold off. The faction library will have most of what you need, and you should only need to go to the sect to fill in the gaps.”

“Alright,” I said, “I guess I should start studying.”

“Just a recomndation,” said Jiao, “go back and make so Rank 1 and 2 pills. Create a foundation with the techniques there before trying to use them on Rank 3. It will be easier with the reduced qi demand.”

I nodded. “That makes sense. That’s what I’ll do. Thanks.”