The Undying Immortal System

Several years earlier, I had decided that having my storage space be the shape of a sphere wasn’t ideal. If my storage space continued to grow evenly in every direction, then there would eventually be too much ‘up,’ and it would be difficult to make efficient use of all the space. Additionally, if the space’s land was built upon a spherical base, it would constantly shift and move as the sphere’s radius expanded.

To alleviate these problems, I had long ago decided to try and turn the space into a cylinder with a fixed height and an ever-increasing radius. With this shape, while there might still be earthquakes and landslides around the edges as the space grew, most areas would be stable.

However, to figure out how to make this happen, I had to turn to the System.

“System, I want to purchase a complete mastery of my spatial fire seed.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 10 billion credits. 727,305,430,897 credits remaining.

Knowledge flooded my mind.

As soon as I had absorbed this torrent of information, I turned my focus inward and gazed at the seed of the spatial spirit fire residing in my soul.

In the past, I had avoided using this flame for alchemy because of a lack of affinity, a lack of understanding of how it worked, and a lack of desire to draw attention to myself. With the new understanding that I had just gained, I knew that this had been the right choice.

A spatial spirit fire was inherently destructive. If I tried to use it to burn away toxins in medicinal herbs, it would have created small pockets of expanded space with each bit of toxin it destroyed. Without supreme control and an overwhelmingly high affinity, I wouldn’t have had any chance of stopping these pockets of space from ripping the medicinal energy to shreds.

The mastery I purchased also gave me a deeper appreciation of why I had lost consciousness when I first acquired a space affinity.

As the spirit fire grew my storage space, it was putting a massive strain on my soul. By purchasing a space affinity, I had relieved a great deal of this strain, allowing the space to rapidly expand, but everything happened too quickly, causing my soul to violently convulse. This, essentially, caused a kind of whiplash effect.

I had been worried about further improving my space affinity while the seed was in my soul, and this knowledge told me that I had been right to worry. If I tried to immediately advance my space affinity from eight-star to six-star, the same thing could happen again, and if I went too far all at once, this pressure could end up ripping my soul apart. However, as long as I took things one step at a time, there wouldn’t be any problems.

In fact, by improving my affinity and reducing the strain my storage space placed on my soul, I could greatly increase the rate at which the space was growing.

“System, permanently improve my space affinity to low seven-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 billion credits.

I took a deep breath and felt my soul for any disturbances. Everything seemed to be good, but I still spent an hour in deep cultivation before continuing.

“System, improve it to mid seven-star.”

…

“Improve it to low six-star.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 100 billion credits. 611,305,430,897 credits remaining.

With each increase in my affinity, the space began to grow more rapidly.

When I now looked into my soul and gazed at the fire seed, I felt a much deeper connection with it.

Reaching out with my mind, I twisted the seed’s spirit fire into a ring and forced it to circulate around the bottom of the storage space.

By repositioning the spirit fire and concentrating my intent on how I wished it to grow the space, I forced it to start adding volume to the bottom, flattening it out into the base of a cylinder.

The process of adding enough volume to my storage space to turn it from a sphere into a cylinder would take years, but with my new mastery and enhanced affinity, it would happen far faster than I had expected.

With my storage space growing in a direction that I was happy with, I headed to the workshops on the northern edge of the plateau to meet with Mo. He had asked for a moment of my time, and while it would typically be customary for him to come to me, I wanted to get a better feel for how the areas around the clan had been developing, so I went to meet with him instead.

The inside of Mo’s office was a mess of paperwork. As the head of the workshops, Mo was not only in charge of scheduling, but he had also taken over responsibilities related to the sale and pricing of various products. Seeing this scene, I was a bit worried about how much work he was putting into managing everything.

When I entered, Mo was attempting to craft a Rank 1 attack formation. This particular formation wasn’t anything too special, and after years of practice, it shouldn’t have given Mo many problems, but he appeared to be having significant difficulties with even some of the more basic aspects of it. By teaching the professions through memory orbs, I had hoped to avoid any problems with low natural talents, but it appeared that Mo hadn’t been able to absorb the lessons in the formation orb as thoroughly as I thought he would.

I had entered silently so that I could watch him while he worked, but as I sat down across from him, I cleared my throat to get his attention.

Mo’s head jerked up, and he stared at me with wide eyes.

“Pa… Patriarch.” He stood and bowed. “P…

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I waved a hand to dismiss any concerns he might have about propriety.

“What did you wish to speak with me about?”

“Ye... Yes.” Mo fumbled around on his desk and produced a stack of papers. “Patriarch… There’s a small problem with the workshops that I wanted to discuss.”

I motioned for him to continue.

“Well… It’s about contribution points… Several of our professionals are starting to get upset. Alchemists and herbalists have easy ways to earn a significant number of contribution points by supplying people with pills and herbs. The other professions are somewhat… lacking. Refiners and formation specialists, for example, need to put in just as much work as alchemists, if not more, but they aren’t earning anywhere near the same number of contribution points for their efforts.”

I nodded in understanding. “And the others?”

“They feel the same. Beast tamers, illusionists, talisman artists… none of them are happy with the current situation.”

I folded my hands as I started thinking.

“Let’s take things one step at a time. First, talisman artists.” As I spoke, I accessed the knowledge on Rank 1 to 3 talisman artistry I purchased from the System. “We can set up a simple exchange system with talismans, similar to what we have for pills and herbs. There will need to be restrictions, and the sect will end up purchasing a lot of worthless talismans, but that’s fine. Appraising talismans shouldn’t be too difficult, and I can teach someone from your team how to do it properly.”

Mo nodded quickly and made a note of this, but his mind seemed to be elsewhere.

“As for beast tamers…” I smiled. “Consider them our new herbalists. I’ll give you the details later, but they will need to start producing alchemical ingredients for us. They can still raise animals as pets, companions, or livestock if they wish, but most of their points will come from producing high-quality medicinal ingredients.”

This caused Mo to pause, but I pushed on.

“As for formation specialists, this is a bit more complicated. I have plans that will need their assistance, but I will need you to work out the specifics of how to compensate everyone. I will provide you with a list of different ideas, and I want our specialists to start researching the most efficient ways to make them a reality. For example, creating an illusion formation we can place on a ceiling to make it look like the sky.”

If I was going to be paying people to study formations, there was no reason not to have them contribute to finding ways to make my storage space more habitable.

“As for refiners and illusionists... I’m not sure. They might be able to contribute to the tasks I give the formation specialists, but ideally, they would have ways to earn points on their own. Talk to them to see if they have any ideas. It would be nice if refiners had ways to make points without needing to make an endless supply of useless weapons. In the worst-case scenario, I will authorize you to just purchase whatever they make, but if someone can come up with a creative idea for how to earn points, give them a bonus.”Nôv(el)B\\jnn

“I… understand, Patriarch.”

At the beginning of the conversation, Mo had been extremely nervous, but as it went on, he had calmed down significantly. However, as I stood up to leave, he twitched. I could tell he wanted to say something, but he was afraid to do so.

“Is there a problem?”

Mo took a deep breath and bowed his head.

“Patriarch, I need your help.”

I just stood there stoically as I waited for him to continue.

“Patriarch, can you… Can you take me to Dragon Gate City? I need to talk with my parents.” A look of embarrassment and pain appeared on his face. “And… can you take me to Red Blossom Village to meet with LanLan’s parents?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

Mo began kneading his hands in concern. “Uh… RuLan… I… want to ask her parents for permission to marry her.”

I moved back and took my seat.

“Are you sure?”

Mo nodded. “Patriarch, we’ve been talking about it for months now. We would like your blessing to wed.”

Unwilling to admit that I had no idea who RuLan was, I quickly opened my mental journal and flipped through the list of people I had recruited over the years. While I had mostly stopped caring about who everyone was, I still kept a basic list of who joined us, but all this told me was that Su RuLan joined during the third cohort, making her two years younger than Mo.

“Mo, you don’t need my permission to marry, but if you want my blessing, you have it. The same is true of your families. They cannot stop you from marrying whomever you wish. You are a member of my clan now, not theirs. I can take the two of you to meet with your families, but know that no matter what, I will support you.”

Mo gave me a seated bow. “Thank you, Patriarch.”

After arranging a time to take Mo and RuLan to meet with their parents, I stood and left. NiangBa had requested a meeting with me as well, and I could only hope that he had something different to ask about.

I met NiangBa in his new apartment on the top floor of the mountain. This was my first time visiting one of these rooms, and I was astonished by the colors and patterns created by the natural blueschist walls.

To make the place feel less like what it was, a mountain cave, the builders had installed light wood flooring and an intricately carved wood-paneled ceiling. To offset the gloom caused by the dark colors predominant in the blueschist, large, brightly colored tapestries had been hung on nearly every wall.

NiangBa was a member of the clan’s leadership council, so his apartment was likely leagues above what others could expect, but if the standard apartment was anywhere close to what they had done for his room, I was more than pleased with the effort of GuiMing’s team.

After welcoming me inside, NiangBa offered me a seat and made his request.

“Patriarch, I wish to go down the mountain. I want to leave Mount Jiang and explore the outside world.”

I took a sharp breath and looked at him closely.

“Are you sure?”

NiangBa nodded, resolute. “I have found it difficult to cultivate these past years, and if things continue like this, I won’t have any chance of creating a solid foundation as a Martial Master before stagnation sets in. Something needs to change. I want to spend time outside to better understand who I am and what my purpose is.”

I turned on energy vision and looked at him closely.

He was a 23-year-old Peak Martial Master, which should have been excellent, but there were several problems with his foundation. Aside from the technique he was using only being Mid-Yellow, I could see problems with both the weave and placement of his meridians. More than anything, this showed a lack of care and concentration.

Part of me wanted to blame him for not taking his cultivation seriously enough, but I had seen the dedication he had put in when learning to cultivate as a Disciple. He was the only one so far to perfectly cultivate a Peak-Earth technique. So, I had to concede that it was possible that being cooped up on Mount Jiang for nearly a decade had simply worn away at him. Maybe he needed some time to relax and recharge.

“Will you be going alone?”

“No. With your permission, I would like to take four brothers with me. With us supporting each other, we can ensure nothing goes wrong.”

I drummed my fingers on my armrest in contemplation, thinking through the implications of this excursion, and then nodded at him.

“Very well. You have my blessing, but be careful. With your cultivation base, there aren’t too many people in the Wastes who will be able to hurt you, but there are Grandmasters out there, especially in the immediate area. Do your best not to offend them.”

I reached into my storage space and pulled out a small, palm-sized stone.

“Once you leave the mountain, I won’t be able to help you if something goes wrong. This contains a Rank 3 defensive formation. It can save your life a single time. I hope you won’t need it.”

NiangBa accepted the stone with two hands. “Thank you, Patriarch.”

“The five of you should visit the workshops and stock up on pills and talismans, but you must leave any refined items behind. They will only make you a target. Also, make sure you have someone take over your duties in the clan while you’re gone.”

NiangBa bowed. “Understood.”

I held up a hand with my fingers splayed. “Five months. Be back in five months, that’s when the new cohort of recruits will arrive, and that’s when I plan to initiate the next phase of your training. I want the entire leadership council to be here for it.”