Chapter 129: Life 65, Age 24, Martial Grandmaster Peak

I woke up in my apartment and groggily shook my head. What had happened to me? I thought back to the last moment I could remember. I had been improving my affinities, and there was a sudden pain in my soul... Doing a quick examination of my soul, I didn’t notice anything different. It was healed slightly more than the last time I had looked at it closely, but that was the only difference I could find. Then, I noticed my storage space. There was a lot of empty space inside. Too much. From what I could tell, its radius had increased by nearly 10%. That might not sound like much, but it meant the volume had increased by 33%. The space inside had increased by well over 100,000 cubic centimeters, and it was still growing at a noticeable pace. Putting everything together, I realized that gaining a spatial affinity had interacted with the spatial fire seed and my storage space in a strange way that had knocked me unconscious. The result of this wasn’t that bad. After all, I got a free expansion to my storage space, but if I enhanced my space affinity in the future, it might cause more severe problems. To try and play it safe, I asked the System for guidance on the topic, but as expected, every request came back with prices far outside of my budget. There wasn’t much I could do about this. I couldn’t exactly tell anyone about the situation, and bringing it up as a hypothetical in front of anyone knowledgeable on the topic would throw up way too many red flags. Hell, I didn’t even know who I could possibly ask other than Du XiongMing, and I doubted I would be able to gain an audience with him anytime soon. I would just have to play it safe. If and when I decided to raise my space affinity, I could look at transferring the fire seed out of my soul to prevent such a situation from happening again. But I wanted to be at least Lord, preferably King, before I started playing around with fire seeds. Breathing in and out, I refocused my mind. I needed to get to work. While it felt like I had been unconscious for only a moment, it could’ve been hours or days. I could have gone to ask somebody what day it was to find out, but the answer wasn't important. No matter how long I was out, it was too long. I had only been given one month to make 80 Perfect Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills. I didn’t have time to lie around. I looked into my dantian and saw the karmic energy that was waiting for me. I reached out with my mind and started to shape it. I had hoped that gaining a karmic affinity would make this task simple. All it seemed to have accomplished was reducing the difficulty back to where it was when I used standard Lord-level energy. That did put creating a core within the realm of possibility though, so following the manual I had used as the Water Groom to the best of my recollection, I began assembling it. I didn’t make any changes or embellishments. I simply made a replica of what I’ve done in the past. The only difference was that I limited the amount of energy I invested in it based on Lord Ning’s instructions. Once it was complete, I needed to begin filling it with qi. To accomplish this as quickly as possible, I would ideally use Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pills, the same pill I was attempting to ascend to be able to create. I had inquired about purchasing some through the Blue Wind Pavilion, but they were not readily available. I would have to contract a Pill Lord to create them, and that would require a long lead time. The other way I could cultivate more quickly was to use a Rank 4 Qi Gathering Formation. I had looked into having a formation specialist construct one in my apartment, but the response I got back indicated that it would be impossible. Formation specialists in the city were not in the habit of building Qi Gathering Formations for others. They seemed to have an unwritten agreement between themselves to do no such thing. If I had stronger connections, it might’ve been possible, but it wasn’t something that simple spirit stones could buy. The reason for this was simple. They had formed a cabal focused on forcing people to rent cultivation rooms. Instead of purchasing permanent formations for 10 or even 100 spirit stones, cultivators were forced to rent a room at a cost of two spirit stones per day. This was annoying, but it was something I could work with. I asked around about the date and found out that I only had 24 days remaining before the pills were due. I hurried to the closest cultivation pavilion and paid 48 spirit stones to book a room for the rest of the month. Once seated in the middle of the room’s formation, I reached into my storage space and pulled out a Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pill. Its help would be extremely limited considering that I was working on ascending to Lord and that I was already in a Rank 4 formation, but I would take any assistance I could get to make the process faster. It took me two days to gather the energy needed to break through. When I did, I sent a combination of qi, spirit stone energy, and karmic energy to destroy the chain barring me from Martial Lord 1. The moment the karmic energy touched it, it vaporized like it had never been there. I felt the world shift as the laws of Heaven and Earth loosened their grip on my body. As a Lord 1, the first thing I did was to make a Perfect Rank 4 Qi Gathering Pill as efficiently as I could. Previously, I hadn’t been able to make such a pill until higher stages, but with my experience, a full suite of peak six-star affinities, and the Profound-Rank Earthflame spirit fire, I was able to pull it off. Unfortunately, it took me 12 hours to make a single pill. The servant reached down and carefully helped me stand. Blinking in confusion, I looked inside my dantian and saw a storm of karmic energy inside. There was nearly no room left for qi. I wanted to complain that this would cause problems with my daily activities, but I suddenly realized that with so much of my dantian blocked off, the Qi Replenishing Pills would always be operating at their highest efficiency. I decided to accept this situation as a win. “Thank you.” I gave the servant a slight bow. “I was instructed to tell you that the energy you have been provided is sufficient to either advance from Martial Lord 1 to Martial Lord 9 or to advance from Martial Lord Peak to Martial King. The choice is yours. If you require more energy in the future, another deal can be arranged. If you decide to use this energy to advance to Martial King, you should use 50% on your core and 50% on your breakthrough.” He reached into his storage bag and took out a small book. “This contains the list of pills we would like you to concoct for us as per the ongoing portion of our arrangement. We, unfortunately, do not have a list of every ingredient needed. If you can provide us with such a list, we will procure them for you as our arrangement specifies.” I flipped through the book and found that it was asking for dozens of different types of pills. “This...” Had I really agreed to do so much? We hadn’t specified how many pills I would be making for them after the first batch. If this was what they were expecting... “We understand that an alchemist’s time is valuable. We would request you choose one pill every other month. We will provide ten portions of herbs. At the end of the second month, I will arrive to take our portion and deliver herbs for the next pill you choose. Our only request is that you choose a different pill each time.” I narrowed my eyes. These terms were incredibly suspicious. They were clearly still testing me. It worked in my favor, though. I flipped open the book and quickly chose one of the simpler pills that I could concoct without spending too much time and energy on it. I needed to save as much of that for myself as I could. The servant handed me a piece of paper, and I wrote out the necessary herbs. “Very well, Lord Su. Do you require anything else before I depart?” “N—” I was about to dismiss him, but I caught myself in time. There was indeed something I needed, but I was a little afraid to ask for it. “I... need a Rank 5 cultivation technique.” The servant smiled, reached into his bag, and pulled out a small black book. “This was anticipated. I have been permitted to sell this manual to you.” I wanted to rub my temples. I felt a headache coming on. “How much?” “The price is simple. Every additional pill you were able to make with the ingredients previously provided.” I couldn’t help it. A laugh bubbled up from deep inside of me. I reached into my storage bag to hide that I was taking several pill bottles out of my storage space. I passed him the remaining 18 pills. “Is that all of them?” “Y—” I caught myself again. “No. I have already consumed two.” The servant paused. “Very well. Those pills will be considered irrecoverable.” He passed me the cultivation technique. “Good day, Lord Su.”