Chapter 194: Life 70, Age 25, Martial Lord 1

Words : 1614 Updated : Oct 15th, 2025

My demotion to the inner sect was a slight problem, but it was one that was easy to solve. After a couple of months, I would be able to take the sect’s Exam, and a quick purchase of Rank 4 talisman knowledge would be enough to ensure my return to core disciple status. For the moment, I just needed to continue on as normal. After reaching Profound City, JiaQi and I immediately turned around, teleported out of the sect, traveled through the portal network, and returned to NanLu City. When we arrived, I was shocked by the change. We had only been gone for a few weeks, but the town was already pulling itself together. On every street, I saw dozens of people cleaning the cobblestones, tearing down dilapidated buildings, and planting fresh flowers. The walls surrounding the city remained in their same crumbling, broken-down state, so outside observers hopefully hadn’t noticed any changes. However, the city inside the walls had completely transformed. When I arrived at the city lord’s manor, I found the three people responsible for this change. LiTing, in her position as Minister of Public Works, had laid out careful plans of what needed to be done and how to do it. For the most part, this involved making a list of the buildings that needed to be torn down and the materials that needed to be purchased to construct something new in their place. Jin ZiHan, in her role as Minister of Revenue, had been in a more difficult position, but she had excelled. She was not yet a Grandmaster, so she couldn’t personally visit the sect to sell pills or buy supplies. Instead, she had to relay everything through a team of servant disciples. Even with that limitation, she had still been able to take the pills I had left her and transform them into everything LiTing and the others required. However, none of this would have been possible without Meng LuYao. As Minister of Personnel, not only had she recruited Jin ZiHan’s servants, but she had also recruited numerous other low-level sect disciples to do odd jobs around the city. When I called a meeting and gathered everyone together, I wanted to thank the women for their hard work, but Jin ZiHan didn’t want to hear it. She was all business and only wanted to focus on what she considered to be the most important problem. “You didn’t leave us enough resources to fund the purchase of the ziethanite, but we’ve found a source for the kyanrolite. The suppliers are ready to begin delivery, but we wanted to wait until you got back. No one here understands your plans for it.” Thrown off by this immediate shift to business, I had to pause and think. “Building a wall and installing the defensive formations will be a lot of work and take up too much time. I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to handle it personally.” I drummed my fingers on the table. “Send a special request to the Earth Peak. Ask for Tie Yang. He’s a skilled Formation Lord and has a team that should be able to handle something like this. I’ll draw up some plans, and they can execute them. I’ll only need to step in once it’s time to infuse the walls with the ziethanite.” Jin ZiHan’s cheek twitched slightly in irritation. “I can do that, but that brings us back to the problem of money. We don’t have enough for all the stone we need, and paying Formation Lords to do all that work for us is even more of a problem.” I nodded and grabbed a blank scroll from my storage bag. After scribbling down the names of several Rank 4 herbs, I took a moment to think through a few options and then added a few basic Rank 5 earth-aligned herbs to the list. “Use whatever funds we have remaining to buy as many of these herbs as possible, and I’ll transform them into pills. That will solve the money issue.” I pointed out the Rank 5 herbs. “These might be a bit outside the budget, but buy one or two if you can. I can make a simple Rank 5 pill with them, and we won’t have to worry about contribution points at all if we can sell a few of those.” She gave me a false smile and accepted the list. We ran through a few more important issues, but for the most part, my friends had everything in hand. With the issue of the city’s defenses handed off to Tie Yang’s crew, I had time to implement what I hoped would catapult NanLu City to the next level. I was going to build a pill factory. While I still had the original pill factory diagrams from my time in Eight Flower Kingdom, there were problems with them. The concept behind the design was to use dozens of individual formations to create an assembly line that would automatically concoct pills. This worked, but it was messy. The numerous separate formations interfered with each other and caused the environmental qi to become turbulent. Aside from that, the quality of the pills produced by the factory wasn’t very high. They were Perfect pills, so their efficacy wasn’t overly important, but with my current knowledge and formation skills, I knew I could do better. Ultimately, the crux of the issue was that our original way of thinking about the factory was flawed. We didn’t need a complex chain of separate formations. What we needed was a single properly designed grand formation. This grand formation would be powered and controlled by a single main node in the center of the factory. This main node would then supply energy to a chain of child nodes in a controlled and organized manner. That last thought made me freeze, and then a moment later, I let out a hearty chuckle. I looked up and patted Yan on the shoulder. “Thanks, I know what to do.” Having advanced to Lord, I could now improve my affinities once more, so I traveled through the portal network and made my way to the Metal Peak. When I arrived, I found Jin waiting for me, and we went directly to her conference room where she immediately returned ZiHan’s and Shen’s memory orbs to me. Once we were seated, I had important questions that needed to be answered. “Both you and Shen have indicated there are rules binding your actions. I wanted to know, can the Master of the Lightning Peak strike at me if I make him upset? Is there anything he can do to me directly?” Jin had to give the question a bit of consideration. “He wouldn’t be allowed to do much to target you specifically. The biggest threat you have to worry about from him is the challenge he sets for you on the path to Heaven City. Since you’ll be the group’s leader, and you’re a member of his peak, there won’t be much Shen or I can do to stop him from making things as difficult as possible. Of course, if you make him exceptionally angry, he might order others to attack you.” “Is he allowed to send Kings and Emperors after me?” “That’s a bit of a gray area. I don’t know if there are rules barring it since the cost of sending an Emperor after a Lord would rarely make sense. But if you make him mad enough....” I bowed slightly to her. “Thank you.” That answer was a bit disappointing. Using up ten times as much essence as a normal disciple might upset the Master of the Lightning Peak, but he shouldn’t resent it enough to send high-level assassins after me. However, if I started stealing extra essence for the people of NanLu City, he might not be so kind. It was an unfortunate development, but there were other ways to accomplish my goals. After a moment’s thought, I returned my focus to Jin. “Can you please send a message to Shen for me? I need a way to collect essence from the environment, store it, and then transfer it to my citizens.” Jin snorted in amusement. “I can let him know, but I can already tell you his answer. He won’t be allowed to share such information.” She reached into a bag, pulled out a small white bar, and handed it to me. “This is an interesting substance, have you ever talked with LiTing about it? Also, you should have learned to transform martial techniques into formations by now, right? Why haven’t I seen you do that recently? Oh, and your actions are a bit too loud. You should take a vacation and let things cool off. Why not visit your friend JiaQi’s hometown?” I stared at Jin as she rambled off this list of random incoherent questions. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Thank you, Jin. I’ll keep that in mind.” I gave her a deep bow. Then, I took my leave and headed to the Metal Peak Trial. As a Lord, this version of the Trial was far more difficult than the Grandmaster version, but using LiTing’s Rank 5 refined gear and a Profound-Rank spirit fire seed, none of its challenges were able to hold up for even a moment under my onslaught. Once again, on my first attempt, I reached far enough to max out my metal affinity, improving it to mid four-star. With that task complete, I headed back to NanLu City to have a chat with my friends.

Chapter 194: Life 70, Age 25, Martial Lord 1

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