Chapter 57: Life 59, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

After I died in the attack on the Twin Mountains Sect, I woke up in my tiny house inside the Su Clan with no desire to jump right back into the meat grinders that were my lives. My last life was the first one that felt like a real, full lifetime. I had lived to a similar age in the past, but those lives were like shadow plays where every day blended into the next. This past life had been a complete experience. I needed to take some time to breathe and assess everything that happened. I made extraordinary gains, both in knowledge and credits, and it would take time to work out how I wanted to move forward. I only had a few hours until someone from the clan came to take me to be tested, and I needed to prepare before that happened. How did I want to play this? Everything the clan did after the testing was based on my affinities. I had a mid eight-star fire affinity, low eight-star affinities in the other four basic elements, and a million points to play with. I just wanted to be left alone for a short while to figure things out, and a good way to get that time was to appear to have no affinities. I could do what I had done in the past and pay for the system to hide them, but now that I had a little more understanding of the testing apparatus, I had another option. “System, permanently raise all my basic affinities to mid eight-star.” Permanent mid eight-star Water, Earth, Wood, and Metal Affinities. Confirmed. Cost 10,000 credits. 990,290 credits remaining. Now I should appear completely worthless to the clan which meant I would be thrown right back in here for a week without interruptions. I knew I would be summoned for testing soon, so I didn’t bother diving too deeply into research. Instead, I spent the few hours I had organizing my thoughts. There were a few things I wanted to try now that I once again had a clean slate to work from. “What is your name?” asked the elderly man who always tested affinities. “Su Fang.” “Place your hand on the orb and channel your qi into it.” I channeled my qi into the orb, but only a flicker of chaotic lines appeared. I pushed harder, showing that I was trying, but nothing more happened. “Zero elemental affinity,” the elderly man said. “What can you tell us about the blessing you have received?” “I don’t know. My body feels a little stronger, but that’s all.” The old man gave me a look, and I could feel energy from him lightly probe my body. After that, he nodded to the scribe. “He will be given the Earth Heart Mantra and returned to his original quarters.” Returning to my house, I sat down and got to work. I had obtained a myriad of cultivation techniques in my last life, and I wanted to see what I could do with them. Most important to me were the two dual-element techniques I had obtained. I had studied the wood-fire cultivation technique a bit in the past, and it had given me a few ideas. Put simply, a single-element Rank 1 technique floods all the muscles in a part of the body with qi of that element. This dual-element technique sections off muscle groups, flooding some with fire qi and some with wood qi. There were two main things I wanted to look into. First, this technique was only Mid-Profound, and that seemed to be because it only provided limited qi purity. Could I adapt the filtering systems from a Peak-Yellow technique and implant them into this one to make a Peak-Profound technique? Second, this dual-element technique divided the muscles into two groups. Could I divide them into five groups, creating a five-element cultivation technique? While I believed a five-element Rank 1 technique should be possible for me to create, I was extremely doubtful I could make the Rank 2 version. The Rank 2 dual-element techniques created separate meridians for both elements, so a five-element technique would need separate channels for each element. That would be extremely complex to design. Still, the fact that I wasn’t ready to begin with the Rank 2 version wouldn’t stop me from attempting a Rank 1 version. First, I wanted to check on the pricing. “System, how much to change this Rank 1 Mid-Profound technique into a Peak-Profound one? 11,000 credits. That was ten times more than upgrading a Mid-Yellow to Peak-Yellow. “System, how much to change this Rank 2 Mid-Profound technique into a Peak-Profound one? 1,100,000 credits. Those two prices gave me the answer to my next question, but I wanted to ask it anyway. I took out the copy of the Rank 3 dual-element technique from my storage space. Space-attributed spirit fire seed. Cost 500 billion credits. So, not going to happen. “System, how much to learn information about the location of a spatial spirit fire I could acquire myself along with the time and circumstances under which I could get it?” Cost 350,000 credits. It was expensive, and it would eat into what I needed to raise my affinities, but getting that seed was my most important goal by far. Every moment without it was a moment my storage space wasn’t growing. So, upgrading cultivation techniques was put on hold, but I needed to purchase affinities and this information. Was there anything else I needed immediately? I was going to use the wood-fire dual-element technique, but I needed to rework the mental effects to be more suitable for what I wanted to accomplish. I had dozens of cultivation techniques with a variety of mental effects now, so I had a little more freedom to choose how I wanted to modify them. I carefully considered my options. What did I want in this life? I wanted to head outside the Wastes this life, and I knew who I would work with to do that. What would help me there? The Rank 3 cultivation technique I was going to use would only make the effects of the Rank 1 and 2 techniques more intense, so as long as I was happy with the Rank 1 and 2 effects, I didn’t need to worry about Rank 3, which would make things cheaper. I would need to deal with many different people. The techniques I had been using increased my friendliness, which I had begun to not like. The friendliness made it so I capitulated very easily to the demands of others. This wasn’t a horrible problem for me, I still got what I needed in the end, but I wanted to go in a different direction. Instead of being friendly, I just wanted to be personable. I wanted to feel free to say ‘no’, but I didn’t want to be constantly starting fights. I wanted to find novel solutions to problems, so something tending toward inventiveness? I didn’t have any techniques to help me there though. I would need to spend long stretches of time simply improving my alchemy. My Rank 1 skills were solid, but I could still see room for improvement in Rank 2, and my Rank 3 skills had massive gaps. That doesn’t even begin to consider the higher ranks I hoped to reach. Most importantly, I needed the techniques to only affect my behavior and not my perceptions or memories. That way, when I cut off the mental effects from the techniques, there should be minimal lingering effects. “System, how much to change the mental effects of the Rank 1 and 2 fire-wood dual element cultivation techniques so that they improve personability while also making one more dedicated and focused?” Cost 101,000 credits. Did I need anything else? “System, how much to upgrade my mental technique library so it can hold Rank 3 and 4 techniques?” Upgrade to Rank 3. Cost 90,000 credits. Upgrade to Rank 4, an additional 900,000 credits. “Alright System, purchase the Rank 3 mental bookshelf.” Confirmed. Cost 90,000 credits. 900,300 credits remaining. “System, purchase requested information about a spatial seed.” Confirmed. Cost 350,000 credits. 550,300 credits remaining. Formation Emperor Du XiongMing is currently in possession of a spatial spirit fire seed that meets your requirements. In 127 years, he will die in the Brilliant Sun Empire, located in the southern part of the continent. Upon his death, a war will erupt with many sides fighting to claim his fire seed. If you are present in the capital of the Brilliant Sun Empire at the time of his death, and you have a connection with its ruling dynasty, it may be possible for you to claim this seed as your own upon his death. Credits expended, transaction complete. Formation Emperor. Alchemists were divided into Disciple Alchemists, Master Alchemists, and Grandmaster Alchemists for Ranks 1 through 3. Above that, Rank 4 would be Pill Lord, Rank 5 was Pill King, and Rank 6 was called Pill Emperor. Formation Emperor Du XiongMing was a Rank 6 formation master, and to get a spatial spirit fire seed, it sounded like I would need to rob his corpse. To even have a prayer of pulling that off, I would need to be close to him when he died, which meant I needed to be his peer. A peer to a Formation Emperor had to be at least a Pill King, if not a Pill Emperor. I wasn’t sure it was something I could accomplish in a single lifetime, but I would give it my best effort. Truthfully, this mission might be easier if I approached it as a formation master, but that would mean learning an entirely new set of skills all the way up to Rank 6, and I had no idea how many lives that would take me. It would mean starting from nothing again. No, I would first try approaching it as an alchemist. If this path didn’t seem likely to succeed, I would at least be able to parlay my alchemic skills later in life into some basic knowledge of formations to establish a firm starting point. I still needed to raise my affinities and fix my cultivation manuals, but I didn’t want to rush that. WuJing had a Profound level cultivation technique he had promised me in a past life, and I was ready to claim it. “System, teleport me to Dragon Gate City.” Confirmed. Cost 30 credits. 550,270 credits remaining.