Our group was to travel through the portal network to East Empire. From there, we would enter Peach Blossom Kingdom and then take a portal to Golden Water City. As mercenaries contracted by Golden Water, we were to raid the neighboring West Brook City and destroy as many of its defensive formations as possible.
As both cities were under the control of the Peach Blossom Kingdom, we needed to cause as little collateral damage as possible. The rights of looting and pillaging West Brook wou...
2024-08-05 12:00:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
When I appeared in the Trial, I looked across the cavern at my opponent, a large stone golem. As was common for the first five levels of this Trial, the construct didn’t move to attack me.
Normally at this point, I would begin setting up a few quick Qi Gathering Formations to drain the area of energy and pass the stage without a fight, but this time, I had a different idea in mind. I had learned a lot about fighting recently, and it would be good to use these early levels to hon...
2024-08-02 12:00:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
“System, upgrade my martial comprehension to a total of one billion credits.”
Purchase confirmed. Cost 990 million credits. 6,733,086,524 credits remaining.
This might not be enough to compete with the likes of YuLong and JiaQi, but with a King-level amount of credits boosting me, I was confident that I could quickly learn what I needed to as a Grandmaster.
We had found that there wasn’t a good way for us to sign up for group combat training i...
2024-08-01 12:00:16 +0000 UTC
View Post
After I met up with Yan and the others, we spent some time looking for apartments in Mortal City. We wanted a good setup near the Gateway Plaza where everyone could live close to each other and provide support if there was ever any trouble. Because of the sect rules, there wasn’t much to worry about while living in Mortal City, but we still needed to be careful.
After renting out a large, well-furnished suite, we settled in and began planning our next moves.
I looked around at m...
2024-07-31 12:00:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
Fire or Earth. I had considered this choice several times over the past year.
There were strong reasons to go with the Fire Peak. It would give me an easier way to sell pills, it would provide me with access to the sect’s alchemy knowledge, and it would allow me to learn more about a new location.
The reasons not to go to the Fire Peak were equally compelling. I didn’t need the knowledge that they possessed. I had Emperor Li’s books, and if my guess were right, he woul...
2024-07-30 12:00:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
While Yan and I were busy teaching entire classes the basics of cultivation, LiTing, JiaQi, and YuLong were hard at work in one one-on-one training sessions. They were teaching students refining, beast taming, and talismans just as Master Tan had taught me formations.
This meant that LiTing had to reveal her profession to her assigned students as she taught them. This worried me, as it could possibly lead to her being targeted by rival factions or the Zhuge Clan, but there wasn’t much...
2024-07-29 12:00:18 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hello everyone,
First, thanks for subscribing to my Patreon as I worked to expand the Grandmaster tier to a full 25 chapters ahead of Royal Road. Unfortunately, today we finally reached that mark. From now on, we will be returning to the regular 5 chapters a week.
Thanks for your support, and I hope you enjoy what's coming next.
2024-07-28 12:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
In their first martial competition, my students were pitted against Yan’s students.
Yan’s class was somewhat unique among those that I had seen. Usually, a Master would choose students with matching blessings and complementary affinities when possible. For example, Grandmaster Ning and Master Sun had chosen our class to all have comprehension blessings, and one of the classes we fought against only had students with elemental incarnation blessings.
In contrast, Yan had chosen ...
2024-07-28 12:00:12 +0000 UTC
View Post
The day before I was to begin teaching my class of Disciples, I went to Instructor Yuan’s office to get a list of the students who would be in my class. Typically, I would’ve had such a list several days earlier to assist me in making preparations, but because I was not the one in charge of selecting my students, it was delayed.
The instructor’s room was laid out exactly how Grandmaster Ning’s had been, and Instructor Yuan sat behind a wooden desk with two chairs in front of it....
2024-07-27 12:00:12 +0000 UTC
View Post
Over the following weeks, while I spent my mornings in classes learning how to teach Disciples, most of my time was spent in the soul cultivation library.
The Academy’s technique library contained several small rooms, and its contents were carefully partitioned so that someone who was granted access to Rank 1 martial fire techniques could only view those specific techniques. If one wanted to look at a different Rank, technique type, or element, they would need to be provided separate ...
2024-07-26 12:00:15 +0000 UTC
View Post
While the morning class on about teaching was helpful, it was the afternoon class that I had been looking forward to with both anticipation and dread: Soul Cultivation.
I needed a stronger soul. I needed a way to defend my soul. The strength of my soul was the only strength I could bring back with me, so I needed it to be as powerful as possible. However, if soul cultivation caused a shift in my personality akin to that of qi cultivation, I didn’t want to risk it.
The potential ...
2024-07-25 12:00:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
Yan and I arrived together at the meeting with the rest of our classmates. We were both agitated as we sat, and seeing this, JiaQi decided to break the ice.
“I’ve decided to leave the Academy,” she said while holding her small deer. “I want to give LuLu a chance to live outside as she grows up. I’ll come back for the first term as a Grandmaster, but I’ll skip next term. I know I’m not going to be a Sovereign anyway.”
I continued to hesitate, so YuLong announced his...
2024-07-24 12:00:16 +0000 UTC
View Post
When I awoke in my apartment in the Academy, I instantly started scanning my soul for any possible signs that it had somehow been infected. After my first thorough search, I didn’t find anything, but I didn’t let that stop me and proceeded to check twice more. Still not satisfied, I had to ask the System.
“System, is my soul infected by any gu?”
Cost 100,000 credits.
“Purchase!”
Purchase confirmed. 10,060,599,004 Credit...
2024-07-23 12:00:12 +0000 UTC
View Post
As I was reviewing the things that I needed to get done before the end of my life, I realized something. Tie Yang must be furious with me. I might have ruined the mission he spent so much time and effort on.
When I became a Martial Lord, I had been demoted to the outer sect because my skills with formations were lacking. Tie Yang had diligently trained me so that I could rejoin the inner sect, but I got so lost in everything else that I forgot to do so.
With my ascension to not on...
2024-07-22 12:00:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
I sat on the ground in my cultivation cave. Emperor Li stood above me.
My first instinct was to quickly pull out a poison pill and swallow it as quickly as possible. I was uncertain how he felt about me in this life, but his anger at the end of the last one had been palpable. If his feelings remained the same, there was little I could do in the face of his overwhelming power other than attempt to die.
However, something stopped for me. I didn’t consider Emperor Li my enemy. I st...
2024-07-21 12:00:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
The time I spent with Tie Yang’s group was all about learning to be a participant in the creation of grand formations. He didn’t teach me their underlying principles since that was beyond the scope of his mission. His goal wasn’t to teach me how and why grand formations worked. It was to teach me how to be a participant in their creation.
A single grand formation was capable of covering an entire city. Instead of using a single formation stone or a small number of nearby formation...
2024-07-20 10:29:53 +0000 UTC
View Post
The final few caves in the Test of Mind increased in difficulty slightly, but there was nothing too challenging. As long as one knew the recipe and could correctly identify the necessary herbs among those that had been provided, most trained alchemists wouldn’t have any problems.
While there were many difficult to make Rank 4 pills, they all required strong will-locks, powerful spirit flames, and a mixture of high affinities. As this test was intentionally designed so that it wa...
2024-07-19 12:00:12 +0000 UTC
View Post
My time in Yellow City proceeded smoothly, and I didn’t encounter any of the problems that I had expected. Based on the description of there being no rules on Dragon Peak, I thought that there might be rampant theft and murder everywhere. However, reality did not meet these expectations.
From what little I saw of it, Yellow City seemed like it was just a smaller version of Mortal City. In retrospect, this shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise. If there were unbridled chaos, ...
2024-07-18 12:00:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
Once I was a good distance away from the site of the battle, I hid in the woods as well as I could manage. I needed a moment to catch my breath and figure out what to do next.
Wen’s talk about gu had me worried. I had zero understanding of what such insects might be capable of, and if inadvertently ingesting such things could cause severe soul damage, I would have to be far more careful in the future.
I reached into my storage space and pulled out all the pills that he ...
2024-07-17 12:00:19 +0000 UTC
View Post
As we walked out of Mortal City, the feeling that I got from Brother Wen was one of indifference. He didn’t feel like a guard that was sent to safeguard my life. He felt like someone who wouldn’t care if I lived or died.
On the other hand, Mao just seemed excited, like the day he had been waiting his whole life for had finally arrived.
This combination left me unnerved, but that was fine. If they decided to attack me for some reason, I was prepared. I didn’t know how strong ...
2024-07-16 12:00:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
I looked at the two men in my shop warily. Something felt wrong about the situation.
“Senior Brother Pang.” I bowed my head slightly. “How may I help you today?”
He smiled ingratiatingly.
“Please, we are entering into a business relationship. Sect matters can be put to the side for now. Just call me Manager Pang.”
“Alright, Manager Pang, how may I help you?”
His assertion that we were entering into a relationship bothered me, b...
2024-07-15 12:00:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
Setting up shop in a remote corner of Mortal City had been nice and simple. The only downside was the severe lack of customers.
I had rented a location in an area that was known for herbalists. While the location was to my benefit in procuring ingredients, few people that came to this area were in search of pills. Most were alchemists looking to make their own pills.
However, the lack of sales didn’t bother me. With the help of the high-quality herbs available, I was able to mak...
2024-07-14 12:00:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
When I entered the administration building, I thought I might see a line of cultivators slowly getting introduced to the sect. The line at the Entrance Exam had been moving slowly, and only a fraction of the people who passed would be assigned to Earth Peak, but I still expected to have to wait. Introducing new cultivators to the sect takes time, right?
There was only one person inside the building when I entered. It was someone I had seen several times over the past five years. The laz...
2024-07-13 12:00:07 +0000 UTC
View Post
Everything was happening too suddenly. I stepped into the Trial, but I immediately appeared back outside the Trial. What was going on? Was this the Trial? Was it some strange recreation of the world outside?
“Fire. Or. Earth.” The scribe enunciated each word, bringing my focus onto the topic at hand.
Whether I was still inside the Trial or not, I had to move forward and make a decision.
Fire or earth. I had thought about this decision a few times over the years. Which wo...
2024-07-12 12:00:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
Before taking the test to join the sect, I wanted to set myself up for as much success as possible in a short timeframe. After leaving the Academy, I did not rush to take the exam. I rented an apartment and began preparing my cultivation base.
For the past few years, I had been switching between the Profound-Rank techniques that Instructor Yuan had provided me. This let me test out a few different ideas for meridian construction, and I got a better sense of how they helped qi flow throu...
2024-07-11 12:00:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
After Instructor Yuan left, my classmates looked like they were getting ready to settle down for a long group conversation about what we would all be doing next. I wasn’t prepared for that, so I had to stop it before it began.
“Let’s all take a couple of hours to think about what the instructor said. It might be best to think about our plans and goals on our own first.”
This caught most of them off guard, but Yan was there to quickly agree.
“Yes, we should all take...
2024-07-10 12:00:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
Before my fourth Trial attempt, Yan made a suggestion. Unlike Instructor Yuan, he didn’t encourage me to give up cultivating essence, but he wanted me to get a safety net so that I didn’t have to worry if I failed to raise my earth affinity to mid five-star. His solution was for me to challenge the Wood Peak Trial.
None of us knew what the Wood Peak Trial would entail, so I had to prepare carefully.
Using both my Rank 2 token and one I borrowed from JiaQi, I entered the wood l...
2024-07-09 12:00:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
During my debriefing, the quick boost to my fire affinity seemed to only anger Instructor Yuan, and she once more called for me to change my cultivation technique. I again demurred. I wanted to see if I was right about it raising my affinity permanently.
After she gave up on trying to convince me to change my technique, she wanted me to talk through what I experienced inside the Trial. I knew this was her main job as our instructor, but I wanted to avoid talking about my alchemy ability...
2024-07-08 12:00:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
Over the next few months, I dispersed the meridian I had formed during the Earth Peak Trial and followed the Profound-Rank technique focused on variable meridian diameter to form two new ones. I wanted to experiment with the benefits and drawbacks such a design would have.
During this time, I also studied how to transform some basic earth qi techniques into disposable formations that any of my classmates would be able to throw out and activate. The goal was to learn to design things tha...
2024-07-07 12:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
Upon returning to the Academy, Instructor Yuan took us each into a room individually for private discussions.
After I sat down across from her, she took out an affinity testing orb and placed it on the table between us. Without needing any guidance, I placed my hand on it and inserted my qi. Once she tapped it with her finger, the chaotic lines resolved into the exact same nine images as the last time I had been tested.
“You weren’t able to raise your earth affinity to five-st...
2024-07-06 12:00:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
