G. Tolley

Chapter 281 – Life 75, Age 61, Martial King Peak

Each year, the nervousness in my soul grew, but as time passed, it became little more than a constant droning in the back of my mind. Something was going to happen, but I didn’t know when, and there was nothing I could do about it, so I did my best to put the warning from my karmic energy affinity aside while I continued with my work.

Still, I couldn’t ignore this feeling entirely. I needed to be prepared, and that meant I had to make a few choices I otherwise wouldn’t have.

Chapter 280 – Life 75, Age 56, Martial King Peak

After several moments passed without anything happening, I exerted my will to cut off the Qi Gathering Formation in my soul and force the Solid Mountain Fire back into my storage space.

This stopped the flow of earth qi into my storage space, but the nervousness radiating from my karmic energy affinity didn’t abate.

I once again considered abandoning this life and escaping to a fresh start. Part of me was even willing to leave my entire clan behind to do so. However, I knew that...

Chapter 279 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

As more and more members of my clan advanced to Martial Lord, their quick progress inevitably ground to a halt.

Upon advancing to both Lord and King, I had recorded my memories of the process into blank memory orbs. While these orbs were not nearly as good as those imbued with System-generated memories, they were good enough to allow people to continue cultivating. Everything else, though, was a problem.

Everyone’s profession skills were stuck at Rank 4. With the help of YuLong ...

Chapter 278 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

After advancing to Rank 3, ShouLi had as difficult of a time finding a path forward with body cultivation as I had with beast alchemy. Being a tamer herself, ShouLi already knew all the information given to me by JiaQi, but simply knowing the outline of what she would need to do wasn’t enough to allow her to actually do it. Yes, she knew that she would need to incorporate either qi or karmic energy into her muscles, but how was she supposed to achieve that?

ShouLi, Liang, and NiangBa ...

Chapter 277 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

With ShouLi mastering Rank 3 body cultivation and me mastering Rank 3 beast alchemy, we both turned our attention to Rank 4. Unfortunately, sourcing parts from Rank 4 beasts to practice with turned out to be a bit more difficult than I had hoped.

With Ranks 1 to 3, various forms of livestock were available for purchase from numerous farms spread across the entire continent. Not only were these farm-raised beasts plentiful in number, but because they were all raised under the same living...

Chapter 276 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

After securing the Black River Kingdom for Lord Kang and taking over his old city, ShouLi, like me, retreated from public life and entered a period of relative seclusion. While she still spent time guiding others from the shadows, her focus was on improving her own cultivation base.

However, unlike most Lords, ShouLi had no need to worry about regular, energy cultivation. With Kang’s old city supporting her, she was accruing contribution points at a rapid pace and would have access to...

Chapter 275 – Life 75, Age 31, Martial King 1

During my seclusion, while my focus was on my studies, I still kept abreast of news from around the sect to ensure everything continued to develop properly.

Once Yan reached Martial Lord, I gave him the orb from his second life. I wasn’t entirely sure when his soul would be developed enough to make this safe, but I felt that a Lord-level soul should be able to handle a few dozen years of memories.

Somewhat surprisingly, after absorbing everything, Yan didn’t seem to show much ...

Chapter 274 – Life 75, Age 24, Martial Lord 1

Establishing the guilds in Lord Kang’s city first and allowing him to claim the stewardship of the kingdom was a gift, but expanding these guilds throughout the kingdom during his tenure would be an even greater one. Even Lord Kang had to know that such gifts were never free. So, what did I want?

More than anything, I just wanted to find out if such guilds were even viable. How much essence would they need? How much karmic energy would they be able to generate? Would it be possible to...

Chapter 273 – Life 75, Age 23, Martial Lord 1

After Lord Kang left, I pulled NiangBa into a side room for a private conversation.

“I have a task for you.” I pulled out a set of six formation plates and placed them on a table next to us. “You now understand how the Affinity Hall worked? How I was able to raise everyone's affinities?”

NiangBa looked at the formations in thought. “Essence, right? The formations in the Affinity Hall gathered essence and channeled it into us.”

“Yes. The reason I haven’t recre...

Chapter 272 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Lord 1

As soon as I completed my breakthrough to Martial Lord, I took out a memory orb and used it to record every detail I could remember about what I had done. While this orb wouldn’t be a match for what I could buy from the System, filling a memory orb with Rank 4 information was a bit too expensive, and while this orb might not be ideal, it should still be enough to allow everyone to advance.

Once this task was complete, I stood and exited my cultivation chamber.

Having advanced to...

Chapter 271 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Moving my entire clan out of my storage space and into the surrounding villages took several weeks, and some people, especially the mortal outsiders, were hesitant to leave. For them, access to qi and the ability to cultivate was unimportant. Even if I could give them affinities, most were too old to take advantage of them. They just wanted a place where they would be able to live in peace.

However, after a long discussion with ShouLi and the council, we decided that everyone would have...

Chapter 270 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Grandmaster Peak

During my last life in the Nine Rivers Sect, I had chosen to become the steward of NanLu City, a poor border town that had been ravaged by a series of wars. The reason for this choice was that I had wanted a place in dire need of help so that I could quickly generate karmic energy and contribution points. 

For this life, my goals were a bit different. I didn’t care too much about contribution points. Instead, I wanted a stable base of operations that I could use to further grow a...

Chapter 269 – Life 75, Age 22, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Our first five years in Mortal City quickly passed us by as we stayed hidden away in our remote corner of the outer ring.

In the sect, little of note occurred. 

While few of our people offended Lord-level powers on their short jaunts to their peaks, none approached the level of the fallout from XuJian’s trip to the Fire Peak. Somehow, several of the PangBo Association’s slaves had gained access to a seemingly endless supply of Rank 4 talismans that could cleanse people of...

Chapter 268 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Grandmaster 1

The last time we were in the sect, Yan had written down a significant number of notes in a book that he had asked me to carry back in time with me. While I was hesitant to overload his soul by giving him the memories of that life too early, I had given him this notebook so that he could review what had taken place.

Using these notes, he did his best to pick out a location for our headquarters in Mortal City. The place he chose was in the city’s outer ring, located near one of the outl...

Chapter 267 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Grandmaster 1

Over the next year, I raised my cultivation base as quickly as possible. With the resources available to me, and with the amount of experience I had with low-level cultivation, this was nothing overly difficult, but it still might have been better to take my time since I was using a technique that I was unfamiliar with.

The reason I was in such a rush was that I didn’t want to keep everyone trapped inside my storage space for any longer than necessary. Ideally, people would want to st...

Chapter 266 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Disciple Peak

A week later, JiaQi and LiTing showed up. I gave them the same rough information that I had given YuLong and showed them to a room where they could cultivate in seclusion. 

Then, I entered seclusion as well and began cultivating a new technique, the Writ of Metal from Charred Earth, as quickly as I could. Since I was returning to the Nine Rivers Sect, it might have been better to take the opportunity to cultivate the fire essence technique to permanently raise my fire affinity to p...

Chapter 265 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

When I appeared in South Gate City, the first things I did was go to a bathhouse, get cleaned up, and put on the fanciest set of non-refined robes I possessed. Then, I made my way to the Blue Wind Pavilion.

As soon as I entered, a young woman walked up to me and gave me a deep bow.

“Hello, sir. How may I help you today?”

I looked at the unfamiliar young woman for a brief moment and then raised my chin in acknowledgment.

“Is Meng LuYao in today? I’ve had some bu...

Chapter 264 – Life 75, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

Author's Note: I generally do not update the version of the story that is released to Patreon. If you want the best reading experience, check out the versions on Amazon and Royal Road. Below is the story as it was originally written.

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Arriving back in my tiny house, I thought through my plans for the near future. Was there anything I had missed? Was there anything else I needed to do?

...

Chapter 263 – Life 74, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

When I awoke in my tiny house, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. The pain of burning alive had vanished. In a couple of hours, once the memories of my past life faded into the background, the agony I had experienced would be nothing more than a distant dream.

To speed this process up, I focused on my newly acquired fire seed.

Hot Springs Fire, Yellow-Rank, Elements: Water/Fire, Consumes: Energy, Produces: Water/Heat

Seeing that the fire was only Yel...

Chapter 262 – Life 73, Age 50, Martial Master Peak

After disappearing from Mount Jiang, I immediately headed north. Our attackers wouldn’t have had time to scour the surrounding villages yet, and I needed to work fast before that happened.

My first stop was the small city where we had resettled SuYin’s family. I wanted to talk to them, to explain what was going on, but I wasn’t willing to spend the time that would require. I simply shoved sleeping pills into their mouths and threw everyone into my storage space.

Following th...

Chapter 261 – Life 73, Age 50, Martial Master Peak

To construct the primary control node of the illusory sky formation, I used a combination of marble, kyanrolite, and rhyolite. The inscriptions for creating and controlling illusions were carved into marble, and I used kyanrolite for the inscriptions related to regulating and controlling the grand formation’s ancillary nodes. To keep all the various, complex inscriptions from interacting with each other in unexpected ways, I used rhyolite as an insulator to prevent energy from bleeding from...

Chapter 260 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Disciple 4

As a low-level Martial Disciple, I was nearly entirely blind to everything that was happening on the mountain. Before doing anything else, I needed to fix that, and that meant advancing.

After my previous experience, I was hesitant to continue cultivating the Writ of Wood-Burned Earth. The process was far too painful. However, I needed access to the types of qi it would grant me, and I needed to expand my knowledge of and experience with such high-level techniques.

So, setting my ...

Chapter 259 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Disciple 4

After YuanFei departed, the mood around me shifted. The cultivators that he and TaiZu had brought with them relaxed their postures and began glancing in my direction with hints of scorn and disdain.

As most of these people were members of TaiZu’s and YuanFei’s original entourages, this wasn’t entirely a surprise. They had never viewed me as an authority figure, and they had done their best to avoid me so that they wouldn’t have to show me any kind of deference.

The people ...

Chapter 258 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Once the alchemy competition was over, I didn’t hang around to watch the fallout. I immediately led everyone into a building, set up a quick formation, gave everyone a sleeping pill, stuffed them into my storage space, and silently departed for Mount Jiang. WuJing still owed Rulan 50 spirit stones, but I would pay her out of my stockpile. He could make it up to me later. It was far more important that we vanish before anyone started asking the wrong questions.

The only person at the c...

Chapter 257 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Grandmaster Peak

With his victory secured, Su JinHai walked back to his place beneath the Third Prince’s viewing stand where his fellow competitors were waiting for him. Upon arriving he gave a deep bow to the Su Clan’s Grandmaster Alchemist, Rudy.

As he accepted the bow, Rudy looked rather self-satisfied. After signaling for Su JinHai to rise, Rudy turned and gave me a smug smile, and I nodded my congratulations to him.

When Hong returned to our side of the arena, he lowered his head toward M...

Chapter 256 – Life 73, Age 49, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Since Mo was the newly reconfirmed Master of the Workshops, I sent him to Dragon Gate City to negotiate the details of the alchemy competition with YuanKong. By doing this, I showed my trust in the clan’s appointed leaders, sent the message that YuanKong was beneath my station, and proved to everyone that I was afraid of the potential traps that might be waiting for me at YuanFeng’s base of operations. 

Overall, I was happy with how my actions would be interpreted, but I was a ...

Chapter 255 – Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Near the end of the year, the clan held its second annual competition to select new elders. This time, however, the atmosphere surrounding the event wasn’t nearly as lively as it had been the first time. This was because the positions up for grabs were for the workshops.

The reason for this muted enthusiasm wasn’t because there was a lack of interested participants. Nearly everyone in the clan was skilled in at least one profession, and the workshops were considered an important hub...

Chapter 254 – Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak

During this time, I kept an eye on the leadership council and watched for any progress with the Rank 3 cultivation technique I had given them.

Learning a basic Low-Yellow cultivation technique should have been rather straightforward as there was little additional theoretical knowledge needed to ascend from Master to Grandmaster. All one really needed to be able to do was weave a strong dantian, and while the shape of a dantian introduced additional complexities, the foundational princip...

Chapter 253 – Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak

As soon as I returned to Mount Jiang, before waking YuanFei and his entourage up and getting them settled, I called an emergency meeting of my leadership council. After adding 76 new Disciples from this year’s training camp, adding over a hundred more was bound to cause headaches, but I was confident that my team would be able to handle it.

Once everyone was assembled, I addressed the room.

“I told you previously that another batch of recruits would likely be joining us soon. ...

Holiday Schedule

Hello everyone,

I just want to give you all a heads up of what to expect in coming weeks. I will be taking the week of Christmas off, the 23rd - 27th, but will be coming right back on the 30th to continue pushing forward as we work our way through volume 4.

Thank you for your support.

G. Tolley