I sat on the ground in my cultivation cave. Emperor Li stood above me.
My first instinct was to 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 me. I didn’t consider Emperor Li my enemy. I still remembered him as a kindly old man. He might be mad at me for impersonating his disciple, but I didn’t think he was a terrible person.
Working behind the scenes, he had involved himself in my life on several occasions over the past few years. In all that time, he never did anything to hurt me. He only pushed me to further improve my alchemy ability through the missions I was given from the sect.
The main reason I was afraid of him was the angry and belligerent manner in which he confronted me at the end of my last life. But then, after my death was certain, he appeared more sorrowful than anything else.
Yes, I was in a dangerous situation. However, my experience last time showed me that I had a way to escape from him as long as he wasn’t prepared for it. I could take this opportunity to hear him out.
Emperor Li looked at me with an impassive expression. My ability to read people had been slowly increasing over the years, and I was starting to have a good understanding of people’s moods, but Li appeared to be carved from emotionless stone as he spoke.
“Show them to me.”
It took me a moment to understand what he wanted, and when I did, I didn’t want to give it to him. It had caused me countless problems, but it had also opened a few doors that might have otherwise remained forever closed. Without it, making that deal with the Ning Clan would have been far more difficult.
However, I had come to learn the problems that relying on the thing could cause. If I never saw it again, it wouldn’t be too much of a loss.
I reached into my storage space and pulled out the token that he had given me back in the Eight Flower Kingdom. As I held it in my hand, it vanished and appeared in Li’s. When it did, I felt the faintest twitch from my space affinity.
Li spent over five minutes silently scrutinizing the coin. When he finally spoke, it was in that same stony tone.
“Interesting.” He looked at me. “Is that all?”
“There… There was also a flame and a book. I… lost the flame and the book was… destroyed.”
“I see. Your blessing must be quite… interesting. With hardly any practice, you have learned Rank 4 alchemy to such a degree that three-hundred-year-old monsters would be jealous of you. You were also provided with such… rare items. And of course, we can’t forget about your ability to learn formations at a speed that would rival those blessed with such a talent.
As he studied me, I couldn’t see even a trace of approval or disapproval in his expression.
“He must have invested quite a bit in you. Giving you so many advantages couldn’t have been cheap or easy. What I can’t understand is why he placed someone like you here. It doesn’t—”
Li had been half speaking to himself when his words were abruptly cut off. For the first time, I saw a trace of real, deep-seated emotion cross his face. It was annoyance bordering on rage.
He grunted faintly but loud enough for me to hear. “It doesn’t matter. I just have to figure out how to handle the mess that’s been placed before me.”
He threw his token at me, and it impacted my chest hard enough to leave an indent.
“As you bear my mark, I am oathbound to treat you as my disciple. Even if it was not my choice…” He grunted once more. “As such, I—”
He paused and his face took on a look of deep deliberation. Again, that same look of annoyance appeared in his demeanor.
“As such, there are only two things I will teach you.”
He took a thick tome out of a storage bag and threw it at me.
“That will guide you on Rank 5 alchemy. It contains all of the insights I have gathered over the years, as you should already be aware.”
I stared at the new volume, and as I did, I had the urge to make an awkward request.
“Can I have a copy of the one for Rank 4 alchemy? It was destroyed and…”
Suddenly, another book came flying at me. When I looked at Emperor Li, I expected to see a look of disgust, but he had reverted back to that same stony demeanor.
“The other thing I must give you is an important piece of advice. You can choose to follow it or not.”
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He exhaled in a futile attempt to expel his pent-up emotions.
“Be careful, be damn careful of information blessings. Never trust them. If your blessing gives you information, it will always be true, but it won’t always be the truth you think it is. He always seems to have some way to twist the information to his own design. If your blessing tells you that you should give someone a pill, there is no question. You should do it without question. Your blessing cannot lie to you about that. However, do not trust any implications you draw from being told to do so. If you do, you will find yourself as little more than his puppet.”
“What—”
“No, that is all I will tell you for now. As I said, you should always trust what your blessing tells you.”
Not waiting for my response, Li turned and headed to the door. He didn’t open it. He just kept walking. A crack to the outside world appeared, and he stepped through. A moment later, it vanished, and I was left alone in my cave.
Emperor Li had simply popped in, thrown me a few books, and left. All I could be certain of was that his blessing, and the Earthly Dao, had played some part in this meeting.
My debt to the old man was only growing. He had never asked me for anything. He had only ever freely given me powerful items and knowledge, and he had never said I owed him anything, but I still knew. My debt to him was becoming immense. I could only pray that I would be able to repay it when it came due.
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My meeting with Emperor Li left me with a lot to think about over the coming years, but it didn’t change what I needed to do in the present.
There was no way I was going to reach Earth City in this life. To do so would mean completing the Test of Body as a Martial King, and my combat training was limited to the Master realm. That meant I would not have any further access to King-level karmic energy, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to get my hands on Emperor-level energy. Instead, I would have to be satisfied with simply pushing to the peak of the King realm.
I wanted to dedicate time to learning Rank 5 alchemy, but I wasn’t willing to do so in this life. It had already lasted fifteen years, five more than my desired ten. Learning Rank 5 alchemy would take decades, and that was assuming my comprehension level was even high enough to do so.
Opening the book Li had given me, I searched near the beginning for the simplest pill that could help me cultivate. The best I found was a simplified version of the Rank 5 Qi Replenishing Pill. It wouldn’t do too much, but it was more than a Rank 4 Gathering Pill would do, and since I only needed a single earth-attributed herb to concoct it, the recipe was simple enough for me to try and make.
Concocting Rank 5 pills was not too different from what I had to do in Rank 4. The only thing that set the two Ranks apart was the addition of the expanded capabilities that being a Martial King granted.
As the book explained, beyond simply locking down an area of space, Kings were able to shift it slightly. In general, this didn’t have too many applications in something like combat because of the limited strength that even a high-level King would be able to exert in such a manner. However, when working on something the size of an alchemical pill, this shifting of will-locks became a crucial tool.
Like with Rank 4 alchemy, the use of will-locks was simply a way to compensate for lacking affinities. If one’s affinities were high enough, they would be able to easily shift large areas of medicinal energy without resorting to such tricks, but that would require something beyond even peak 5-star.
As a Martial King 1, manipulating herbs in such a way was extremely difficult. My space affinity provided me with a small boost, but it was limited. This reaffirmed my desire to enhance this affinity further, but that would have to wait until I was in a position where I no longer had to worry about any problems that might be caused by the spatial seed in my soul.
Several attempts at making the simplified Rank 5 pill led to me burning through nearly all the contribution points I had saved up over the years. Even though the required ingredient was cheap for a Rank 5 herb, the cost was still at the level of a Rank 5 item.
Upon successfully concocting the pill for the first time, I immediately went out and sold it to buy more herbs. Using the profits from the sale of the first few I made, I was able to amass a small handful of pills. These pills were not Perfect, but they were good enough for someone nearing their limits and unable to get anything better.
Once I accumulated enough points, I rented a Rank 5 cultivation cave on the Earth Peak and secluded myself. With the help of formation and pills, I was able to break through to Martial King 2.
During this time, I was afraid that Emperor Li or the Master of the Earth Peak would show up and demand that I stop cultivating. As I had learned, breaking through without using karmic energy caused serious permanent damage to one’s foundation. If they truly saw me as an important disciple, they might not be willing to let me do so.
This would’ve been fine if they were also willing to provide me with the karmic energy I needed to break through correctly. But since I was certain they wouldn’t be willing to do so, I didn’t want anyone stopping me.
For whatever reason, no one appeared to question my activities, and my breakthrough to King 2 started a snowball effect where my improved cultivation level facilitated my production of better pills at a faster rate.
As years passed and my cultivation grew, I got to the point where I wanted to start taking a few breaks and have a little fun. This ‘fun’ was, of course, experimenting with Rank 5 alchemy.
With my increasing power as a Martial King, I was able to control the medicinal energy that existed within Rank 5 herbs much more easily. I used this expanded ability to begin working through the study course that Li had laid out in his book on Rank 5 alchemy. It was exactly like what he had done with Rank 4 alchemy, starting with the simplest pills and slowly adding complications once each pill was fully understood.
I didn’t make it too far into his list over this brief period of time, but even with my ‘formal’ education limited, I wanted to push to make a far more difficult pill.
Basic Replenishment Pills had an effect on cultivation, but they paled in comparison to proper Qi Gathering Pills. After searching through the book carefully, I found a recipe for a simplified three-ingredient version of the Qi Gathering Pill.
Creating this pill for the first time cost me more time and contribution points than I had believed possible, but when I was finally successful, I felt that it had all been worth it. Even this simplified pill was an order of magnitude more effective than the basic Replenishment Pill. As a result, using this more expensive, more powerful pill led to an overall reduction in the monetary cost of advancing my cultivation. As a bonus, it also had a higher profit margin when sold.
Even with the assistance of these improved pills and the high-level formations available in cultivation caves on the Earth Peak, I still needed over a decade to reach Peak King.
When I did, I was satisfied.
There were a few loose ends that I wanted to tie up before my reset, but with my cultivation level at the limit of its potential for this life, I was nearly ready to move on.