Even before rejoining the School of the Great Teacher, my martial and formation skills were near the limit of what I could accomplish as a Martial King 1, so during my time there, I shifted my focus more toward alchemy.
When I did, my sizable boost in comprehension showed its effects, and I was able to rapidly absorb the information in Emperor Li’s books. The rate at which I unlocked new knowledge made me feel as if I had previously been working with one hand tied behind my back. However, that time and hard work hadn’t been completely wasted. It allowed me to slowly construct a firm foundation upon which this new information could be built.
The biggest hurdle I had to overcome with Rank 5 alchemy was concocting Perfect pills without peak five-star affinities. This was possible, but only barely. I had to combine my mid five-star affinities, my enhanced qi control from my powerful soul, my space affinity, and my King-level will-locks. Using all these abilities at the same time was mentally exhausting, but it got the job done.
Unfortunately, my limited affinities with the secondary elements limited the pills I was able to concoct. Even with those I could make, too much of my time and energy was spent on removing toxins, so their efficacies were nothing overly incredible, but a Perfect pill was a Perfect pill. If a single pill wasn’t effective enough, then just take a second one.
With my recent purchases of multiple comprehension boosts, it didn’t take long for me to reach the point where I felt that all of my skills were being held back by my continued stay in Profound City and my lack of karmic energy, but I was still unwilling to leave without talking with Yan and the others first. So, I dedicated most of my time to training the school’s students.
At first, I had only planned to guide them in soul cultivation, but I found that too many had already been focusing too heavily on only this one area of development. I couldn’t help everyone with everything, but I could assist the alchemists and formation specialists to begin integrating the studies of their professions into their work with soul and qi cultivation.
Improving one’s soul improves one’s qi control. Improving one’s qi control improves one’s ability to perform alchemy and carve formations. Practicing such skills with focus and dedication can improve one’s soul.
Everything was connected. Maybe it would be better to say that everything could be connected. Improving my soul through alchemy alone wasn’t the right path, but spending all of one’s time alone in a room reading philosophy books wasn’t much better.
Instead of separating off the different skills into distinct, individual silos, I wanted to find a way to steadily improve all of them with a unified, holistic approach. This was only the first spark of an idea, and while all my comprehension bonuses helped, I didn’t have the experience or knowledge needed to completely design such an ambitious educational framework. However, my time at the school gave me valuable insights into how to better train myself and others.
In the time that I wasn’t training others or improving my alchemy, I dedicated myself to pushing my earth affinity to peak four-star. I could enter the Earth Peak Trial a maximum of four times a year, but I needed a large number of points to make that happen, so most of my free time was spent completing missions to earn contribution points.
The more experience I got in the Trial, and the better the weapon LiTing could provide me with, the deeper I was able to push. During my two-year stay at the school, I was able to raise my earth affinity to high four-star, and I made meaningful progress toward pushing it even further.
This slow life as the Great Teacher finally came to an end when Yan and the others arrived in Profound City.
After talking the situation over with LiTing, we decided I needed to make a purchase to set everyone’s minds at ease during our meeting.
“System, temporarily change LiTing’s and my appearance to match what we would naturally look like. After twelve hours, I want our appearances to revert back to their current forms.”
Purchase Confirmed. Cost 450,000 credits. 999,550,000 credits remaining.
I could have stayed in my Chen WuJing guise for our meeting, but Yan’s reaction to it last time had been uncomfortable. This would be the first time we had seen each other in years, and afterward, we wouldn’t be seeing each other again for several more. Arriving as myself was the only thing I could do to make this reunion feel more meaningful.
---------------------------------------------------
At my insistence, LiTing and I met Yan, JiaQi, and YuLong near the city’s gate and quietly led them to Ning ChenKun’s section of the city.
We did not speak or make any overt displays of affection during this time. We silently greeted each other and kept a wary eye out for anyone who might try to sneak attack us during our short journey.
Once everyone was inside my apartment, JiaQi made to rush toward LiTing, but I held up a hand to stop her. I gathered everyone in the center of the room and activated a series of Rank 5 formations to guard us against any eavesdroppers.
I had wanted to purchase something from the System to make our meeting more secure, but my formations were solid enough that anyone at the level of Martial King or below wouldn’t be able to listen in without us knowing about it. They wouldn’t do much against an Emperor, but purchasing something to protect us from an Emperor was also beyond what I could get from the System.
Besides just formations, I also looked into other potential ways for us to communicate more securely. These ranged from limited forms of telepathy to books that only the five of us would be able to read. There were possibilities, but the same limitations seemed to hold true for all of them. If they could protect us against an Emperor, they required Emperor-level prices.
After a lot of brainstorming, I only found one truly secure way to tell my friends anything, and that was to do it at the very end of my life. I could pass them vital information, and then they could store the knowledge of it in a memory orb to be reabsorbed during their next life. It would be an incredibly secure method of information transfer, but it wasn’t something that was available to us for the time being. We would just have to be careful with what we said.
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Once I was confident we were as protected as I could make us, I opened my hands and smiled.
“Alright, we can talk now. If an Emperor or higher is watching us, I can’t do anything to stop them, but we’re as safe as we’re going to get.”
Instantly, JiaQi rushed and hugged LiTing. “I’ve missed you so much.”
As the two women talked excitedly, I looked at YuLong. He was no longer the excited young man in my memories. Being trapped within the sect had worn on him, and I could sense a feeling of deep frustration.
Because of Yan’s identity, he had been forced to join the sect when he wanted to go home and see his parents. Now, because of me, he was trapped within the walls of the sect and was unable to leave for any reason. To add to that, I hadn’t been willing to explain anything about what was going on.
Yan knew about the time loop, so he was able to plan around it. YuLong didn’t. He had to feel that his one and only life had been destroyed because of his classmates. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how to do so. The only way to fix the situation was to explain everything to YuLong, but doing so now was far too risky. I just hoped that he could hold out until the end.
Mustering a bit of courage, I walked over to YuLong and put an arm around him.
“I’m sorry.”
He silently bowed his head.
There was more I could have said, but I couldn’t say what was needed. I had to hope he would understand. And even if he didn’t, this life would only last a few more years. He just needed to hold out until it was nearly over.
Once the greetings were out of the way, we sat down around a table and began discussing what happened to everyone over the past few years.
I wanted to tell them everything about Emperor Li and my time loops, but I couldn’t. Instead, we simply spent time talking about trivial things, telling each other about what we had been up to and small things that had happened along our journeys.
Since YuLong and JiaQi had been getting restless from being trapped within the sect and not being able to do any combat missions, they had started teaching martial arts lessons. With the help of their blessings, they had both become quite popular as Lord-level trainers. Even if their cultivation levels were lower than others, their raw skills were among the best.
These missions provided them with enough resources to be able to enter the Trials for a bit of extra exercise, and now that they had LiTing’s newest weapons, they would be able to tear the Trials apart.
Since they had only been absorbing essence and not cultivating it, they had long since maxed out their rewards from the Lord-level Trials. However, as it was the only place they could gain real combat experience while stuck in the sect, they kept returning there to hone their skills further.
After YuLong and JiaQi were done with their stories, Yan told us a bit about his classes as a Grandmaster. His story made me somewhat glad I had skipped over those lessons as they sounded like long years of drudgery with few rewards. However, after his first cohort of Masters completed their first term, he retook the sect’s Exam and was promoted to a core disciple.
As a Martial Lord 1 core disciple, he was in an ideal position to become a steward for one of the cities under the sect’s control. Yan believed this to be a crucial step on the path of becoming a chosen disciple, and it was the path both Ning ChenKun and Lord Hao were walking. However, he also made it clear that no one had any true understanding of what qualified someone for the status of ‘chosen.’
Unfortunately, as we were all stuck within the walls of the sect, he couldn’t take advantage of this opportunity. I felt a tinge of bitterness from him, but he had already come to accept that this life was a sacrifice toward something greater. I was beginning to feel he believed that even more than I did.
While he couldn’t become a city lord, he planned to study the position in depth. He wanted to figure out which cities provided the best opportunities for advancement and learn any information that could help him realize those opportunities. He was also consulting with Ning ChenKun and had been offering his advice on different courses of action ChenKun could consider.
His dedication to this topic seemed to confuse the other three, but they knew enough not to ask any deeper questions.
Once our group discussion was winding down, I pulled Yan away for a quick, private discussion. I took out the manual for making memory orbs and showed it to him.
“LiTing and I need to reach Martial Emperor. Then, we can start making these. I’ve tried to read it, but right now, it’s completely incomprehensible to me. I can’t even figure out what materials will be required. I will have to improve both my cultivation and formation skills before I can even begin to decipher it.”
Yan nodded, reached into his storage bag, and pulled out a piece of paper with a list of cities, kingdoms, and empires on it.
“I’ve been looking into the essence cultivation techniques you wanted. I haven’t been able to get my hands on one yet, but these are the locations where I suspect a few of them to exist. I’ll keep digging, but it’s hard to get much solid information on them while trapped here.”
At a quick scan, I noticed a couple of familiar names, including the Brilliant Sun Empire where I acquired my spatial fire seed. According to Yan, one of its powerful noble clans possessed a fire essence cultivation technique. That was a high-priority target, but acquiring it would have to wait until I could travel about more freely.
“Thank you.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “LiTing and I are going to be heading up the mountain. I don’t know when we’re going to be able to see you all next, but I don’t plan to leave Earth City. We’ll wait for you there. If you need anything after we’re gone, just let the faction know. I’ll do what I can to help.”
---------------------------------------------------
The day after meeting with our friends, LiTing and I departed Profound City.
We left the city gate as a group of nine. Six of our companions were students from the school who were ready to ascend the mountain, and the last was one of Ning ChenKun’s deathsworn. He was a Peak King who had broken through without using karmic energy. His future advancement would be limited, but he would still be able to advance to a low-level Emperor after reaching Earth City.
Ning ChenKun had already made his way to Earth City earlier in the year, and this guard was someone he had left behind to help protect us. Now that we were advancing, he would be rejoining his master.
LiTing, me, and two of our students walked toward the Path of Mind while everyone else went to the Path of Soul. If the soul path were like those further down the mountain, the five of them would be able to stay safe by looking out for each other. We wouldn’t be so fortunate on the Path of Mind, but as long as no one made any mistakes, we shouldn’t be in any danger.
To give us an added layer of protection, I created a set of primitive communication formations that might allow us to coordinate as we walked the path. When qi was pushed into one of them, the other three would resonate in harmony, causing them all to light up and emit a buzzing sound. In the future, I hoped to be able to develop them further so that we could transmit messages, but the sensitivity required for that would need a Rank 6 formation at least.
The usefulness of such a formation on the path was questionable. I didn’t know if we would be close enough to each other for the formations to work, and I didn’t know if there would be anything in place that could block their signals. Even if everything worked perfectly, if the ‘holding areas’ we were each sent to for failing a test weren’t the same, coordinating would be meaningless.
However, I still handed them out. They might not be useful, but it was worth a try.
I also gave everyone a few other formation stones that I thought might be helpful. Unfortunately, we could only base our preparations on what we had faced on the paths lower down the mountain.
Just like it had been on the way from Yellow City to Profound City, the entrance to the Path of Mind to Earth City was a tunnel. After a short walk, we entered a hub room where a set of eight arches were labeled with each of the different professions.
I looked at each of my companions.
“Remember, if you are forced into the holding area, send a signal with your stone. Let’s try to help each other succeed.”
Everyone, including LiTing, bowed to me. I nodded, and we each set off in a different direction.