Even though I now had a better understanding of what I needed to do to make my dreams for my storage space a reality, I had to set that task aside for the moment.
The scroll given to me by Emperor Shen included instructions for both carving a formation into one’s soul and removing such a formation. It clearly stated that upgrading a soul formation would necessitate cutting out chunks of my soul and waiting for it to heal, and that would be a long, painful process. As the Emperor had advised, it would be better to wait and carve the best initial formation possible instead of carving something weak now and upgrading later.
So instead, I focused on earning the necessary contribution points for the karmic energy I needed to ascend to Martial Emperor.
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Earning enough contribution points to purchase Emperor-level karmic energy was no small feat. The sect had put several roadblocks in the path of anyone wishing to ascend to that level, and the substantial cost of the energy was yet another one.
My primary means of earning points was through alchemy and formation, but if I wanted to earn the points I needed, my current abilities were rather lacking. Yes, I had reached the limit of what could be expected from a Martial King 1, but that was all. To earn enough contribution points in a reasonable amount of time, I needed to be able to concoct pills worthy of a Peak King.
At the same time, since my goal was to learn to craft memory orbs, which required knowledge of Rank 6 formations, I also had to spend time improving my skills as a formation specialist. If I allowed those skills to languish now, it would take far too long to improve them when I was ready to do so.
The books from Emperors Li and Shen helped me raise my skills far faster than would have otherwise been possible, but it still took time and resources. As I trained up my Rank 5 skills, I had to focus on learning new pills and formations. My priority had to be on stretching myself to learn new skills, not on exploiting the knowledge I already possessed.
This focus caused my contribution point total to slowly decrease. While my activities were usually profitable, the costs associated with experimentation limited how much I was earning. On its own, that would have been fine, but I also had to pay for copies of several reference texts from the Scripture Pavilion.
The Emperors had only given me a single book on Rank 5 of their respective skills. These books focused on training the basics and learning the skills needed to be able to craft anything of said Rank, but they didn’t include much excess information.
For Emperor Li’s alchemy guide, this was mostly sufficient, but Emperor Shen’s formation guide was somewhat lacking. Including countless different inscription diagrams into a single book would have been impossible, so most of the time, he simply referred to other books or scrolls that included the pertinent information.
Whenever I thought about my dwindling bank account, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated, but I had to remember that it was all for a purpose. While it might look like I was losing money on paper, once I could make top-of-the-line Rank 5 pills and formations, I would be able to buy karmic energy for a song.
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Thanks to my enhanced comprehension boosts, I was able to reach a passable level in Rank 5 of both professions after only six years. With alchemy in particular, I knew of several areas that needed significant improvements, but I had reached a level of proficiency that I deemed acceptable.
So, to finalize my efforts, I purchased a number of incredibly expensive Rank 5 herbs and turned them into ungodly expensive Rank 5 pills. After selling them, I was able to purchase the karmic energy I needed.
With the energy stowed safely away in my dantian, I secluded myself in my apartment and began the slow process of ascending.
When I first looked at the Rank 6 cultivation technique I was given, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of disgust. It was… pathetic. To ascend to Emperor, I just needed to infuse my core with Emperor-level energy, reinforce it a bit, and then break through like normal.
If the scroll had just said ‘Keep doing what you’ve been doing but use Emperor-level energy,’ I would have learned everything the scroll had to teach me. While I didn’t have a way to evaluate it, and I didn’t want to pay the System to do so for me, I was confident in my assessment that calling it a ‘Low-Yellow cultivation technique’ was being charitable.
This was the most powerful sect on the continent, the sect named after the nominal ruler of the continent. If this sect could only give their inner sect disciples this kind of pathetic Low-Yellow Rank 6 cultivation technique, what did that say about the techniques that Emperors outside of the sect possessed? Sure, the Sovereign clans almost certainly had something better, but I doubted it would be too much more impressive than what the sect had.
Once I had enough points, once I had ascended to Sovereign or Spirit a few times, I would have to try purchasing a better technique from the System.
Putting thoughts of future plans to the side, I focused on cultivating.
I reinforced my core, shoved energy into it, opened a hole in the world, and sent a burst of combined qi and karmic energy to sever the chain that held me back from the Emperor realm.
Once it was complete, my body shuddered with newly unlocked potential. I was a Martial Emperor.
I felt… disappointed. This was a milestone that I had never passed before, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt like just another minor breakthrough. The difference between Martial King and Martial Emperor felt… meaningless.
This feeling wasn’t normal. After a quick bit of soul searching, I discovered that the feeling was emanating from my boosted comprehension of cultivation techniques. It was telling me something. It was letting me know that something was wrong. I wasn’t sure what. I didn’t yet have enough knowledge to understand what had gone wrong with my ascension, but I could tell that something was missing.
This wasn’t a problem with the technique. That is to say, the technique hadn’t been sabotaged or anything. It was something deeper about how I had been cultivating as a Ruler. Something was missing from the process. I could sense that, but I had no idea what it could possibly be.
I knew there was no chance for a proper answer, but I needed to try and figure this out.
“System, I feel there is something wrong with my cultivation technique. Something is missing. How much would it cost to learn about this?”
The cost of this information is not possible to calculate at this time.
That was the expected answer, but as I had learned, ‘not possible’ just meant ‘give me money.’
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“What is the price to calculate the cost of the information?”
Processing… Cost 100,000 credits.
“Purchase.”
Purchase confirmed. 899,450,000 credits remaining.
Calculating… Requested information about cultivation techniques. Cost 1 shard.
Note: Shards are the currency that will be received upon death as an immortal.
“Thank you, System.”
That told me what I needed to know. This problem with the cultivation technique. It wasn’t an Emperor-level problem. It wasn’t even a Saint-level problem. It was an Immortal-level problem. And the cost of only one ‘shard’ told me that it was something that would become blindingly obvious the moment I advanced to that level.
While this problem might be simple for an immortal, it was far beyond what I could concern myself with. I just needed to keep walking forward. The cultivation technique might be flawed, but if it was good enough for the sect, it was good enough for now.
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Having advanced to Emperor, my control over will-locks took a huge leap forward, and I was finally able to master a skill I had been working on for several years now.
With only mid five-star affinities in four of the five basic elements, concocting Perfect Rank 5 pills had been impossible. I didn’t have the control necessary to deftly maneuver medicinal energy and target small hidden pockets of pill toxins that existed in nearly every herb.
As a Martial King, I was able to slightly manipulate objects trapped in my will-lock, and I had hoped that my space affinity would be able to enhance this power enough so that I would be able to get around the limitations of my low affinities. I wanted to lock the space that contained an herb’s medicinal energy, shift it, and then attack the pill toxins. However, I didn't have the fine control over space necessary to make this dream a reality.
With my advancement to Emperor, this all changed. My new realm gave me the boost I needed, and I was quickly able to start producing an endless stream of Perfect Rank 5 pills. Their efficacy wasn’t great since the way I was manipulating space had a tendency to break down the medicinal energy’s structure, but a low-efficacy Perfect pill would always be worth far more than a high-efficacy non-Perfect pill.
With this new ability, I was able to quickly race through the final few notes the Emperors had left me on Rank 5 pills and formations.
I wasn’t in the right mindset to completely absorb all the knowledge the books contained since most of it was unnecessary with the new strength I had unlocked. I didn’t need to master refined skills when I could brute force my way through it with my space affinity and the power of an Emperor. While I knew that this wasn’t really true and that careful study would be important to solidify my foundations in Rank 5 alchemy and formations, I couldn’t hold back my desire to delve into new Rank 6 knowledge. I would return to Rank 5 and study its intricacies more in the future, but for the moment, I wanted to learn more advanced skills.
Once I was ready, I opened Emperor Shen’s book and began working through it to master the basic formations I would need to know to be able to call myself a novice Formation Emperor. There was nothing overly complex here. It was mostly about understanding what possibilities an Emperor’s enhanced will-lock opened up.
Crafting the most powerful Rank 6 formations was no longer a matter of carving channels into stone. Instead, a Formation Emperor would typically start with a fine powder and slowly mold it into their desired shape. The giant stone slab that Emperor Shen had been standing on when I met him wasn’t a natural stone that he had carved a formation into. It was a stone that he was meticulously constructing layer by layer.
This meant that creating most Rank 6 formations was a far more involved process than it was in the lower Ranks.
After experimenting with a few basic formations, I cracked open the manual for crafting memory orbs. Most of it was still entirely incomprehensible, but I could at least read the introduction. Most importantly, I learned the materials I would need.
Memory orbs were far simpler in composition than I had expected. They only required a fist-size stone of the purest jade. Of course, a fist-sized stone was only the minimum requirement. Larger stones would be able to hold more memories. If a seven-hundred-year-old Sovereign wanted to store his entire lifetime of memories inside an orb, the stone would need to be the size of a watermelon.
While jade was an incredibly cheap and plentiful material, a memory orb’s jade had to be absolutely pure. Natural jade got its green color from trace impurities in its crystalline matrix, but that wasn’t acceptable for the jade of a memory orb. So, the first step of the process was to reduce a natural jade to powder, sift out the random trace elements, and then carefully reconstitute it into a flawless jadeite crystal.
I didn’t know for certain what the step after that was. I couldn’t read that far into the book, but I had an inkling that it was where LiTing’s refining skill would come into play. I would use my abilities with earth to form the crystal, she would use her refining abilities to do something to it, and then I would finish off the process with a formation. That seemed to be the general outline.
It would still be years before LiTing’s refining skills or my formations skills were advanced enough to craft memory orbs, but I immediately started the preparatory work of constructing a dozen crystals capable of storing a hundred years' worth of memories.
For her part, LiTing was advancing her cultivation slower than I had. She was only taking a single step each year, and she had completely given up on learning to fight. Instead, she was spending nearly all her time on studying refining. She was even more focused than I was on completing this project successfully, and she spent a lot of time with her master, Emperor Jin. I was certain they discussed memory orb creation extensively.
While I had never fully explained things to her, she knew enough to understand the situation clearly. I had given her letters from a past life, I was hell-bent on crafting memory orbs, and on more than one occasion, I had indicated that death wouldn’t be a concern for us after we had them. She was smart enough to put the pieces together after all this time.
We were both working hard, and we were both making progress. Preparing to construct the orbs had taken years, but I felt like I could finally see the finish line.
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Thirteen years after LiTing and I arrived in Earth City, Yan, JiaQi, and YuLong joined us. They would need a bit of time to improve their cultivation levels, but it wouldn’t be long before we could continue our journey up the mountain once more.
Before their arrival, I spent the 250,000 credits needed to change LiTing and me back to our natural appearances. I hated spending credits frivolously, but considering the number I would receive at the end of this life, I couldn’t complain too much about splurging a little.
Purchase confirmed. 899,200,000 credits remaining.
As Yan, YuLong, JiaQi, and LuLu approached Earth City, I was surprised to see them accompanied by a young woman I didn’t know. She looked familiar but I wasn’t sure where I had seen her before.
As customary, the moment they entered the city, LiTing and JiaQi ran toward each other and hugged. In the past, I had been worried about any emotional displays when spies might be watching and looking for weaknesses, but that was no longer a major concern. LiTing and I were both Emperors now, and we were being protected by one of ChenKun’s Peak Emperor deathsworn. At this point, we would only be in serious danger if a Sovereign came to threaten us personally.
I walked forward and placed a hand on YuLong’s shoulder.
“I’m glad you made it here. How’re you holding up?”
He breathed deeply and gave me a weak smile. “I’m managing. Yan told us enough that we were able to understand what’s going on. I’m… I don’t know how to feel about it, exactly, but I’m managing.”
I flinched when he said Yan had explained things, but I had to admit… I had given LiTing enough hints that she had already basically figured everything out. If anyone were watching us closely, they would be able to do the same, especially if they knew about Emperor Li’s blessing. No one had stepped out to crush my soul yet, so I could only trust to Li’s words that the Earthly Dao had protections in place to prevent that from happening.
Turning to Yan, I bowed my head slightly and smiled.
“It’s good to see you again. Who’s your companion?”
He placed a hand on the young woman’s back and ushered her forward.
She was short and wiry with a cherubic face. She was wearing a tight-fitting black hanfu with leather straps around her wrists and calves to keep the cloth from rustling as she moved. A quick check showed that she, like the others, was a low-level Martial King.
“This is Cai XiaoYu. You’ve met before. She was one of my students when we were Martial Masters.”
It finally hit me. This was the girl with endless reserves of stamina, making her a fearsome opponent to fight against.
Stepping forward, Cai XiaoYu gave me a deep bow.
“It is a pleasure to see you again, Emperor Su.”
I smiled and bowed slightly in return. “Just call me Su Fang.”
Then, I turned back to Yan. “Are you ready to go? We need to meet with ChenKun. With you all having arrived, it’s time to plan for the journey ahead.”