The Undying Immortal System

As a Martial Disciple, cultivating meant pulling qi from the environment and infusing it into one's muscles. When working to advance their cultivation base, Disciples could only focus on drawing qi into a single section of their body at a time. Once the muscles in this chosen section were filled to capacity, they would then be able to use this stored energy to open an acupoint in that part of the body, allowing the connected muscles to constantly, passively gather energy.

For Martial Disciples, qi was mostly locked in the muscles. To create a flame in their right hand, a Disciple would channel the qi from their lower-right arm into their palm. If their lower-right arm ran out of qi, it was possible to slowly drag additional energy from other parts of their body to replenish it, but they were usually better off waiting for it to recover.

After opening acupoints in all parts of one's body, a cultivator was ready to advance to Martial Master.

The goal of a Master was to create meridians throughout their entire body. These were essentially blood vessels for qi, allowing it to flow quickly and easily throughout one's body. After the proper meridians were in place, it no longer mattered how much qi was in a cultivator's lower-right arm since they could seamlessly pull qi from anywhere in their body.

It should be said, the total amount of qi a Martial Master could access was greater than that of a Martial Disciple, but the difference wasn't as significant as one might think. The massive quantity of qi needed to advance as a Master was locked into static structures within their bodies, the meridians, so it was not usable for powering techniques.

The primary difference between a Master and a Disciple was simply that a Master had the ability to transfer and use qi from anywhere in their body. This made it so that even if a Master were exhausted and had significantly less qi in their body than a Disciple, they would still have an advantage because they could use what energy they did have exactly when and where they wanted to.

So, what was a Martial Grandmaster?

Within a cultivator's body, there was a place in the torso located slightly above the navel. This place was called the dantian. The dantian was a natural gathering point for the body's qi, but it was only noticeable in people who hadn't yet started cultivating since cultivating shifted a body's natural qi flows. However, even if it was difficult to detect, the dantian still existed, and it was where qi wanted to accumulate.

To break through to Martial Grandmaster, a cultivator needed to create a structure within their dantian capable of containing a vast amount of qi and then integrate this new structure into their meridians. This reservoir would greatly increase a person's qi capacity, and all of this stored energy could be delivered on demand, through one's meridians, to any place in the body.

To Grandmasters, this qi reservoir became their new dantian, and their dantian was this reservoir. The two were synonymous.

Having received a Rank 3 cultivation technique from Elder Mu, and having had Jiao confirm that the technique was legitimate, I was nearly ready to begin my breakthrough to Martial Grandmaster. However, after reading the details of what I would need to do several times, I understood that advancing to Grandmaster would not be quick. I needed to prepare myself for a long stint in seclusion.

The first thing I did was sell scores of pills to the Pill Hall. As a Martial Master Peak, it would be normal for me to be able to create ten to fifteen pills a day, and I pushed what was 'normal' to the limit in order to build up points as quickly as possible. While I didn't touch the competitive missions, I grabbed every regular mission that offered a decent return, and if one wasn't available, I focused on the pills the sect had put a bounty on.

The main reason I needed to do this was because of the excessive cost of renting my apartment. At 100 contribution points a day, if I wanted to be able to seclude myself for a month, I would first need to save up the profits from selling thirty pills. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by just returning to my cave in the elder's enclave, but I considered the comfort I gained from staying in this apartment more than worth the added cost.

After thinking through everything I would need to do to complete my breakthrough, I knew that I needed to be prepared to spend at least a year in seclusion. This was costly, but with the rate I was concocting pills, it only took me two weeks to save up enough points to pay for rent.

After that, I prepared pills. Of utmost importance were Meridian Builder Pills. These would provide me with the qi and focus I would require if I wanted any hope of completing my dantian in a single sitting. I also needed Fasting Pills and Restorative Pills. These were simple Rank 1 pills that would alleviate my need for food and sleep.

Using such pills was usually considered a bad idea. Few alchemists in the sect were able to concoct them with perfect purity, so consuming them was a quick way to absorb untold amounts of pill toxins. Even beyond the toxin problem, a body needed real food and rest. These pills could alleviate that need for a time, but eventually, the lack of true sustenance would damage one's foundations.

However, this was a special situation. First, I was one of those few alchemists who could make Perfect Fasting and Restorative Pills. Second, if I stopped cultivating for any reason, my dantian would be irreparably damaged. The minor damage my body would suffer from not eating or sleeping for a few days paled in comparison to what would happen if I ruined my breakthrough.

Finally, while my rented apartment was appointed with well-made furniture, none of it was ideal for long stretches of cultivation. To provide myself with as much of an advantage as possible, I spent several thousand contribution points on a top-notch cultivation mat. While this mat may have appeared to be little more than a thick woolen blanket, a complex formation had been woven into it that would allow me to completely block out the world around me and avoid distractions.

Once everything was in place, I returned to my room and sat down to begin my breakthrough.

I started by weaving together a small, tight ring of qi. Once everything was complete, this ring would serve as the interface between my dantian and my meridians. Then, using that ring as a starting point, I slowly worked my way outwards and created a large quarter sphere with the ring in its center.

When building meridians, the qi strands were slightly loose and had a bit of separation between them. This was to allow qi to enter and exit them as needed. My Peak-Yellow technique used flat ribbons that could expand and contract so that I could more carefully control the rate at which this process happened.

Building a dantian was different. Qi should only be able to enter and exit through the meridians, not through the dantian walls, so it needed to be weaved together tightly enough that nothing would be able to leak out. This requirement, the need to create a woven surface with absolutely no gaps, made creating a dantian a far more difficult and time-consuming task than creating a meridian. It took me more than a week just to create the first quarter sphere.

The cultivation technique I was using called for the creation of four such pieces. This was to allow for four openings in the dantian. My Rank 2 technique created two meridians in my torso, and each of them would need a pathway in and out of the dantian.

After the first piece was complete, I then needed to continuously expend a bit of my focus to hold it in place as I worked on the second piece. After the second piece was complete, I had to keep both completed pieces locked into place. While working on the final piece, I was not only concentrating on weaving a perfect quarter sphere with zero gaps, but I was also burdened with stabilizing all three previously created pieces. If I let up for even a second, there was a significant chance that one of the pieces would begin to unravel and wreak havoc within my body.

While constructing the first piece only took me a little more than a week, because of the growing burden with each new section, constructing all four took me a total of three months. Even with the help of Restorative Pills, my mind was slipping, and I needed to sleep, but I couldn't. Not yet.

With all four pieces complete, I refocused and began the tedious process of knitting them together. This used a completely different weave, and again, it had zero room for error.

Slowly, I placed one stitch after another. A few times, the threads and the pieces didn't line up perfectly, so I had to carefully pluck out the stitches and try again. This caused damage to the weave, but I didn't have a choice. It was the only option available.

Weaving an entire dantian in a single sitting was far too complex a task for me to complete perfectly on my first attempt. Before weaving meridians, I had spent months practicing and perfecting the process, but dantians were different. They were nearly impossible to practice. I could only do my best and accept that the final result would inevitably be flawed.

Finally, after a total of five months without rest, my dantian was completely formed. It sat silently in the middle of my torso and showed no signs of collapse or unraveling.

At this point, I wasn't yet a Martial Grandmaster since my dantian wasn't connected to my meridians. However, because the initial structure was complete, I could rest. I no longer had to fear that it would unravel.

When I started connecting my meridians, I would be in a race against time, and I wouldn't be able to pause the process until it was complete, so I took this time to eat, sleep, and recover.

After two days of rest, I resumed my seclusion.

From my dantian, I created four meridian-like branches and extended them until the ends were nearly flush against the two meridians in my torso. Then, I tied off the ends of three of them and slowed down the movement of qi within my body.

Working as quickly as I safely could, I sliced open one meridian and wove one of the connecting branches into it. Even with my qi slowed, it still leaked through this opening and made connecting the branch challenging. Using all the willpower I possessed, I forced everything into place and knit it together.

Qi began flowing from the newly connected meridian into my dantian. It pooled there, but if too much accumulated, it would begin to be forced out, causing it to burst through the three branches I hadn't yet connected.

Swiftly, I made another slice further down in the same meridian and connected the next branch to it. This allowed qi to flow from my dantian back into that meridian, greatly reducing the risk of pressure build-up.

Then, I repeated the same process with my other torso meridian, cutting it open and connecting one branch for qi to flow in, and then connecting the final branch to allow qi to flow back out.

Once everything was complete, I could finally relax.

When I woke up from a deep slumber, I couldn't help but smile. I had reached Martial Grandmaster 1.

Of course, while I now had a dantian capable of storing vast quantities of qi, it was currently sitting empty. My new dantian didn't provide me with too many benefits unless there was energy stored inside of it. So instead of immediately ending my seclusion, I sat down and cultivated.

I didn't have any Rank 3 pills to help me, and the effects Rank 2 Meridian Builders had on a Grandmaster were limited. So, I just focused on cycling my cultivation technique to slowly gather energy.

To advance as a Grandmaster, I would first need to completely fill my dantian with qi. When it reached its limit and no more could be added, when the walls of my dantian started to buckle from the pressure of the qi my dantian contained, I would need to use my affinities and willpower to compress and compact my qi, making it denser and more potent. Each compression would be an advancement in my level as a Grandmaster, and my qi could be compressed a total of nine times. A Martial Grandmaster 10 was a Peak Grandmaster.

I studied my qi as I cultivated. I watched as it slowly drained from my muscles, entered my meridians, and was deposited into my dantian. Being empty of qi, the acupoints in my muscles then pulled in qi from the environment at an accelerated rate. My dantian was nearly empty, but the qi inside of it was slowly accumulating with every second that passed.

As a Martial Master, I hadn't needed to worry about cultivating regularly. The qi used when creating meridians was drawn in from the environment as they were being built, so Master-level advancements didn't rely on stockpiling qi.

Living as a Grandmaster would be different. Gathering enough qi to advance would take a significant amount of time, and any time I wasn't cultivating, I was delaying my advancement, and using qi for any reason could mean ruining all the work I did to advance to the next stage.

When concocting Rank 2 pills, I hadn't needed to worry about the qi I was using. Performing alchemy had essentially been free. But now, spending qi to concoct Rank 3 pills would mean depleting my cultivation base. I would need to become far more calculating when deciding which pills were worth such a price.

Of course, I wasn't going to eschew Rank 3 alchemy entirely. Learning Rank 3 alchemy was far, far more important to me than simply advancing my cultivation base, but I needed to keep the costs and benefits of doing so in mind. If I spent energy concocting meaningless pills that didn't teach me anything, I would only be damaging my future.

As a Martial Grandmaster, I could live for 300 years, and my cultivation base wouldn't start to stagnate until age 60. After that, if I still hadn't advanced, it wouldn't calcify until I was 90. This meant I had time. I had time to both learn alchemy and advance my cultivation.

While I had originally been hesitant to use the weaker cultivation technique provided by Elder Mu, it did provide me with a backup plan for the future. If I couldn't learn alchemy and advance my cultivation at the same time, I could learn alchemy first and stockpile Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills. Then, I could use them to quickly advance my cultivation. This might not be ideal, but it was nice to have the option of cultivating recklessly without needing to worry too much about my mental state.