The Undying Immortal System

After reaching a deal with the Su Clan’s Grandmasters, they got down to the business of deciding who would be this year’s elites. Even though I had told them I wasn’t interested in poaching any of their ‘top talents,’ they still glanced at me frequently during this process to see if anyone caught my eye.

While listening to their discussions, I was less interested in the Disciples themselves and more interested in their process of choosing who would be an ‘elite.’ As I had seen before, this was partly based on the level of a person’s affinities, but it was more based on how the Grandmasters expected them to use their blessings in the future.

Half of the slots for elites were directly given to those with martial or physical blessings. These Disciples were destined to either become future warriors for the clan or be shipped off to the Rising Sun Empire.

The other half were for people with blessings that made them suitable for a position within the clan’s bureaucracy. Anyone with a blessing that would be uniquely helpful to the clan in some way, such as ShouLi’s beauty blessing, was also considered for these slots. Any leftover slots would then be given to others with combat-related blessings.

One of this year's ‘disappointments’ was Su NiangBa. He was a descendant of the Seventh Elder and had a mid seven-star earth affinity. This should have been enough to be considered an extremely valuable member of the clan, but his blessing was an ability to change the colors of fabrics and textiles. With a blessing like this, he was destined to be nothing more than a simple mortal weaver, so the Grandmasters abandoned him.

This decision made almost no sense to me. Even ignoring everything else, from the way his blessing was described, he could have made an excellent scout or spy. The ability to change the colors and patterns of his clothing at will would allow him to seamlessly blend into nearly any environment. With a solid earth affinity added into the mix, he could easily become a powerful member of an elite strike force.

However, the Su Clan’s Grandmasters saw his blessing as nothing more than a ‘fabric blessing.’ This made him a weaver, and allowing a future weaver to become an elite would have been seen as disgraceful. Also, as this was a mere mortal profession, Su NiangBa wasn’t even qualified for the specialized crafter training.

While I could somewhat understand how they reached this conclusion, allowing themselves to see their new Disciples as little more than their blessings was so… shortsighted.

The Grandmasters would rather give an elite slot to someone with a low affinity and a weak blessing that made them slightly better at using a spear than give it to a talented individual with high affinities and a blessing for hardening leather. The situation was laughable, and it convinced me that I should never allow myself to define people based on my perception of what their blessing would allow them to become.

After all, Du XiongMing started life as nothing more than a simple boy with a weak blessing that allowed him to manipulate small quantities of water. From that modest starting point, he rose to become a powerful Formation Emperor who commanded the respect of nearly everyone on the continent.

If Du XiongMing could do that, what might someone with a ‘fabric blessing’ be able to accomplish given the right circumstances?

Once all the slots for elite Disciples were filled and the meeting ended, I perched myself on the compound’s walls to observe the training of the normal Disciples.

This first week proceeded as it usually did, and everyone remained locked away in their houses while trying to comprehend the basics of their assigned cultivation techniques. However, at the end of the week, when one of the Disciples would typically be killed off, the instructor only severely injured his target.

This resulted in the boy no longer being able to join in on the rest of that day’s training, and without medical aid, he would be in extreme pain for at least a month, but his life was not in jeopardy. He would survive, and he would be able to continue practicing his cultivation technique.

I considered intervening and giving him a pill to help him recover more swiftly, but in the end, I desisted. Yes, it was cruel to let him suffer needlessly, but this was a cruel world. In the long run, treating him with kid gloves wouldn’t be doing him any favors. Allowing him to suffer now would help better prepare him for what he would face in the future.

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At the end of the first month, the normal Disciples were given their first chance to challenge the elites.

As soon as the elder opened the floor for challenges, one of the boys immediately stepped forward. He was the best-dressed normal Disciple by far and wore a richly dyed dark blue robe. With the way he looked and the way he carried himself, an outsider could be forgiven for thinking that he was one of the clan’s elites.

This boy was Su NiangBa, the disappointment with the ‘fabric blessing.’

“I challenge Su BoWen. Come and fight me!”

It was clear the two boys were familiar with each other, and NiangBa was confident he would be victorious. With his high affinity and natural talent, he had already raced ahead and reached Martial Disciple 5. This had come at a bit of a cost to his qi purity, but his foundation was still rather impressive. ř

BoWen’s qi might be slightly purer, but the difference was negligible. While BoWen had spent a lot of effort making his cultivation base as perfect as possible, NiangBa’s natural gifts gave him a huge advantage.

Unfortunately for NiangBa, while his cultivation base was more than enough to pose a challenge to BoWen, he had no understanding of how to fight as a cultivator. He didn’t control his qi properly, and BoWen easily defeated him.

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However, following the agreement I had made with the elders, NiangBa was not killed. After the match, his broken body was simply tossed to the side and dismissed as unimportant. The rest of the challenges then continued on as normal.

After the matches were over, YuanFei approached me.

“Prince Fang, I need to discuss something with you.”

I raised an eyebrow and gestured for him to continue.

“It’s about NiangBa. The other Grandmasters and I feel that his continued presence here could be… disruptive. He has already started rushing his cultivation, and with his loss today, this problem is likely to only get worse. If he remains here, he will only cause problems for the others. So, as per our agreement, we would like to request you to take him away.”

I wanted to laugh. They were openly encouraging me to take away their most talented Disciple. It wasn’t exactly what I had planned on, but there was no reason to pass up such an opportunity. NiangBa might have some inner demons he would need to deal with, but he didn’t seem like a bad kid.

After agreeing to YuanFei’s request, I used a qi-powered leap to appear in front of NiangBa who was still lying crumpled on the ground where he had been discarded.

“I am Fang Su. Have you been told about me?”

He nodded wordlessly.

“The Grandmasters of the Su Clan have asked me to take you away. In their opinion, you have no value to the clan, and your presence here is only hurting the other Disciples. You may stay here if you wish and try to forge a path forward with the Su Clan, or you may forsake the clan and join me instead. Which do you choose?”

My words caused rage and helplessness to well up within the boy. He was only 16 years old, and his family was throwing him away. He was seen as nothing more than trash. He had known this from the moment he had been sent back to live with the other normal Disciples, and my words had only confirmed it.

He looked at me with all the anger he could muster.

“Can you make me stronger?”

I nodded.

“Then I’ll join you.”

I flicked both a healing pill and a sleeping pill into his mouth and carried him away.

While I initially carried NiangBa back to my guest house, as soon as we passed through my privacy formations, I stuffed him into my storage space, took a Shadowed Soul Pill, and left for Mount Jiang.

After waking the boy up from his pill-induced slumber, I gave him an identity jade and handed him off to Mo. I wanted to see if my recruits from the previous year were ready to introduce newcomers to my training regime, and Mo was the one I trusted the most to handle this properly. He had shown himself to be more deliberate than Liang, less scheming than ShouLi, and more dedicated to cultivation than either of the siblings.

I kept an eye on everything from afar for a bit, and once I was convinced that nothing would go too terribly wrong, I returned to the training complex. While it might have been better to hang around and ensure there was no repeat of last year’s incident with Liang, I had no reason to expect there to be any problems this time.

Mo, Liang, ShouLi, and the siblings were all well aware of what I expected of them by now, and they would have no difficulty in taking care of NiangBa if he tried to do something reckless. Instead, I was more worried about the Su Clan becoming suspicious of my prolonged absence. As far as they were concerned, NiangBa was tucked away in my guest house, and I wanted it to remain that way.

At the end of the second month, I returned to Mount Jiang, picked up NiangBa, and took him back to the training compound to watch the second round of challenges.

During the past month, he had been studying the contents of the memory orb for the High-Yellow earth cultivation technique. This was a different technique than the one the Su Clan had given him, so he had needed a significant amount of time to work out how all the information in the orb applied to what he already knew. As such, by the end of the month, he had only advanced a single time, reaching Martial Disciple 6.

When we arrived at the arena, he was initially confident in his progress, but after watching the elite Disciples fight against each other, this confidence crumbled to dust. He was intelligent enough to know that while his knowledge of cultivation had advanced significantly, he still didn’t have the skills necessary to compete with the others in martial combat.

After the competition, I took him back to Mount Jiang. Before I could leave, he bowed and spoke up to stop me.

“Patriarch, please, teach me how to fight.”

I looked at him in thought. I hadn’t started anyone on combat lessons yet because I wanted them to focus on mastering their cultivation techniques first. It was best to teach cultivation and combat alongside each other, but the Yellow Orchid Academy typically waited until the second year before beginning anyone on combat lessons. I had planned to follow a similar routine because that was what I was used to, but I didn’t know of any reason why such lessons couldn’t be started earlier.

If the boy wanted to learn how to fight, was there any reason to stop him from doing so? I had always learned best when studying things I was interested in. I might as well apply that same philosophy to my clan.

I waved to NiangBa. “Follow me.”

After entering the technique hall, I took out a pile of lumber and shaped it into a new bookcase. Then, I pulled out a memory orb.

I considered directly imbuing it with memories myself, but I wasn’t confident in my ability to do so properly. Until I learned to make memory orbs on my own, I didn’t want to waste any on needless experimentation.

“System, fill this orb with all my knowledge of basic cultivator combat skills. Do not include any martial techniques. Just have it contain everything I know about basic fighting styles and how to instinctively use qi when attacking, blocking, and moving.”

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I placed the orb on the shelf, manipulated the sect-protecting formation to ensure it couldn’t be stolen, and then turned to NiangBa.

“There you go. That orb will teach you what you need to know. I’ll set up a temporary fighting pit outside, and you can spar with the others.” I tossed him a free Energy Expulsion Pill. “I would recommend starting from Martial Disciple 2 and working your way up. If anyone else is interested in learning alongside you, I’ll give them a pill as well.”

After setting everything up, I disappeared, but I didn’t return to the training compound. While I had enough confidence in my recruits to leave NiangBa alone with the others to learn basic cultivation skills, I was a bit worried about what might happen with everyone learning martial skills for the first time. Even a small mistake at this stage could lead to serious injuries, and I needed to be on hand in case things got out of control.

Thankfully, my fears were unfounded, and everyone proceeded cautiously in learning these new skills.

While not everyone was as excited to learn how to fight as NiangBa was, after a year of nothing but cultivation practice, they were all ready to try something new.

To the annoyance of some, while NiangBa was the newest addition and had the least experience with controlling qi, his natural talents allowed him to quickly understand the intricacies of fighting as a cultivator, and he was easily able to hold his own against his older peers.

After overseeing their sparring for an entire week, I left a bottle of powerful healing pills for use in case of an emergency and returned to the training compound.