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Part of the reason I wasn’t able to make higher-quality pills was simply the ingredients. Jiao openly admitted that I was given all the dregs that no one else wanted to work with. The best or easiest ones were given to other disciples. I was happy with this arrangement, though. I didn’t need easy profit-making opportunities. I needed challenging practice.

As for my cultivation, that had become more challenging. My ascension to Martial Grandmaster 2 had been extremely smooth, so I had hoped that was a good sign for the future, but each additional compression became more difficult.

The maximum amount of qi I could hold before I began compressions was partly to blame. When filled, my dantian showed signs of buckling quite early. From what I was told, this was mainly due to errors in my weaves, especially at the seams. Small errors created weak points that made the structure more prone to breaking than it should have been, which meant I could store less qi before a compression. Having less qi meant I needed to force it into a smaller ball before the qi reached the proper density to transform and allow my advancement to click into place, and trying to compress at such a low volume was more difficult.

After each compression, I needed to do small repairs to my dantian where it had become damaged from the pressure. Under normal circumstances, these repairs weren’t a problem, but during the next advancement, when my dantian was under the most pressure, they became more weak points that would cause more damage. All of this meant that I was becoming less optimistic about my chances of ascending to Martial Grandmaster Peak this life.

That was fine, though. Peak Grandmaster was a goal, but it wasn’t essential. My current progress was already enough that if I died, I would be in a far, far better position my next time around. So, I shifted my main focus to other areas.

“Disciple Su,” said Jiao as she entered my workshop, “how have you been recently?”

“Elder Jiao,” I said with a slight bow, “very well, thank you.”

Jiao’s promotion to elder had happened years ago, but she still maintained her position as my handler.

“Junior Su, you are sixty this year, and qi stagnation will begin to set in, so you will need to undergo an evaluation for promotion to elder soon.”

“Yes, elder. I know.” I nodded. “When will my evaluation take place?”

“Two weeks,” she said. “Be prepared at that time.”

“Yes, elder.”

She began to walk away, but I quickly spoke up to stop her.

“Elder, I plan to go to the Martial Peak to look through their technique libraries beforehand. I hope that will be allowed.”

She hesitated before answering. “You are still an inner sect disciple, so it is within the rules. Be careful, though. There’s no true danger within the sect, but people may threaten or attack you. If you meet anyone, just say you are with the Defenders and you will be safe.”

“Thank you, elder.”

I had gotten the permission I needed. In two weeks, I would undergo my examination for elder, and I was guaranteed to fail. After that, I would almost certainly be named an outer sect deacon. This didn’t bother me, but outer sect deacons were not allowed to visit the other peak, so if I wanted to do that, it needed to get done before I was removed from the inner sect.

Regardless of Jiao’s reassurances, I needed to treat preparing to visit the Martial Peak like I was preparing to die. I wasn’t sure of the exact situation over there, but I had heard horror stories from others who had made the trip. For years I had been finishing everything I felt I needed to get done so that I could die without regret.

Aside from copying all the information from the sect and Bao, the main preparations for my next life were in my storage space. I couldn’t store much, but I had the essentials. First was a small, thin copy of the Rank 3 wood and fire cultivation technique. This took up a significant amount of space, but it was my most valuable possession.

Other than that technique, I mainly stocked up on pills. I didn’t need to worry too much about cultivation resources, but I still stocked a few Perfect Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pills and near-Perfect Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pills. I didn’t bother storing any Rank 3 cultivation pills, though. I couldn’t make high enough quality pills that I would want to take them. Truthfully, I was not excited at the idea of taking the Rank 2 pills either. I would rather they be Perfect, but I stored them just in case.

Another type of pill I stored a decent supply of was qi purification pills. My Profound-Rank technique had a problem with qi purity. I could fix that by going through the System, but that would eat up a lot of points. I had ideas for fixing the problem permanently at zero cost, but until then, I could use a combination of wood and fire qi purification pills to keep me going strong.

The last pills I placed into my storage were a handful of poison pills. This was an idea that had been running through my mind for a while, but it took time to make a finished product. I used all my Rank 3 alchemy skills to make the most deadly, quickest-acting poison I could. Importantly, I also worked to make it as painless as possible. I should be able to put the pill in my mouth and know no more. After perfecting the pill, I then practiced taking a pill from storage and directly placing it into my mouth, so that even if I was completely tied up and searched, I could instantly pop a pill and die. This was my ultimate escape plan.

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Finally, I filled the remaining room in my storage with gold and silver. I had considered using it for trade goods. A Rank 3 pill took up little space and would be immensely valuable, but selling a Rank 3 pill as a Martial Disciple would be extremely dangerous. It was much safer to use a few gold as starting capital and exploit my alchemy skills to make money as needed.

Along with my preparations for death, I also prepared ways to avoid it. For years I had been studying the martial techniques I had access to, but I had little faith in them. If it came to a fight, I believed I should be able to hold out against most Martial Masters, but any Grandmaster would be able to take me down.

Instead of planning to fight the more skilled people, I would buy them off. I couldn’t skim many Rank 3 pills off of what I made for the sect, but I had Bao purchase several sets of ingredients for me from the Blue Wind Pavilion at an exorbitant cost. I used those to generate more money and bought more ingredients until I had enough pills that I was confident I could buy off most people on the Martial Peak.

Just in case, I also removed some gold and placed a bottle of explosive pills in my storage space. I didn’t want to carry them around openly, since I was worried they might randomly blow up if I got into a fight, but held within storage, they could be kept safe until needed. I didn’t want to use them—I didn’t think it would help my situation with the locals if I started killing people—but I kept them just in case.

The permission from Elder Jiao had been the last step. After that, I began my journey.

The Martial Peak was divided into four large regions with high walls separating them. They were the Upper Mountain, the Lower Mountain, the First Ring, and the Second Ring with each section housing the elders, inner sect disciples, outer sect disciples, and nominal disciples respectively.

As an inner sect disciple of the Alchemy Peak, I was allowed to visit the technique halls everywhere but the Upper Mountain. The nominal disciple technique hall held the least interest for me since I could guess the sect wouldn’t allow them to study anything but the weakest skills, but I still wanted to get everything copied down.

There was no direct path to the Martial Peak. To get there, I first walked back to River Rock right outside the sect.

I stood in the square where young hopefuls would gather each year to be tested for acceptance into the sect. It was much as I remembered it, but the lack of any people gave the place an eerie silence. In front of me stood two paifang arches. Before, I had always walked under the left one. This time, I went right.

There was no teleportation or sense of disorientation as I walked. Those past perceptions had all been illusions. Instead, I walked a short straight path to a wide opening in the outermost wall. No guards were present, and no one tried to stop me from entering. An illusion and shielding formation was the only barrier to entry, and it was my jade token, and my connection with it, that allowed me to pass.

On the other side of the gate was the blasted wasteland that was the Second Ring. A few weeds were scattered around the ground, but in nearly every direction there was simply barren dirt that had been turned over and scorched by countless fights and explosions.

The path continued straight ahead of me, but that led to the First Ring with the outer sect, and I wasn’t ready to go there yet. First, I wanted to find the nominal disciple technique hall.

Following the directions I had purchased long ago, I began to follow a path in a counter-clockwise direction around the ring. While the wasteland look continued, the ground became rockier. Massive boulders that must have tumbled down the mountain in ages past dotted the area, and chunks that had broken off were scattered about.

Ahead of me, three men sat on rocks near the side of the path. They made no effort to conceal their presence, and they were just sitting there, talking and laughing. As I neared, they all stood up and walked in front of me, blocking my path.

“Alright, pay the toll,” said the burly man in the middle.

All three were tall and had bulging muscles. The sleeves of their robes had been cut off, and they were dirty, but it was obvious they were nominal disciple robes.

I looked at the three in qi vision and saw that the two on the sides were Martial Disciple 7 and the man in the center was a Martial Disciple 8. The idea of three Martial Disciples stopping a Grandmaster and asking for some kind of toll almost made me laugh.

“How much is it,” I asked with a laugh.

The men’s faces turned serious. “You look like a fancy one,” the leader said, “how about you give us everything and we let you through.”

These boys had clearly never seen an inner sect disciple’s robes before and didn’t know what they meant. It wasn’t that surprising, but they should have been able to tell that something was wrong.

“No,” I said lightly, “I don’t think so. I just wanted to walk peacefully by, but if you want me to give you a free lesson, I will oblige.”

As my Martial Grandmaster cultivation grew, I no longer needed to worry about the mental effect of my previous cultivation techniques. They had become subdued circuits in my brain that I could access, but I wasn’t compelled to use them. I usually kept the friendly circuits from my Rank 1 active, though, as they helped me be cordial when dealing with people I didn’t trust.

However, a wise man adapts to different situations like water adapts itself to different vessels. In this situation, friendliness wasn’t helping. I turned off those circuits and flipped on my Rank 2 aggression.

The leader snarled. “Get him!”

His lackeys rushed me from either side. I could see that they were using some type of earth technique to affect their movement, and the qi in their arms was concentrated to give a devastating blow.

I didn’t even bother defending myself. They both rushed in and threw their punches. One was aimed at my head, the other at my torso. I didn’t dodge or defend. I let them connect.

I wasn’t being cocky here, and I wasn’t taking any pointless risks. I wanted to leave an impression on these boys to make the rest of my time here easier. I had already used my qi vision to develop a good understanding of their strength.

When the two blows landed, the physical power of the hits was meaningless. My body had been strengthened by my meridians, and no purely physical power from a Martial Disciple could affect me. The only slight danger came from their qi, but when they were close enough, my significantly higher affinities, qi control, and cultivation base allowed me to wrest control of the qi the moment their fists made contact. I acted as a lightning rod and conducted the qi into the ground.

“Interesting,” I said. I stood there having not moved an inch after their attack. “Let me try.”

Without any movement from my body, my qi exploded outward. Since it was fire energy, it wanted to scorch and burn, but I used a technique to force the explosion to be purely kinetic. The two men were blasted away and fell to the ground. They weren’t hurt badly since I limited my power, but that should have sent a warning.

I looked at their leader. His eyes squinted.

“Let’s talk,” I said.