Chapter 44: Life 58, Age 32, Martial Master Peak
After learning about the potential permanent side-effects of my cultivation technique, I became much more careful. The mental pull of the newly established pathways was strong, so I gave myself some time to let them settle. I decided to go back to the once-a-year approach.
Over the course of a year, my mind would settle back close to baseline. Then, I would advance. Each advancement had a compounding effect on the mental pulling, which made it significantly worse than the prior stage. After each advancement, I completely secluded myself in my rented apartment and didn’t talk to anyone. That allowed me to stabilize myself without accidentally engaging the suspicion circuits.
Speaking of my apartment, during this time, I never returned to my cave in the elder’s enclave on the mountain. Renting an apartment costs 100 contribution points a day, which was nearly all the profit from making a single pill. My estimates put that at a cost of 50 gold a day to rent this room, which was a completely insane price. However, I didn’t care too much about contribution points since they were easy enough to earn, and I would much rather live in a well-appointed apartment than a cave of bare rock.
When I finally reached Martial Master Peak, it had been years since I had seen Deacon Liu, and I had never heard anything from the elder. As long as I provided them with a dozen or so pills every day, they seemed content enough to let me live however I wanted to. They got countless free pills, and I received unlimited free practice. It was a win-win. They profited more from the exchange, but I was the only one who would get to keep my gains.
The true test was coming though. What would happen now that I had reached Martial Master Peak?
After spending a few months completely stabilizing my cultivation, I returned to the elder’s enclave to talk with Deacon Liu.
“Deacon,” I said, “long time no see!”
“Little Fang,” he said surprised, “what brings you back?”
“I broke through to Martial Master Peak. I wanted to learn about advancing further.”