The Undying Immortal System

Over the years, I considered taking disciples of my own and teaching them, but I didn’t. The main reason to do so would have been to use them as guinea pigs to try out some ideas I had about cultivation, but I decided not to do that both because I felt it would be morally wrong to use humans as simple test subjects and because I knew that I would gain a much better understanding if I performed those tests on myself. Instead, I spent my time improving my alchemy skills as much as possible and pushing my cultivation to Martial Grandmaster Peak, but neither task was easy with my current affinities.

At least with alchemy, there were always new techniques to explore. While my improvements to pills were marginal, only one or two extra points to efficacy, those small improvements represented an extreme level of refinement in my skills which would be of immense help in the future.

The additional difficulties in cultivation, however, provided little to no benefit. While gathering qi for regular use became easier and faster with more practice and a higher cultivation, gathering enough for a breakthrough was extremely difficult after stagnation began setting in when I turned 60.

Elder Tian had fulfilled our agreement, providing me with five Fire Dragon’s Tongue Fruits. Using them as the main ingredient, I was able to concoct five Rank 3 Fire Affinity Boosting Pills. The effect of those pills didn’t last long, so I could only use them at a critical moment during each breakthrough, but they provided just enough of a boost to allow me to continue advancing.

At age 80, my cultivation base was deep into stagnation and was only a decade from true calcification. I was a Martial Grandmaster 9, and advancement felt nearly impossible, but after nearly another full decade of hard work, I was finally able to push myself to Martial Grandmaster Peak.

A few years after that, at age 92, I had accomplished nearly everything I would in this life. I was ready for what came next.

I estimated there was only one month or so before the deadly attack on the Su Clan, so I began using my agreement with the Tigers as a pretext to get into contact with more people from that faction.

Ever since I connected TianLei with the Tigers, I had assumed that the attack would be some type of coordinated effort from the entire faction, so I talked to many of the members regularly, trying to tease out any information I could about their future plans.

I heard a lot from them about how the Su Clan had been oppressing them, and since it was generally assumed that I was a discarded member of the clan, they felt free to share their grievances with me. Everyone was willing to tell me how much they hated the Su Clan, but at no point did anybody even hint at an imminent plan to take revenge.