The Undying Immortal System

My new cultivation technique and knowledge guided me on where to place my meridians. I believed that if I followed its guidance precisely, I would be able to rush through the Martial Master levels without needing to worry about mental deviations. However, I didn’t. I took my time. I was still exploring the limits of this new technique.

After several months of examining the interactions between the cultivation technique and my qi flows, I decided to advance. I carefully constructed the wood and fire meridian pair to pull energy from my chest and guide it down my right arm. The placement of this pair in the cultivation technique matched the location of my energy flows precisely, and after several days of hard work, I stepped into Martial Master 2.

I allowed a month for my qi flows to settle, but they didn’t. It might not have been apparent to anyone else, but I was able to see constant perturbations everywhere in my body. Also, the qi flows in my right arm had significantly shifted, especially the ones that flowed from my right fingers back to my torso.

I waited another two months, but it didn’t help. My qi remained in this state of constant agitation.

With no other idea, I constructed the second pair of arm meridians to pull energy away from my right arm and into my chest. This was trickier because none of the qi flows were where they were supposed to be, and nothing matched what my cultivation technique told me to do. I trusted the technique, though, and built the pair where it instructed.

The moment the meridians were complete, the qi in my body snapped into place, and a subtle tension I had been feeling the last months completely vanished. This was a new pitfall, I realized. The advice to let your body stabilize between every meridian was wrong. Both meridians in a given part of the body should be built at the same time. Likely, the practice of splitting meridians developed from people who were unable to maintain the necessary focus and energy for prolonged periods.

Deciding to give myself plenty of time to let my qi settle, I resolved to only advance every other year, but at each advancement, I would advance two levels by completing an entire limb. That would place me at Grandmaster by 28, which was far earlier than most could hope for. If everything worked as well as I hoped, then next time, I would consider rushing up to Peak Master before the age of 20 to see if it was possible.

While my time in the Pavilion had been good so far, I didn’t like that I had become trapped here since near the beginning of this life. If I ever left, I was at risk of being attacked by Zhong, one of his flunkies, or his Grandmaster uncle. At Master 3, I could finally resolve this little problem.

What I needed was a Grandmaster protector who was skilled in combat. While Grandmasters were uncommon, they could still be hired for protection details if the price was high enough. I just needed to be able to afford their price.