The Undying Immortal System

At the end of the three-month training period, I brought NiangBa to witness the final competition between the Su Clan’s Disciples.

Per my request, NiangBa was dressed in ragged, blood-stained clothing. His once immaculate, long, flowing hair was now dirty and shorn close to his scalp. By all appearances, his life over the past month had been brutal, and I doubted anyone would wish to swap places with him.

While NiangBa’s appearance was somewhat fabricated, it accurately conveyed the reality of his life over the past month. He had been ruthless to himself during training and had been relentless in his study of martial arts. The only others who showed anywhere close to his level of dedication were Mo and GuiMing, but NiangBa’s combination of focus and natural talent allowed him to improve much faster than either of them.

My hope was that after seeing NiangBa dressed in his bloody rags, only those Disciples who weren’t afraid of hard work would even consider joining me. If he showed up in fine silks, some might see my patronage as an easy path to a life of luxury, and I had no desire to deal with all the problems that would arise from recruiting such people.

Not long after we arrived, the arena’s courtyard started filling up. A quick peek at the elites showed that they were all either Martial Disciple 4 or 5. Their foundations weren’t ideal, but considering that this reflected their first-ever attempt at cultivating, they weren’t too shabby. They each showed definite improvements with every acupoint they opened.

In contrast, NiangBa’s cultivation base was a mess. To learn martial arts properly, he had taken an Energy Expulsion Pill and reset his cultivation base to Martial Disciple 1. He then spent two weeks as a Disciple 2 and one week as a Disciple 3 while slowly practicing the contents of the martial arts memory orb. Then, a week ago, I asked him to quickly raise his cultivation base to Martial Disciple 8 so that the Su Clan elders wouldn’t see anything amiss. With the help of pills and formations, he had been able to accomplish this, but his foundation had suffered in the process.

Normally, this level of corruption in one’s foundation would cause a person to have serious problems with cultivation madness. However, the cultivation technique orbs included information on how to deal with this by sealing one’s acupoints. NiangBa’s proficiency with this technique wasn’t perfect, so a few impulses leaked through, but he was still able to think rationally.

Once all the Grandmasters and Disciples had arrived, the competition proceeded as expected. A few of the normal Disciples, driven by their cultivation techniques and lacking in good sense, stepped forward to challenge the elites. Any who did so were quickly beaten down, and the facade of the elites’ dominance was maintained.

The elites then battled amongst themselves, and like the previous year, there was a clear delineation between the fighters and the auxiliaries. While there were no markings to indicate which group a person belonged to, the fighters only challenged the other fighters and the auxiliaries only challenged the other auxiliaries.