The Undying Immortal System

After returning to his temporary home on the plateau, TaiZu explained the situation with the clan to his entourage and encouraged them to do their best to blend in. Then, he sent the three Grandmasters to evaluate the lower levels of the mountain and determine what they would need to do to make the place livable.

Not long after these people left, one of my clan’s outer elders arrived and gave TaiZu a deep bow.

“Grand Elder, you’ve arrived. Please, let me know how I can assist you.”

TaiZu smiled at this, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“YiPo, why have you come here so soon? It will make both of us look suspicious.”

The young elder, YiPo, quickly shook his head in negation.

“Grand Elder, it was the leadership council that sent me here. They instructed me to give you a tour of the mountain.”

Taizu stroked his beard in thought. “Is that so? That’s fine then. Tell me about the place. What have you learned? How does this outpost compare to the environment in the Su Clan?”

“Grand Elder… this… there is… there is a place I need to show you. I believe it holds the secret to Prince Fang’s strength.”

TaiZu looked at the young man askance. “Just tell me. Why must you show me?”

YiPo dropped his head. “There are some things that need to be seen to be believed, Grand Elder.”

The Grand Elder waved his hand. “Fine. Take me there.”

YiPo gave another deep bow, led the elder outside, and took him directly to the Rank 1 Affinity Hall.

Though I had expanded it somewhat, this was still the same building that I had used to demonstrate wood shaping to the Disciples when we first arrived on the mountain, so it didn’t look like anything overly special. GuiMing’s team had been doing a lot of work to make the mountain’s interior as beautiful as possible, and the original buildings on the plateau had suffered by comparison. So, when the Grand Elder saw where he was being taken, a look of skepticism appeared on his face.

When he entered the hall and found that it only consisted of a couple dozen small rooms with simple stone floors, his doubt only increased.

Undeterred, YiPo gestured to the pedestal to the right of the entrance.

“Grand Elder, this is an affinity testing orb.” TaiZu snorted at this, but YiPo pushed ahead. “It can detect all your affinities, not just your highest. Many of the children the Su Clan thought had zero affinities actually had multiple affinities. The orb we used just couldn’t detect them.”

TaiZu waved this away. “I’ve heard of such high-level orbs existing elsewhere. There is value in such things, but it is limited. The clan might have missed out on one or two good seedlings, but if they were truly exceptional, their blessings would have prevented them from fading into obscurity.”

Cheek twitching at the Grand Elder’s attitude, YiPo stepped forward and placed his hand on the orb. When he did so, it lit up in an array of different colors.

When the Grand Elder saw this, his breath froze.

“Peak nine-star affinities in wood, metal, and fire? Low eight-star water? High eight-star earth? Why were you sent here? With these affinities…”

YiPo shook his head and gestured to the empty rooms behind him.

“The stone floors in those rooms… They are formation stones. Prince Fang possesses affinity-boosting formations. The more time you spend in there, the higher your affinities will climb.”

TaiZu’s mouth opened slightly as he turned to study the empty rooms carefully. He likely didn’t want to believe what he was hearing, but with YiPo’s affinities, it would be hard to deny.

“Why is no one using them? If Prince Fang has such magical formations, why are they just sitting empty.”

YiPo’s cheek twitched again. “It’s not that no one wants to use them. It’s that they cost contribution points to use. Even with hard work, it is difficult to earn more than one or two hours in here a week.”

“But with the number of cultivators Prince Fang has accumulated, I would think there would still be people here all the time.”

YiPo shook his head. “This is the Rank 1 hall. There is a Rank 2 hall on the other side of the plateau. It costs a hell of a lot more to use, but it's worth it. Most people would rather save their points and spend an hour there instead of an entire week here.”

The Grand Elder bobbed his head slowly as he thought.

“Do rooms in the Rank 2 hall ever sit empty?”

YiPo nodded.

“Alright, this is what we’ll do. Start casually questioning why these miraculous formations are allowed to sit here unused. Suggest that the elders and the more powerful members of the clan should be allowed to access them freely. Don’t push, though. Just plant a seed of doubt.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

YiPo gave a slight bow. “Yes, Grand Elder.”

The next day, Elder TaiZu was welcomed into the clan by a gathering of the outer elders and a group of our oldest Masters. While Elder TaiZu ostensibly held the lowest position among those gathered due to low seniority, his aged appearance and greater strength caused the youths surrounding him to defer to him at nearly every turn.

For the most part, this gathering simply served to introduce TaiZu to the clan’s upper echelons, but as they discussed the details of how the clan operated, TaiZu would occasionally ask seemingly innocuous questions that caught my attention.

As a Peak Master who served as an elder in the Third Ring explained how he had been chosen for his position, TaiZu stroked his beard in thought.

“But you are a Peak Master, are you not? You’re one of the most powerful people here. Why were you not given a position on the Second Ring or even the First?”

The youth grinned weakly. “I earned my position as a member of Elder Liang’s enforcers. After considering our relative contributions, Elder Liang felt that others were more worthy of being placed in the Second Ring. As for the First, that is occupied by the leadership council.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure that with your skills you will be able to earn a higher position in short order.” Taizu gave the young man a comforting smile. “By the way, what would you need to do to become an inner elder and join the leadership council?”

“This… isn’t possible.”

TaiZu looked concerned. “Not even if you advance to Grandmaster while they are all still Masters? Not even if you are more capable?”

The young elder’s eyes held a look of reluctance, but he didn’t respond.

TaiZu patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m sure the council has things well in hand. They won’t let a talent such as yourself linger in obscurity.

After a few parting words, Elder TaiZu left to have similar discussions with others.

I had expected TaiZu to stir the pot, but I hadn’t expected him to do so as soon as he arrived. I had thought that he would wait until he was more firmly established here before doing anything that might be considered suspicious.

However, seeing so many high-level Masters among my ranks had thrown him off. He had likely come here thinking that most of the people in my ‘retinue’ would be relatively weak due to their lacking affinities. He would have then been able to use his Grandmaster-level cultivation base as a pretext to claim a greater level of authority over a group of mere Disciples.

However, after seeing more than a dozen Masters at or near the peak of their realm, he had to be thinking that his time as one of only a handful of Grandmasters among my ranks was limited. This likely pushed him to be far more active than he had originally planned.

What he didn’t yet know was that these Peak Masters would have their entire cultivation bases abolished by the end of the week. Some of them might not drop all the way down to Disciple 1, but not a single one of them would remain a Martial Master. Our clan likely wouldn’t see the rise of its first native Grandmaster for at least another five years, so his position was far more secure than he might have imagined.

Still, I was more than pleased with this development.

It meant that the intentions behind Elder TaiZu’s actions would be far more apparent than otherwise. The members of my clan would have plenty of warning signs signaling them that working with Elder TaiZu was dangerous, and if they did so anyway, they would only have themselves to blame.

It took less than a month for the seeds of doubt that Elder TaiZu had sown to bear fruit.

If he had spoken out against me, or against the clan as a whole, then he might not have been so successful, but his comments had been directed toward the leadership council. While no one was necessarily unhappy with the job they had done, there were more than a few ambitious people who wanted to move up in the clan.

This led to an emergency meeting between my six inner elders to discuss what should be done.

After ShouLi laid out the situation, GuiMing was completely apathetic.

“What’s the big deal? The extra contribution points we get from managing things are nice and all, but I wouldn’t mind stepping back and letting some of the others take over. It would give us more time to relax and cultivate in peace.”

ShouLi gave him a sharp look. “Ming, we have a duty to manage things properly. The Patriarch has given us a lot of benefits over the years, and we must do our best to support him in return.”

GuiMing just shook his head. “Yes, we need to support the Patriarch. He is the head of the clan, so that’s only proper, but that doesn’t mean we need to hold onto control. If others are able to do our jobs better than us, we should step aside and let them do it. At first, we took control because we were the only ones who could. That isn’t true anymore.”

ShouLi pounded a fist on the table. “We cannot allow insurrections within the clan!”

NiangBa just snorted. “ShouLi, look, I hear what you’re saying, but really, what’s the big deal? I took over the arena because I was the only person strong enough to ensure the Disciples didn’t start killing each other. If someone out there is stronger than me, then they can challenge me. If they win, I’ll gladly step aside and let them deal with the headaches involved in managing that place.”

ShouLi clearly wanted to argue with him, but seeing that GuiAi and Mo seemed to agree with these two, she dropped her head in defeat.

Liang looked at her and then cleared his throat.

“Letting the most capable person manage things makes sense, but there has to be rules. Otherwise, things will just devolve into chaos. We can’t let random people constantly challenge the authority of the clan’s leadership.” Liang looked at NiangBa. “You said that if someone challenges you, you will step aside, right? Do you stand by that?”

NiangBa nodded. “Sure. Seems only right that the most powerful person should be in charge of the arena.”

“Fine, then we can hold a competition. Anyone who wants your position on the council can challenge you for it. It will be ordered and structured. It won’t be people simply running around and insulting us.”

NiangBa smiled at this, happy with the decision. After considering it, GuiMing and GuiAi also signaled their agreement.

ShouLi steepled her fingers. “Alright. I can agree with this. This is better, actually. In the past, we built ourselves up as leaders, and the Patriarch just went along with it. That wasn’t right. Liang is correct. We need rules. We need laws that state who is in power and how they can be replaced.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

To the side, Mo spoke up for the first time. “I don’t mind handing the workshops off to someone. If I’m being honest, managing everything there has felt like it’s been nothing but a distraction, and I’d be happy to let others take charge of things. I don’t want to have to deal with challenges all the time, though. If you’re going to implement some kind of tournament where people can compete with us, we need to have at least five years between them, preferably more.”

Everyone looked to be in agreement with that sentiment.

ShouLi, now much calmer, looked around at the group. “Alright then, start thinking about what kind of competition would be most appropriate for each of your positions. For the arena, fighting prowess might be sufficient, but that’s less important when it comes to managing the workshops and residences. If we can develop clear rules for how to replace a member of the clan’s leadership, we can stand strong against this criticism.”