The Undying Immortal System

After a moment of thought, YuanFei decided to ignore me and turned his attention to the Second Elder who placed ten sheets of paper on the table.

“These are our ten new elites. Does anyone have any preferences?”

The younger Grandmaster 3 man was the first to speak.

“Second Young Master YuanFeng has entrusted his daughter, ShouLi, to my care. This was true even before we learned of her blessing, but now, it is imperative that she becomes my disciple. My second consort has the skills ShouLi needs to learn if we are to have any hope of her marrying into the imperial family.”

YuanFei didn’t look happy about this, but he nodded his head. “Agreed. ShouLi must focus on learning the feminine arts. What of the others?”

The Second Elder reached out and sorted through the papers. After handing ShouLi’s to the younger man, he laid down five other sheets in the center of the table.

“These five all have martial or physical blessings and are destined to join the imperial army of the Rising Sun Empire.”

The Grandmasters around the table glanced at me to see my reaction to this statement, but I just gave them an interested nod in return. I had already said that I had no intention to steal any elites, and I didn’t plan on going back on that statement.

The Second Elder continued. “Each of you should select one Disciple from these five.”

There was a little back and forth about who got which Disciple, but none of the Grandmasters seemed to care too much. To them, a fighter was a fighter. The details were unimportant. The only thing they cared about was matching up their element with the Disciple’s where possible.

Once the five fighters were assigned, the Second Elder placed two new sheets of paper on the table.

“These two have cultivation-related blessings.”

A glance at these sheets showed that one person had a blessing for enhanced qi control and the other claimed to have a broad boost to their cultivation comprehension. I expected the elders to fight over these two, but they all seemed entirely disinterested. So, the Second Elder left these papers in the middle of the table and added a third one beside them.

“DongHu, the Third Elder’s grandson, has received a logistics-based blessing. He must be trained to join the Department of State Affairs, and he may be a candidate for elder in the future.”

There was a lot more excitement at this statement, but everyone waited to hear about the final candidate before making a decision.

“SungXue, a remote member of the main branch, has received a blessing that should help her analyze facts and events. She must be trained to enter the Ministry of Justice.”

Once the remaining four elites had been laid out before us, YuanFei chose to accept DongHu as his disciple, YuanKong chose SungXue, and the other two Grandmasters reluctantly accepted the two with cultivation blessings.

These elders were planning out the lives of children based only on which blessings they had received. They had already decided to sell off ShouLi and the five ‘fighters’ to the Rising Sun Empire, and they had chosen the career paths of both DongHu and SungXue without so much as asking the two for their opinions on the matter.

It seemed like the reason no one was enamored with cultivation blessings was simply because such a blessing didn’t immediately tell the Grandmasters which job a person should be assigned. Likely, those two would also just be shipped off to fight for the Rising Sun Empire like the others.

After the elites had all been doled out, the Second Elder moved on to the next topic.

“This was a decent year for crafters. While we still didn’t have any—” The elder caught himself and glanced at me briefly before resuming. “While we have still not found anyone capable of replacing RuDi, three Disciples reported formation-related blessings, and one Disciple reported a blessing related to each of the other three professions. None of these blessings are overly powerful, so they have all been assigned as assistants, but this should lighten the workload of our existing professionals, especially the formation specialists.”

YuanFei looked at me. “You should know that the empire has standing orders to send all exceptionally talented professionals to them for further training. Some will eventually return to the clan, but we will not know who those are until after they come back. Therefore, we cannot allow you to recruit any of these Disciples.”

I nodded politely, and the Second Elder continued.

“None of the other Disciples show much promise. Those who can complete their training will be sent to the guard corps. Anyone recruited from this group by… outside forces, will not be any loss to the clan.”

I wanted to feel dissatisfied with the way the Su Clan was just assigning careers to their children, forcing them down specific paths simply because of their blessings, but was I any better? I had pulled Bao out of the Twin Mountains Sect and sent him to the Verdant Fields Sect simply because I felt that his blessing was more suitable to herbalism than it was to alchemy. I could tell myself that I had given him a choice, but given his mental state at the time, how much of a choice had it been?

Besides, YuLong and JiaQi had gotten fighter blessings and had focused on fighting. LiTing had gotten a refiner blessing and had focused on refining. When I ran a city in the sect, I placed Meng LuYao, Jin ZiHan, and Cai XiaoYu into specific positions based on their current or past blessings. A blessing was a person’s biggest trump card, and it only seemed natural to take advantage of it.

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From the clan’s perspective, forcing their children down specific paths was only taking advantage of the blessings the clan had been given.

This raised an important question: How much did a blessing define who and what a person was?

I had defined people in terms of their blessings on more than one occasion, and I couldn’t say that I was entirely wrong for doing so. LiTing was a refiner, YuLong was a fighter, and Yan was a strategist. Their blessings might have directed them down these paths, but did that matter? And, with those like Mei and Emperor Li, people who had blessings that gave them seemingly clairvoyant abilities, how could I not define them in terms of their blessings?

I didn’t have an answer yet, but as I attempted to move forward and form my own clan, I would have to decide how best to navigate this situation. I wanted to give everyone the freedom to choose who they would become without pressuring them into becoming who I thought they should be. This was especially true for sixteen-year-olds who were just coming into their newfound powers. But I also wanted to make a clan that was powerful enough that I could use it to ascend to Sovereign, Spirit, and even Ancestor.

Only time would tell if I could do both at the same time.

After leaving the meeting with the Grandmasters, I initially headed back to my guest house.

I could have gone to see exactly how the Grandmasters were planning to train the clan’s elites, but I had little desire to do so. I wasn’t planning on recruiting anyone from that group, and I saw little point in studying the clan’s inept training methods.

As I walked, I thought about what I should do over the next few months. My goal was to better understand the new Disciples before choosing which of them would best fit into my plans for my new clan. Especially this early on, blessings and affinities didn’t matter. I needed diligent students with worthy characters. The hell of the Su Clan’s training would be a trial by fire to let me understand more about them as individuals.

This first week, I expected all the normal Disciples to stay holed up in their houses in the residential area, so there wouldn’t be much for me to see. Their first big test would be when their martial arts instructor came at the end of the week. However, there was no guarantee that things would go as I expected them to.

Deciding on a new course of action, I jumped to the top of the wall and walked to the residential area in open view of anyone who was watching. Then, I constructed a small shelter atop the wall where I could sit and observe the happenings below. I camouflaged this structure slightly so that it wouldn’t stick out to the Disciples below, but I did nothing to hide my presence from the elders and Grandmasters.

After settling in, I took out a metal ingot and focused on practicing various refining techniques.

As I worked, I kept an eye out for anything interesting going on in the courtyard, but it was entirely quiet that first day. The only movement came from a few servants delivering food and the Disciples taking turns to visit the outhouse to relieve themselves.

I noticed Su Heng and a few of the other Grandmasters spying on me from a distance, but they didn’t come close or interfere with my actions.

It wasn’t until the fourth day that something interesting happened. A young, emaciated boy wearing a ragged tan robe exited his house, went to a different one, and knocked on the door. When the person inside opened it, the boy gave a deep bow.

“Hello, I’m Su Liang.”

His voice was frail, and the deep, aggressive, masculine voice that responded to him was nearly enough to knock the boy down with a single word.

“What?”

“Senior Brother, I cannot understand the scroll I was given. Can you please assist me?”

The man inside the hut didn’t even bother answering. He just slammed the door in Liang’s face.

A quick check in my journal showed that Liang had displayed no affinities and had no known blessing. It also now seemed like he had zero talent for cultivation. Even if he couldn’t read, he should have still been able to use the diagrams in his scroll to learn the basics. Even I had been able to do that much.

Liang tried three more houses, and it was only after the person inside the last one decided to rough him up and leave him lying in a heap on the ground that he gave up and crawled back home.

I considered intervening at this point, but the boy was only injured. There was no threat to his life, so I allowed things to play out naturally.

At the end of the week, the Disciples gathered for their first martial arts lesson.

The instructor who greeted them was not Deacon Xu, who had always been my instructor, but there was little that separated the two men. Both Xu and this man gave me the impression that being the instructor for the new Disciples was a job that everyone hated.

As usual, the instructor started the ‘training’ by asking if anyone wanted to volunteer for his demonstration. When no one did, he selected Su Liang. The emaciated boy with neither talent nor affinity was an easy target for this first culling.

The instructor forced him forward and started beating him to death.

None of the Disciples surrounding this scene were willing to step in and stop it, and I didn’t judge them harshly for this unwillingness, but I carefully noted down those who reveled in Liang’s pain and those who looked like they would have stopped it if they could have.

As the instructor’s finishing blow was about to land, I raised a thin root from the ground and blocked it.

I didn’t have a way to speak to him directly, and I wasn’t willing to disrupt the normal training routine any more than I had to, but I also wasn’t going to let him kill this kid.

Hidden from view so that only the instructor could see it, I waggled the root in a ‘no’ gesture and formed it into an X. This must have been enough for him, or he might have just known to be cautious when facing someone who could control roots with such power and precision from so far away. Either way, he left Liang on the ground and continued on with his lesson as normal.

After the lesson was over and everyone had returned to their houses, I jumped down from the wall and approached the crumpled form of the boy who was barely hanging on to life.

Had it been cruel of me to leave him lying there for hours while others fought around him? Yes. Had it been wrong to ensure he stayed conscious and in pain the entire time? Yes. All I can say is that I was using the situation to teach him exactly how much the Su Clan cared about his life.

Upon reaching him, I threw a Rank 1 Healing Pill into his mouth. The vital energy from this pill raged through his body and quickly repaired the damage done by the instructor. Its healing wasn’t exactly instantaneous, but in less than five minutes, his most severe injuries had vanished.

However, even after the healing was complete, Liang didn’t move. He just continued to lay there.

“You have three options. One, return to your house and pretend none of this ever happened. Take this week to train, and at the end of it, see if you can survive your next lesson. Two, I will take you out of the clan and give you more money than you’ve ever seen before. You can start a new life for yourself and forget about the past. Three, you can follow me. You must sever ties with the Su Clan and acknowledge me as your new patriarch. I will provide you with opportunities that most people can only dream of, but what comes of your life will depend on you.”

Unmoving on the ground, Liang thought through my offer. When he finally spoke, I couldn’t help but smile at his answer.

“What about my parents?”

“That will depend on your choices and theirs. I won’t help them. I will only put you in a position to help them yourself. However, I will ensure that the Su Clan doesn’t do anything underhanded to hurt them before you are able to do so.”

Mustering the energy of his repaired body, Liang crawled to his feet and kowtowed to me.

“Please, teach me, Master.”

“No. I will neither be your Master nor your Teacher. I will only provide you with an opportunity to learn on your own. I will be your Patriarch.”

Liang kowtowed once more. “Thank you, Patriarch.”

I gave a short nod of my head to accept him as the first member of my new clan, and then pulled out a Nutrition Pill and flicked it into his mouth. While there was next to zero chance that Liang had any real understanding of what joining my clan meant, he would soon find out.