G. Tolley
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Chapter 444 – Life 116, Age 17, Martial Disciple Peak
🕑 Added 2025-11-21 14:16:35 +0000 UTCAs soon as my short lesson on focus items was over, I returned to our sect’s villa and concocted an Energy Expulsion Pill for Meng LuYao, allowing her to begin cultivating a dual-element guandao-light technique. Then, since it would make studying significantly easier, I went down to the basement and started cultivating.
Using a Rank 1 guandao to advance to Martial Master was surprisingly difficult. The weapon was more than capable of channeling all the qi I required. However, the process of condensing this energy and weaving it into meridians created a significant amount of back pressure, making me worried that my guandao might explode. So, I had to carefully monitor my qi vortices, ensuring that I always had enough energy to continue advancing, while also not putting too much stress on my weapon.
My lifetimes of cultivation practice proved their worth, though, and after only a little over a week, I completed my advancement to Martial Master, becoming the first member of our group to do so.
Kan, JiuLi, and YuLong had the advantage of using our villa’s Rank 2 guandaos, but without even one full life of memories to draw upon, their progress was markedly slower. Of course, compared to cultivators who hadn’t used a memory orb, they were learning to create meridians at a blistering pace.
Surprisingly, only one day later, JiuLi became the second member of our group to advance. I had expected this to be YuLong, but JiuLi’s crafting pursuits had prepared her for weaving meridians in ways that YuLong couldn’t compete with.
Still, by the end of the month, both YuLong and Kan were able to advance to Martial Master, leaving Meng LuYao to struggle through the ranks of Martial Disciple on her own.
I considered using this month to study formations, but I instead stayed down in the basement, carefully weaving together the meridians in my right arm, ascending all the way to Martial Master 3.
Rapidly advancing without giving my cultivation base time to settle carried the risk of creating a severe mental imbalance—especially since my Rank 1 and 2 cultivation techniques weren’t exactly compatible with each other. My Rank 1 technique urged me to violence, while my Rank 2 technique urged me to create.
I wasn’t too worried about this, though. I didn’t plan to keep this cultivation base long, and I was interested to see what urges this combination might induce.
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At the end of our first month as an Eight-Star Sect, I sent everyone to our cottage on the Plane of Woody Earth, where both a soul avatar and YuLong’s sister were waiting to greet them.
“As everyone should already know,” I said, “this week marks the start of the Central Continent’s blessing ceremonies. In just a few days, newly awakened cultivators will begin showing up at the Broken Spear Outpost, all of them hoping to join a sect. We need to discuss how we plan to deal with this.”
Kan gave me a funny look. “What do you mean? Why does it matter? We’re recruiting people from Chang’an, aren’t we?”
“The problem,” I said, “is the time difference. The clans in Chang’an won’t have their awakening ceremonies for another eight months. A newly risen Eight-Star Sect not recruiting anyone during its first year might not be too strange, but recruiting people eight months after the blessing ceremony is. This isn’t something that we would be able to hide, either. After we accept a new Disciple into our sect, we have to register them with the Bureau before they start cultivating.”
As Kan sank into thought, Meng LuYao smiled at me. “So, what’s the plan, Fang? I’m sure you already have one, right?”
I looked between Kan and JiuLi, my face taking on a grim cast. “First, I need to warn you. Do not repeat what I’m about to say—not to outsiders, not to members of our sect, not to members of your own family, understood?”
After getting two solemn nods of agreement, I allowed my expression to soften. “My blessing gives me a limited ability to travel back through time. You’ve experienced this once before, though I’m not sure you entirely understood what was happening. We went on that shopping trip in Iron Spear City. Then, I took us back through time, making it so that trip never happened. This is also how I produced those memory orbs during the tournament.”
Kan and JiuLi gave each other a look of understanding. Given what they had seen, and considering the myths and legends that were still floating around Chang’an, this revelation was less a shock and more a confirmation of what they already knew.
“It has its limitations, but this time-travel blessing is the solution to our current predicament. We wait eight months. Then, we travel back in time to this exact moment. This will bring the calendars of the two worlds into alignment, and we’ll be able to recruit people from Chang’an without raising undue suspicions.”
Everyone just stared at me, their faces masks of confusion—even YuLong’s and Meng LuYao’s.
“All of us?” asked YuLong, cautiously, “We’ll all be traveling through time? Or are you talking about using memory orbs?”
I shook my head. “No, this is something I realized during that shopping trip. As long as you’re here—on this plane—you can go back with me. We’ll have eight months to advance in ways that wouldn’t normally be possible for a First-Class Sect.”
Off to my left, YuHua grinned. “Me too? Does this mean I finally get to go outside?”
After a moment of hesitation, I grimaced, and YuHua's face fell, expecting the worst.
“YuHua… The five of us are protected by the Bureau’s regulations. Even without being a First-Class Sect, we will still have the protections that come from living in the Bureau’s villa. You’re too young, though. You can’t become a member of a sect until you turn 16. If you go out there, you might be targeted. You could die. If that happens…”
I could create a reset point with YuHua in the outside world, ensuring her survival, but then she wouldn’t be able to travel back through time with us. She’d forget everything that happened. A memory orb might be able to help with this, but since she wasn’t old enough to cultivate, she couldn’t use them.
Seeing her downcast expression, I glanced over at YuLong, then nodded. “You can visit the city, but you have to stay by my side the entire time, understand? That way, if something goes wrong, I’ll be able to save you.”
YuHua's grin quickly returned, and she nodded enthusiastically. “Yes!”
“This is an opportunity,” I said, looking back at my four sectmates, “but we need to be careful. Don’t die out there, and do not break the rules of First-Class Sects. If you accept the help of a Grandmaster, then you’ve accepted the help of a Grandmaster. Even if you go back in time to before it happened, accepting such aid could still cause issues the next time you’re interrogated in front of a truth stone.”
JiuLi scrunched up her nose. “If we still have to follow the rules, then how will we be able to advance in ways not possible for First-Class Sects?”
I grinned. “We can’t accept the help of a Grandmaster—that doesn’t change. The rules concerning contribution points, however, are a bit more flexible.”
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While I still have that reset point that I had created during the tournament, I wanted to keep that as a back stop in case anything went horribly wrong. So, sitting in our villa’s basement, I connected to an avatar in my treasury.
“System, purchase a new temporary reset point.”
Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 credit. 58,984 credits remaining.
Then, I took Kan, JiuLi, YuLong, and Meng LuYao out of my inner world, and we all headed directly for the Sect Affairs Bureau.
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“What?” asked the Bureau’s clerk, blinking at me, confused.
“We wish to alter our sect’s status,” said Kan. “We want a downgrade to a Second-Class Sect.”
The process of downgrading our sect’s status was far more complex than I had assumed. Each of us faced questions about our intentions. Then, the clerk’s manager stepped in to try to talk us out of it. It was hours before the final piece of paperwork was stamped and carefully filed away.
This done, our group headed up to the second floor, where I took out a few bottles of nine-patterned pills and sold them for more contribution points than we could possibly spend. We then used these points to sign up for lessons and purchase a wide variety of crafting materials.
As I had told JiuLi, we couldn’t break the rules for First-Class Sects, meaning we couldn’t accept undue help, but purchasing items from the Bureau was perfectly legal. Sure, we couldn’t exactly travel back through time with a Rank 4 or 5 weapon strapped to our backs, but training and information was fair game.
Sadly, the most valuable information—such as Earth-Rank techniques—wasn’t available to Second-Class Sects, but I didn’t see this as much of a loss. The members of our sect needed to earn those techniques. These eight months were just to help give Kan and JiuLi a boost, making that slightly easier to accomplish.
Meng LuYao signed up for lessons on illusions, while JiuLi registered for classes on refining. Neither of these came as much of a surprise, and I could only hope that they would learn something that would open up new layers of understanding on these topics.
YuLong, in contrast, decided to avoid learning a profession entirely. In the past, he had spent some time learning both formations and talismans, but neither of these topics had ever resonated with him. So, he instead signed up for lessons on how to be a better teacher. He also registered as a teacher of the guandao.
The one who really surprised me was Kan. In his former life, Liang had hated spending time on professions. All he wanted to learn was martial arts. Kan, however, took to talisman artistry like a fish to water. His only reason for learning about talismans was to improve his combat ability, but I still saw this as a marked improvement.
I, meanwhile, split my attention between refining and formations. First, I made weapons. Then, I carved formations into them, making them as deadly as possible.
As the months passed, I continued advancing my cultivation. I rapidly ascended all the way to Peak Master, causing the mental impulses of my two conflicting cultivation techniques to compound upon each other. I could have fought against this, but I didn’t. Instead, I channeled these impulses into my craft and worked to forge the most vicious weapon I possibly could.
Using claws to create scythe-like guandaos was flashy, but after a few experiments, I found them lacking in practicality. I didn’t need a focus that changed the guandao. I needed one that perfected it.
This led me to a simple idea: what would be a better focus for guandao qi than a guandao itself?
So, using the rarest, high-quality Rank 2 materials I could buy, I created the effigy of a guandao. Roughly the size of my palm, this was the most perfect representation of a guandao that I was capable of constructing.
I refined and enhanced this effigy with enough energy that it was practically buzzing. Then, I used a Focus Condensing Formation to shatter it, leaving behind nothing but a bundle of energy that I stuffed into a larger, proper guandao.
This transfer was a success, but the overall formation was a failure. The effigy attuned the formation’s energy to the essence of what it meant to be a guandao, so the energy had to be used in a way that was consistent with its nature.
After consulting with a few of the Bureau’s Grandmaster Formation Specialists, I settled on a rather straightforward solution. Instead of altering a weapon’s shape or function, I created a formation to only increase its size. Essentially, this formation created a giant, 20-meter-long spectral guandao made of pure energy. In a one-on-one fight, such a formation wouldn’t be of much use, but against a beast tide, I would be able to mow down a dozen opponents with a single swing.
Nothing would be able to stand in my way as I bathed in the blood of an endless horde of beasts.
The moment this thought entered my mind, I slammed my acupoints shut, sealing it away. Then, with a calmer, more rational mind, I began researching other potential focus items.
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Several months later, I gathered everyone up and sent them to the Plane of Woody Earth. Then, I sat down in our villa’s courtyard and swallowed a pill.
You have died.
Comments
Kyfe
It's answered above in another comment, but the one inside (the older one) dies.
Meir Banon
Tftc
Stephen Pearson
Thanks for the chapter! :-)
Michael Ferguson
Time shenanigans are the best!
Michael Ferguson
I wish I could read it now.
Michael Ferguson
Next chapter new recruits?
Michael Ferguson
Time shenanigans! 🤯
Justus Halbach
Thanks for the chapter!
Greg Tolley
The copies inside the inner world would die when he traveled back through time. (first comes up near the end of volume 3)
I Is Patron
So they were in his inner world when he made the latest save point. What would have happened if they were outside of it while making the save. But inside when he used it. Would there now be 2 of each person? Just some random thoughts
brennon Petersen
Tftc!
Epeen
Glorious timing i just gave up on work today. Thanks for the chap! Did Fang ever explore what happens if he creates a reset point with a chang'ang resident outside, then brings them inside and travels back?
