The Undying Immortal System
Chapter 325: Life 77, Age 39, Martial Emperor 5

Because of Jian DuJian’s antics, it took me a bit longer to reach Heaven City than I would have liked, but my time in Earth City hadn’t been wasted.

Even with all the free formations that I had handed over, I had still been able to earn enough contribution points to purchase two levels' worth of karmic energy. Additionally, upon ‘finding’ Jian’s storage bag, I was able to recover a few of the formations that I had given him, and those sold for enough to buy yet another level.

Still, advancing as an Emperor required a substantial number of points, so following our ascent, I focused on completing as many missions as possible, whether formation- or combat-related. And after a couple more years, I was able to advance to Martial Emperor 5.

During the decade following our meeting, Shen spent the vast majority of his time secluded within his conference room, away from the prying eyes of the Sovereigns.

For someone who was known to be dabbling in Rank 7 formations, this was undoubtedly suspicious, but the sect had rules in place that prevented anyone from taking direct action against him. No matter how much the Sovereigns wanted to, they couldn’t bust down his door and demand an explanation.

These rules also protected me.

I had avoided associating myself with Shen any more than necessary, so no one should have been aware of our connection, but I had still attracted my fair share of attention. When I had reached Martial Emperor, I was younger than most of the sect’s Grandmasters, I had an unparalleled talent for formations, and, most importantly, my surname was ‘Su’—the same name as the previously unknown clan that had recently started causing havoc in the Western Wastes.

The number of surnames in this world was limited, and the name ‘Su’ was far from uncommon. But still, how many people would believe that my rapid advancement had nothing to do with this new, powerful clan that had just popped up out of nowhere?

None of this mattered, however. Because of the sect’s rules, the Sovereigns couldn’t touch me until I either reached the Summit or entered stagnation.

Were these rules strange? Yes. Yes, they were.

Neither the Emissary nor the Sovereigns were allowed to detain me. This rule had to have been put in place by the Saint, but why? The Sovereigns were his hand-picked governors, weren’t they? Why would he restrict them in such a way?

Was this a way to protect his interests from self-serving members of the clans? Maybe, but if so, why restrict his Emissary?

I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. The rules were a bit odd, but they were to my benefit. The Sovereigns couldn’t touch me, and they couldn’t touch Shen—as long as we didn’t break certain other rules, at least.

As Emperor Li had told me in the past, if the Emissary knew that I had a formation capable of undermining Soul Lamps, he would crush me. If he had proof that Shen and I were working together to craft a massive formation with the sole purpose of killing all the Sovereigns, he would be well within his rights to take direct action against us.

So, even though we had certain protections, we still needed to be careful.

For this reason, I hadn’t contacted Shen after our initial meeting. He did suspicious things suspiciously, and I did my best to make it look like there was no connection between the two of us. Then, a few days before a certain ‘Emperor’ was scheduled to die, a black portal appeared and deposited Shen directly into my cultivation chamber.

A moment after he appeared, the portal vanished.

Before I had time to understand what was happening, Shen snapped an order at me. “Send me away, now!”

Feeling an instinctive need to obey such a forceful command, I instantly pulled the man into my storage space.

He appeared on the top floor of Chang’an’s central skyscraper, in a large conference room that had originally been designed as a place for my clan’s council to hold their regular meetings.

After eyeing his surroundings, Shen headed over to the long table meant for the heads of the various guilds, took a large pack off his shoulders, and slung it down onto the table, spilling its contents. Then, he collapsed into a seat.

“Li’s going to vanish, and as far as anyone else is concerned, I’m going to vanish alongside him. This should make it look like we’ve discovered some kind of important secret. If this ruse works, it should keep the Sovereigns distracted for at least a couple of decades.”

I couldn’t help but let out a sigh. Li was helping me again, but I still couldn’t do anything to help him, not really. Since he was a Sovereign, he couldn’t even disappear into my inner world to spend his last few days in peace.

That’s what I thought. However, Shen’s next words broke me from this illusion.

“You might want to know, a week ago, Li gathered up a small group of people from his clan and sent them into the Wastes. If the Sovereigns decide that this has some connection with whatever secrets we’ve uncovered, they will definitely target your Su Clan. They will also probably start keeping a closer eye on you. So, be careful.”

Shaking my head, I reached for a brush to write a response, but just as I started writing, I froze.

If the Sovereigns were watching me, wouldn’t they see me writing? Wouldn’t they be able to read everything I wrote? What if I wrote something incriminating? Could they use a portal to snatch it and use it as evidence against me? Wouldn’t that let them target me more directly?

I needed to be more careful. There was a purchase that I had been considering for a while, and it looked like I couldn’t put it off any longer.

Doing my best not to move, I subvocalized to the System as subtly as I could. “System, I want to be able to talk to people in my inner world. What is the price of the cheapest possible technique that will allow me to send real-time audible messages in a way that I can mimic a normal conversation?”

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Processing… Cost 10 credits.

I couldn’t help but snort. Any technique that I could buy at that low of a price was definitely a scam. Still, it was cheap enough that I might as well see the trick so that I could better refine my request.

“Purchase it.”

Purchase confirmed. 2,339,376,123,847 credits remaining.

My attention was pulled toward my mental library, where a new technique manual appeared.

‘Lesser Voice Projection,’ a Rank 1 Yellow technique that used wind qi to project the user’s voice.

On the same shelf, right next to it, there was another technique. One that I had randomly picked up at some point. One that I had just been gathering dust for decades.

‘Voice Projection,’ a Rank 2 Yellow technique.

The System had sold me a crappier version of a technique that I already possessed. To make matters worse, it was a wind qi technique that I couldn’t even use. I had never cultivated wind before, and while there might be a little bit of wind qi in my inner world, without Wind Laws, using it was nearly impossible.

That said, this purchase had done what I had hoped. It had helped me narrow down what I needed to ask for.

Wind qi techniques wouldn’t work. The only qi techniques that even had a shot of working were earth qi techniques, but the prospect of buying an earth technique that would allow for voice projection seemed dubious. Even if the System could whip one up, I had to believe that earth-based voice technique would be both expensive and difficult to master.

However, there was another option.

“Alright, System, how about this? I want…” An idea popped into my head. “How much for a soul technique that would allow me to create an avatar within my inner world? I want to be able to create a… ‘clone’ that my consciousness could inhabit. One that, to others, would appear no different from my real self.”

Cost 100 trillion credits.

That wasn’t something that I could buy at the moment, but it was worth remembering.

“Then, what about a similar avatar that is both noncorporeal and non-visible? Just… a projection of my consciousness that I could use to speak and listen?”

Cost 10 billion credits.

I nodded. “Keep it noncorporeal, but make it visible. A projection that looks like me—and that I can use to communicate—but one that people can’t touch. One that is, essentially, an illusion.”

Cost 1 trillion credits.

Which option would be best? I had the credits to afford the third one, but was it worth it? People might be more comfortable speaking with an illusion than with a disembodied voice, but was it worth the cost?

“Purchase the second option, the non-visible one. If I need the others, I can purchase them later.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 10 billion credits. 2,329,376,123,847 credits remaining.

I looked in my library and found a scroll for the Mortal Yellow soul technique named ‘Soul Projection.’

Using this technique, I could create an invisible clone of myself and send it out in my stead. My consciousness would effectively be split in two, with half inhabiting my true body and half possessing this clone. This clone wasn’t corporeal, so it couldn’t touch things, but if I imbued it with enough soul power, I would be able to attack or manipulate things using that energy.

The problem was, this clone was extremely fragile. Physical blows might not be able to touch it, but it had almost no resistance to qi or soul attacks. If such an attack landed, the clone would be destroyed, and my soul would suffer damage from the backlash.

So, while the ability to create an invisible clone seemed like it could be of great use in spy work, there was no way I would use it for that. I wanted to keep any clones that I created as far away from danger as I could.

Still, this was exactly what I was looking for. It was a way to communicate with people in my inner world without needing to write everything down.

After only a few hours of practice, I gained a preliminary understanding of this new soul technique. I still needed to work on my control, and splitting my consciousness with my clone felt bizarre, but I was competent enough to be able to hold a short conversation.

Looking into my inner world, I saw that Shen had reshaped one of the conference room’s chairs into a recliner. He was leaning back in it, sleeping, dead to the world.

Projecting my soul into the room, I cleared my throat. “Ahem, Emperor Shen.”

His body moved, readjusting itself into a more comfortable position, but he showed no sign of waking.

“Ahem.”

Shen cracked his eyes. “Oh. A soul projection this time? That’s nice. Ready to talk?”

“Yes…”

Shen sent a wave of qi to readjust his chair and slowly lifted himself into an upright posture. Begrudgingly, he grabbed one of the scrolls from his bag and spread it out on the table.

“This is the Rank 7 formation diagram that I showed you before. Can you understand it now?”

As I examined the schematic, my invisible brow started to furrow. “What… What is this? This isn’t right.”

The diagram was… wrong. It had to be.

With a normal formation, thin channels were carved into stone to force threads of qi into specific patterns. As qi flowed through these patterns, various effects would be produced.

Qi had to flow, though. Formations had both an inlet and an outlet for their energy. Qi was pulled in from the environment, weaved through various inscriptions, and flowed out. That was how formations worked.

However, in the diagram Shen showed me, nearly all of the qi channels were blocked off. Almost every channel led straight into solid stone.

Stranger still, the scroll contained half a dozen separate drawings. Of course, this wasn’t entirely unusual. With 3-dimensional formations, scrolls often contained a series of images that depicted their different layers. The strange thing was that this scroll had images depicting a series of different 3-dimensional formations.

“What is this?”

Shen let out a hearty guffaw. “With Ranks 1 to 3, formations can be constructed on a flat plane—mostly. Your basic Rank 1 Qi Gathering Formation is simple enough that you can inscribe it into a millimeter-thick sheet of granite. Formations of Ranks 4 to 6 are more 3-dimensional. They have layers, with more complex formations having more layers.”

Shen tapped on the scroll in front of him.

“Rank 7 formations… Rank 7 formations are 4-dimensional. Qi doesn’t just flow up, down, left, and right. It flows into and out of…” He waved his hand in the air helplessly. “Into and out of the world. To construct a proper Rank 7 formation, you need a stone that exists in four dimensions, and you need to carve it in four dimensions.”

I stared. “H… How?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Sovereign-level abilities? Earth-Rank spirit fires? Something else? I don’t know.” He let out a laugh. “You still owe me an Earth-Rank fire seed, by the way.”

I ignored that last sentence. “But… You were able to make one, right? Didn’t you say that the anti-Soul Lamp formation was Rank 7?”

Shen pulled a series of scrolls from his bag and spread them out on the table.

“That was something that my blessing helped me with. It allowed me to find a way to ‘flatten’ the 4-dimensional formation into a 3-dimensional one. That’s why the thing is so huge. It had to contain all of the bits that were supposed to be shoved ‘elsewhere.’ Even then, some of the inscriptions didn’t work at all. They had to be completely redesigned. Without my blessing, I don’t think it would have been possible.”

I nodded. “So… the conference room’s anti-portal formation…”

“I can’t examine the bits of the formation that are ‘elsewhere,’ and my blessing isn’t helping me. Unless you can either get me a schematic or find a way to let me view the complete formation, it’s hopeless.”

“I… see…”

While this explained some things, it didn’t change what we needed to do.

“Shen, I’m looking to create a truly massive formation. 100 meters by 200 meters. Also, it needs to be able to hold the souls of at least 4 different people. Do you think that’s possible?”

Shen stroked his chin. “Not sure. With something that large, you would generally want a grand formation, but transforming the Soul Lamp formation into a grand formation could be tricky. I’ve never seen a Rank 7 grand formation before, and I don’t know what it would involve. As for holding multiple souls… I just can’t say. I don’t know enough about the theory of how this all works. We can only try our best.”

I nodded. “Well… let’s just see what we can do. If one massive formation doesn’t work, we can try something else. No reason to take undue risks.”

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