Within the sect, acquiring enough karmic energy to ascend to Peak Emperor was a rather daunting task. Lower down the mountain, there were dozens of merchant associations that were willing to pay premium prices for high-quality pills, formations, and weapons. Having existed for centuries, these associations had built up large reserves of contribution points for whenever ‘geniuses’ passed by, and they would use those reserves to purchase as many items crafted by these geniuses as possible. In Heaven City, however, this wasn’t the case. While there were still a few small shops around the village, there were no large associations, and there was no one looking to buy any Rank 6 pills or formations in bulk. So, to earn contribution points, I was forced to use the Fire Peak’s Mission Hall. The only problem with this was that the Mission Hall only offered a small number of Emperor-level missions each year. This might have simply been because few people on this continent were both in need of and able to pay for the help of a Rank 6 individual, but I felt that it was also, at least partially, a way of forcing people to ascend to the Summit. With Emperor-level karmic energy being so scarce, many people would likely choose to ascend the mountain instead of waiting around to accrue enough points to advance. This is all to say that acquiring enough energy for my advancement to Peak Emperor took time—it took decades—but eventually, by completing every alchemy mission that I could get my hands on, I was finally about to make it there. Of course, while advancing my cultivation base took time, it was time well spent. During the long stretches between missions, I practiced both refining and formations in order to master the art of crafting memory orbs. As I slowly came to discover, the principles behind these orbs were rather interesting. To make a memory orb, first, a skilled earth cultivator needed to craft a monocrystalline block of pure white jade. Then, a refiner needed to alter the core of this crystal and rearrange its molecules into an amorphous state. This ‘amorphous state’ lacked the regularity and order of the original crystalline structure, but it wasn’t random. To hold memories properly, an orb’s core needed to have a very precise structure. The reason a complete monocrystalline structure was produced first was because it provided a hard outer shell to protect this delicate inner core. And, once the refiner's work was done, this outer shell was where a formation specialist would need to craft two sets of formations, one for storing memories and one for retrieving them. After years of study, I was surprised to find that nearly every part of these formations was focused on interacting with the orb’s user. There was a lot that I needed to do to create a formation that could pull information from people’s heads, but once it was retrieved, everything was simply shoved into the orb’s amorphous core. The jade’s natural properties then allowed the structure of the core to shift in a way that somehow permanently recorded the memories. To retrieve the memories, the second formation just needed to inject the core with energy. As this energy flowed through the jade, it was restructured to contain an echo of the original information. Once shoved into a person’s soul, this energy would automatically condense into a memory construct that would provide a person with all the information the orb contained. Memory orbs were large—larger than a person’s fist. The amorphous cores, though, were rather small. It didn’t take much space to store a large amount of information. The reason for a memory orb’s large size was that it needed to have enough additional space to contain these two formations. After over a decade of practice, I was able to craft my first fully functional memory orb. From there, my first thought was to mass-produce them, but as I looked at the orb, I had a different thought. Crafting countless memory orbs was a rather daunting task. Creating a perfectly formed amorphous core was both challenging and time-consuming, and carving two complex, intricate formations into an orb only a little larger than my fist took an insane amount of patience and diligence. I wanted dozens of orbs. Hundreds. Thousands… If I could use orbs to store every book, technique manual, and crafting skill that I possessed, I would. However, creating so many orbs… Yes, I had as much time as I needed, but the thought of spending an eternity crafting memory orbs wasn’t appealing. So, as I looked at my first orb, I had an idea. I wasn’t looking to store a lifetime of memories in an orb. I was simply looking to store a single cultivation technique. Sure, I would want to store a large amount of crafting knowledge in some orbs, but not in all of them. In most, I just wanted to store a single technique. So, I should be able to reduce the size of the amorphous core by quite a bit. Also, I wasn’t actually planning to record any information into these orbs directly. I was planning to purchase the information from the system. So, why include a formation to record memories? I could just get rid of it. This would give me more room for the ‘read’ formation, and I wouldn't have to worry about the two formations interfering with one another. After thinking through these changes, I got to work designing a new orb. When I was finished, my final design could barely be called a ‘memory orb.’ It was a five-centimeter-tall jade slip. While crafting the cores of these jade slips still required the expertise of an Artifact Emperor, they were much quicker and easier to mass-produce than full memory orbs. So, in only a few short years, I built up a massive reserve of them. Of course, since true memory orbs still had their uses, and since I had some extra time on my hands, I went ahead and crafted a few dozen full orbs as well, but those could now be reserved for actually storing memories. For singular techniques, I would now be using jade slips. With each year that passed, the nervousness emanating from my karmic affinity steadily grew, but it was like a constant droning at the back of my mind. It was constant and unending, and all I could do was try my best to ignore it. What was the point of a warning that I couldn’t do anything about? At times, I considered ending this life. I knew that it wouldn’t do anything to change whatever was approaching, but with the points I would earn, I could look at removing my affinity for karmic energy to end my suffering. During this time, my clan’s progress in the sect had been almost entirely nonexistent. With the boosts I had purchased for the leadership council, they had shown remarkable improvements to all of their skills, but by this point, their paths through the sect had already been set. All these boosts did was keep them from entering stagnation too early. The progress of my clan in my storage space, however, had been unexpectedly rapid. When people first entered, they were greeted by an almost entirely flat plane of dirt that was encircled by a thick stone wall. The only notable features of the place were the gaping hole at its center and the fact that, whenever they looked up, they were greeted by a strange, alien sky. Thankfully, not long after this settlement was complete, Yan and LuYao produced a diagram from an improved sky formation. It was still far from perfect, but during the day, it would provide a cloudy blue sky that stretched to the top of the encircling wall, and at night, it would imitate a starry sky. With the addition of a few new buildings, an improved sky, and the growth of a small variety of shrubs and grasses, people’s moods started to improve. However, while these things were nice, they weren’t what really made a difference. No, that… During the first ten years after the start of this most recent migration, people did hard, manual labor to earn contribution points. They used these contribution points to improve their affinities. Then, they used these improved affinities to cultivate during short vacations to the outside world. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. However, after the first decade of this routine, something changed. Ever since people had first stepped foot in my storage space, using qi properly in there hadn’t been possible. Even though I was flooding the space with earth qi, the energy was almost entirely unusable. I had been able to create Qi Gathering Formations to pull in this environmental qi, shove it into a spirit fire, and then use the output of the spirit fire to power other types of formations, but that was all. After a dozen years, though, things changed. While working in a field, a young man randomly tried to use the qi in his body to help him plow a field. After that, while people still couldn’t use the environmental qi, and while they still couldn’t cultivate, they found that they could cultivate outside, store the energy they gathered, and then use this stored energy upon their return. A few Lords even began using their time outside to store as much compressed qi in their cores as possible so that they could then release it back into their dantians and use it in the storage space. However, this was only true for earth cultivators. For some reason, earth qi had become usable, but only earth qi. Nothing had changed for people who cultivated one of the other elements. Importantly, the moment this first boy found out that he could use his qi, before I even knew the specifics, the nervousness in my soul increased by an order of magnitude. A few dozen years later, not long after I mastered the ability to create jade slips, another change occurred. Ever since earth qi became usable, people had been trying to cultivate inside the space. It had never worked, but people simply couldn’t give up on the hope that they would be able to cultivate without having to go through the trouble of requesting a ‘vacation’ first. Each day, a handful of people would try cultivating. It never worked. Until it did. One day, a young girl, a random Martial Disciple 2, sat down to practice her cultivation technique. She wasn’t even truly trying to cultivate. She was just going through the motions. Only a few minutes into her practice, though, she succeeded in pulling a small, insubstantial thread of qi into her body. The moment she did, something rippled out from her. Again, I didn’t know the specifics of what happened until later, but the moment this ripple touched the edge of my storage space, my eyes widened in horror. The nervousness that I had been feeling for decades had transformed into a full-blown panic. I immediately shot to my feet and used every movement technique that I possessed to run to find Yan, ShouLi, or anyone else. Luckily, ShouLi and several others were in a meeting. They were all gathered in one place. I looked at ShouLi with wide, frightened eyes. “Gather everyone! Now! Everyone, anyone. Get them all here. Get them into the world orb.” No one moved. They were all too stunned by my outburst. ShouLi looked at me with a concerned expression. “Ances— What’s wrong?” I was shaking in fear. “Immediately! Send messages to everyone. Get them all here. Now!” This finally got people moving, and the assembled Kings and Emperors rushed off to fulfill my orders. I walked outside and stood in a large, empty courtyard. My foot began tapping impatiently. I needed to do something. Gathering everyone would take too long, but I couldn’t leave. If I left, people wouldn’t know where to find me. At that moment, the young girl in my storage space found her mother and was shouting about being able to cultivate. Even though most people were skeptical, nearly everyone sat down and immediately tried to replicate her feat. A few Masters were able to pull in thin threads of energy. A few Disciples took a small step toward their next advancement. With each person that succeeded, a small ripple was released. The panic in my soul increased. I wanted to cry. There wasn’t enough time. Whatever was going to happen was coming, and it wasn’t willing to wait. “Everyone’s too spread out. They won’t make it in time. ShouLi, Liang, NiangBa, Mo, RuLan… They’ll all be lost…” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, the courtyard around me rippled. Suddenly, it was filled with people. It was filled with the members of my clan. This should have made me happy, but it only made my anxiety grow even further, and my state of mind wasn’t helped by the fact that thick black storm clouds had suddenly appeared high overhead. ShouLi, who was among those who had appeared, ran over to ask what was happening, but before she could even open her mouth, a crash of thunder sent her stumbling to the ground. ShouLi—a Martial Emperor and Rank 3 body cultivator—was sent to the ground by mere thunder. No one else around me fared any better. Not knowing what else to do, I quickly pulled everyone into my storage space. The moment they were gone, another group appeared. I didn’t even look at who had arrived. I just pulled them into my storage space. The third time this happened, the people who appeared included Yan, LuYao, and the rest of my Revered Elders. It also included Emperors Shen and Jin. As soon as this group appeared, a thick bolt of black lightning struck the building behind me, reducing it to rubble. I quickly tossed memory orbs to everyone, and seeing the situation, they hurriedly filled them. Like me, almost everyone was in a state of panic. Almost everyone, but not Shen. He calmly surveyed the situation, walked up beside me, and handed me a storage bag. “Fang, this contains that large formation stone that I’ve been working on. After a century of work, it’s complete. Take it. I’m sure you’ll get more use out of it than I will.” I couldn’t think. I just pulled the stone from the bag and shoved it into my storage space. I could figure out what it did later. After this third group, no one else appeared in the courtyard. Was everyone accounted for? I didn’t know. I had just pulled in everyone that had appeared. I didn’t know who they were, where they had come from, or why they had suddenly shown up. All I could do was act. At this point, the world around me was a wreck. Thunder and lightning had reduced everything in the vicinity to rubble. The state of the world inside me wasn’t much better. People had been pulled from who knows where while doing who knows what, and they had no better understanding of what was happening than I did. I wanted to help. I wanted to do something, but before I could act, the situation changed. After being impacted by a series of ripples, the boundary of my storage space started glowing. After one final, large ripple, this glow collapsed, and the boundary turned pitch black. Then, it burst alight in a brilliant rainbow that not only washed over everyone in my storage space but also lit up the entirety of the inner garden of my soul. The moment this happened, I couldn’t move. I was locked in place. I was not locked in place by the will of a Ruler. Something turned its attention to me. Something impossibly powerful. Something… boundless. A voice echoed through my very soul. “What are you?” I couldn’t respond. I didn’t need to. After only a brief moment, the voice continued. “I see. Interesting. No rules were broken.” With that, the pressure holding me in place vanished. However, the storm clouds above only intensified, and a peel of thunder sent me to my knees. Before I could even properly understand what was going on, a majestic figure appeared directly in front of me. It was wearing an ornate, red robe with golden embroidery that shone with its own internal light. I had only seen this being once before. Even though that had been over a millennium ago, I had never forgotten its appearance. This was the incarnation of the Earthly Dao. The incarnation didn’t speak. It didn’t even look at me. It simply thrust out a hand and impaled me through the heart. As I fell to the ground and gasped out my final breath, I saw several thick bolts of black lightning rain down and eradicate the incarnation from existence. You have died. Calculating… You died as a Martial Emperor Peak – 1 trillion credits awarded. Total Credits: 1,010,084,271,555 Peak Four-Star – Earth, Metal, Lightning Peak Five-Star – Wood, Fire, Water, Wind, Light, Dark Low Five-Star – Karmic Energy Mental Effects (Cultivation Techniques) – 25,000,000 credits Journal (with Mental Input) – Rank 6 Perfect Transcription – Rank 6 Touch Reading – Rank 6 Cultivation Techniques – 100 billion credits Soul Techniques – 100 billion credits Energy Control – 100 billion credits Teaching – 100 million credits Alchemy – 100 billion credits Formations – 100 billion credits Herbalism – 10 billion credits Refining – 100 billion credits Martial – 1 billion credits Reading Emotions (True) – 25,000,000 credits Mastery of Cold Mountain Fire, Expanding Realms Fire Memory Implantation — Rank 1 Talisman Artistry – Rank 4 (Continent-Wide Expert) Soul Formation Concealment – Rank 6 Enhanced Soul Growth – 20,000 credits Pill, Formation, Herb, Talisman, Demon Beast, Refined Item, Illusion, and Gu Appraisal – Rank 3 (Comprehensive, Detailed) Technique Appraisal – Rank 3 (Earth) Fire Seed Appraisal – Profound Language (Western Han)