With a battle against the Sovereigns on the horizon, I needed to improve my cultivation base as much as possible. But to do that, I first needed to acquire a significant quantity of karmic energy.
When we had first traveled back through time, the population of the Su Clan hadn’t even been enough to form a proper kingdom. However, the leadership council had already experienced the process of building several complete empires from scratch. So, they knew what needed to be done, and with the help of my Revered Elders, they were able to lay down new foundations for all of our sects and guilds in only a few decades.
This had been enough for the world to recognize the Wastes as an ‘official’ empire.
Of course, the amount of karmic energy that this fledgling empire generated couldn’t compare to what we were harvesting at the peak of my last life, but that was fine. All that extra energy had come from people outside of our clan. What we needed was ‘Su Clan’ energy, and this new empire was creating as much of it as possible.
That said, while this new Empire of the Wastes had indeed been generating energy, almost none of it had been put to use. Instead, TongBin had stored it away in the dantians of an ever-growing number of subordinates.
Now that the Wastes were open to Emperors, and now that Sovereigns could enter Dragon Gate, it was time to decide how we wanted to use this stockpile. For this conversation, though, I didn’t call a full meeting of the council. We needed to make some difficult decisions, and I wanted to talk things out with ShouLi before involving anyone else.
Upon entering the conference room, ShouLi gave a quick martial salute, activated the anti-portal formation, and sat down across from me.
A faint hint of tears welled up in the corner of my eyes. “You have to make a choice. If everything goes as well as we could possibly hope… Either you ascend to Sovereign and are left behind when we retreat through time, or… you… pass away from old age before that happens.”
Part of me… Part of me wanted to offer the third option. We could go back to the start of the loop, and I could make them permanent time travelers, like I had done with LuLu. This would cost me a substantial number of credits, but dying as a Sovereign would more than cover it.
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Part of me wanted to offer this option, but I didn’t. I couldn’t say exactly why. It just felt… wrong. This feeling might have originated from my soul cultivation, or it might have originated from my affinity for karmic energy. Either way, I decided to listen to it.
ShouLi dropped her head, understanding the choice I had given her. “I’ll… I’ll talk it through with the others. I don’t like the idea of cutting my future short… I want to live. I want to advance. But… I’ll talk it through with the others.”
With ShouLi’s departure, the members of my inner council were left with the question of if or when they would choose to ascend to Martial Sovereign. As they met to discuss and decide upon their answers, I turned my attention inward, toward my own ascension.
As I had told ShouLi, I had no intention of using Sovereign-level energy for this breakthrough. I simply didn’t see a need for it.
Instead, I met with TongBin and gathered up a significant percentage of the Emperor-level energy that he had stashed away over the years. By shoving nearly all of it into my core, I created an explosion that completely destroyed my energy body.
Just like last time, I had advanced to Sovereign at the expense of my cultivation base. However, there were two significant differences between this breakthrough and the previous one.
Last time, infusing karmic energy into my core had caused it to expand and stretch. Eventually, the thin threads of its lacy walls had snapped one at a time, until, finally, it could no longer hold together, and everything exploded.
This time, my core was much more… rigid. It didn’t expand even the slightest bit as I poured energy into it. Then, once a critical threshold was reached, the whole thing exploded all at once.
This change could have been the result of the modifications that I had made during my ascension to Emperor, but this explanation didn’t feel correct. Instead, I was almost certain that this was the result of using the messy soup of karmic energy provided by the Nine Rivers Sect rather than a more homogeneous mix of pure ‘Su Clan’ energy.
Both processes had resulted in my ascension to Sovereign, so the differences between them might not have been too important, but they got me wondering…
The members of my clan didn’t have nearly the level of control over karmic energy that I had. As a result, their karmic cores were far inferior to my own. Creating a more elastic core might be a viable workaround that could allow them to inject more energy into their cores and increase their odds of successfully ascending to Sovereign.
Alternatively, this elasticity might be detrimental. Maybe one of the reasons that the Nine Rivers Sect doled out a messy blend of karmic energy was because they had found that such a mix was actually beneficial. Could having a more rigid core improve a person’s chance of breaking through to Sovereign?
Both possibilities seemed equally likely. If we wanted to find the truth of the matter, we would need to perform several rounds of experiments.
Of course, I could just buy this knowledge from the System, but I saw no reason to waste my credits in such a way. No matter which path was best for ordinary people, I planned to avoid cultivating with the sect’s energy whenever possible. While a more rigid core might allow a person to break through more easily, the consequences were… unsightly.
Normally, I perceived my energy body as a ghostly white overlay that was superimposed atop my physical body. Advancing to Sovereign infused my energy body with karma, turning this white glow golden.
When this had happened in my previous life, the energy body that was created looked like it had been formed from pure, 24-karat gold. That energy body might have been a bit fuzzy around the edges, but it gave off impressions of both solidity and purity.
This time, the energy body that my ascension created was covered in thin, white cracks. There were no gaping holes, but I was certain that if I tried to infuse this body with even a hint of non-Su Clan energy, the result would be less than pleasant.
Still, while using the Nine River Sect’s karmic energy had a few drawbacks, my ascension had been successful, and I could move forward with confidence. So, over the next couple of weeks, I carefully reopened my acupoints, reformed my meridians, and rebuilt my dantian.
As I did so, I noticed several changes that I hadn’t paid much attention to in the past.
The ‘muscles’ of my new energy body could hold far more qi than I was used to. Qi flowed through my meridians more quickly and smoothly than normal. And my dantian showed no signs of strain even when filled to the brim with energy.
This should have given me more energy to work with and made my qi more potent. However, as my qi passed through the tiny, white cracks in my energy body, it shuddered. While this ‘shudder’ didn’t cause any real problems, it negated most of the benefits that came from my new form.
This cemented my belief that using the sect’s karmic energy was a bad idea.
While these minor hiccups were unfortunate, they were manageable. So, I kept pushing forward.
After my advancement to Sovereign, TongBin’s supply of Su Clan energy was nearly depleted, so I changed directions and started cultivating my body.
To prevent the Sovereigns from learning any more than necessary, I had avoided body cultivation while in the Nine Rivers Sect, so I was starting from scratch. And since I had only gone through the process of body cultivation once before, it still took me a lot of time and effort to do it correctly.
After 8 full months of work, I had only advanced to the Peak of Rank 3. I had hoped to make it a little further, but our time was running out.
Shortly before the operation to attack the Sovereigns was set to commence, ShouLi paid me a visit.
After giving a martial salute, she got right to the point. “Ancestor… After talking things over with the others, we have… we have decided to hold off on making a decision. As you said, if we want to advance to Sovereign, we will need to use Sovereign-level energy. And since we don’t know how long it will take to gather the energy we need… We will wait to see what is even possible before making any decisions.”
I gave her a sad smile. “I understand.”