When I opened my eyes, I found myself in the middle of an abandoned courtyard. Looking up, I saw the massive black sphere that consumed the eastern skyline. I had returned to the place where I had first entered this continent, and I had some decisions to make.

Before that, however, I needed to take a moment to understand what had just happened. So, closing my eyes, I mentally reviewed the final hours of my most recent life.

During the competition, Jon had made a strange type of pill by combining herbs of several different Ranks. According to my earlier speculation, this should have created, at most, a powerful Rank 3 pill. And, since I had soundly defeated Jon even after he had employed the power of multiple blessings, I felt confident that my speculation was most likely correct.

What I was unsure of, however, was the purpose of using such an odd set of ingredients. Was it just a way to concoct a powerful Rank 3 pill without needing the knowledge or skills of a Grandmaster, or did herbs of different Ranks interact in a way that created unique effects?

Opening my journal, I made a list of all the herbs that Jon had used. Once I got settled down, I would need to try out his recipe for myself.

After jotting this down, I turned my attention to what had happened after Jon’s death.

“External energy detected. External entity requesting access. Access Denied. Energy absorbed.”

The ‘External Entity’ had to be Jon’s blessing. Had this been Jon trying to invade my soul, or Jon’s blessing been trying to bind itself to me? Either way, it didn’t seem that the System had appreciated this. Part of me wondered what might happen if access were granted, but there was no way I was willing to drop the System’s defenses to try it out.

As for the ‘Infuse Intent’ skill that I had been granted… Wasn’t that the blessing that Jon had gotten from the poetry contest? What did it actually do? All that Jon and the Tower’s Young Master had used it for was to imbue mundane words with small amounts of energy, but there had to be more to it, right? Once I had a bit more time on my hands, I would need to spend some of it figuring this out.

Finally, I focused on what had happened after my death. The System had been ‘updated.’ Not only had my credit balance been devastated, but I had also, apparently, lost all of my comprehension boosts.

While none of these losses were good, the worst had to be the loss of the boost to my ability to read emotions. Ever since I had first purchased that ability, it had been invaluable in helping me understand the thoughts and motivations of the people around me.

To be fair, my comprehension boosts hadn’t disappeared entirely. They had been replaced with—or possibly just renamed?—‘latent talents.’ After the 100 billion to 1 ratio of old credits to new, instead of a 20 trillion credit boost to my comprehension of beast taming, I now had a 200 credit ‘latent talent’ for the subject.

This seemed fair, but I couldn’t help but notice that my latent empathic talent was only at 199 credits. A low nine-star affinity had cost me a full credit’s worth of latent talent. In other words, from the perspective of the old System, I had spent 100 billion credits on a basic low nine-star affinity. Either an empathic affinity was extraordinarily rare and valuable, or this shift in credits had created a brand-new pitfall that I would need to watch out for.

“System, how much would a permanent mid nine-star empathic affinity cost?”

Cost 1 credit.

“How much for a permanent peak

nine-star empathic affinity?”

Cost 1 credit.

“Peak five-star?”

Cost 1 credit.

“Peak four?”

Cost 16 credits.

So, if I raised an affinity one step at a time, I would need to spend dozens of credits to bring it up to peak five-star. If I purchased a peak five-star affinity directly, however, it would only cost a single credit.

I still wanted to let a few of these new affinities rise slowly over time so that I could better understand what they did, but I also wanted to limit the number of credits that would be wasted in the process. So, I decided to go ahead and make a few purchases to limit the bleeding.

“System, give me permanent peak five-star affinities for empathy, refining, and beast taming. Also, give me permanent peak six-star affinities for qi, wu, and soul.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 credit. 1,329 credits remaining.

Qi, wu, and soul seemed like the most important affinities to raise, but the System classified them as ‘lesser’ affinities, the same as my affinity for karmic energy. So, I couldn’t raise them quite as high as I could the others. Still, that 1 credit had gone a long way.

But, this did raise a few new questions. Did purchasing a ‘latent talent’ serve any real purpose? Shouldn’t I just raise my affinities directly? Also, what was with all these new affinities? I had already unlocked a dozen new affinities that were completely unheard of on the Nine Rivers Continent. Were there more? If so, how many? Were there people on the Central Continent who had natural affinities for karmic energy? Were there people with a space affinity?

While the System might be willing to answer a few of these questions, what was fun in that? I was an immortal time traveler. Having new mysteries to explore was what kept things interesting. I didn’t need the System to hand me all the answers. I needed to find them for myself.

This brought me to the most important question. Where should I go from here?

My time in the Hall of the Herb Lord had been extremely beneficial. I’d learned about new affinities, new types of qi, new kingdoms and empires, and even a new sapient species. There didn’t seem to be too much more that I could learn from the Hall itself, but the Hall could open up a path for me to join both the Palace of the Herb Sovereign and the Temple of the Herb Saint, and joining a Saint-level force was likely one of the best possible ways to gain access to this continent’s most valuable secrets.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

To become a member of such a force, I might need to swear a poisonous Oath, but the mere possibility of such an Oath was no reason to abandon such a valuable opportunity.

No, the possibility—even the likelihood—of needing to swear an Oath was no reason to avoid the Hall of the Herb Lord. The reason to avoid the Hall was something—someone—far more dangerous: Jon.

If I returned to the Hall, I would almost certainly be pulled right back into that man’s schemes and plots. Defeating Jon once had given me a fair bit of confidence that I could do so again, but even if I did, things would probably just end up the same way they had the last time—with powerful cultivators wanting to see me dead.

I needed to stay as far away from that madman as possible.

Speaking of Jon…

Flexing my mind, I turned my focus inward, toward my inner world. In the warehouse that was attached to the underside of Chang’an’s cylinder, I located all the items that I had liberated from Jon’s storage bag.

For the prince of a Central Continent kingdom, Jon’s possessions were a bit… sad. Aside from a wide range of clothing, with shirts and robes suitable for people from all different sectors of society, the bulk of Jon’s storage bag had been taken up by a wide assortment of women’s jewelry.

It was almost as if he had found a random jewelry store and stripped the place to the bone. What was the point? A few of the odds and ends might have been suitable for formations, but most of them were just shiny baubles that served no real purpose. After coming to this world, had Jon been so crazed that he thought such trinkets were actually valuable?

After sorting through all the junk, I finally found what I was after: two thick tomes that held Ranks 2 and 3 of the Pill Fire Technique. The moment I saw them, I pulled them out of my inner world and held them lightly in my hand, transferring their contents to my mental library before anything could go wrong.

With these techniques, I no longer had any reason to return to Gold Eagle City. Finding a way to join the Temple of the Herb Saint still seemed like a good idea, but if the Temple was a Saint-level organization, then there would be more ways to join it than just a single Hall in one small kingdom.

During my trip to the Scholar’s Tower, I had grabbed a lot of information on this continent, especially from the book that Jon had given me, The History and Politicsof the Western Island. However, with my intense focus on alchemy over the past year, I had yet to read most of it.

It was time to change that.

Standing up, I walked into the abandoned building that surrounded me, took out a few pieces of furniture to make the place more livable, and settled in for some light studying.

Over the following days, while I didn’t learn as much as I might have hoped, I learned enough.

Neither History and Politics nor any of the other books mentioned any Saints other than the True Martial Saint, the Nine Rivers Saint, and the Saint of Heroes. However, there was a section on ‘independent organizations’ that had branches in multiple cities across the Western Island. These included both the Hall of the Herb Lord and the Scholar’s Tower.

The capitals of nearly every kingdom had a Hall of the Herb Lord, and the capitals of nearly every empire had a Hall of the Herb King. In the capitals of the Sovereign territories, there were Halls of the Herb Emperor, and in the capital city of each Saint’s domain, there was a Palace of the Herb Sovereign, with these Palaces ruling over all the Halls in their given domain.

History and Politics made no mention of the Temple or its Saint, but reading between the lines, it was obvious that the Palaces were members of a larger organization.

I had no desire to get bogged down in dealing with Jon again, but I still wanted to explore the possibility of joining the Temple. So, why not join a Hall in a different domain, one ruled by a different Saint? With any luck, I would avoid meeting Jon entirely, but even if I did run into him, it would be at the Temple, where his background wouldn’t do him any good.

I wanted to learn more about the domain of the Saint of Heroes anyway, and this seemed like the perfect solution. So, I turned to the section of History and Politics that covered the Saint of Heroes’ domain and tried to figure out where I might want to one day settle my clan.

In the Heroes’ Domain, powerful sects could rise and fall overnight. This mostly affected the lower Ranks, but not even Sovereigns were safe from this constant bloodshed.

According to History and Politics, on the western edge of the domain, the section that bordered the Li Clan’s territory, sects were weaker and mostly fought amongst themselves. They did this to grow strong enough to move east and conquer the more valuable territories that provided access to the domain’s Secret Realms. By delving into these Secret Realms, cultivators could gain a wealth of experience and treasure, making the sects capable of conquering even more valuable territories, which contained even more lucrative Secret Realms.

These Secret Realms were not wholly beneficial, though. They were populated by vicious demon beasts that wanted nothing more than to feast on the flesh and blood of human cultivators. If a sect wasn’t careful, every cultivator they sent to a Secret Realm would die, and the demon beasts would grow powerful enough to escape the Secret Realm and claim the nearby territories as their own.

After this happened, it was nearly impossible for a sect to recover. Even if its leadership could step in and defeat the horde of demon beasts, neighboring sects would swoop in, finish off the sect, and claim its riches for themselves.

At the time History and Politics was written, two major territories had been claimed by demon beasts, and the nearby sects were barely able to stop them from expanding further. Overall, the sects were more powerful than the Secret Realms’ denizens, but they were being stymied by invaders from the Isle of Beasts. With the beasts from the Secret Realms and the beasts from the Isle working together, the sects were barely holding on.

If these beasts were so dangerous, why didn’t the Saint of Heroes just step in and eradicate them? The book didn’t explain directly, but it gave me the impression that the Saint wanted this. The Saint wanted people locked in an endless struggle for their very existence.

This made the Saint of Heroes’ domain a brutal, dangerous place, but it also made it perfect for hiding the explosive growth of a clan that had suddenly popped out of nowhere.

Still, I had no desire to send my clan into a charnel house. We could start on the western edge of the domain and build our strength slowly, always staying two steps ahead of our competition.

To do this safely, I needed to spend at least one long life studying how events were set to unfold. Before pulling my clan out of my inner world, I needed to know if some massive catastrophe was in the offing.

With this decision made, I studied the names of the territories on the western edge of the domain. They were… worrying.

The Blood Moon Sovereign. The Tormented Saber Sovereign. The Venomous Spear Sovereign.

After looking through my options, I was ready to make my purchase, but first…

“System, set up a temporary reset point. From my next thirty deaths, send me back to this moment.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 credit.

I likely wouldn’t want to use all thirty of those reset points. Eventually, I would need to duck back into the Nine Rivers Continent and grab my Revered Elders. After all, while I might not make a particularly good Saint of Myriad Herbs, I knew one young man whose blessing was perfect for the job. However, since I had to spend a minimum of 1 credit, I might as well make it count.

Temporary reset point in place, it was time to head out.

“System, teleport me to a secluded spot in the capital of the Hidden Sword Breaker Empire, within the territory of the Jagged Sword Breaker Sovereign.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 credit. 1,327 credits remaining.