The day after SuYin departed, I went to WuJing’s office. He needed to get the position as Eight Flower branch manager, and I needed to lock down a position as city lord.


    “What do I need to do?” I asked after I sat down across from him at his desk. “Besides just making countless pills, is there anything else I can do to secure a spot as a lord?”


    “Not really,” he said with a shake of his head. “Concoct and cultivate. That’s about it. Manager Cai has ideas for securing our transfers, and we’ll just have to wait on her for now. Just do your best to reach Peak Grandmaster as soon as possible. Younger means more promising means higher priority.”


    I tapped my fingers as I considered my options. “What can you tell me about the pitfalls of rushing your cultivation as a Grandmaster?” I asked. In the sect, I was warned about rushing as a Disciple and Master, but no one ever mentioned anything about it being a bad idea to rush as a Grandmaster. Was it safer?


    “I’m… not sure,” said a bewildered WuJing. “I’ve never known anyone it was a problem for before. Usually, cultivation slows down significantly after reaching Grandmaster and you will naturally take years between advancements, but with Perfect Rank 3 pills…”


    “Do you think it would be safe to rush my cultivation as fast as I can?”


    “Honestly, I’m not sure,” he said concerned, “you could try it, but it may make your foundation unstable. Each advancement usually causes some amount of damage to your dantian. At the very least, make sure you completely repair it before taking the next step, alright?”


    “Don’t worry about that,” I said, “I’ll be careful.”


    Simply reaching Peak Grandmaster would give me enough credits to freely use my discount. I wanted to go further, but I needed to experiment with rushing as a Grandmaster to find the pitfalls. That was the only way I would be able to ascend in future lives quickly and smoothly. I didn’t want to need to spend decades after each reset to reach Peak Grandmaster if I didn’t have to. Still, I would try to be careful. No reason to simply waste this life.


    “About pills,” I began to ask slowly. “Since I’ve reached Grandmaster, I can start making greater quantities. I want to buy all the ingredients I can. Especially for Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills.”


    WuJing stroked his chin a bit. “I’ll do my best, but it’ll be limited. It’s hard to get Rank 3 herbs around here. It’ll be much better after we get to Eight Flower. Rank 3 herbs are somewhat precious everywhere, though, and other alchemists need to have enough of a supply too.”


    “I can pay a higher markup if needed,” I said, considering, “sold as Perfect pills, the profit margin is huge, so paying more for the ingredients isn’t a problem.”


    “That’s… not a good idea,” said a hesitant WuJing.


    “Why not?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t that how you usually handle things?”


    “Well… look at it this way. How much do you care about the profits from a Rank 1 pill? If I said you could double your profits from a Rank 1 healing pill, how excited would you be?”


    “Not at all.”


    WuJing gave me a look that said ‘exactly.’ “How much do you think a Martial Emperor cares about the profit of a Rank 3 pills?”


    “Not at all?”


    WuJing nodded. “Now, the Blue Wind Pavilion is a Sovereign-level force. How much do you think our Martial Sovereign cares about all the Rank 3 pills you could possibly produce?”


    I began to respond, but he cut me off. “He doesn’t. The Pavilion is set up to encourage alchemists and help them improve their skills in a profitable way. He doesn’t want a single exceptional Rank 3 alchemist who can handle all the pills that are needed. He wants as many Rank 6 alchemists as possible.


    “If you start outbidding everyone on common herbs and driving prices up, you will hurt the Pavilion in the long run. Maybe not the Pavilion as a whole, but I am guessing you could put all our other alchemists in the Wastes out of business if you wanted to, and that’s not good for anyone.”


    “We can import more from other places, though, right?” I asked, “I can’t possibly be making enough to affect the continent’s supply of Rank 3 herbs.”


    “No, we can’t,” WuJing snorted. “Importing anything into the Wastes is tedious because of the significantly increased travel time when using mortal horses. Aside from that, the people in charge of our supply lines don’t want skilled alchemists to hang around here too long, so the lack of herbs acts as a prod to get you to leave.”


    “I get it,” I said, lowering my head. “I just don’t want to stall out here for too long.”


    “I’ll get you all the low-quality herbs I can, even ones that might normally get thrown out. Those should be more plentiful, and you’re the only one who can produce anything of value from them that I know, but it may still be more limited than you hope. For now, look at keeping one out of every three for yourself and Mei. That should give you enough to steadily advance while still building the necessary contribution.”


    “Alright,” I said a little dejected. Herbs would only become harder to source the further I grew. I couldn’t wait to be in a position where I wouldn’t have to worry about that, but it would still take time.


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    “Look, I’ll tell Cai to get you sent down south as soon as she can. Even if I can’t go with you, I’ll make sure you’re out of here and can continue advancing by the time you reach Peak Grandmaster.”


    “Thank you, WuJing.”


    “No need to thank me,” he smiled, “I’m still your sponsor, and I still get credit even if I’m not with you. If that happens, just make sure to take Mei along to keep you out of trouble.”


    <hr>


    Rushing as a Disciple affected the energy flows in the body. If acupoints weren’t set up correctly, there could be serious deviations in both qi and mental state, and even if they were nearly perfect, rushing through the Disciple realm could still make someone dangerously imbalanced if they weren’t used to the new impulses caused by cultivation techniques.


    Rushing through the Master realm was even more dangerous. Typically, cultivators used the flow of qi in their bodies to sense where to place meridians, and if they didn’t allow their bodies to adjust properly, they could end up placing them in the wrong position, causing permanent damage to their cultivation base.


    What about Grandmaster, though? How could rushing have a negative effect on a Grandmaster, and how could it be alleviated? I didn’t know, and it seemed like WuJing didn’t either, but I wanted to see if I could find out. If there were no dangers, that would be great, but if there were, it would be good to find out now so I could begin looking for solutions.


    I set my mind to fully focus on cultivating. I would perform my alchemy duties as necessary, but my focus would always remain on my progression.


    I had two dantians to fill, which may seem like twice the work, but they were both somewhat smaller than normal. The speed of gathering qi was only slightly slower than it would have been with a regular dantian, so filling them ended up being much faster than it would have been for a normal cultivator.


    After they were full, I forced even more qi inside. The walls and seams of both dantians strained, but they held on without giving. Once I started to sense weaknesses, I slammed my will down on both simultaneously and began compressing. My fire affinity was slightly higher, so my bottom dantian began compressing faster. I eased up there so that they would both complete at the same time.


    When my qi compressed to one-tenth its original size, it stabilized into its new density. I was a Martial Grandmaster 2.


    I examined the walls of my dantians, but they didn’t seem to have suffered any damage. I began to wonder if the ‘compression’ phase was necessary. If my dantian were strong enough, could I just keep gathering more qi until it naturally compressed? If I tried that now, my dantian would surely burst from the pressure, but if I were able to make one strong enough, could its walls act as the sole compression force? Something to think about in the future.


    Once I was assured of the integrity of my dantian, I began rushing to cultivate. I directly swallowed a Qi Gathering Pill, and as soon as its effect wore off, I took another. In a matter of days, my dantian was full to bursting again, and I performed the second compression.


    Then I did it a third time, and a fourth, and a fifth. I didn’t stop until I had reached Grandmaster 6. At each step, I only checked to ensure the integrity of my dantian, but it remained whole.


    In less than a year, I had raced from Martial Grandmaster 1 to 6. It was time to see what problems I had created for myself and if they were fixable in this life.


    My dantians were holding together. Unlike last time when I had to constantly patch and repair them with each advancement, I hadn’t needed to do any repairs, but it seemed like the constant stresses on them were doing damage. This might simply be a result of rushing, but I felt that finding a better dantian structure would be the best solution to the problem.


    The flow of energy in my body had intensified, so I could guess the cultivation technique was having a much stronger mental effect on me, but I wasn’t worried about that. I knew what I was getting into there.


    Those two problems were noteworthy, but they weren’t dealbreakers. I could find solutions to the first and live with the second. However, after closely examining my body, I finally found the true pitfall of rushing during the Grandmaster realm.


    Each time my qi was compressed in my core, it would then have to cycle throughout my body, slowly replacing and cleaning out the older and less refined qi. This process took time. I wasn’t sure how long, since I had never noticed it before, but rushing my cultivation had caused havoc within my meridians.


    Pockets of qi at a variety of refinement levels had become lodged in various corners of my meridians. This may not have been a problem for most cultivators since their meridians were simple tubes, but during my Martial Master cultivation, I had created a series of countless branching pathways of ever smaller sizes. Now, many of these small capillary meridians were completely blocked up with unrefined qi. I wasn’t sure how badly it would hurt my effectiveness, but I needed to find a solution.


    Reviewing all the pills I knew, I couldn’t think of any that were designed for a situation like this, but two had somewhat relevant properties. The Qi Expulsion Pill was a type of healing pill used to remove foreign qi from wounds. The Qi Purifying Pill was used to cleanse qi of impurities caused by a chaotic mix of qi types.


    What I needed was something that would expel the old qi from my meridians. Something that would completely purge all my qi would also work, since then I could start fresh. Neither of these pills could do something like that, but they gave me a starting point for experimentation.


    From there, I slowed down and advanced only once a year for the next four years, finally reaching Martial Grandmaster Peak again. I didn’t need the help of affinity-boosting pills, my affinities were high enough, and my dantians were strong enough, so I was able to reach it naturally.


    Over time, I had been able to reopen a few of the clogged meridians, but I was far below my optimal condition. I didn’t regret my decision to rush, though, since even without a pill to save me, I now knew what to look for when deciding if I was stable enough to advance in future lives.


    During this time, I ensured Mei didn’t rush before her meridians were ready since I didn’t yet have a solution to the qi problem, but she kept a pace of one advancement every year, so she had reached Grandmaster 6.


    Since I didn’t need to spend much time on cultivation, I concentrated on developing a Qi Purging Pill that would let me safely ascend as quickly as possible in the Grandmaster realm, but it was slow going. Several times I nearly risked the complete destruction of my cultivation base during testing, but I had been careful enough to have contingencies in place to stabilize my realm before any real damage was done.


    Self-experimentation was something that no sane cultivator would consider, but I found it to be the best and most morally acceptable way to learn what I needed to know. While my current cultivation base was somewhat flawed, I had gained important knowledge in the process.


    I considered a quick suicide to lock in my gains and shore up my foundation, but I decided against it. My reset point was too far in the past, and I didn’t want to repeat everything unnecessarily. Better to play things out and scout out the future.


    This world had proven that death was inevitable, so I had no reason to seek it out.