The guard led me out of the residential area and into a side courtyard with the same gray brick paving stones and high, red walls.

This courtyard contained only a single wooden building that sat upon a half-meter-thick marble foundation. Like everything else in this place, it was painted a bright red, and red columns were spaced all along its perimeter to help hold up a two-tiered, yellow ceramic tiled roof. Complex designs were painted in gold on the red walls, and intricate, multicolored patterns adorned the eaves and the brackets that ran between the columns.

I was guided up the marble steps and into the building. Inside, I found a rather spacious front room.

The middle-aged shouty man from the previous ceremony, the person who the System had called Su YuanFei, sat on a dais at the back of the room, overseeing the proceedings below. In the middle of the room, an orb that looked like it had been made from perfectly transparent glass rested on a marble pedestal. To the right, a scribe sat at a table taking notes.

An elderly man stood directly behind this orb with his hand folded across his chest.

I wasn’t sure about the proper etiquette for this situation, so I gave the elderly man a slight bow and approached. I decided not to speak, since–as the locals had recently taught me–speaking out of turn could be deadly. If any of these people were to decide that I was acting rudely, I would likely die and have to start all over again.

Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. When I neared the orb, the elderly man looked down at me.

“What is your name?”

“Su Fang.”

My response was immediate. I had entered the body of Su Fang. From that moment on, I was Su Fang.

The sound of brush on paper came from the side of the room as the scribe wrote down my response.

The elderly man flicked his fingers toward the pedestal in front of him.

“Place your hand on the orb and channel your qi into it.”

Not sure exactly what that meant, I did my best. I placed my hand on the orb and tried to will something into it.

Nothing happened. After a few moments, the man spoke again to help me out.

“Concentrate on the core of your body, just above your navel. Pull energy from there and push it into the orb.”

I did as he said. I didn’t feel much, but I could feel… something. I felt a… faint tingling sensation as a trickle of energy flowed out of me and into the orb. As it did, the orb began to sputter weakly with a faint glow of a mix of random colors.

“Zero affinity.” The elderly man’s tone was neutral. My result didn’t seem to bother him. “What can you tell us about the blessing you have received?”

Having thought about this question, I decided to say something to try and make them think that there would be more to come. Something had to be better than nothing.

“My entire life, my body has been weak and frail. After being blessed, I can feel that there is new strength in it. Old pains have ceased, and I can feel that I am regaining the strength I should have always had. I believe there may be more to this blessing, but that is all I know right now.”

The old man gave me a look, and I could feel energy from him lightly probe my body.

When this flow of power ceased, he turned his head and nodded to the scribe.

“He will be given the Earth Heart Mantra and returned to his original quarters.”

I wanted to speak up and ask a question, but the servant who had led me in began pulling me away. After a second of surprise, I followed behind him.

We entered a side room where another scribe was sitting in front of several piles of bamboo scrolls.

“Earth Heart.” The servant spoke with a touch of disdain.

The scribe picked up a scroll from the largest pile and shoved it toward me.

“We will send someone to retrieve this in two weeks. You must memorize its contents before that time. Do not lose or damage it.”

As I tried to nod in response, the servant pulled me away.

After exiting that small library, the servant took me back to the residential area, but he didn’t follow me back to my house. He was already off to grab the next person in line.

Once I was back in my house, I sat down to think about how I should proceed from here.

This new encounter had shown me several areas where my knowledge was lacking. As long as I knew about a problem, I could work to solve it, and from the way everyone was acting, it looked like my biggest problem was having zero affinities. I didn’t know what affinities were or how they would help me, but the whole setup for that test was enough to prove to me that they were considered important.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

I only had 1 credit, so there wasn’t much I could buy, but I had to try and bridge the gaps in my knowledge.

“System, I want to purchase knowledge of affinities.”

Knowledge of affinities. Cost is not possible to calculate at this time. Chapters first released on novel_fіre.net

My cheek twitched in slight irritation at that message, but there was nothing I could do about it. I could only reframe my request.

“Alright, I want to purchase basic knowledge of affinities. Common knowledge of what people believe about them.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 credit. 0 credits remaining.

In this world, there are many forms of energy. The most common form of energy is qi. It exists everywhere in the air around you. Similar to light or electricity, qi is a form of pure energy.

There are many different forms of qi. Using light as an analogy, there are many different ‘wavelengths’ of qi that give it different ‘colors.’ Examples of this are the five basic elements: fire, water, earth, metal, and wood qi. Other forms of qi may include lightning, demonic, and spirit qi.

Affinities allow a cultivator to control the type of qi that matches their affinity. They can pull that energy into themselves, empowering and strengthening their body. While rarer affinities may offer additional benefits, they are generally seen as less useful, since their matching qi types may be lacking or insufficient in the environment, making them significantly harder to cultivate.

Credits expended. Transaction complete.

How trustworthy was this information? I didn’t believe that the System would lie to me, but I had purchased 1 credit’s worth of ‘common knowledge.’ This was what people believed, but that didn’t mean it was true.

Still, it was the information I had to work with.

I considered the Earth Heart Mantra that I had been given. It was used to cultivate earth qi. Would cultivating earth qi affect me differently than, say, fire qi? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t have any more credits.

I needed more credits.

Every time I had died, I was told I was getting 10 credits because I had reached Martial Disciple 1. When I had asked about this, I was told that I would gain credits based on my cultivation level at the time of my death.

It sounded like my cultivation level could be improved by using this Earth Heart Mantra to pull in earth qi, and if I pulled in enough of this qi, I would eventually become a Martial Disciple 2. If I died at that point, then I should get more credits.

I didn’t plan on dying, but it would happen sooner or later. So, I needed to cultivate to raise my level and earn as many credits as possible when it did.

According to the System, affinities were the body’s ability to control different kinds of qi, and by having a ‘zero affinity,’ my ability to cultivate was basically nonexistent.

For most people, this would be the end of the road. However, as the Su Clan was no doubt aware, blessings could change everything. A powerful enough blessing could easily make up for a lack of affinities.

What did this mean for me? It meant that I needed to make a plan. I was given an earth qi technique, so I might as well start there. Rarer affinities sounded interesting, but if they were less useful without a proper environment to cultivate in, then I would need to hold off on purchasing them until later.

“System, I want to improve my affinity for earth qi.”

Temporary Low 9-star Earth Affinity. Cost 10 credits.

“Fair enough. System, I would like to improve my earth qi affinity by two steps.”

Temporary Mid 9-star Earth Affinity. Cost 35 credits.

I decided to prod a little more to see if I could find out more information.

“System, how much to raise my affinity by three steps?”

Temporary High 9-star Earth Affinity. Cost 85 credits.

“Four steps?”

Temporary Peak 9-star Earth Affinity. Cost 160 credits.

“Five steps?”

Temporary Low 8-star Earth Affinity. Cost 260 credits.

“Nine steps?”

Temporary Low 7-star Earth Affinity. Cost 2,760 credits.

“Thirteen steps?”

Information on affinities. Cost 1,000 credits.

After a bit more testing, I found that while I could ask the System for the cost to raise an affinity up to peak seven-star, if I wanted the prices for anything above that, then I needed to pay 1,000 credits for ‘information on affinities.’

In any case, I had learned what I needed to know. Affinities started at low nine-star and increased through low, mid, high, and peak. Then, they advanced to low eight-star. Presumably, this would continue all the way to peak one-star.

I considered this.

Was a low nine-star affinity enough? Did I need to commit suicide dozens of times to get a usable affinity? I didn’t want to do that. Memories of my last death lingered in my mind, and I didn’t want to die again if I didn’t have to. Also, I was pretty sure that committing suicide twenty-odd times in a row was exactly what the System had meant when it had warned me against ‘quick, repeated, intentional deaths.’

So, if I wanted to improve my credit gain, then I needed to find a way to improve my cultivation base. The key to doing that had to be these affinities.

Improving my earth affinity to low nine-star was cheap enough that I would be able to afford it with just a single death. So—

My thoughts came to an immediate halt. The prompt had said ‘temporary.’

“System, I want to improve my earth qi affinity permanently. I want it to stay improved even after I die and restart.”

Permanent Low 9-star Earth Affinity. Cost 100 credits.

There it was. Ten deaths to afford even the worst affinity available.

Processing… An external entity has discounted the price of increasing your affinity. Cost 10 credits.

Note: This discount will only be applied to the first affinity you permanently upgrade. However, any future upgrades to this same affinity, up to the level of peak nine-star, will also be discounted to 10% of their regular price.

An external entity again… that was worrisome, but at least it was helping me out.

So, a discount, but only to the first affinity I chose to make permanent. Did I want to focus on earth qi?

I didn’t want to rush this decision. Since this discount only applied up to peak nine-star, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I picked the wrong affinity and changed my focus in the future, but starting off on the right foot would be for the best.

Of course, none of this even mattered too much at the moment. I didn’t have any credits, so this choice would have to wait for the future.

My goals moving forward were simple: Push as far as I could. Learn as much as I could. If there was a risk, take it. It would be better to learn a quick lesson with an early death than to drag things out for no reason.

I didn’t want to die. Even with the resets, I didn’t want to die, but I would.

That said, for the near future, I wouldn’t be doing anything too death-defying. I would be sitting on my rear and trying to pull energy into my body while having little to no ability to do so.