Chapter 50:

Chapter 50 ~Last chapter of Vol 1

~~~~Tai Su~~~~

Being a cultivator was an experience.

You are faster, stronger, hardier, meaner and all the complication that come with that. Despite all that the inside of the sect is purpose built to make all of that mean nothing.

The increased gravity is easier to take on as a cultivator yes, the crushing weight is probably even useful for some types of training I imagine as well, but that is not the biggest obstacle.

The biggest obstacles are the sudden changes of where up and down is with no acclimatization period and no logic I've been able to find to the changes and the worst changes are those where there is no gravity.

One moment you fly, the other you are smashing into the earth weighting four times your normal weight, or you are suddenly in normal gravity and it suddenly turn to zero as you climb down a tunnel and find yourself floating in the air with nothing to tether you to a solid surface.

The only way to move when caught like that was to create some sort of force to push you, but that is easier said than done.

"What are you doing young disciple?" A female voice asked.

I could hear her incredulity mix with amusement as she saw me blow air out of my mouth in a thin stream, so that it pushes me slightly backwards.

"Got caught in the no gravity part of the tunnel senior. I am blowing air so that it pushes me in a direction and I can hit a wall to use as support." I replied.

I got the idea from my past life's astronauts which used a similar method to move during their space walks. I did not have access to those suits to move into space but I had a mouth and the determination to try and the technique worked somewhat.

For some reason I couldn't turn my body in the air, all of my attempts at changing position by using my limbs failing miserably and so I could only move by blowing air and maneuver by turning my head.

"You could use your hands, they can still move air, even if the physics of turning are a bit off by design." The woman said.

I finally managed to hit the wall now, the technique I used being incredibly slow to move me, and I pushed away from it with my right hand as I hit it at a rather unfortunate angle. This time the other end of the tunnel came at me in a way that was less awkward and I bounced off it only to land on my feet.

There was a certain sticky property to the walls, not gravity in any sense of the word but if you hit them just right you remain attached to the wall. I imagine it helps the defenders in case of a conflict when they do know the exact mechanics of it and their enemies don't as they would know what helps maneuver in the tunnels and what allows them to stick to the walls while the invaders wouldn't.

I turned towards the elder, as the servant have told us that it's only them and the new disciples in the sect right now, and the other disciples that passed were assigned to the dormitory on the other side of the mountain.

"Greetings elder, I use that technique because it allows me better control of my speed so that I may stick to the surface. Using my hands and legs to create wind and move makes me move faster yes, but it also makes it far more difficult to land properly so I stick to the surface." I said as I bowed, my left fist clasping my right fist.

The robes allow me a large area similar to a sail, only used in the exact opposite way one would use a sail. It is fast yes, it is also difficult to hit the landing with one and not spend my entire day bouncing from one wall to another. There are no handlebars to catch on here, nor are there any indents in the rock like I managed to find on my trip from the sect master's study to the dormitories.

The woman shook her head in amusement, her red hair barely moving as she did so, and I took the chance to look at her properly.

Her uniform was just as white as mine, but the lemon tree imprints on it only extended to her boots, while mine went throughout the robes and the shoes and even there it was far more extensive. Even my boots had multiple lemon trees on it, while her boots only had one each.

Her uniform was of a different designed compared to mine, it was more complex, with multiple layers despite all of them being white. Despite all that the most striking feature was her hair as even without the fox ears I couldn't help but be reminded of teacher Hao Wen's hair.

It had the same color, but it went beyond merely the same color, it looked as if it had the same texture unlike my teacher's servants who despite having red hair had different shades to it.

"It's a cute little trick to help you navigate for now, but you will need to learn how to do it the normal way, because that's the way you will have to do it if you decide to go in a Spider Hold and hunt some spiders. But first, introductions, I am elder Shen Xifeng, the Core Elder of the Pavilion of Harmonious Cooperation and Integration, you and your squad has been assigned to me for training and your first mission." The elder said and introduced herself.

"This one is Tai Su." I introduced myself back.

It is etiquette that those of an obviously higher social rank are to introduce themselves first if they wish, otherwise names remain unsaid. It is not an issue among peers or those of social ranks that are relatively close, albeit it is considered good manners to still follow it in those scenarios.

Manners, while important, were less pressing than the fact we were already assigned a mission and the Trials didn't even end yet. According to the servants there were still three days until they would fully end.

I left the dormitories to get acquainted with the tunnels and see if I can't find a logic to how the gravity changes works and if there are any signs of the change. I did out of boredom primarily, the books or even the reading list we were told about had not arrived yet and so all we had to do was cultivate, train and socialize.

"Well met young man, please follow me back to your squad's dorms, we have no time to tarry so I'll allow you to walk normally as opposed to dealing with the changes in gravity." She answered and suddenly I could feel my own weight.

It was a soft transition, nothing like the normal one, one moment I was only attached to the wall by the grace of formation nonsense and over the course of a few seconds gravity started to slowly reassert itself until I felt normal.

"Thank you elder." I said and unclasped my hands and started following her.

The last days have been unnerving to me and the habits I formed in this life. There was no overarching goal, no need to rush, no duties to attend, I just had to wait for time to pass and we passed in the only way cultivators seem to want to, sex and fighting and I had indulged in both enough for now. I needed something else after the seventh round with Bao and some fighting kept me busy for a day before I got restless.

There was a small arena where we could hold some mock fights and it allowed us to let go of the tension that's been building since our group formed.

I managed to barely eke out my wins against Da Xiu and easily defeated everyone else except Ya Xue and Bao who took a bit of effort to beat. Ya Xue was tricky to beat because she was trained and the little spars we had on our trial proved it, but her training could not overcome the simple fact that I was stronger, faster and my limbs were longer and her training was probably worse than mine, while Bao had ample experience in how I fought and thus I had no hidden tricks to play on her that she hadn't learned how to counter and make me pay for trying on her.

Yu Zong was a surprise in how bad she was at fighting, she had training yes, but she did not have the right mentality for fighting, she was too risk averse and unwilling to commit and the only decisive moves she made felt rehearsed, as if she only took them because her muscle memory demanded she make the moves that were risky, as opposed to any choice on her part. It felt like whoever trained her noticed the issue and tried to work around it as opposed to fixing it, or maybe they tried and failed to fix it?

The Lins on the other hand? They had the instincts of fighters but had little to no actual training which made them the easiest to defeat.

Once the ranking was established, I needed something else to do, some goal to work towards or I would genuinely start losing my mind.

"Are you not curious about your mission?" Elder Sheng Xifeng asked out of nowhere as we were walking across the empty hallways.

"I am, but there is no point in asking now. If you wish to share senior, then you will do it when everyone is there to hear and if you don't want to share then nothing I can say will convince you. The only thing I would like to know is when the reading list the sect master said will be delivered to us will come. I was trying to find the library in preparation for it before meeting you." I answered with a shrug.

Finding the library was as good a goal as any and it gave me something, anything to work towards to. Now I'll thankfully have something long term to feast on as we will be given our first mission.,

"You won't find it the way you were going, not unless you go towards the inner library deeper down which is barred to disciples, as it contain works only Practitioners and above are allowed to know of. You were heading towards the canteen, which would be empty now as the entire sect is empty save for the new disciples, a few elders, the Sect Master and the servants." She replied.

Now, that was interesting to know, the entire sect is empty? Also why is the elder walking so slowly?

I have been trying to remain a few steps behind her as is appropriate, but she insists of having me walk by her side. I noticed it and stopped trying to maintain that respectful distance and she silently started walking faster.

"Why is that elder?" I asked gain as my curiosity overtook me.

I did not ask about the walking, there are limits to how far propriety can stretch and I have no intention of finding them.

She looked at me with a twinkle in her eyes as she realized I noticed what she was doing and I wasn't about to mention it, but she also started answering my question properly.

"All twenty-one of the elders and the sect master are inside the sect grounds or the sect itself overseeing the formations and protecting the sanctity of the Trial. Disciples and Practitioners are all on missions and watching over the Prefecture to ensure nobody tries anything funny while we pretend there's no third tier to watch over it, as they can't remain reliably hidden from the Aspirant's senses." She explained.

That made me think, pretend that there's no third tier watching?

"The other sects are watching over the Orange Prefecture?" I asked again, to confirm my hunch.

That made the centuries old woman giggle which threw me off.

Elders are almost universally at least a century old to reach where they are, as third tiers according to Ya Xue and the Lins can live for several centuries, assuming they don't take any life extending medicine produced by the Imperial Palace which allows Core Formation Cultivators which threw off the spiders a thousand years ago to continue fighting on despite having normally lived for as long, if not centuries longer, than their tier would allow them.

Learning that the Dao Heart of the Empress allows her to create an elixir of eternal life and uses said ability to ensure the loyalty of anyone of the third tier and above was an experience, but it made sense why despite having lasted for one thousand years and spending those years being in a total war of extermination against the spiders, there has been exactly one Rebellion.

Learning that this is common knowledge in cities, and that it was the people in the villages and small towns that were called superstitious for calling her a Goddess was also strange, because giving eternal youth and life to her most loyal and capable servant is the sort of thing religions are based on.

The Empress can effectively keep any third and fourth tier cultivator alive for as long as she is alive. Some of the derivative elixirs her handpicked alchemists create from her own can double the lifespan of any cultivator of the second tier also meant that it takes a special kind of idiot to even try and go against her.

"Yes, and don't be so surprised, we do the same for them during their own Trials. The Crystal Blade Sect, the Half Moon Sect, the Blazing Heart Sect and before they let their idiocy overtake them the Stellar Blade Sect have been close friends of ours since our founding at the hand of the Empress and we've always made sure nobody tried anything in each other's territories while the Trials are underway." She explained with a smile

She seemed genuinely proud of that for some reason and my mind was quick to provide me the reason why. Elder Sheng Xifeng was the Core Elder of the Pavilion of Harmonious Cooperation and Integration in her own words. She was meant to handle harmonious cooperation which most likely means cooperation with the other sects.

"How is the trial going? I thought we would receive news when it was over, but I was told there's still three days until the time ends." I asked.

"Want to know how your handiwork panned out?" She asked back to which I silently nodded.

I was curious how the civilians' plans went and if our time training them was wasted or not.

"Feng Shan's group did better than expected and managed to ambush the cherries and killed all but one of them without a single casualty on their side. Their group then splintered into several smaller ones and all of them failed to understand the lesson behind the Illusory Forest. They have spent the last few days almost dying of thirst before we offered them the chance to give up, which they all took. Currently there's only two individuals still technically undertaking the trials, but they're treating it like a vacation and have refused to cut it short."

What in all of the heavens is that nonsense? Vacation? In this hellishly nonsensical forest?

Are those guys even human that they'd look at that beast infested hellhole of a forest with boars that can plow through trees and mind controlling deer and think it's a vacation spot?

"Giving up was an option?" I asked instead.

That was a safer thing to ask, or maybe not. Her smile was gone at my question and I very nearly froze and prepared to apologize for any insult I might have caused.

The air suddenly turned sharp and I felt as if I was no longer looking at a woman, but that I was once again face to face with the boar that could charge through trees and it was heading straight towards me.

"Yes, being a cultivator is a choice, the life of a cultivator and all that you are and it implies are choices you must say yes to each day of what is soon to be your very long life. I am not offended young man so please do not apologize. Your question is an important one and I need to make that clear, as there is a reason the Trial is made the way it is. It is meant to make you want to give up and rewards you when you decide to not only push forward but succeed at it. All of you were watched at most points of the trial, so if any of you just gave up you would have been taken out of the forest immediately." She answered.

I gave a sigh of relief at her words and was glad the black gate was in front of us now.

"I see." I said simply, not trusting myself to speak anymore for now.

My question hit a landmine, I will not be hitting another.

"Good, I have already announced my presence to allow your friends to make themselves presentable, hopefully I'll even find them in uniform and not naked like is often the case." She replied and with each word her cheer returned.

"Does that happen often? And speaking of uniforms what do the uniform colors even mean?" I asked.

That seemed like a safe enough question to ask.

"Yes, but I too was a young cultivator, I know well enough, how you lot handle learning that getting pregnant is something you need a special elixir to make happen. As for the colors, the system is pretty easy. Pure white for normal member of the sect, white with cherry blossom trees or lemon trees for individuals sponsored by the banners and their spouses, black for guests and silver for concubines or individuals in similar relationships." She explained, her smile turning into a fond one as she reminisced her past.

The door opened in front of us and I could see that Bao and Yu Zong were in the process of arranging everyone to greet the elder. They also promptly joined in when they noticed that the doors were open.

"Was it truly necessary to make the silver color?" I asked.

Concubines didn't feel that special that they need the sect's uniform to change to accommodate them.

"Yes, people not realizing that such relationships exist was the main source of conflict when I took on my role, a quick addition to the uniforms and suddenly people no longer had any excuses worth much for squabbling like children and speaking of children. No none of that with me disciples, I am not some noble half-wit that needs her flower sniffed at to feel important, get to the lunch table, we'll be discussing things there." She said seriously to the gathered cultivators.

All of us proceeded to do as she said, a lifetime of being used to taking orders coming in handy to those of us that have been raised in small villages and towns. The Lins and Ya Xue needed Bao to give them a shove and a silent 'Hurry' as they tried to fight against their instinct to bow down and at the very least greet the elder.

It would have been amusing to see if they weren't my subordinates and friends, which meant I'll have to find a way to make them act normally in the future.

That's a problem for future me though, now I have other things to worry about

~~~ Shen Xifeng ~~~

Being in these dorm rooms always made me nostalgic.

I still remember looking in awe at the painting which seemed so real it felt that the wall separating me from where I wanted to walk seemed less real than what I was seeing. That painting has stood unchanged for eight hundred years since the founding of the sect and it never stopped being able to bring a smile to my face.

Now, I thankfully had another reason to be happy, than just nostalgia. I finally had my own batch of cute little disciples to look after, as opposed to the rare oddballs that decided that a life of constantly seeking danger in remote places, but did not feel like dedicating their entire life for a single craft, was a worthwhile pursuit.

The squad of eight was an eclectic bunch, two lemon bannermen and their wives interested in exactly the sort of thing I specialize in or close enough, the two concubines of one of said bannermen who have exactly zero ambition of their own besides being near their families and two civilian men whose main concern is making enough money to make sure their family will not be poor or disrespected anymore.

I've worked with worse and at the very least the eight of them were not the sort of individuals too caught up in propriety to question my casual attitude.

"Good, now I will start with a brief overview of what the Pavilion of Harmonious Cooperation and Integration is meant to do, unless one of you has anything they would like to ask?" I said to the gathered baby cultivators.

Lao Li, the servant currently on rotation for the dormitory put a tray of steaming buns in front of us, which I gingerly took into my hand and bit into without concern. Even for the little ones, the level of heat of a fresh bun was nothing worth worrying about, and to me the fires it came from would be more useful in cleaning my clothes than in actually harming me.

Hopefully the food makes the disciples more talkative, they are always tongue tied around elders and I always need to make sure they see me as merely their social superior and not a dangerous thing that can kill all of them with ease.

Cultivators have an instinct for this sort of thing when dealing with each other and it solves a lot of problems when you need to get cultivators of lower rank to obey. It does however make it incredibly difficult to educate young cultivators when they'd rather be anywhere but near you..

I don't know how master does it, he does not make the instincts of young disciples to fire up when in his presence, instead presenting himself as kind lord, greater than them yes, but also not the kind of existence that can kill cities with contemptuous ease.

Nascent Souls are cheating cheaters that cheat.

I am scared and excited to find out what they had to give up for those cheats.

"As good as ever Lao Li, you even added vanilla, how downright decadent." I said once I finished eating the little steamed bun.

"Thank you for the compliment elder, I decided to break into the pantry for it as I had a hunch that you would be coming today." The man responded with a twinkle in his eyes as he barely stopped himself from laughing.

The servants were informed of my coming yesterday so that they could gently corral the disciples into not going too wild and to allow us to see how they treat the servants when they try to impose themselves.

Judging from the relaxed way the man was holding himself, he was not mistreated or made to fear for his life, if anything he was the sort of relaxed one would expect to be in his own home. This meant that the disciples have been acting courteously and perhaps even helped him with his duties which said good things of their character.

"Yes… a hunch." I teased I then turned to the disciples.

The women were enjoying the buns or pretending to in the case of the ice blooded, the two men dressed in pure white robes had not touched their buns while the two bannermen acted oddly.

Their leader was tasting it and looking as if he didn't understand what he was tasting, while the burlier one took a bite then put it back worried once he heard it was vanilla. His wife gave him a worried glance before he shook his head.

I immediately turned every single one of my sensory technique on the man known as Da Xiu and I quickly noticed the problem.

"Lao Li, when you next wish to use vanilla, please make an extra serving of something lacking it when serving Da Xiu, he is allergic to it." I informed him.

Allergies are a rare thing, and an allergy to vanilla of all things rarer still. Still less bad than the time I found out one of the disciples is allergic to sugar. I think the woman was the only individual allergic to that on the continent. How she reached adulthood is still a mystery to me

"Oh heavens should I get the pills elder?" The man asked worriedly.

I shook my head, they wouldn't help.

"No, this is the sort of allergy that upsets the stomach greatly, similarly to what happens when some try to drink milk. The substance is not dangerous to him, his body just can't digest it. It seems like a mild case and what he ingested will at most giving a rather harsh night on the toilet." I revealed.

"I'll handle it myself elder Sheng Xifeng, I thought cultivation would have gotten me rid of it, but it seems I haven't cultivated enough." The young man replied.

I shook my head, now is not the time for the disciple to call himself lazy. I have plenty of time to tease him and the others with that later.

"Cultivation would get you rid of it once you hit the second tier, as impurities start being removed and your body starts performing subconscious corrections to your form to make it closer to your own vision of how your body should be. You couldn't exactly have cultivated enough since becoming a cultivator to have advanced to that point, this is not your fault or anyone else's it's just bad luck." I assured him.

Reaching Body Tempering is the first important milestone of any cultivator and half of those that attempt it die. It is also where the headaches start with cultivators.

Qi Warriors are just humans with a bit more strength and less inhibitions, nothing a bit of discipline and some sweet talk can't handle, but Body Tempering cultivators?

Their bodies are putty in their hands, and they subconsciously then consciously change it to fit their idea of what they are. Some lose in height, or weight, others become skeletal because they want to be thinner while others become spherical because they see themselves as fatter than they are and their minds respond to it and start making them look the way they feel like.

Then there's the mimics who want to look like somebody else and so they look like them, others who disfigure themselves in inhuman shapes and others that decided to learn what it would be like to merge multiple beings into one.

Cultivation might solve some issues, but it always creates more with each tier.

"I have a question, do the names of sects mean anything? You've told me of some of the other sects and I noticed that Blazing is a part of other sect's names and I am wondering if it means anything." Tai Su intervened and quickly changed the subject.

Da Xiu seemed far too uncomfortable about the topic of his allergy and so I allowed it, the question his leader asked was rather interesting.

Also I removed the vanilla from his subordinate's body, something Da Xiu noticed if his wide eyed look was anything to go by. It was an expensive technique in terms of stored Qi, as doing anything to the bodies of others always tends to be, but I arranged for this little meeting.

I am not allowing any of them to leave this meeting ill from my choices, the precedent it creates is not something I wish to deal with.

"Yes and no. The descriptors Blazing and Burning mean something, but the others don't. Blazing is for the sects the Empress ordered made and that were founded by her direct disciples. The Burning descriptor is for sects with far less autonomy than usual, because they work as extensions of the Palace of the Blazing Sun, as opposed to actual sects. The other names do not mean anything except what those living in those sects wish for them to mean." I explained.

Da Xiu remained silent as the others mulled over my answer, but none of them seemed interested in asking any other questions before the mission briefing. They were too nervous for it unfortunately.

"Very well, as it seems that none of you has any other questions you need to ask, I'll start with your mission briefing." I declared.

The disciples straightened up at my words and the silent conversations between each other stopped.

Good, it is important for them to be able to focus when their superiors are talking.

"We're listening Elder Shen Xifeng." Tai Su answered.

"Good, you are all aware of our alliance with the fox clans and the fact that it has been a rocky thing as far as our civilians are concerned?" I asked.

Calling it a rocky situation was an understatement. Orange Prefecture was a Prefecture meant to allow our peoples a limited form of interaction and it lead to the creation of an entirely new physique among the population, but our cultures are incompatible.

Individuals in the Fire Tree Province on the Foxes Lands can't adapt to the local culture, never rising much beyond menial workers or running afoul of fox taboos and being banished while foxes in our territory do the same and get executed. Our cultures are just too different to understand each other and while our Nascent Souls can cooperate and understand each other well enough, they just can't transfer that understanding forged in the fires of war to others.

I myself have trouble understanding the sect master and I have lived under his tutelage for centuries, his situation is worse when he needs to understand normal people and I imagine the fox ancestors are no different.

"Yes we are elder, Tai Su and I were educated by one on some of the issues." Bao Xiaoli answered.

Yes, she should be educated on the issue. Her husband and said teacher were our mission targets.

"Indeed, miss Hao Wen will be our primary concern. I am the Core Elder of the Pavilion of Harmonious Cooperation, it is my duty to coordinate and ensure the cooperation and harmony between the various entities operating in Orange Prefecture. Hao Wen has created her little Atelier and is in the process of getting numerous permits to allow various members of her Ancestral Clan to recreate her business model throughout the Prefecture.

Our primary mission is simple: ensure her protection, assist her in whatever scholarly work she and her students need to explain the logic behind why her solution works and what parts could be improved on and make sure that her own security detail does not act beyond their remit again." I explained to the gathered disciples.

Said students of the fox were looking rather shocked at my words, while the others looked skeptical at it.

I imagine that they didn't expect a golden core cultivator to care about this sort of thing, but this is quite literally what my Pavilion was founded to do, and some mortal woman and her barely literate student managed to do my duties better than me. I am absolutely tickled by the concept, but it is also an opportunity I can't let my desire to cackle maniacally to prevent me from taking.

"You claimed that is was the primary mission, do we have secondary ones as well?" The Ice blooded asked.

Her body was lovely in the way only cheap body shaping medicine could do: superficial, enhanced beyond what most would consider normal and utterly painful on the back, but from what I've seen of her she could make it work.

Whoever decided to let civilians get access to that sort of thing should have been quartered, because they made far too many young men and women disfigure themselves when they reached Body Tempering due to extreme beauty standards that are hard to achieve without said medicine and I've banned the blasted things from being used in the sect out of spite.

"Yes, three in fact, all of them in the general area. The first one is to deliver an olden man possessing golden meridians and a rather dangerous physique to the capital. They are explicitly not a criminal, but an old man in good standing and sending him to the capital is both a reward and necessary for his health. We'll also need to figure out how this happened, as this sort of thing is something that we should have been informed of when the man was still la child not when he is approaching the last years of his natural life." I explained.

A Golden Meridian Sky Seer being able to reach old age with nobody being made aware of it? It smelled of a shit cake, and it was far too worrying to not investigate and immediately find out why this happened.

"Old Man Yi will have to leave to the capital?" Tai Su asked.

I was not surprised he realized it, he was the one to inform us of the situation after all. I still made me smile as I enjoyed smart and perceptive students.

"Yes, but do not worry, your home will get in return a golden core cultivator overseeing it's defenses and in case of an emergency I can provide a far better emergency response than even you could prepare for with his advanced notice." I assured them.

He shook his head.

"He was doing more than that, he was telling us of how the weather would be months in advance to prepare for farming season. He is the reason we always had a surplus of food we could sell for Bao and I's studies and buy paper and ink from the town and the village could use to buy and repair tools from the smiths." He explained.

I understood where he was coming from, golden meridian sky seers are their own brand of nonsense, but thankfully I already had a solution.

"Foxes are horrible at setting up proper resource creation procedures and looking over the land, but they are excellent at creating wealth and in need of local men and women to work. They received a limited allowance for their ateliers and all masters of their crafts have to take two local men or women as apprentices to be allowed to operate. Your village should be in their birthing period, you can easily arrange ahead of time for apprentices and if any costs happen, well... being a cultivator pays well, you can pay for your community's needs until the apprenticeships begin." I assured him.

A cultivator is paid in spirit stones, five a year for disciples, fifty for practitioners, one thousand for elders and Nascent Souls just have the wealth of a sect to do as they please with. Considering the exchange rate for a spirit stone to a golden tael is anywhere from twenty to one hundred for one, that is more than enough for them to live off and contribute to their community.

Tai Su and Bao Xiaoli looked relieved at that, but everyone else looked incredibly worried.

"Birthing period elder?" Yu Zong, Da Xiu's wife, asked.

"Ah, you are not aware of it? I suppose you came from a town then so I'll explain. The villages under the protection of the southern lemon tree banner stagger their births to happen exactly once every twenty years in a five to seven years period. They do this to cope with the poverty and ensure there's always someone to marry the young, so they remain populated and don't just die off due to emigration and freak weather." I explained.

It took my predecessor a full century, and me another twenty years to gently nudge the villagers with the help of the failed Aspirants into that system. The villages under the lemon banner are more similar to a military camp than a normal village just a bit north of them, but thanks to the conditions created by the super-weapon experiments we needed to ensure that the south of the province continues to be inhabited by humans.

Thankfully, the failed Aspirants provided excellent help and assigning them as village heads in exchange for a lot of money to their clans and opportunities for their children proved to be surprisingly helpful.

Who knew that promising individuals that in exchange for a life of toil in obscurity, that their children would be granted opportunities beyond their wildest dreams and then delivering on those promises would create a core of very loyal bureaucrats for us?

I certainly didn't expect for it to be that effective when I took over my predecessors duties, but I am perfectly happy to make use of the system I shamelessly stole from the general of the Southern Lemon Tree Banner.

"Will we be expected to follow that tradition?" Ya Xue asked.

The former cherry woman looked befuddled at her own question, as if she was shocked that the question even had to be asked.

"You won't be living in the villages so no you won't, unless you want to. It also does not apply to cultivators, it is a system the villages impose on those living in them, the sect is highly supportive of the practice but does nothing to enforce it and it does not apply to it's disciples." I informed them.

Having a reliable way to account for births, ensure that there's nobody left without spouses due to age differences and unlucky births and be able to plan population growth decades in advance? It is the sort of thing I and many others in similar positions to mine can only dream of.

The only reason we're not implementing this system in the entire Prefecture and petitioning for it to be applied in the entire Empire is because being forceful with it does not work.

Making anything related to child rearing and birth being mandated by authority figures reminds us far too much of our and the foxes lives under the spiders to ever even be considered by the old nascent souls or the empress and more importantly it does not work.

The spiders had to mind control millions to ensure births for their farms, because otherwise the population growth plummeted, as mothers started going crazy and killing their children and men would start going crazy too and go on rampages killing whoever they could out of nowhere when you tried to control human breeding.

The best way to deal with this sort of thing I've found is make it seem like it's the idea of the people that live under it and that it solves a problem that affects them specifically and makes life harder for someone who is not a part of their community, essentially serving as a test to force any newcomers to assimilate.

While they were digesting my words I prepared myself to tell them of the other two missions. These ones needed me to calm down before I started speaking. I slipped slightly when speaking to their leader and let my pressure slip from my leash and reminded him of the power difference between the two of us.

This translated to a bit of nervousness in their body language as Tai Su's subordinates took their cues on how to act from their leader, but the last thing I needed was to scare them off too much. If all of them agree to remain in the Pavilion, then our numbers would double!

I can't let my anger get in the way of that.

"The other missions are far less glamorous, a rogue cultivator also possessing golden meridians has been stealing from the local garrison and is believed to have interfered in the Trials by stealing from the aspirants headed towards the Written Trial or even while they were going towards the Physical Trial. They possess some form of technique a Nascent Soul fox clan ancestor barely managed to see through and that they have thankfully managed to suppress and leave in the care of the local authorities. We only need to escort the Shadows of the Empress as they interrogate the creature and decide on its punishment.

The last one is my own mission. I am meant to look after you, train you in the ways of Cooperation and Harmony, see if you are suited for it and if you aren't direct you to wherever you are suited for. I am a capable alchemist and formation and talisman maker, so I can teach you the basics of those arts you are all interested in as I test how well suited you are for my pavilion. You have nothing to worry, your desired goals will not be delayed even if you prove unsuitable for the sort of work I undertake." I informed them as calmly as I could.

For some reason my words seemed to scare them a bit, and I wondered why. I made sure I didn't let any of my pressure slip off to frighten them.

It was probably the knowledge that there was such a dangerous and evil golden meridian cultivator in the area that spooked them and not something I did. Yes, that was probably it.

"Do not worry disciples, the evil creature will be punished and I will take good care of you and teach you all I know, this I promise you. We'll leave in three days when the last two lover birds holding up the trail run out of time on their 'vacation. The books you were promised will be delivered to you tomorrow at the latest and the sect will provide you with the supplies for the road and your chosen paths. I know this was a lot to drop on you all at once and I apologize for it, but thankfully you'll have plenty of time to assimilate all of it." I tried to assuage their fears.

It didn't work unfortunately, they were just as spooked, even if they started hiding it better.

I'll need to get even better at hiding my spiritual pressure it seems. I always slips when I am angry, and now it seems I can't even notice when it does so.

~~~~~~~~~~~

End of volume 1: Survival.