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The Eighth Elder had said that “the Su Clan accepts only the best of the best as its elite.” He had also said that the elite disciples had been “specially chosen based on the combined knowledge and experience of the clan’s esteemed elders.”

In the past, I had only focused on the first part of this message. The Su Clan accepts only the best of the best as its elites. They want the elites to be the strongest and best disciples possible. I had naively thought that if there were better cultivators among the normal disciples, then the elders would want to elevate them to the status of an ‘elite’ instead.

However, this interpretation completely ignored the second part of the message. The current elites were chosen based on the combined knowledge and experience of all the elders. To challenge an elite was to challenge the judgment of the elders.

By defeating one of these hand-picked elites, I had brought the judgment of all the elders into question. So, how did they choose to resolve this issue? They could have admitted their mistake, but instead, they chose to remove the root of the problem.

If I was dead, the chosen elites would return to being the best of the best in the Su Clan.

Originally, the Su Clan’s training routine might have been developed to sort through Disciples and allow the best to rise to the top, but over time, a deep rot had crept in. After living in this world for several centuries, I had a pretty good idea of its cause.

If the elders correctly chose the ten best Disciples five years in a row, they would want to continue that streak. Being unable to identify one of the best Disciples during the sixth year would be seen as a failure. If this continued for 100 years, then the elders who chose the elites in the 101st year would be under serious pressure to continue the tradition of always choosing only the best to be their elites.

Grouping the Disciples based on their affinities and blessings would give them information about who was likely to succeed, but it wasn’t guaranteed. It was possible that a powerful blessing could initially pass by unnoticed or underappreciated. However, by not providing the normal Disciples with any real training, the elders could ensure that the elites were always victorious. Unless a seriously overpowered blessing was somehow missed during the testing process, the elders’ ‘judgment’ would never be wrong.

As I had shown, they would still be wrong sometimes, but they had apparently chosen to sweep such mistakes under the rug instead of admitting their faults.

This only proved to me that the Su Clan was broken beyond any hope of repair. I hated to say it, but allowing the clan to be destroyed was probably for the best. If this was how the clan operated, their rule of the Wastes had to be utterly incompetent.

I didn’t care too much about the clan’s ultimate fate by this point. I just needed to siphon off enough of their Disciples to create a new Su Clan capable of providing me with the karmic energy I needed to advance to Martial Sovereign.

There were a few possible ways I could go about this.

One way would be to become a normal Disciple again and actively work to create bonds of friendship with the other Disciples while staying beneath the elder’s radar. This would let me develop a better understanding of the people I was dealing with before recruiting them into my clan. Unfortunately, the low quality of everyone’s cultivation meant that I would be trying to evaluate people through a haze of cultivation madness. While this path might still be possible, it would be difficult and time-consuming.

Alternatively, I could try to become one of the clan’s elites and use that superior position to command the respect of everyone around me. By starting as an elite, I could potentially gain the support of the elders, and once that was accomplished, I could change the clan’s training regime to be more in line with what I had become used to. This could allow me to slowly change the clan from the inside, and then, once I had an established power base, I could look at taking over the position of patriarch.

However, after a bit of consideration, I chose not to pursue this path. Simply put, I had no desire to become the patriarch of the existing Su Clan. Every single cultivator in the clan was likely already rotten to their core, and trying to fix them would be a monumental task. I wasn’t even sure if it was possible.

There was something else I needed to consider as well. From what I had learned, anyone born before the start of the loop would die if I attempted to bring them back with me via my storage space. I had only tested this a single time, so I couldn’t be entirely confident in this conclusion, but it was my working theory. So, if I wanted to bring anyone who was alive at the start of the loop back with me, I would have to do so by transferring their memories through the use of memory orbs, and each orb could only hold the memories of one lifetime of a single individual.

While I was in the Nine Rivers Sect, Jin had given me nearly a hundred such orbs, but if I used them to pull even just ten or twenty people into the loop, that supply wouldn’t last long.

I couldn’t rely on orbs to build my new clan. I could maybe provide orbs to four or five people and have them become eternal elders who were capable of maintaining the stability and cohesiveness of the clan across countless loops, but such people could not make up the bulk of my new clan.

Instead, it had to be made up of people who could travel through time with me in my storage space, and that meant I was limited to members of the Su Clan born after the start of the loop. Therefore, the people who I really needed to recruit were only just now being born. It would be another sixteen years before they came of age and had their qi awakened.

I could try kidnapping them as children and forcing them into my soul space, but I had no desire to do so. Instead, I would wait for them to mature. Then, they could make their own choice of whether to join me or not.

The Su Clan held its blessing ceremony two weeks after the start of the new year. Anyone born now would be considered one year old, and in eleven and a half months, after the new year, they would turn two. That would mean those born now would be sixteen during the fifteenth ceremony after the start of the loop. However, since there might have been some children born in the weeks between the new year and my ceremony, it would be best to delay for an extra year.

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That gave me sixteen years to work with. In sixteen years, I would need to be here to recruit Disciples, but until then, I could do anything I wanted. While embedding myself within the clan might simplify things, if I left and used these sixteen years to cultivate to Peak Grandmaster, I could return in force and completely suppress the Su Clan. I would have free rein to recruit their Disciples, and they wouldn’t have any way to stop me.

More importantly, if I wanted to carry a large clan around in my soul space, I first needed to take some time and learn how to make the place more habitable. The Su Clan was not the place I needed to be if I wanted to learn how to do that.

After thinking through a few ideas, a smile crossed my face as I remembered something important, and a plan for how to spend the next few years quickly formed in my mind.

“System, teleport me to a secluded spot in the Twin Mountains Sect’s city of nominal disciples.”

Purchase Confirmed. Cost 762 credits. 754,956,557,838 credits remaining.

I appeared in a dense forest with trees that twisted at the edge of my vision.

My first instinct was to step forward and find out what went wrong with the teleportation, but I quickly controlled that impulse and sat down to clear my mind.

Then, I engaged energy vision.

The forest around me was an illusion created by the sect’s defensive formation. As I had not yet cultivated, breaking the hold the illusion had on my mind was impossible. However, the quality of the sect’s formation was suboptimal, and by using energy vision, I was able to pierce through the veil of the illusion. This didn’t let me negate it entirely, but it did let me see both the illusory and real worlds in a kind of double vision.

Maintaining this state indefinitely would be incredibly difficult, and it might have been better to give up for the time being and just enter the sect normally, but I was already here. I might push forward.

Peeking out of the alleyway I had arrived in, I saw several of the sect’s disciples going about their normal business. This sight reminded me of yet another problem I had to deal with.

“System, I want a set of robes that match those of a nominal disciple from the Twin Mountains Sect.” After a brief hesitation, I added another request. “Also, give me a jade token that will allow me to ignore the illusory effects of the Twin Mountains Sect’s defensive formation.”

Cost 2,000,000 credits.

The sect’s robes were just normal cloth, so I had to assume that this price came from the jade token. Likely, it was so high because it would negate all

illusory effects of the formation, not just those that a nominal or outer sect disciple’s token would negate. Such a high-level token might not be entirely necessary, but I had more than enough credits, so I might as well spend them.

“Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 754,954,557,838 credits remaining.

After donning my new robes and attaching the token to my waist, I strode out of the alleyway.

Finding my target was harder than I had expected, but my journal had a few notes on the best places to look for him.

I wandered the sect for several hours but didn’t have any luck. Finally, late in the day, I entered a dining hall he frequented and saw him sitting alone eating dinner. It had been a long time, a very long time, but I could still recognize the first friend I had made in this world.

Grinning, I walked up to his table and took a seat.

“Brother Bao, it’s so good to see you again.”

The young man looked at me in confusion, but his cultivation technique’s enforced joviality took over and helped him respond smoothly.

“Ah, Brother… nice to see you again. Sorry, I seem to have forgotten your name.”

“No worries, Brother Bao, I’m Su Fang. Just call me Fang. I’m not surprised you don’t remember me. It’s been several years since I last saw you, but I was hoping we could reconnect.”

He smiled at me pleasantly with an honest desire to become friends. This desire might be the result of cultivation madness, but it was still heartwarming after my short stint in the Su Clan.

“Of course, Brother Su, of course. Please join me for a meal.”

“I…”

It was only then that I realized yet another mistake. My jade allowed me to see past the sect’s illusions, but that didn’t mean I would be able to make purchases with it. Even if I could, it likely didn’t have access to any contribution points. And even if it did have points, using a sketchy identity token was probably not a very good idea.

Bao noticed my hesitation and placed a hand on my shoulder to console me.

“Don’t worry. I understand. I had a hard time paying for food and rent when I was new here too. I earned a bit extra this week, so consider this my treat.”

Before I could respond, Bao stood and went to get another meal tray. When he returned and placed it before me, a tear welled up in my eye from this simple act of kindness.

“Thank you.”

As we ate, I steered the conversation to Bao’s hometown. He was from one of the many small farming communities in the area and had come to the Twin Mountains Sect because he had been blessed with the ability to gain a deep understanding of herbs simply by looking at them. He wanted to use that blessing to earn a living here and send money back home to his family.

“Brother Bao, can we talk somewhere more private? There’s something important I want to discuss with you.”

“Of course, come with me. I’m living alone right now, so we can talk in my apartment.”

As we walked through the sect, I felt a bit of pity for Bao. The naïveté from his cultivation technique made him far too trusting of a complete stranger.

Upon arriving at his apartment, we sat down across from each other at his dining table.

“Brother Bao, I have to ask. Why did you join the Twin Mountains Sect?”

“As I told you, to use my blessing to help provide for my family.”

“Yes, but why this sect? Why didn’t you join the Verdant Fields Sect?”

He tilted his head in confusion. “The what? This is the only sect I’ve ever heard of. If someone wants to join the sect, this is where they come. Why go anywhere else?”

I nodded in confirmation. As expected, being from a small farming village, Bao barely had any understanding of the Wastes, let alone the world outside of it.

“Brother Bao, your blessing… it might help you with alchemy, but that isn’t your calling. You were meant to be an herbalist. I can’t say how powerful your blessing is or how far it will be able to take you, but I can tell you that you will find it far more useful if you walk that path instead.”

He sat silently as he contemplated my words, his cultivation technique not allowing him to question the truth of my statements.

“Brother Bao, I am leaving the Twin Mountains Sect to join the Verdant Fields Sect. I want to learn herbalism. I remembered your blessing and wanted to take you with me. I can help you become a powerful herbalist, and this would put you in a far better position to help your family. What do you say? Do you want to join me?”

Bao sat in silence for several long moments before looking at me.

“You’re sure this will let me help them?”

I nodded.

“Alright… I’ll go with you.”

I place a hand on his shoulder. I knew I was taking advantage of his condition, but there was no good way around that. And anyway, I knew this was what was best for him. After he came to his senses, he could make his own choices without being influenced by his technique, but until then, I would do my best to help him as much as I could.

Closing my eyes, I thought through everyone else I could remember in the Twin Mountains Sect. There were several others who I needed to visit, and I needed to repay the entire sect for the benefits I’d gained from stealing their fire seed so long ago, but now wasn’t the time for that.

After considering all the people I could remember, I didn’t think there was anyone else in the sect who would be a good fit in the Verdant Fields Sect. However, there was one other person who I felt I needed to bring with us.

“System, teleport me and Bao to a secluded spot in Dragon Gate City.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 1,460 credits. 754,954,556,378 credits remaining.