An Elder's Revolution - The Art of Sect Politics

“In other words, a fight between two cultivators in the Dao Attunement Realm is usually not a fight of attrition. Conserving qi isn’t wrong per say, but you need to avoid taking risks for that. Because of how much the realm improves your offensive capabilities over your defensive ones, a single well connecting hit can be enough to decide the battle.

This stands in stark contrast to fighting those in a lower realm than your own. Here, qi management becomes the key to victory, because the best bet that a group of weaker enemies have to defeat you is waiting for you to use up your elemental qi.”

“What about a group battle between Attunement Realm fighters?”

“Same as the one-on-one. While having more qi to fight the remaining enemies might seem useful at first, consider it from this perspective: The sooner you are free of your own opponent, the sooner you can help the others on your side defeat theirs.

Remember though, all of this is just theory in the end. The actual strategy most likely to achieve victory can and will change drastically depending on a myriad of situational factors. Throughout the next sessions, we will identify some of them and hopefully help you to develop an instinct for these things.

For now, before we end for today, I want to give you something to think on: Your first thought when facing any opponent should not be how to fight them, but whether to fight them at all. A retreat doesn’t have to be a defeat, depending on what you are giving up on.

Next time, we will be talking about environmental advantages: how to gain them, how to use them and how to deal with your opponent using them.”

With that, Liu Wei dismissed the group and left the room, heading for his private chambers. The second session he had held for the Dao Attunement Realm members had gone about as well as he had hoped, though he was honestly still a little shocked about the lack of knowledge many of those people possessed.

If it was about some philosophical or theoretical things, he would have expected that from the start, but this was about combat. It was the one thing that cultivators were supposed to be good at and these weren’t some disciples, they were senior members, most of them over two-hundred years old.

He supposed it only made sense though. The last time these people had been properly taught was back when they were disciples, ever since then the only time they would have refreshed that knowledge were the few times the sect went to war. Between spending time revising their strategical knowledge and cultivating, they had probably always chosen the latter, a fact that might have been instrumental to them being able to reach the Dao Attunement Realm in the first place.

It was a troubling picture, but that was how it was. At least Liu Wei could hope that with him lecturing them, this knowledge would start to spread amongst them and their peers again.

Other than that, things had been going great over the last weeks. With how good his training program had been received, it was safe to say that it would remain a permanent service of the Training Hall, even after the initial rush had died down.

In fact, the expected profits were so good, Liu Wei could afford to start utilizing the resources carried over from the Enforcement Hall much more freely. The instructors pay and the disciple’s allocated resources had both been increased already and the process of hiring additional personal had long begun.

Besides that, there was another project that had been at the back of Liu Wei’s mind for quite some time now but that he hadn’t hoped to be able to start so soon: He wanted his disciples to receive a broader education.

Not being indoctrinated by the pillar families was a good start, but if the future sect members were supposed to seriously want a more moral city, widening their horizons a little was probably a good idea. To achieve that without taking away from their cultivation so much that it would sabotage his previous efforts, Liu Wei was planning to replicate the success of his first speech to the disciples.

Speeches were a great medium for delivering broader information within a reasonable time, especially on topics like morale, philosophy, history and similar things. They could also be conceived as a kind of free-time activity, perfect for bringing a little education to the disciples without forcing anything on them. Nobody would become an expert just from that, but that was fine since Liu Wei wasn’t looking to create scholars.

There was only one problem that remained: who would hold those speeches? Obviously, Liu Wei lacked the time to write or perform them, especially since he himself was not knowledgeable on many of the topics. For all his age, he was still a cultivator, specialized on battles and warfare at that. While his advanced cultivation compared to his age had afforded him some free-time, especially in his younger years, that he had partly spent on educating himself, he was still mostly ignorant on matters not concerning cultivation. Even his recent interest in morals and philosophy had only amounted in a few weeks of actually dealing with it.

Most cultivators were the same as him or even worse off, as his sessions with the Dao Attunement cultivators had showed him. The image of cultivators as wise, all-knowing hermits that mortals had was entirely a fabrication of their own mind and the cultivators’ self-portrayal.

Almost entirely at least, because there was one notable exception within the sect: the Bai family. Their scholarship was legendary in the entirety of the northern alliance and they possessed a genuinely broad and deep understanding of this world. Trouble was: Liu Wei could hardly ask them to hold the speeches he was planning. Not only would they probably straight up refuse him, even if they accepted, they would naturally propagate exactly the world-view that Liu Wei was trying to keep the pillar families from planting into everyone’s mind.

Liu Wei also doubted he would find any sect members willing to give up their time for cultivation to start painstakingly teaching themselves general knowledge. And again, even if he did, it would take them years to educate themselves to a point where they could start properly teaching his disciples.

Liu Wei hadn’t yet been able to think of any appropriate solution, but he was sure there was one. Compared to the other things he had accomplished, just how hard could it be?

“Elder Wei!”

“Yes, Chao?”

“A messenger from Elder Ma Rong has arrived. He wants to talk to you regarding the Alchemy Hall’s supply of cultivation resources to the Training Hall.”

And there goes my evening of relaxing cultivation…

“Tell the messenger there is no need to report back. I’ll go meet Elder Rong right now and will arrive there long before him.”

“I’ll relay that, Elder!”

Seeing no reason to stall, Liu Wei stepped out onto the balcony as soon as his assistant had left the room and took off towards the Alchemy Hall.

…

“Thank you for your consideration, Elder Rong.”

“It is nothing. In the end, it is not you or I who will profit from this, but the sect and its members. It has been most pleasant meeting you, as always, Elder Wei.”

“The pleasure was mine. If you don’t mind, I’ll return to my hall now to inform them of our new arrangement.”

“Of course, of course. I can’t help but admire your diligence.”

Ma Rong let out a friendly chuckle.

“The world won’t move itself.”

Liu Wei took his leave after a polite bow towards the older cultivator.

The arrangement the two had just talked about concerned the recent changes within the Training Hall. With his training project turning out such a success, Liu Wei had been increasing the allowance of each disciple quite a lot and as a result, orders to the Alchemy Hall had exploded. To keep the administrative effort down, they had just decided to handle the basic training resources via monthly bulk orders, depending on how much it was estimated the Training Hall would need in any particular month. It was a very basic arrangement that was utilized for basically all trade between halls, but the Training Hall had so far never ordered enough to make such a deal necessary. Another sign of things changing, or perhaps rather a result of it.

Outside the Alchemy Hall, just as Liu Wei wanted to take off into the air, he happened to run into Lan Shi who was just leaving an adjacent building. Upon noticing him, the elder strolled over and greeted him.

“Elder Wei. Good to see you.”

The woman had become noticeably more casual and friendly towards him compared to their original relationship. It had been like this for a while but only now did Liu Wei notice how different this was compared to the times when he had still worked with the pillar families. Sure, they had treated him with courtesy, but none of that had ever been real, nor had he ever deluded himself into believing it to be real. It had been a show, a mere play in which all participants were informed of these interaction’s dishonest nature but continued acting nonetheless. He hadn’t thought about it before, but being greeted by someone who was genuinely happy to see him rather than just superficially pretending to was… nice.

“Good to see you as well. How are things going over at the Enforcement Hall?”

A grim smile crossed her lips.

“I told you about the increase in smuggling activities, didn’t I? Well, I believe we have found a lead on the orchestraters. They seem to be hiding in Moonlake City and we even found out about the location of a planned handover.”

“That’s what I call good news. How did you find out?”

“Remember that head instructor you kicked for corruption, Mei Feng? That rat of a cultivator was caught smuggling goods. Your former assistant Qingge was the one to arrest him.”

“Can’t say I’m particularly surprised he would be involved in something like this. Couldn’t have said it in advance but it fits in well with my impression. Oh, and I told you Qingge was competent, didn’t I?”

“Competent doesn’t even begin to properly describe it. That girl’s got a brain in her head that could supplant many an elder’s. I would already have considered taking her in as my personal disciple if her personality wasn’t so different from mine. She’ll actually be the one to lead the expedition to Moonlake.”

“You are planning an expedition?”

“We figured if they’re not only brave enough to focus their efforts on our sect but even dare approach members, there has got to be some more to this than a regular old smuggling ring. Better safe than sorry, so we’re sending a proper investigative unit.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

The reason Liu Wei had asked was that a detachment like this was otherwise quite unusual. Normally, the cultivators of a sect didn’t concern themselves much with the mortal cities and would at most send two or three members to deal with problems who would then cooperate with local forces to organize as much manpower as they needed. Liu Wei himself hadn’t been to a mortal city in centuries, despite often passing by them on his many travels.

Cultivators had, after all, not much to gain from mortals. Sure, those beneath the Dao Contemplation Realm needed things like food to sustain themselves but they would just have that shipped to the sect alongside all other necessities. In a similar vein, the martial families and other local powers would visit the sect whenever either party needed something of the other. And other than that, the cities simply didn’t offer anything of value to a cultivator. What needed they care about mortals and their goods and merits?

This time, Liu Wei felt the realization coming long before it hit him. It had, since his breakthrough, become somewhat of a routine but at this point, he was starting to feel embarrassed about how often he seemed to be oblivious to obvious truths and solutions.

“Now that I think about it… Elder Shi, would you mind if I accompanied your expedition to the city? I just had an idea for which I’ll need to head there.”

Mortals had nothing to offer? Really? Well, what about the exact solution to the problem he had spent the last several days pondering? Mortals may have been more limited in their actions but the only fundamental difference to cultivators was that they lacked the talent, resources or even just the motivation to cultivate. That didn’t mean they weren’t capable of any of the other things cultivators did, that didn’t directly require personal strength. Not cultivating even meant that they had much more time to spend on these things than members of the sect could ever dream of. If there was any place one should look if they wanted to find, say, capable scholars or philosophers, it would be a mortal city.

“I mean… sure. Of course, you can join them, who am I to stop you? But if you don’t mind me asking… what exactly are you planning to do there?”

Visibly, it was now Lan Shi’s turn to be confused. She had every right to be as she had no idea what Liu Wei had just realized. Mortal scholars would be the perfect people to teach the disciples some proper morals. Perhaps the reason Liu Wei hadn’t thought of this was that the idea of a mortal teaching a cultivator was something so foreign to him it simply hadn’t seemed like a possibility.

Liu Wei smiled.

“Let’s just say I want to recruit some people for the Training Hall.”