Chapter 251 – Life 73, Age 47, Martial Grandmaster Peak

The leadership council spent a month talking to their people and working out ways of choosing new elders that were considered broadly acceptable by nearly everyone. Once they were done, they requested my presence at a council session to discuss the matter.

After guiding me to my seat at the head of their horseshoe-like table, ShouLi got down to business.

“Patriarch, certain members of the clan have recently been agitating for changes to our leadership structure. After a series of lengthy discussions, we have agreed to implement a new system to address their concerns. We would like your blessing to move forward with these changes, and we would like your assistance in implementing them.”

As I had been spying on their meetings, I already had a good understanding of what they would ask for, but I refrained from mentioning this. I simply smiled and gestured for ShouLi to continue.

“What do you have in mind?”

“First, we feel that a new rank needs to be created for certain members of the clan. We would like your consent and support in raising a few people to be deacons. Where the clan’s disciples would be focused only on their personal cultivation, and where the elders would mainly be concerned with the clan’s management, the deacons would be a transitional step. This would be for those who are ready to step back from focusing only on their own power and are willing to spend more time helping others.”

I nodded. “That’s simple enough. I will provide you with the necessary jade tokens to make this official.”

ShouLi dipped her head. “Thank you, Patriarch. We have also each developed new methods for choosing elders connected to our respective divisions. Each year, there will be a contest to replace one of the inner elders and all of the outer elders who report to them.”

I furrowed my brow in feigned confusion. “The deacons and elders will fight, and the strongest will become the new inner elder?”

ShouLi shook her head. “No, each of us has developed a method for selecting our replacements which we feel will result in the most qualified person being given the job.”

She gestured to Mo.

“Patriarch, from my experience, the most difficult part of running the workshops is needing to be able to appraise everything that a person might make. So, I figure that’s how we should choose our elders. The outer elders can be specialized in a specific field, such as pills or formations, but the inner elder needs to have a broad base of knowledge that spans all the professions. The deacons and elders who choose not to participate in this competition can select the items to be appraised, and whoever does the best job gets the position.”

I nodded and turned to look at NiangBa.

He just shrugged. “We’ll just fight. Strongest person wins.”

I wanted to snort in amusement, but I held it in and turned to GuiAi.

“Ming and I have both decided to use written tests that will evaluate both a person’s practical skills, such as knowledge of feng shui, as well as their theoretical knowledge, such as why certain buildings need to be designed in certain ways.”

I tapped the table in thought. “Who will write and grade these tests?”

“Former elders. Ming and I have both decided to step back from our leadership roles and will be the ones to administer the first set of tests.”

I bowed my head to them slightly. “Thank you for your sacrifice.”

GuiAi was happy with the praise, but from a twitch in his expression, it looked like GuiMing didn’t think that he had sacrificed anything at all.

I turned to Liang who gave me a slight bow of his head.

“Positions within the enforcers should be earned by merit. Each deacon will be graded by their elders. The outer elders will be graded by the inner elder. The inner elder will be graded by the head of the council. If anyone is unhappy with their grade, they can make an appeal to the inner elder, then the head of the council, and finally to the Patriarch. Your decision will be final. Those with the highest grades advance. However, one cannot rise or fall more than a single level with each assessment.”

I didn’t like that Liang’s system would place me in the position of ultimate authority, but I doubted it would ever be an issue. One would have to be filled with either righteous conviction or sheer recklessness to try going over the head of the council.

Finally, I turned to ShouLi.

She looked pensive. “Deciding upon a new leader… is difficult. Ultimately, the leadership council is here to support the Patriarch. From everything I had read while studying in the library, the head of the council should be chosen by the Patriarch as it is the Patriarch’s will that they are carrying out.”

I shook my head. “No. My ‘will’ is for the clan to govern itself. I will assist when necessary, but I want you to be able to govern yourselves without my involvement.”

ShouLi bit her bottom lip, closed her eyes, and forced out a reply. “That’s not how a Patriarch is supposed to act. Patriarchs are supposed to actively manage their clans.”

I nodded to her, took the jade token from my waist, and showed her the symbol engraved on it.

“This is my role.”

She sighed and dropped her head. “I understand.”

She withdrew a scroll and placed it on the table. “This is my proposal. As the head of the council exists to serve the Patriarch, then the Patriarch may personally appoint anyone he chooses to this position. If he refrains from exercising this right, then the remaining five members of the leadership council will select someone for this role, but the person they choose must not be one of their direct subordinates.”

ShouLi passed me the scroll, and as I unrolled it, I saw that she had listed a series of contingencies for if this vote ended in a tie, if the head of the council passed away unexpectedly, if they were incapacitated for a prolonged period, and several other eventualities.

I studied it carefully and then looked back at her. “This will work.”

After a brief pause to consider the situation in the clan, a faint smile appeared on my face.

“I will write up everything we discussed today. After you review it, we will publish the news and make sure everyone is aware of these changes.”

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Two days later, I watched as Elder TaiZu approached the foot of the small outcropping on the west side of the plateau where I had constructed my home. A large granite stele had recently been erected at the base of this outcropping, and the elder had felt the need to read its words personally.

————

A clan must be led by those who are most capable.

Anyone who wishes to be a leader must prove themselves worthy of such a position.

This will provide all members of a clan with confidence in the ability of its leaders.

————

The stele went on to lay out the new rules for how elders would be chosen, but TaiZu didn’t pay this any attention. He was solely focused on those first three lines, and as he reread them multiple times, I could almost feel a palpable sense of satisfaction rolling off of him.

To the side of the stele, there was an announcement concerning the first competition to select a new inner elder. One month before the start of the new year, the clan would hold a martial arts tournament, and the winner would replace NiangBa as the Arena Master.

TaiZu glanced at this notice and could only scoff. The highest cultivation base allowed in this first competition was Peak Master, so his subordinates wouldn’t be able to participate. He might try to drum up unrest over this point, but I doubted anyone in the clan would take the bait. After all, his Grandmasters could simply disperse their cultivation base if they really wanted to compete.

In any case, I had already given TaiZu more than he could have hoped for. He wasn’t greedy enough to keep pushing after he had already won.

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Once the tournament to decide the new Arena Master was announced, a sense of celebration overtook the clan. The possibility of jumping over the Dragon Gate and suddenly becoming one of the clan’s inner elders was too tempting of a proposition to pass up, and dozens of young warriors quickly applied to enter.

Seeing this, the leadership council contacted me, and we expanded both the scope of the tournament and the prizes on offer. While the champion would become the new Arena Master, those who did well in the competition would receive rewards worthy of starting a small war over.

For the ‘Disciple Division,’ the top ten finishers would each receive five common Perfect Rank 1 pills of their choice, and the top five would each receive a piece of high-quality refined Rank 1 equipment. The champion would receive a pill that I had personally concocted using Bao’s best ingredients. It was an enhanced Rank 1 version of a Meridian Builder Pill that could greatly simplify a person’s advancement to Martial Master.

For the ‘Master Division,’ the top ten got Rank 2 pills and the top five got Rank 2 equipment, mirroring the rewards given out to the lower division. Additionally, the top five would be awarded their choice of spirit fire from among a variety of Yellow-Rank flames that I had purchased when working on the herbalism formation. The champion would be allowed to select any of the Profound-Rank spirit fires produced by my various seeds, excluding the space seed.

I had previously made flames of the Cold Mountain Fire available for purchase, but its power and utility were somewhat limited. This competition would be the first time anyone in the clan would have access to potent spirit fires like the Profound-Rank Dual Phoenix Fire, which excelled at cutting through physical defenses and could instantly vaporize any Rank 3 materials that hadn’t been enhanced by a refiner.

Of course, the winner also had the option of selling these fires to crafters who might see more benefit in them. In the heat of battle, it was all too easy for a warrior to lose control of a spirit fire and allow it to dissipate, so trading it for a more tangible boost to one’s personal strength could be seen as a wise move. For a pure fighter, the boost to one’s affinities that a million contribution points could provide might outweigh the value of a Profound-Rank spirit fire.

As the tournament approached, the only person in the clan who appeared entirely unhappy with the situation was NiangBa. As the current Arena Master, he was in charge of organizing the entire event, and even with ShouLi’s assistance, this was a task beyond his capabilities.

Still, working together, they managed to pull everything together in time.

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The inaugural tournament to select the clan’s Arena Master arrived with much fanfare, but its results had been obvious before the fighting even started.

NiangBa, who had spent over a decade focused on nothing but honing his combat abilities and who had personally fought against multiple Rank 3 demon beasts, easily defeated anyone who challenged him. The ones who placed second to fifth and became outer elders were those who had accompanied him on his hunting trips.

Of more interest to me was the young woman who won the competition between the Martial Disciples. She had only been in the clan for a single year, but by exploiting a blessing that allowed her to control her hair as easily as she could control her arms, she presented a challenge that even the veteran Disciples hadn’t been prepared to deal with.

From what I could see, if she could continue training with the same intensity she had shown thus far, she would have the potential to unseat NiangBa as the clan’s most fearsome warrior in only a decade or two.

On a more important note, during the tournament, Elder TaiZu sat next to Heng and calmly watched from the sidelines as everything unfolded in front of him. He had been lying low in recent months, but from what I saw of his reactions while watching the fighting, that wouldn’t be the case for much longer.

Not everyone took losing well, and the elder’s gaze always lingered on anyone who appeared bitter after being defeated. I was interested to see if the elder would be able to use this anger as a lever to recruit them into his faction.