Zhang Dong was looking at someone that he knew, someone that he had been intimate with. She was only a one night stand but it was an experience that he remembered all to this day. The woman’s name was Lan Fei and she was a merchant that he saved the first time he arrived at Moonlight City.
She was apparently a candidate for an elder. This role became available after you reached the late stage of foundation establishment. In the lesser clans, this was already enough to be its leader. Here at most you would be allowed to be the lowest ranking senior. In the future core formation practitioners and up would only be allowed as elders. They still didn’t have enough people for that jump.
He could see that Lan Fei took his advice to heart and was now using a whip weapon. She did have talent in that as well as high potential. This wasn’t that important though, there were other thoughts going through his head.
‘Uh… will Liena be angry if she meets a girl that I’ve been with before?’
He was a married man and already had kids. Normally having an ex-girlfriend wasn’t a big deal but he wasn’t sure how his lovely wife would react to this news. He didn’t want to lie to her but he also didn’t want to bring this information out into the open either.
“Oh interested in that one, Dong’er?”
Zhang Jin called out while glancing at the monitor that had the elder candidates in it. He had a somewhat similar face to Zhang Dong in his younger form but was slightly shorter.
“Gramps… keep it in the pants… you can’t be doing this with our sect members. Think about your position…”
Zhang Dong wanted to give his grandfather a smack to the face. Ever since he got his hands on this transformation technique rumors started spreading. Some people even confused the old fart with him which got him in hot water with his wife. Luckily he only had to pull the old pervert over for an explanation and it ended at that. His wife trusted him enough and didn’t make a fuss.
‘Think I’m worrying too much…’
He thought to his child and to his wife. They had grown more fond of each other through the years and even started calling each other cute names. He was the hubby and she was the wifey.
“What, want her all for yourself?”
Zhang Dong narrowed his eyes and moved his fist up into the air. Zhang Jin just started laughing as he ran away acting as if he was a teenager.
“Anyway… Is everything proceeding as planned? Were there any issues with the artifacts?”
He asked while turning to the other sect members in the room. Everyone here was already used to how the sect leader and his grandfather interacted and were relaxed around the two. One of the people moved forward with some papers and started giving a report.
“Everything is proceeding as we prepared Patriarch, we will be concluding the trials with your speech as we agreed upon. The inauguration ceremony and the pledge is going to be held a day after we are finished with the trials.”
Zhang Dong nodded at the report, the sect member even mentioned a couple of people by name that were quite promising. He was only interested in the ceremony that was going to be held after they gathered the disciples as he had to make a speech. He had kind of grown accustomed to things like this by now but that didn’t mean that he liked to do it.
The way this sect was handled was a bit unconventional. First, every disciple was required to take classes on things like reading and ethics. They had created large buildings that were similar to how schools back in his old world looked. The schools were separated and named differently to somehow produce an atmosphere of competition. There would also be regular competitions hosted between the schools, the ones that came out on top would be rewarded accordingly to their achievements.
He was slightly worried that some of the created schools would fall back behind the others. This was something unfortunate but it had to happen to give others motivation not to fail and to work harder.
There would be a four-year curriculum and then they would graduate becoming true disciples. The recruitment drive would then resume to get new students while the old ones started their work at the sect facilities. He deliberated on having a yearly infusion of new students to produce some upper and lower classmates. This would strain their budget too much as handling so many people each year was too much on this growing sect.
He remained in the command center and looked through the monitors some more. He could see people failing and succeeding. It was hard to watch the ones that didn’t make it, the expressions of disappointment and sadness were plastered on their faces. Some were even breaking down into tears after getting removed from the trials.
He didn’t like this part of his work. If he could he would accept everyone into his sect and form one big happy family. This wasn’t feasible, his sect might have been a large faction but they still had limited resources. If they started sharing it with just anyone then they would just spread themselves too thin. He still needed to contend with the other powerful sects but he was slowly building up to a point where they wouldn’t need to.
After going through the screens he decided to go check how things were going in the ‘true’ sect. Zhang Dong needed to perform a small task there. He was going find this task in his ‘Dimensional Regalia’ immortal treasure that had gone through a slight change.
He was the item’s master so as long as he was within a ten-kilometer radius of it he could just teleport in. He didn’t use that feature though as he wasn’t in a rush, he just used what the other sect members did, a teleportation gate. These handy artifacts were now widely spread throughout the sect.
They had connected all the cities that were owned by them. Moonlight City, Red Lotus City, Qingliang City, and others. In reality, all of those large megalopolises that were situated in their land belonged to them. The sect didn’t invest in all of them though and only set up smaller outer sect bases in the ones at strategic locations.
The original Dark Palm sect area shrunk down and they only needed to contend with two other parties at the borders and not with three. This was not due to one of them having perished, no the Dragon gate sect just took more of the treasures instead of the land while the other two split it between them. The United Element sect also didn’t have anyone bordering them from behind as that was where the forest area where spiritual energy was low.
He used one of the teleportation gates that were available to the elders. They all could be accessed and operated thanks to the shield like emblem that he had designed. It was similar to the ones that the new disciples would receive, each one acted as sort of a smart key. The higher your rank the more access to the sect’s resources you would have. You could also spend merit points to gain temporary access for a limited time to some of the facilities. This was made so that the new disciples actually worked for their progress and not have everything handed to them on a silver platter.
The gate churned with spiritual energy and he disappeared into it. On the inside, there were already people there to greet him.
“Junior greets the Patriarch!”
There were guards placed on each teleportation station and just as any other job in the sect you would get merit points for performing this task. Zhang Dong went a bit capitalistic with his sect but it was working as the sect members were happy to work in exchange for resources. These being cultivation techniques as well as pills and combat weapons.
“At ease.”
He nodded while going in. The gate that he walked through was located at a steep hill that overlooked the pocket dimension in the dimensional regalia. He was looking at the spot where the old dorm building stood before. The old building was renovated into a huge pagoda that was several stories high.
The air around here felt different, it was due to the siphoning formation that was absorbing most of the spiritual energy from the spirit vein. The Qi here was more comparable to what the largest sects at the very top were used to. The Dark Palm sect and the three other factions in the area could only dream of something like this.
The small floating island that was only a couple kilometers in diameter when he first found it had changed into a giant landmass. It was similar to the size of a continent from his old world and it was still growing. By his calculations, the treasure would become complete when this landmass fully formed and it would probably be the size of a regular planet. This was the true power of an immortal treasure, something on the scale of a small world!
There were no enemies here so the sect didn’t need to build any defensive structures. Most of them were built to help the core disciples to train. They also kept most of their spirit herbs in here as the high concentration of Qi let them have bountiful harvests. The more energy the treasure absorbed the more lively it got.
Even without their help, trees, grass and all sorts of plants were beginning to grow. It was as if this small world was healing itself, gently regrowing what it had once lost. There were even some spirit beasts appearing here and there that could be used as food and wielded quite potent meat. They were friendly as well, they reacted to the orders of the one that was the master of this treasure, Zhang Dong’s thoughts. He could even order them to attack the people here as if he was the master of this whole small world.
He wasn’t here to watch the spirit herbs growing though, no he was here to spend some spirit points. The time had come to help one of his more trusted sect members to make the jump. He moved towards one of the larger hills in the distance, there he spotted four people waiting for him.
“Hey Senior Brother, you’re finally here!”
Huo Qiang called out while waving at Zhang Dong. Next to him was another muscular man, his father Huo Gang. The man that butted heads with Zhang Dong looked a lot stronger than before and he was also radiating the aura of a nascent soul master. The two had long buried the hatchet.
The third person was a woman that looked to be about forty but her true age was a lot higher. Her name was Feng Suyin, she was the strongest senior beside his wife from the Feng Clan side and she was also at the nascent soul level. Her skin was light brown and she had the usual gyaru features along with the curves that they all had. Her hair was platinum-blond and the makeup was strange to look at.
He wasn’t here for those three though, no he was here for the third person. A man that had stayed loyal to the Zhang Clan for quite some time, his name was Zhang Zhi. He had finally reached the pinnacle of core formation and was ready to take the next step towards the nascent soul level. He would be the first one besides him that had reached that level from the Zhang Clan, which for him was quite the honor.
“Greetings Patriarch!”
Zhang Zhi cupped his fists with vigor. He was sitting down in a lotus position with his chest bare. Before he would be allowed the step into the nascent soul he needed to get cleansed. Yes, Matt still used his system points to clear the impurities of the people that were close to going past the core formation level. This was one of the better uses he could spend all those passive points he was getting from his large territory.
“Well then, are you ready? This might feel a bit funny…”
The other three nascent soul elders chuckled to themselves as they all had gone through this cleansing. It was something that would be hard to forget, Zhang Zhi nodded, and soon Zhang Dong’s hand was placed on the sitting man’s back. Soon the inner core disciples that were training close to this spot could hear a man’s sensual moans…