Book 3: Chapter 22: Floors and Levels |
Yin Hu and crew had left the slums of YellowHearth City once the sun had started to threaten its downward assent.
Said sun had abandoned them two hours ago.
Yin Hu sat in his lounging chair within the courtyard, legs crossed, tea steaming at his elbow, and the Compendium closed on his lap. The recruitment ledgers Da Ruis had compiled sat in a neat stack on the table between them. Three hundred and forty-seven names. Ages six through fifty. Elements ranging from faint wisps of wood and water to a single boy of twelve who had produced a respectable fire pulse that made Da Ruis's quill pause for half a heartbeat before continuing.
Not a single bloodline among them.
Not one.
Three hundred and forty-seven souls tested through Da Ruis's older methods, his shimmering hand techniques and whispered invocations that pulled at threads Yin Hu couldn't see. Except every last one of them came back clean in the worst possible way.
The kind of clean that meant empty.
Barren fields where ancient seeds should have been buried generations deep.
Ta Rae trembled beside him with enough force to shed a couple leaves onto his shoulder. The Demonic Spirit Tree had been vibrating since the moment he and the crew had finally returned home. Missing the morning tea session had been an insult. Missing the afternoon session had been a declaration of war. The tree's branches curled toward the steaming pot with the restraint of a starving man watching someone else eat a feast through a window.
One branch crept a quarter inch closer to the pot every few seconds.
Yin Hu poured himself a cup first, then poured Ta Rae's cup and set it down. The tree's branches rocketed toward it, wrapped around the ceramic with four separate limbs, and drained the entire thing in a single pull that made a slurping sound no tree should have been capable of producing. Acting as parched as a person in a desert who hadn’t had a sip of water in days of grueling travel and beaming sunlight.
It poured itself a second cup before Yin Hu finished his first sip and waited for him to finish. Positively brimming with energy.
Greedy tree. Every single time.
"Patriarch." Da Ruis sat across from him, mask removed now that they were within the privacy of the courtyard walls. His translucent features caught the lantern light and scattered it in ways that made him look like a painting someone had spilled water on. The ghost's hands were folded over the closed ledger, thumbs pressing against each other in a slow, rhythmic pattern. "W-We need to discuss the results."
Yin Hu sighed. "There are no results. That's the problem."
"There are three hundred and forty-seven results. Each one documented, categorized, written in detail, and ranked according to elemental affinity, purity, cultivation ceiling, and body cultivation potential." Da Ruis tapped the ledger. "The data is comprehensive."
"And none of them have bloodlines."
Da Ruis hesitated for a moment. "C-Correct."
Yin Hu took another sip and stared at the courtyard wall. Lantern light painted the stone in warm amber that made the place look peaceful and comfortable. The kind of scene that belonged on a painting some artist would sell to a merchant's wife for her sitting room. He could hear the distant sounds of the city beyond the walls. Muffled voices, a cart wheel grinding against stone somewhere, a couple yelling, a dojo master shouting to finish cleaning the grounds, and the occasional bark of a dog that had opinions about said dojo master messing with its sleep schedule.
He set the cup down.
"Numbers…"
Da Ruis's thumbs stopped their rhythm. "Pardon?"
"I want numbers. Bodies. People willing to work, train, fight, farm, mine, clean, guard, and do the thousand other things a clan needs done to function. The bloodlines would have been ideal, but we don't have that luxury right now. What we have is three hundred and forty-seven candidates with varying degrees of potential and I'm willing to accept the lower end of that spectrum if it means filling the ranks."
Zhong Da shifted from his position near the courtyard gate. He'd been standing there since they returned, back against the frame, his single hand resting on the pommel of his borrowed blade. His jaw worked side to side twice before he pushed off the wall and walked toward the table. He hadn’t taken a seat ever since he had that strange out of body moment and refused to drink the tea Yin Hu had offered him.
The man shook his head. “We can’t do that, Patriarch.”
Yin Hu looked at him.
"Patriarch. Respectfully and with every ounce of gratitude I carry for you." Zhong Da stopped at the edge of the table and bowed. "We can’t do that, Patriarch."
Da Ruis's translucent head turned toward Zhong Da and nodded his agreement.
"Explain," Yin Hu said.
Zhong Da pulled out a chair and sat. He took a deep breath and collected his thoughts as he was wont to do. The man took his time to consider every single letter he was about to speak when it came to dealing with Yin Hu. "It's not about potential."
"Then what is it about?"
"We are very much aware of your miraculous nature and all the gifts you've given us all. Most of us would not have been alive today and so powerful without your assistance and magnanimity." Zhong Da paused as his eyes grew faintly reminiscent. "I owe you my life. My wife owes you hers. Jun and Shui owe you everything. Da Ruis owes you his continued existence because any other person would have turned him into dust–”
Da Ruis gulped audibly.
“–Hu Rong owes you his freedom or he would still have been stuck in that meadow you found him in. Every single member of this clan exists because you decided they should. Without exception. You could create an army of impossible to defeat monsters with all the resources you carry within your miraculous rice bag. From the elixirs, weapons, Qi Stones, tools, cultivation manuals, and everything else in there, including that book. The Compendium as you call it."
Yin Hu stayed silent.
Ta Rae's branches froze mid-reach toward the pot. Even the tree could read the room.
"This is about honor and dignity." Zhong Da eyes cleared as he turned to focus back on Yin Hu. "You are the Hu Ancestor and this is the Hu Clan. The greatest clan on this world led by the strongest person on it as well. There has to be a certain barrier of entry just for the weight of the name alone, if not for preventing too many people from flooding in."
Da Ruis nodded in a deliberate motion that made his translucent features ripple. "He's right. I've seen what happens when organizations prioritize quantity. The Hidden Lotus Hall made that mistake in its third century based on the records. We accepted anyone with a pulse and a prayer. Within two decades, the internal politics alone nearly tore us apart before external enemies ever got the chance. And that had been accepting geniuses still but from a larger base of worlds rather than elevating the necessary barrier to what it had been. Simply too many people with too many interests."
"If you could turn a sixty-year-old mortal into a cultivator with the strength of Jun,” Zhong Da laughed lightly, because he knew that was the truth of the monster sitting before him. “then the whole world will flock toward you. Every broken cultivator, refugee, the poor, the wealthy, the weak, the strong, children, the old, every failed disciple, every disgraced elder, all the bandits, brigands, sellswords, every power-hungry opportunist on the continent will come crawling to your gates with their hands out and their loyalty for sale. And then you will not have enough space for the young and truly talented. What is the point of heavenly providence if it means nothing?"
The courtyard went quiet as Yin Hu considered their words.
It all made sense when they put it that way.
A breeze rolled through and rustled Ta Rae's leaves. The tree had resumed its slow creep toward the teapot, one branch extending with glacial patience while the conversation held everyone's attention elsewhere.
Yin Hu picked up his cup and held it between both hands. He could feel the weight of their stares. Da Ruis from across the table, mask off, translucent features arranged into something careful and expectant. Zhong Da beside him, jaw set, fingers still pressed flat, his whole frame leaning forward like a man bracing against a wind that hadn't arrived yet.
He knew that there words held weight. If anything they were right.
He hated that they were right because it meant his instinct to gather as many people as possible and brute force the problem with sheer volume was the wrong approach. It was the lazy approach to reach his final goal of protecting himself and his girls. He wanted to accelerate the timeline so he could finally find him buxom women to dote on and be doted on.
This was the approach of someone who had access to infinite resources and thought that throwing enough of them at any problem would make it go away.
Which it would. Technically. But that's not the point, is it?
The point was that a clan built on handouts would collapse the moment the handouts stopped. Or worse, the moment someone offered better handouts. Loyalty bought with miraculous elixirs lasted exactly as long as the supply chain. He'd seen enough of this world's cultivators to know that greed was the default setting and honor was the exception that proved the rule.
Zhong Da and Wu Xui were exceptions and that had been built upon their march through the Bleak Forests… Which had been far less bleak and scary as he had been told.
Jun and Shui were family.
Da Ruis was coerced, but useful as a Sparring Instance.
Hu Rong was... Hu Rong.
Building an entire clan on the assumption that everyone would be an exception to the greed and loyalty rule was the kind of optimism that would eventually need to be culled from the root. Needing civil wars and death that would feed rivers of blood just to clean house and restart. Or they could do the right thing and start the very base and foundation of it all correctly.
Clans and sects were easy way to make people fanatic about their loyalty if done properly.
And the people who knew what that looked like best from his crew were the two before him at this very moment.
Yin Hu set the cup down. "Okay."
Both men straightened.
"We'll do it your way. Best of the best from the pool we have. Set the threshold wherever you two agree it should be and present me with the final list." He paused and let the words settle before adding the rest. "But if it isn't working, if the numbers are too thin to protect what we're building, then I will do it my way without hesitation. Understood?"
"Yes, Patriarch." Zhong Da bowed his head.
Da Ruis bowed from his seat. Deeper than Zhong Da's, his translucent form flickering at the edges. "We won't disappoint you."
"You haven't yet." Yin Hu picked up his tea again. "Don't start now."
The ghost and the one-armed man exchanged a look that lasted half a second. Something passed between them that Yin Hu chose not to examine too closely. An alliance of purpose, maybe. Two men from opposite ends of existence finding common ground in the simple act of telling their patriarch that there was a better way of doing something and surviving the experience.
Yin Hu let the silence stretch as he drank.