Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

The war was over. Thousands died, a Great Power brought to its knees, and all that was left was to count up the costs and determine what came next.

Rina had always expected the war would be a relatively short one, a measure of the Clan's displeasure for the Jingshen's games be made, and then peace bought with enough guarantees that there would be no real fear of the Underworld Palace Lords driving a dagger into the Clan's back.

What she hadn't anticipated was how incredibly weak the Jingshen turned out to be, for all of their bluster. Within one hundred days, their second line of defense was under threat, leading to Lady Jiao taking the field.

Admittedly, Rina did volunteer to serve as bait to draw out the response of an enemy expert. She had been feeling the potential of her Pillar expanding in recent years, and with the advance on her Points given, she acquired the materials needed to evolve her Pillar to the next level.

She had concealed her potential in the battles leading up to that point, relying on her already well documented Dao Magic and the aid of her comrades to compete with Jingshen Elders on the front lines of the advance. Because bait that you can't catch is bad bait. Even with the power of flight granted by her Pillar's evolution, and even with her experience in combating Nascent Power from Kinslaughterer's assassination attempt and Old Gold's lectures…

Rina shook her head--she's not being fair to herself. Even taking the range into account, most Core Formations who were locked onto by a Nascent Soul were dead in a single blow, to evade five--forcing a direct commitment of Nascent Power and a direct contest of strength--was already amazing.

Even with the sustained pressure in Jiao's sixth blow, her [Astral Voidguard] was successfully ablating most of her power. She could have endured another three seconds for sure!

Then… Someone died, calling down a Tribulation in Jiao's presence to distract her.

It was one thing to grit her teeth and endure it to see her elders sacrifice themselves for the next generation. To see your followers be wounded and killed on your orders. It was another thing entirely to see a talented up-and-comer throwing their life away just on the chance that it saved a superior.

Of course, you wouldn't know that by just looking. Shuffled off of front line duties after her role was done, Rina spent much of the remainder of the Ten Year War back in logistics as her meridian strain healed, the Blood of Gold's regenerative prowess mending what would be a career ending injury for another Cultivator.

From her place in the logistics corps, the reports kept coming in. The horror of the All-Blinding Array, the Nightmare of Jingshen Bei. Madness upon madness as the Jingshen withdrew reserve power after reserve power to halt the Golden Devils advance--not even a single offer for peace made even as their defenses continued to crumble.

Was this the arrogance of the Righteous? Content that the Heavens would rain salvation down on any who defied them? That there was no need to cut one's losses and swallow one's pride, because they'll eventually win as long as they cause as much trouble as possible? That even with their great trump card expended in a lingering atrocity Rina rarely witnessed even in her tour of duty at the Song Empire, they could still win by digging their heels in and diving their head in the sand? Further infuriating those they fought against?

In the end, they were pushed back to the Underworld Spirit Palace--and still insisted on standing against the full muster of the Imperial Optimatoi! Not a single offer of surrender, tribute, or otherwise!

Maybe they still would have had enough after that, when the All-Blinding Array was turned on the Underworld Palace--its defenses corroded by the incursion of the Clan's best elites. Perhaps with Old Gold's foot on their necks, that would be enough.

But then--disaster.

A great Tribulation from the Desert's heart--an aura of malice and wrath Rina had only experienced once before, in the Five-Element Tribulation. She hadn't kept that close an eye on the affairs of her juniors. This though? This was different.

She had heard tales of the Cloud Demon Caves before--a Secret Realm among secret realms, a seemingly bottomless labyrinth containing perils and treasures for any Cultivator courageous enough to brave it and endure the temptations of the Blood Path. She had considered trying her luck in the past, but convinced herself that it would be better to stay with the more orthodox Secret Realms when her schedule and resources permitted such an adventure.

Evidently, she was wise to do so--if that was an example of a Single Pillar Cultivator entering it!

That wasn't enough though, apparently something had been dying for the opportunity. For soon a Mist of deepest scarlet covered the skies, drowning the sun and stars under a cloud of malice, of hunger unchecked. To eat the world or be eaten in turn.

Her [Astral Voidguard] apparently managed to repulse the worst of the field's effects--and her subsequent Emanation was enough to restrain her kinsfolk in the logistics camp from succumbing, but the reports that later trickled in as she returned to active duty were… Daunting.

Blood path resurgence in the former Cannibal territory, corruption abounding in the Clan's vassal houses. Only the Blood of Bronze appeared to provide some resistance to the corruption beyond that of a firm will and the determination to maintain discipline in all cases.

Even with that, by all indications, 2% of the Clan had died over the course of the Blood Mist. Casualties nearly as great as those suffered in what was a historically rapid and successful campaign against a weak foe!

How bad was it on the opposite side of the Mountains?

She didn't know, she hadn't heard from her friends since the Blood Mist began--and with reports of the Sorrowful Blacksmith Sect having suffered serious losses, with their former Early Nascent corrupted to the Blood Path and raised to the next stage…

Bright Iron was still there when the Mists happened, still studying the puppet she had offered him.

She hoped the Clan would return its gaze westward in the days ahead. That she wasn't too late to intervene with the events currently unfolding.

And that this wasn't just the start of an even greater disaster, yet to reveal itself.

"Do you think we'll have to kill him?"

Manuel grunted noncommittally.

She knew he hated killing his own people. Xinya, on the other hand, found it much easier. If they were her family it was different, but the Clan was the Clan. Family was family.

She looked down at the report on the deaths.

"If he was responsible, he's one of the worst criminals to plague the Clan since the patriarch of the Angelos family fell to Blood Path corruption three thousand years ago. Leaving him alive is a risk, Archegetes. Even if it was an accident. Millions on millions dead - this is the kind of slaughter you expect to see from an unrestrained Nascent, not some Qi Condensation boy!"

Manuel scratched at his brow.

"I know. Jin Muyi was a risk, and yet by leaving him to his own affairs we avoided annihilation and became much more than we were. The Single Pillar Path is not made for we adherents of the Blood of Bronze, and in truth every single one of these Single Pillar Kings is a risk I would prefer to avoid if I had the power."

He sighed.

"We do not have the power to not gamble, Xinya. If he's untainted, we'll treat him like the rest."

Her voice rose in shock.

"You plan to give him a Legion?!"

Manuel nodded.

"Where better? Just like the others. A Legion is too large and capable to avoid being infiltrated, and indeed, a good Legionnaire expects to be watched and reported on. Send your agents to me - I've gotten better at cloaking them. A variation on an old trick. I don't believe the Callista girl detected either of our less obvious watchers, though she's obviously noted the official ones, and the two layers of those we prepared to be discovered eventually."

Xinya ran her hands through her hair, and smiled winsomely.

"So, now I need to go to Casia and ask her to arrange them to fortuitously become available for him at a decent price. Ugh. She always complains, says it 'goes against the spirit of fairly organising Legions'."

Manuel's face remained impassive, except for a slightly wrinkling at his brow.

"Yes, she's right. But it works. Starve them of Contribution Points to make the Legions they truly want, and nudge some superior candidates their ways who happen to have flaws or beliefs that just coincidentally align with their own worldviews. Even if they knew the watchers were there to observe them for the taint, they'd gain nothing from denying them entry into their Legions. They'd just bring suspicion down on themselves."

Xinya fluttered her eyelashes at him repeatedly.

"And then I have to go and build up an entire set of countermeasures for him, countermeasures I didn't get an additional budget for, mind you!"

Manuel made a derisive noise with his throat.

"You embezzle that budget every year. Don't complain you have to spend some of it doing your job."

She clapped her hand over her own mouth and tried to speak.

"Mmm, mmm mmm mmm mm."

He smiled.

"Reduce your funding further? I could see my way to letting you prove your efficiency."

Her hands came off her mouth and her eyes sparkled as she stared up at him in false shock. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes widened, and her lips curved into something halfway between a fake pout and a real smile.

"Manuel Konstantinos! If my son came to me and spoke with me like that, why, I'd put him over my knee! And no, I don't embezzle the budget, I just allocate it to my yearly bonus for a job well done and pay for those operations by telling Casia you keep cutting my budget and getting her to grant me one-off discretionary expenditures from Clan reserves."

He snorted.

"She knows you're lying."

"Yes, but she likes me! So she usually trades me a little money for a few things she needs doing, a few pieces of corruption cleaned out here and there. Besides, it's one of the largest parts of my job. I do it myself. And then every twenty years or so these children throw out new abilities entirely and my plans need redoing. Do you know my plan for the Myia girl is just to borrow your cleaver, cloak myself using that old gauzy thing I looted from your storerooms and cut off her head? Who knows how long that'll last."

She groaned, and stretched her arms above her head, yawning a little as she did so.

"And now I have to go figure out how to kill someone who's tribulation tore the entire region apart. I had to call up a Xin Kingdom wizard for this! Elemental transmutation is difficult enough at the best of times. Figuring out how to quickly transmute the earth into a poisonous metal that our little Mistress of Poisons couldn't tolerate is taking up so much of my time, and Destasia refuses to help. She thinks it's a boring problem."

Manuel yawned companionably.

"You're a smart woman, Xinya. I think Barda might be worth talking to, if you wanted to take her under your wing. As for metals, well, I've seen this problem before. Think less about metal and more about bronze, and it'll come to you."

She sat silently for a few seconds.

"...damn. No wonder your time is so useful. I've spent a week researching transmutation techniques because of this. Our own are woefully underdeveloped, and the Xin wizards are just so fussy about their tomes. But yes, I could see how I could do that. A few Core Formation pieces of Gravebronze... poison their bloodlines through their families and then cure the families by making them immune to the poison. Taint the entire bloodline with a powerful poison, and then use a highly concentrated piece of the Bronze to serve as a focus for the transmutation, reducing the time needed. If I phrase it like that, Destasia should help me with the last part."

Manuel frowned.

"Just impress on her the need to keep everyone involved alive."

Xinya shrugged.

"I'll do my best. People who sign up for this sort of thing don't do it because it's safe, they do it because we pay very well and they're at the end of their lifespan anyway. I'll kill as few as I can, but I'm not going to do a poor job because my conscience feels a little icky. Besides, we need reliable ways to kill him, just like the others. Not, I hope, that it ever comes to that."

Manuel nodded.

"I hope the same. Still, I'd prefer to be prepared."

In a flash, he was gone, the sheer speed at which he rocketed into the air almost evading even her sight.

She pouted, genuinely this time. It was never 'Xinya, good job, you're so talented and pretty, you should have more money and your grandson should be given preferential access to a Yuan entry token.". It was always the little pieces of dirty work the old man preferred not to do himself, or at least didn't have time to. Still, the pay was good, and her latest great-great grandson had risen into Foundation Establishment at the age of eighty.

Hah!

She turned and left as well, walking back down towards the Council Chambers. She'd just trick Destasia into saying something nice about her, like that time she learned the dead secret language of the Gravestone Wolf Sect and had opened every meeting with Destasia with the words "You're looking fantastically gorgeous today, Xinya." in Wolf Tongue.

Destasia had taken two months to find the translation, and at their next meeting she'd screamed the translation at Xinya like five times in excitement.

It wasn't the most heartfelt compliment, but if she couldn't trick people into being nice to her, what was the point of her job?