We Would Like To Talk To Jianrong.

  Twenty-seven days prior.

  Divine Cloud Sect, Southern Fourth district, Commander Pei Zongqiu, 4th Expeditionary force sat in silence as he reread the report.

  The incense had improved his mood; he hoped the incoming information would further improve it.

  After a single chime, there came a knock at his door.

  Divine Cloud Sect, Vice-Commander Liu Feng, 4th Expeditionary, entered when the call came.

  Commander Pei looked at the survivor of their only loss of life to local interaction.

  Liu’s team had met a single combatant.

  That person had destroyed what the sect considered elites by herself, without any arrays, talismans, or magical gear.

  So, it had been passed down to him to determine how and, after that, to assess the resale viability.

  Commander Pei was high enough in the system to know that the system people discussed, such as the one used here in Tianrelion, was not the one used in the real world.

  His Superiors had been clear: “Use the survivor, plot value, and if she met the metric, recover her.”

  Commander Pei steepled his fingers and leaned forward.

  “Proceed with your briefing.” He ordered.

  “Yes, Excellency, the Bloodforge Clan was tested at range using a low altitude flyover over several nights. All arrays and divination show the strongest persons within the clan are all below Nascent Soul.” Vice Commander Liu stated nervously.

  “As for the woman I met, there was some resonance, but the specialist stated it means she passed through; she did not stay,” Liu added.

  Commander Pei waited.

  Liu produced two images of a craft in flight. Pei’s brows rose.

  “Excellency, the first one there of the black craft was from a sentry who was on the ground when an unknown intruder entered the portal's proximity. The Arrays tried to destroy it, even when all the Array masters joined forces, the craft was too fast and maneuverable to hit.” Liu explained.

  Commander Pei frowned. He recalled the intrusion, but he never heard the details. “Why was I not briefed on this?” Pei demanded.

  “Excellency, the file was sealed for review; it only now become available,” Liu admitted.

  “What did the prisoners say?” Pei asked.

  “Excellency, they never grounded the craft. It disappeared into the forest, and Clouds were deployed for reconnaissance, as were ground troops. No one was ever seen; only a type of gravitational Qi was observed, but it was too weak to do anything with it.” The vice commander walked him through the events.

  Commander Liu looked at the second image. The craft was red, but its similarities were apparent.

  Pei waited.

  “The Golden Claw Heaven Dynasty had then passed over head; it never stopped, and when it passed, it affected sound,” Liu explained.

  Pei looked at him, his mind reeling.

  Savage cultivators with no named sect background were building craft that could outmaneuver Heaven arrays and outrun sound…. The implications made Pei's hands shake slightly as he poured the wine. If this continent could do THIS without proper cultivation... what could they do WITH it?

  “Elder, it was described as outrunning sound. I am unclear what that means. “

  “How are they connected?” The commander asked

  “Both are from Tianrelion,” Liu explained.

  Pei looked at the images and hoped the man had more.

  “Excellency… I know it's frowned on, but I moved through a nearby city and showed her image. Her name is Jianrong Dar Bloodforge. She nearly killed a Golden Core Elder after she DID kill three Core Formation sect elites who tried to abduct her.” Liu explained.

  “Was this before or after your interaction?” Pei bit into the juicy morsel Liu provided.

  “Excellency, within days.”

  “What do we know about this Jianrong?” The man asked, finding the taste of her name alien.

  Liu checked his notes. “Peak Core Formation, has a strange, smooth resonance not on record. Female, under twenty years old. Attendant under mandate for the Empress of Tianrelion.”

  Commander Pei clicked his tongue. “Sect of origin?”

  Liu shook his head. “Self-taught, no arts, no spells noted. Hails from a place called Ironwood, it is that place they finally crushed that kept culling the flesh golems.” He explained.

  "Self-taught?" Pei repeated slowly. "No sect foundation? No inherited techniques?"

  "None documented, Excellency. Ironwood appears to have... their own methods." Pei was quiet for a long moment.

  If she could do this without proper cultivation... He didn't finish the thought.

  Pei frowned. “What are you talking about with that attrition rate?”

  Liu blinked. “First district has been losing one to three golems a week there for several seasons, or well, that is what I have heard…the records are sealed.”

  Pei stood up, then he sat down. “Taking out a brush, he began to write. When he was done, he waved the parchment and spoke sharply.

  “Inform the records department that if my request is denied, I will escalate this; this is a priority one order. I will be addressing the Expeditionary Force leadership in several days. So, they can comply, or they should prepare to be audited in committee.”

  Pei began to turn, then stopped.

  Liu's father was someone important - important enough to get his son posted to Divine Cloud Sect scouting position instead of somewhere worse, but not important enough to get him posted somewhere BETTER. A mid-tier Heaven official's son, sent to the frontier to 'build character.' The kind of nepotism that helped just enough to be noticeable, but not enough to matter.

  “Friend Feng, has your father ever talked to you about Karma?” Commander Pei asked.

  Liu looked at the elder in surprise. “N-no excellency, my father is usually very busy, we er don’t talk much.” The Vice-Commander admitted.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Pei gave a slight nod, then moved to a cabinet and pulled out a glass and a jade flask of wine.

  When he pulled the cork, a fragrant smell filled the room.

  Pei set the glasses down on the table beside Liu and sat in the seat next to Liu.

  After pouring the wine, he took a sip and reminisced.

  When he spoke, it was softly, to inform, not to command.

  “Karma fuels everything we do.

  We were sent here, not as a punishment, but as observers.

  The golems serve two purposes.

  The first is to patrol our territory and ensure the local population does not come close, while we may all be human…these people are, as you well know,” Pei trailed off.

  “Uncivilized.” Liu offered, taking his wine to smell it, then savoring a sip.

  “So, I wager you have asked yourself, if these people are savages, why are we here?” Pei offered with a smile.

  Liu nodded.

  “Well, as I began, all things are based on Karma. We need it for everything cultivators do, but we also get it for doing things. So, while you may need Karma to make pills, you generate Karma by making pills. You need Karma to cultivate Mana into Qi, but by cultivating and training, you generate Karma.” Pei smiled, took a sip, then continued.

  “This is not a one-for-one exchange, and only a tiny minority can track Karma. But you can feel it when you're tired, regardless of how much sleep you've had; when you're anxious; even when things are going well. We are attuned to Karma and the need to generate it…can you guess why?” Pei asked his subordinate.

  “B-because…Karma fuels everything we do?” Liu stammered.

  Pei laughed and finished his cup in a single gulp.

  “Close…Karma, my friend…is immortality.” Pei said quietly.

  Liu straightened, surprised.

  Pei poured more wine. “This is only my own observation, but let me give you my reasons for believing this.” He took a large sip and continued.

  “How often do you hear about Sects our size losing grand elders or Sect Masters?” he asked.

  Liu thought about it, then realized it was not uncommon. They just seemed to age out.

  Pei saw the look on his face and nodded. “Often…now how many times have you heard about their elites dying outside of battle or accident while on a mission?” he continued.

  Liu closed his eyes, then he frowned. Never….I had never heard of them dying. In fact, he remembered one sect elder was celebrating his 2000th birthday, which had stuck with Liu because he thought that must be a mistake.

  Pei chuckled. “Now I will blow your mind, friend, consider all the large sects you admire… because they are ancient and powerful. " How many of their Sect masters are their FOUNDERS?” he asked.

  Liu's cup stopped halfway to his lips.

  His mind raced through the famous sects—Azure Cloud Sect, Heavenly Star Pavilion, Thousand Peaks Alliance. Ancient powers, tens of thousands of years old. Their sect histories spoke of legendary founders who had "ascended," "passed into legend," or...

  Or were still there.

  Still in control.

  Still alive.

  "Most... most of them?" Liu whispered.

  Pei's smile was knowing. "The truly powerful ones? All of them." He leaned back, swirling his wine. "Azure Cloud Sect's founder is seventeen thousand years old. Heavenly Star Pavilion's matriarch founded her sect nine thousand years ago. They don't advertise this, of course. Makes the younger sects... anxious."

  Liu felt dizzy, and it wasn't from the wine.

  "But... but our sect masters..." He trailed off, thinking of the Divine Cloud Sect leadership he'd seen come and go in his relatively short career.

  "Age out," Pei finished quietly. "Exactly. The Divine Cloud Sect is eight hundred years old. We've had twenty-three sect masters." He let that sink in. "Do you know why?"

  Liu shook his head mutely.

  "Because we're small. We don't generate enough karma to sustain our leadership indefinitely." Pei poured more wine, the gesture casual, but his eyes were sharp. "The major sects have thousands of cultivators, all generating karma, all feeding upward through the mentor-protégé bonds. That flow sustains their founders. But us?"

  He gestured around the modest office.

  "We have five hundred cultivators and several thousand apprentices, scattered across the Big Sky nation and Tianrelion. Our karma generation is... thin. Enough to maintain operations, enough to keep our current leadership alive for a few centuries. But not enough for true immortality."

  "So, we need..." Liu started.

  "Every. Single. Source." Pei's voice hardened.

  “Which brings us to the second reason the flesh golems exist, and why we receive karma and financial support from the Nine Heavens Committee and the Jade Peak,” Pei explained.

  Liu nearly dropped his glass.

  Commander Pei chuckled. This information was not shared with many people, beyond senior leadership like himself. Pei continued.

  “The locals call the flesh golems, Ferals. Their purpose is to operate autonomously and move without alerting local authorities while testing local cultivators.

  Their sensory organs allow them to identify a cultivator and focus on them rather than on non-combatants. This way, the information can be collected and forwarded for recruitment.” Pei explained. “They consume earth to avoid damaging the local environment and are equipped to dig, deploy, and hibernate underground once they reach their operational endpoint.

  Liu opened his mouth and paled. “Excellency…that isn’t how they are deploying them.”

  Commander Pei looked at him, confused.

  Liu began to sweat. “Excellency…when we were attacked, our orders were to update the original orders with new orders, every fle- er Feral we deployed was operating on the premise of population extermination.”

  Pei’s glass fell from his hand, and his Aura erupted.

  “BY WHOSE ORDER!” He shouted.

  Liu fumbled with his spatial right, and a scroll appeared in his hands, shaking.

  "E-Excellency, the authorization came from First District Resource Management. Vice Director Chen, Excellency. The memo stated..." He unrolled it, reading with mounting dread. "'To support expanded spirit herb cultivation operations in Sector 7, local population density must be reduced to enable territory utilization. Golem protocols updated from talent assessment to area clearance. Projected ROI positive within 36 Lunar cycles."

  Pei stared at him. "Spirit herbs," he said quietly.

  "Y-yes, Excellency." Liu stammered.

  "They're exterminating talent we are paid to recruit by Heaven, using Heaven's testing tool, and now I find out they are losing them in record numbers."

  Pei's voice was hollow. "...for SPIRIT HERBS."

  "The projection shows 80,000 additional stones per year, Excellency. The Resource Management department was commended for efficiency improvements—"

  "EFFICIENCY?!" Pei's aura cracked the walls. Liu stumbled backward. "Friend Feng," Pei's voice dropped to deadly calm.

  "I told you the golems had two uses; the second was testing cultivators. They test cultivators to bring them to the Nine Heavens. If they can reach Jade Peak, a cultivator can bring the Sect more than 250,000 stones for a single person. What you are describing is crumbs versus what we get in commission for helping Nine Heavens.“ Pei closed his eyes. “This will likely lead to a purge, or worse…an audit.”

  Commander Pei’s eyes burned into Liu.

  "Every talented protégé we can find. Every successful export. Every commission."

  He leaned forward.

  "Because karma doesn't just sustain—it compounds. A talented cultivator advancing through the ranks generates more karma as they rise. And when they export to higher-tier realms..."

  "They generate karma from there, too," Liu breathed. "Through the mentor bond."

  "Now you're understanding." Pei's smile returned.

  "This is why the major sects are so desperate for talented disciples. It's not prestige. It's not pride. It's survival. Every protégé is a karma generator, and the more successful they become, the more they generate for their mentors. Forever."

  Liu thought about his meager cultivation progress and his few students. The faint anxiety he sometimes felt, the exhaustion that no amount of sleep seemed to cure...

  "I've felt it," he said quietly. "The need for... I thought I was just ambitious."

  "You are," Pei assured him.

  "But that ambition is backed by genuine biological need. You need proteges not just to succeed—you need them to survive." He paused.

  "And this is why, friend Feng, when you help me find this person...who destroyed three Core Formation elites and nearly killed a Golden Core Elder, all by herself, at Peak Core Formation, under twenty years old..." Pei continued, his voice soft but intense.

  ...and I will report the gross negligence of the First District Resource Management team." He added.

  Liu's eyes widened as everything clicked into place.

  "She's worth..." Liu couldn't finish.

  "More than you can imagine." Pei set down his cup. "If self-taught means no sect has prior claim. Being under twenty years old means centuries of karma generation ahead. Peak Core Formation means she'll likely reach Nascent Soul. And if she can do THIS without proper cultivation..."

  He let the implication hang.

  Pei moved around his desk, tearing up the old request. He pulled out a red-sealed scroll reserved for priority reports to the Sect Elder, unfurled it, and began writing.

  "Excellency, a red seal?" Liu's voice was barely a whisper.

  "Gross negligence. Resource destruction. Systemic failure." Pei's brush moved without pause.

  "This goes above First District, this affects the entire Sect." The scroll disappeared into his spatial ring.

  "How long until—"

  Pei looked at him, then turned to the window in thought.

  "They're reading it now," Pei said quietly. "Array transmission. They'll have a response before dawn."

  --- By sunset, a five-man investigation committee materialized through the portal, their arrival silent and terrible.

  By dawn, three people knelt on a hillside outside the First District compound: Vice Director Chen, Director Wu of Operations, and Elder Jiang of Budget Approval.

  The Divine Cloud Sect asked a Big Sky Arbiter to oversee the process in case Heaven decided to audit them and to read their crimes aloud.

  "Vice Director Chen Mingzhou, you are charged with systematic destruction of Heaven's assets under false efficiency metrics. You traded a seven-million-stone renewable talent pipeline for eighty thousand stones in herbs. You subverted automated ascension protocols. You wasted Heaven's investment."

  Chen's face was white. "I... I was following approved procedures—"

  "You optimized for the wrong goals." The Arbiter's voice was flat.

  "Director Wu, Elder Jiang, you approved and implemented these orders. You share culpability."

  "The committee voted—" Wu began.

  "Your committee destroyed value; they will be imprisoned and sentenced as well. Heaven does not reward waste." The Arbiter turned to the assembled First District personnel, forced to witness.

  "Let this be recorded: The crime is not genocide of barbarians. Heaven does not care about barbarians. The crime is GROSS INCOMPETENCE. The destruction of cultivation talent through bureaucratic stupidity. The waste of Heaven's resources pursuing local metrics while destroying systemic value."

  He looked back at the three kneeling figures. "You will be case studies. Every national official will learn: 'The Tianrelion Incident: How Resource Optimization Destroyed Systemic Value.'"

  The executions were swift.

  By sunset, their positions had been filled.

  By the next dawn, corrected golem protocols were being distributed. The system corrected itself.

  It always did.

  Chen was considered powerful among the men; he had a small harem and enjoyed his lavish accommodations, wasting sect resources while being weak in his position.

  Only because he had touched the bottom line did it become unforgivable.

  Vice Commander Liu Feng was given a singular task, a team and air support.

  Find the granddaughter.

  Find Jianrong Dar Bloodforge at any cost.

  Gold, Silver, or even Spirit Stones… it did not matter.

  The Karma she was generating needed to be connected to the Divine Cloud Sect.