Breakfast was a harmonious affair as Qiu Jingyi performed one of her rare feats in the kitchen and personally cooked for Chen Wentian. She was smiling a lot more than yesterday, much to his amusement. He did think sometimes that his luck was a little bit on the good side.
Chen Wentian had a few sect meetings today while Qiu Jingyi had her own duties as a noble lady so the couple went their separate ways for the day. He had a week off from his job supervising beast hunts and the days where he wasn't involved in front-line combat were spent dealing with the bureaucracy of a massive sect. There were evaluations of his subordinates as well as reports for his superiors.
Within the Lion Lord's faction, there were thousands of official members that were separated into the following hierarchy. At the top was He Zicheng as the Spirit King. There were three Spirit Lord Realm immortals that were his direct subordinates who also managed their own disciples in branch sects. They included He Xinghan, Ji Tiangu, and another immortal he had never met before.
The lord and immortals had a limited number of trusted aides that held the title of executive elder. There was a total of ten executive elders that ruled a cohort of over a hundred elders. Some elders had few subordinates such as himself, while others had many. Together, they managed around fifty thousand Spirit Initiate Realm cultivators. For sect members below the Spirit Initiate Realm, they were countless like grains of rice.
As a hunting elder, He Xingping's job was pretty dangerous and he usually used mercenaries and free-lance cultivators for his missions. The casualty rate was high and the job was messy but it was necessary to keep rare cultivation resources flowing into the sect.
He had a few subordinates who would go hunt only if there were some princes or princesses of the sect that wanted to experience a real hunt. This actually made his men even less trustworthy than mercenaries. Mercenaries did their jobs as long as there was money, they had a code. His men were experts at brown nosing their occasional but influential clients and actually did not put his position in their eyes.
Chen Wentian felt a huge headache as he imagined what his own sect would be like if it expanded on a scale like the Beast God Sanctum. Would there be so much bureaucracy and dead weight being carried around as well? Perhaps Zhou Ziyun would have ways to handle it?
He mused as he headed off to his first meeting of the day at the sect headquarters. He rode his horse, cutting a wide path through the busy streets. His pale-yellow uniform held the crest of elder which every resident of the city recognized. While his men might not respect him, to the common people he was an inviolable noble.
He eventually arrived at the mountain peak which held the three headquarters for each faction. The two castles for the Eagle and Lion factions were busy and bustling like always but it was a shocking and disturbing sight to see the Snake Castle completely empty and deserted. It was like no one ever lived there. He guessed that anything that could be robbed had been robbed and anyone that resisted had been killed. A brotherhood of over five hundred years was shattered, just like that.
"Halt!" The powerful guards at the Lion Castle stopped him.
"I have a meeting with my executive elder." Chen Wentian said as he presented his badge.
"Elder He Xingping, welcome to headquarters! Please enter!"
Chen Wentian was led inside the sprawling complex that covered a third of the mountaintop. His eyes caught every detail and every turn within the winding and maze-like corridors as he followed the guard to the office of Executive Elder Ji Yeming. All the executive elders were relatives of the immortals of the sect, otherwise there was no way for them to get promoted to this position.
The guard knocked on the door.
"Enter." A clear voice sounded.
The guard escorted Chen Wentian into the office and left afterwards. Chen Wentian did his due diligence and bowed.
"You may rise, please sit."
Chen Wentian sat down and looked at Ji Yeming, who was quite youthful. He looked no older than his early thirties yet he was already at the peak of the Spirit Initiate Realm. His robes were a deeper and richer shade of yellow and held gold outlines, signifying his status. He did not disappoint as the most talented son Ji Tiangu had produced within that generation.
Ji Yeming studied the report Chen Wentian presented briefly before setting it aside. They then discussed various aspects of beast material harvesting and beast populations that had migrated from the wilderness into human provinces. He Xingping's years of knowledge and experience was put to good use as they discussed a wide range of topics. If Chen Wentian had merely taken He Xingping's outer appearance, he would have been exposed as a spy many times over.
The meeting wrapped up after over an hour.
"Good job, Xingping. I'm satisfied with your work."
"Thank you, Executive Elder!" Chen Wentian said.
"Was there anything else you need to discuss?"
"Ah yes! One last thing," Chen Wentian played one of his cards he had prepared, "I know there's been a reward by the husbandry executive elder for any information leading to a large capture. I encountered such a target during my last mission."
"Oh? Are you sure its reliable?" Ji Yeming asked.
"Absolutely!" Chen Wentian nodded his head.
Ji Yeming used his spiritual energy to form a temporary seal and placed it on Chen Wentian's sect badge before waving him off. "Go tell him yourself."
Chen Wentian stood and bowed, "Thank you!"
He left the office and consulted a map before heading off in the direction of the husbandry department. This executive elder dealt with rearing beasts that would be harvested for resources. It was the opposite of hunting which involved wild beasts.
Chen Wentian, through his immortal sense, had found a large pack of over several thousand Crescent Moon Deer within one of the provinces. They were at the high Mind Focusing Realm and it was exactly what the husbandry department wanted. The department could capture the whole herd and rear then to produce deer year after year.
As he traveled through the castle, he was stopped occasionally by guards but his seal allowed him passage. Security was always tight within the castle but it was even more strict after the destruction of the Snake Lord and his faction. Even elders were not permitted free movement anymore with only executive elders and above given that privilege.
Chen Wentian completed his roundabout trip to headquarters and left soon after dropping off his information. If it panned out, he would be rewarded with a thousand gold and there was also a bonus for his executive elder as well.
What nobody realized that Chen Wentian used this opportunity to perfectly lay down his spying network. The excuse to visit two executive elders allowed him to traverse a large portion of the castle, laying down a large number of shadow anchors through his shadow skill. In combination with his soul art, it allowed him to place passive eyes and ears within the shadows that were undetectable to anyone unless they had a stronger soul strength than him. He was confident there was no such person within the entirety of Beast God Sanctum.
The drawback to this technique was that he needed to be in close proximity to place them. If he were to brute force his way into the castle in his shadow soul form, he would long have been detected by any stray immortal. But with He Xingping... he had a free pass into the castle. This was the most important reason why it had to be He Xingping.
A happy Chen Wentian had a lazy smile on his face as he rode away from the mountain peak. The second step of infiltration was also a success!
His thoughts drifted to his lovely wife and he decided to visit the shops in his spare time to buy her a gift.
In this little side story he mentioned that this isn't his first time doing this (taking over a person). Is the body everybody knows him as a body he took over to be younger?
MC's main body is his main body. it does not make him younger.
Gotta say, I have to wonder why this whole little section even exists. With all the other things going on in the story, did it need something new? I don't think so, but even if it did, why this? This is like a doomed little side-story that will either forever be it's own weird little thing that doesn't interact with the rest of the story, or it will become a forgotten mini-story-to-nowhere.
well... it won't be a mini story, don't worry, it will be huge plots!! :)
@Kirbyisgreen So... doomed little sides story? We'll just randomly spend like 1 in 10 chapters watching this couple have dinner from now on?
I just utterly fail to see how this can connect with anything. The spying bit, alright sure. But beyond that? Is he going to admit to this guy's middle-aged wife that he did some kind of soul subsumption thing and is now some random immortal? Then what? She's a random middle-aged lady. I can't imagine this going down well, exactly. And even if it does, so what? What next? His whole thing with the girls is that he's kind of racing against time with them all. And this lady is not only substantially older, but has also been part of the top sect in this area. If she had much in the way of talent, she wouldn't be married to this guy in the first place.
So like... how can this ever be a thing that matters?
@46rtyrty44 U forget that this sect repeatedly tried to kill his disciples? They're currently the main antagonists. Most likely this is simply the layup for when he eliminates them completely. Definitely main plot.
@Scarecro I was talking about all this stuff with the guy's wife. There's many, many ways to delve into dealing with this sect that don't involve him setting up and taking over some guy's whole life, including his wife.
But now we've got this awkward little situation with this whole second body of some other dude and also his wife. In the future, what happens to them? Do they just end up forgotten, and all this time on them is just the most pointless filler? Does he admit to the wife a random immortal took over/whatever her husband and is now planning on try to cultivate his body too? Do they just go join Chen Wentian's sect but he never tells anybody the dude is actually himself too, and he'll just be the only other dude ever allowed in?
This is just so incredibly awkward and weird. Incorporating this guy and his wife into the rest of the main story seems somewhere between impossible and hilariously bad. Not incorporating them basically means that either all of these chapters are mostly pointless filler that's never mentioned again, or we'll keep occasionally getting filler side stories of this guy and his wife doing whatever. No matter what direction it takes, it just seems bad.
Anyway I have no idea if some of this has already been answered. I more or less unintentionally stopped reading around here. I didn't plan on it, I just never really felt like reading more.
@46rtyrty44 Ok. Personally, i agree with you.
But we both also need to realize something something the mc also missed at the time. He took the situation lightly, and jumped right in while being self confident as usual. He later learned that there are now consequences to his actions and new challenges to be dealt with.
Do not over look a very important side effect of all this. Without that reckless mistake, that i admit i might have likely also made in that situation, he was stuck interacting with the wife, and saw the clear contrast to way of handling relationships. He learned firsthand about a type of relationship that's not mostly based on physical affection, and where both partners have a somewhat equal status. That's something he has zero understanding of, and thus was completely blindsided. The author could probably argue that if you've ever considered the psyche of the characters, then that development might have been way more important than even the elimination of the beast sect.
For me it would simply be a mistake to learn and grow from, esp since the consequences could have been worse. Also, the author hasn't focused much on the "clones" perspectives unless relevant to progression, so my hope and assumption is that those plotlines won't be revisited much unless something that progresses the main plot occurs.
@Scarecro Love the discussions. Thanks for the feedback guys!
Just a clarification of MC's soul powers in case it may cause some confusion in the future. The MC's original soul is not affected by the 'merging' of subordinate souls. It is the subordinate souls that are merged with a bit of the MC's personality so it ends up being 50/50. The MC's soul is still 100% his original soul.
This way, if the MC takes over a murdering raping lunatic, he doesn't become half of a murdering raping lunatic. But, it's kind of like real life where we read stories and go through experiences and we grow as a person. Things that are against our values to begin with such as murdering raping lunacy, we will not take that into ourselves, even if we read about it and see it on TV. We simply dismiss it. MC does that with distasteful memories from souls. However, inspirational and deeply touching moments will affect us and it affected MC the same way, such as the loving relationship with a good wife.
@Kirbyisgreen ??
@Scarecro Hm, I quite like that perspective. I was getting stuck on the more meta-narrative aspect (I have no idea what to call it, and that sounds vaguely cool so... I'll just go with that) and not considering the more character-level stuff. You're right that the character-level stuff is actually pretty good.
Now I have to say it does seem like an obvious thing to overlook... but it is also Chen Wentian. Then again this also doesn't seem to be the first time he's done this with a person, and you'd think if he hadn't accidentally gotten a wife or girlfriend before then it was due to being a bit careful... but he also mentioned wondering why he never did this before intentionally for sex. I have no idea what to make of it. Chen Wentian is a weird dude. I guess I'll just stick with that.
Anyway, I really appreciate the additional perspective. Thanks!
Just read novel with 1D characters if that's what you want.