46. The Mountain is a Slope, the Peak is a Cliff

The Deliberation Problem

I write it out in my notebook, in that mix of English and Chinese that no one else can read. The characters sprawl across the page, messy and urgent.

Defensible against Qi Condensation threats. The formation array, Ling’er’s presence, the disciples’ improved discipline: we can handle most things that would come at a minor sect. Bandits, rogue cultivators, the occasional spirit beast.

Vulnerable to Foundation Establishment and above. Wang Hu was barely Foundation Establishment First Stage and still managed to take hostages because he got lucky with positioning and timing. Because we weren’t watching closely enough. Because I assumed.

We are completely exposed if someone with real intelligence sent a real threat.

I stare at that last line for a long time. Whoever hired Wang Hu had information. That information came from somewhere. Someone in the city was watching, tracking, asking questions.

‘We need to get stronger. Getting stronger requires resources. Getting resources requires leaving. Leaving requires being strong enough to not need to leave.’

The loop is a frustrating paradox, and I know it. I sit with it for days, turning it over, looking for the break point. There has to be a break point. Somewhere the logic fails, where the circle opens into a line. I consider and discard options one by one, writing each in my notebook and crossing it out with a single line.

Send disciples to buy manuals. No. They’re Qi Condensation. The merchants in Celestial Jade City would rob them blind or sell them defective goods. And even if the merchants were honest, my disciples couldn’t evaluate quality. The Gaze isn’t transferable.

Use Jun as an information broker. He’s good: observant, patient, hungry to prove himself. But he’s seventeen. Sending him into Celestial Jade City alone to negotiate with information traders is how you lose a disciple. Either to violence or to a better offer.

Wait until the sect is stronger. This is the fear talking. I recognize it because it sounds like my own voice, reasonable and cautious and wrong. The sect won’t get stronger without external resources. Waiting is choosing stagnation. And stagnation means we stay exactly where we are, vulnerable to the next Wang Hu, the next lucky bandit, the next threat that we can’t anticipate.

Send Ling’er alone. Out of the question. She’s the most powerful person in the sect and also the most valuable secret in the Lower Realm. Sending her into a major city alone; even with perfect concealment is the kind of gamble that ends everything. One Nascent Soul with a detection technique. One Core Formation elder who happens to look too closely. One accident, one mistake, one moment of bad luck.

Go alone. Also out of the question. I’m Foundation Establishment Middle Stage with decent Frost Manual technique and no backup. In Celestial Jade City, surrounded by Core Formation cultivators and Nascent Soul elders, I’m a minor sect leader with an interesting sword and not much else. I’d be robbed, conned, or simply ignored.

The answer, when it comes, is uncomfortable.

The journey has to happen, and it has to happen soon. Every day we wait is another day the information spreads, another day someone else in Greenstone asks questions, another day the sect remains at its current level while the world outside continues moving. But the journey requires preparation that wasn’t in place before the bandit attack.

The notebook stays open on my desk for three days. I add to it, cross things out, start over. The conditions have to be right. Not perfect, perfect doesn’t exist. But right enough that I can leave without feeling like I’m abandoning them to disaster.

Condition One: The intelligence gap.

I need to know who hired the bandits before I walk out of the mountain again. Not confrontation, just information. Someone in Greenstone knew specific details about the sect’s spending patterns that a casual observer wouldn’t have. Not just “a minor sect got rich,” but something closer. Something that smelled like inside knowledge. I start visiting Greenstone Town again. Quietly. Not with Ling’er, nor with any obvious purpose. I walk through the markets, stop at stalls, listen to conversations. The Gaze flickers across faces, assessing, discarding, flagging nothing.

I find nothing, but that’s information too. Whoever hired the bandits is either very careful or very far removed. Or both. But the form of the threat is becoming clearer. Someone knew the sect from the inside. Not deep inside; not the tomb or Ling’er’s training, but enough to know when we were spending, what we were buying, that wealth was flowing. Someone who knew what to look for. I think about Feng. His bitterness. His knowledge of the sect’s operations. His disappearance.

Condition Two: The formation upgrade.

Lian’s obsession is useful. She’s at the perimeter every morning, checking flags, tracing energy flows, muttering to herself about detection ranges and node placement. Ling’er works with her now, the Sacred Cosmic Bone guiding her observations, helping her see where the energy gets stuck, where it could move better. I use the Gaze differently here; to assess failures. Each time Lian tries something that doesn’t work, I look at what went wrong. The Gaze doesn’t explain every single time, but it highlights. Points to the crack in the formation, the gap in the coverage, the node that isn’t aligned properly. We work on an ancient formation from the Azure Frost manual. The Frozen Perimeter Array. A layered defense that doesn’t just detect intruders but actively discourages them with a cold that seeps into the bones, a disorientation that makes the path seem longer than it is, a quiet pressure that whispers turn back. It takes resources to apply in scale. Spirit stones, frost crystals ground into powder and mixed into the formation ink, ice essence, carefully diluted so it doesn’t freeze the flags solid. Lian’s hands shake less now. With Ling’er and my guidance, she grows at a rate that should’ve been impossible for a normal disciple.

This is for the sect. Even though I know the progress would be faster with just me and Ling’er, it’s for the sect. Lian needs to become what she’s becoming. We all do.

Condition Three: The internal command structure.

The bandit attack revealed something important. The sect can hold in a crisis; but the command structure during a crisis is improvised. People looked to Mei Lin because she’s senior. They looked to Jun because he’s calm. They looked to Ling’er because she’s strong. No one knew who was actually in charge.

I sit down with them in my quarters. Mei Lin. Jun. Ling’er.

“Mei Lin has overall authority,” I say. “If I’m gone and something goes wrong, she makes the final call. Jun handles intelligence and logistics; tracking threats, managing supplies, coordinating information. Ling’er is the last resort.”

Mei Lin’s eyes widen slightly. “Last resort?”

“Something serious enough that you and Jun can’t handle it. Something that requires power you don’t have.” I look at Ling’er. “She drops all pretense and deals with it.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

This is the first time I’ve explicitly acknowledged to the inner circle that the gap between Ling’er’s public cultivation and her actual power is going to become a tool rather than just a secret. Although the actual gap between her actual power and what she displays is still only known to me and her.

Jun nods. He’s been watching, calculating, fitting pieces together. I don’t know what he’s figured out, but he doesn’t ask questions either.

“Intelligence and logistics,” he repeats. “I can do that.”

Ling’er says nothing. She just looks at Mei Lin, and Mei Lin looks back, and something passes between them: an understanding that doesn’t need words. The meeting ends. The disciples leave. I sit alone in my quarters, staring at the notebook. Three conditions. Not met yet. But closer. I close the notebook. There’s still time.

The intelligence comes from a place I didn’t expect.

Jun has been methodical. He started with the bandits’ bodies–the ones we left behind at the cave. He searched them before they were taken by nature. Most had nothing. Pockets empty, weapons unremarkable, no identifying marks. But the one I interrogated had a folded piece of paper hidden in the lining of his coat.

It wasn’t a map or a letter. It was a list. Names of supplies we’d purchased in Greenstone. Quantities. Estimated values. Dates. Someone had been tracking our spending systematically. The list was detailed enough that a stranger couldn’t have compiled it from public gossip. Someone inside the town’s merchant networks had been feeding information outward. Jun traced the list back to its source through a chain of bribes and favors that took him three days. I didn’t ask how he did it; what mattered was the name at the end. A factor. A middleman who worked for a trading company that operated out of Celestial Jade City. The company’s name meant nothing to me, but its reach was significant. They had offices in Greenstone, in the regional capital, in a dozen cities across the continent.

“The factor is dead,” Jun reported. “I checked. He was found in his office a week ago. The official cause was a heart attack, but—”

“But you don’t believe that.”

“No.” Jun’s face was carefully neutral. “The timing is too convenient. Wang Hu was hired before the factor died. Someone cleaned up after themselves.”

I stared at the notes Jun had compiled. The factor’s name. His known associates. The trading company’s connections. None of it pointed to a specific culprit, but the pattern was unmistakable. Someone with resources was gathering intelligence on the sect. Someone who could afford to pay a factor, hire a bandit leader, and then silence the factor when the job went wrong.

And they weren’t finished.