Chapter 16- Gathering the Young Experts

Tian looked at Sister Su, trying to figure out if he had heard what he thought he heard. She sipped her tea, and made a minute nod of approval. It seemed he had met her expectations. Tian glanced at Liren, who nodded casually.

“Not like it’s a secret or anything,” she said.

“Wasn’t it? Sealed trial ground, ancient and precious treasures waiting for the first soul brave enough to come and take them…?”

Liren, Brother Wang and Sister Su all shook their heads as he spoke.

“You always stay out of the sect politics, Brother, so you probably haven’t picked up on how radical the changes are since we all got trapped on the Mountain. We have a few things at play.”

Brother Wang started counting on his fingers.

“Number one is that we are trapped here. None of the Elders could so much as make the array respond, let alone damage it. Number Two- that means our resource base is whatever is on this giant mountain. The good news is, that’s a lot. The better news is, thanks to the high qi density, the stuff that is on here, growing here and made here is all of a comparatively high spiritual level. But it’s not nearly everything, and even if we have the raw materials, it needs to be processed and transformed into final products. Which leads to point Number Three- population.”

Tian smiled wryly at that. Brother Fu’s questions about an arranged marriage and grandkids had a sort of itchy quality to them. Lingering and hard to ignore.

“Comparatively, there aren’t a lot of people competing for most of the resources. Which is good. But there are very few people producing those resources, which is bad. It also means that certain bottleneck resources, think various specialty sulphers or cinnabar, rare herbs or herbs that only grow in certain climates, specific animal products, etcetera, can choke off entire production lines.”

Tian had to shrug at that one. “I don’t know enough about crafting to have a useful opinion, but that makes sense.”

Sister Su leaned in. “Take sword manufacturing. Normal steel is simply iron and carbon mixed to very precise ratios. Two smiths could take the same billet of steel and make products of wildly different quality based on forging technique, but in terms of material composition, it would be the same steel. But ‘normal’ steel is insufficient for cultivator use. An ordinary spiritual metal like, say, redflake iron would replace mundane iron in that simplified recipe, and the carbon might come from a charcoal made from a thousand year old fireblood pine tree. Without those two ingredients, you would struggle to make a fire aligned sword of acceptable quality, regardless of the smith’s skill.”

Tian nodded along. “And we might have the trees, but not necessarily the iron.”

“Indeed.” Su nodded faintly. “But it’s actually considerably worse than that, because smiths have been finding replacement metals and carbon sources since time immemorial. What’s hard is things like flux, rosin, glue, alchemical catalysts, supplemental metals, minerals, and additives. Small things that, yes, we can substitute for, but their specific alchemical makeup makes the substituted goods inferior. And some are irreplaceable, meaning we can’t make the product at all.”

Tian was quickly getting lost, but just nodded along. “It all sounds like good reasons to send everyone who can get through the formation into the sealed trial grounds.”

Wang nodded. “And we will. Just… later. What I’m trying to explain here is that there is a tension between having enough people making goods and having enough bottleneck resources to make goods. It means that goods that rely on bottleneck resources are now a politically delicate topic, and natural treasures are even more so.”

Wang stretched and shrugged his shoulders, before settling down and meeting Tian’s gaze.

“Let me put it directly. Our internal economy, internal to the Sect as we have until now understood it, is dead. The elders know it too. We, and I’m including the Wang Clan in this as we are crafters and merchants, are all still trying to figure out what comes next. Now, everyone on this side of the ward was selected for being a decent human being, essentially. Having merit, being a reformer, that kind of thing.”

Tian felt a little stab in his side, thinking of all the very decent people he knew on the other side of the ward, but didn’t interrupt. He knew what Wang meant.

“Nobody is going to get too crazy, as long as everything feels fair and follows sensible rules.”

Tian stared at the big man, looked over at Sister Su, then buried his face in his hands. “We need to make a well designed system. The one thing no one has ever managed before, ever.”

Wang had the decency to look awkward, while Sister Su simply nodded and said “Correct.”

“We are a test case, Brother. Or not even a test case, more of an indication of how the Elders intend to run things in the future. Remember what Disciple Fu said? The talented will get more opportunities, the weakest get the most support. Well, this is an opportunity, and a big one. We have a lot of merit, but it is a really big opportunity. Those resources have been sitting for untold thousands of years. Not everything continues to accumulate spirituality indefinitely, but the odds are very good that those trial grounds would have life-changing natural treasures for just about anyone.” Liren explained.

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“We have a need, we have the merit of finding out what’s in there, we have provided a lot of valuable manuals.” Tian worked it out slowly. “Which is good, but we also have a significant amount of patronage, nepotism and, sorry Brother Wang, Sister Su, Sis’ Liren and I have the biggest fists in the Outer Court.”

Brother Wang just nodded, while Sister Su’s reaction was pretty flat.

“So it really depends on how you look at things.” Tian concluded. “And both ways are right.”

“Yep. But there is an easy way to ease the negative reactions, at least a bit.” Brother Wang parted his hands.

“Open it to everyone?”

“Yes, but not immediately, because then there is no reason for anyone to make an effort in the future. We get the first crack at the trial ground that will be of the most use for us, and we will bring others with us. We get the fruit and the ice, everyone else gets what they can pick up along the way.” Hong explained.