Dao of the Deal

Muchen parted ways with Zihan when it was nearing dark. He felt confident that he had managed to dispel most of his personal doubts. While it was still possible that she could lose faith in their sect and choose to flee to greener pastures, he had managed to impress her at least a little bit with their electrical setup.

Over the coming days she would be receiving instruction directly from Xinyi. While it would be a challenging experience, Muchen expected she would advance by leaps and bounds in the process. Not to mention that more exposure to Xinyi would only create a deeper impression of her strength. A sect that harbored such a powerhouse and that offered to speed Zihan's path along the road of immortality was a sect that she would stick with.

As a sect leader, Muchen was happy to welcome such a talent into the fold. As a man with his eye on the bottom line, he was a little uneasy. He still wasn't quite ready to turn to outright robbery in order to boost his cash flow. Failing that, it wasn't immediately obvious how Zihan would be bringing silver to the door.

It wasn't a problem for the moment. Between Xinyi's abilities as a teacher and the quality of the Storm Dragon scripture, Muchen expected the sect's disciples to progress quickly even without the use of external cultivation aids. As long as they didn't need to buy anything from other sects, adding another cultivator didn't add to the sect's financial burden much at all.

He wasn't sure if that happy state of affairs would last once the sects disciples moved beyond the foundation building stage. Not to mention that at some point he would need to hand out cultivation resources regardless of whether they were strictly necessary. Part of a sect's prestige lay in handing out goodies to its members. Cultivation aids were also the most obvious carrot to be used in the carrot and stick approach to disciple discipline.

It was a blessing that Zihan wouldn't force him to dip into his silver stockpile right away, but Muchen could still see all the pits in the future that would need to be filled in with silver and gold. Well, there was still time to figure out how Zihan could best contribute to the bottom line.

On the other hand, he didn't want to leave her entirely at loose ends. Xinyi would make sure that she worked hard, one way or the other, but it would only help her go above and beyond if she knew there was a purpose for all of her labors. Immortality was a hell of an incentive, but for cultivators at their level it was still too far off to serve as a proper draw.

For that matter, he also needed to catch up with Yize and Chuhua. While they had done good work in his absence, he still needed to make sure that they had bought in to his long term vision for the sect.

Muchen caught up with Zihan the next morning —along with the rest of the sect's disciples, all two of them—to let them know that there would be a planning meeting in the evening. That done, he left Zihan to Xinyi's tender mercies while he went about his own business.

He spent most of the morning walking around the mountain to re-familiarize himself with the environment. There were still plenty of wildflowers despite all of Xinyi's efforts at perfume manufacturing. As they expanded they would probably have to start making plans to plant the things.

He also took note of potential sites for future expansion of the sect's buildings. It would be a long time before any of those plans were put into motion, but Muchen needed to have his own dreams and goals for the future.

He spent the afternoon in the electrical mill, working on his cultivation. He could feel that he was making progress, but fully completing the second major circuit of the Storm Dragon scripture was still a matter of weeks or months rather than days.

He stood and stretched after finishing his meditation. Hopping out of the enclosing electrical apparatus was second nature by this point, and he was able to deactivate the electrical generator without any issue. That done, he stared at his hand for a moment in the sudden deafening silence.

Muchen frowned, focusing on his internal energy. With his relatively minimal accomplishments in building his foundation he wasn't capable of any supreme martial feats, but he could still feel that his internal energy had changed. He ought to be capable of at least a small demonstration.

A moment later he grinned as a spark danced across his palm. It was there and gone in an instant, only a soft crackle of electricity echoing off the walls. If he'd been shaking hands, it might have been useful as a practical joke. It wasn't close to being an effective weapon. Not yet.

Muchen had an extra spring in his step as he returned to the sect's main courtyard. Even if it didn't look like much, putting on any kind of elemental display using spiritual energy was impressive for someone still in the process of building their foundation. Even more so for somebody who had only just started. Now he just needed to be diligent in his cultivation and build on the success.

To do that, he needed to make sure that the sect would keep moving in the right direction without any direct input from him. At least, as much as possible. He didn't become a sect leader because he wanted to spend all his time on micro management. Setting a clear direction from the beginning would hopefully save him time in the long run.

He spotted Xinyi and Zihan coming down the mountain as he approached the courtyard. Xinyi looked as fresh as ever. Zihan had been put through the ringer. Her leather outfit had been torn to shreds around both elbows, and she limped every time she took a step with her left leg. Despite all that, her eyes were bright and she looked happy to go another round if Xinyi would let her.

Muchen greeted the two of them and invited them to lead the way to the meeting. He waited until they had turned away to shake his head. He enjoyed the process of increasing his cultivation base, but he'd never understand the people who reveled in battle. Or who relished training that was just short of open combat.

It was probably good for the sect to have one or two of that kind of person, just so they'd be able to defend themselves. Considering the nature of cultivators on the Qianzhan Continent, Muchen figured the real challenge would be making sure that most of the sect's cultivators didn't develop in that direction. His dream was to build a sect full of reasonable people and profitable assets. Violent hotheads could be part of a functional system, but with too many of them they would end up swamping the orderly operation of the sect.

He shook off the thought as he stepped inside. Chuhua and Yize were both present, ready for the meeting. Chuhua had been in the middle of preparing dinner and had left the pot on the fire to simmer. Muchen was tempted to put off the meeting until after they'd filled their bellies, but managed to resist. He wanted everybody to be sharp and focused for the coming discussion.

Muchen took a seat at the kitchen table. Xinyi sat across from him. Zihan took the seat next to her. Yize took the next seat, leaving the seat on the opposite side of the table for his sister.

Muchen had been worried about the prospect of adding a new person to Flower Mountain. He was glad to see that Yize and Zihan got along well. He suspected that Yize appreciated Zihan's figure more than her personality, judging by the occasional lingering glance, but as long as he didn't resent the newcomer Muchen was happy. He wasn't sure just how Zihan felt about Yize, but at least the two of them had settled into a decent working relationship during the time they'd spent together on the road.

Chuhua was obviously not completely sold on their newest addition just yet. There was some defensiveness in her eyes as she sized up the woman across from her. It was only natural that she was wary of anybody who might affect her relationship with her brother.

Muchen didn't need his employees to all be best friends. As long as they could keep things professional, he was happy. Still, it would be nice if everybody could get along.

To that end, Muchen decided to break the ice. He looked at Zihan with a smile.

"How was your first day?"

"Great!" Zihan replied. She gestured with her hands as she spoke. "It was only one day, but I already learned so much."

Muchen nodded. "Good."

He looked over at Xinyi. As much as she liked to play the role of the aloof master, she was obviously pleased.

"Not a bad day," she said. "She should be ready to begin building her foundation in a month or so."

Zihan sat up straight, all signs of fatigue vanishing in an instant. It seemed she knew Xinyi well enough already to recognize high praise when she received it.

"That's good," Chuhua said, "but when will she be ready to do something useful?"

Muchen cleared his throat, derailing the incipient staring contest before it could get started. "I called this meeting so we could talk about our plans for the future."

"Besides getting rich and cultivating immortality?" Yize asked.

"Well, our goals haven't changed," Muchen said, "but we do need to talk about how we're going to accomplish everything."

Any organization made up of people would eventually develop its own culture. Not to mention its own rivalries and its own politics. Even if Muchen didn't say anything, Flower Mountain would develop some kind of method of doing things as it grew. As the sect leader, his task was to make sure that the sect settled on the best method for long term growth.

With no competition at all the sect would see its productivity decline as a result of lack of ambition. That sort of sect tended to disappear without leaving much of a mark on the Qianzhan Continent. On the other hand, encouraging too much all-out competition could see Flower Mountain turn into the kind of snakepit of vicious politics that seemed to be the fate of every other successful sect on the Qianzhan Continent. The trick would be to steer between the two extremes.

"You all will be core members of the Flower Mountain sect in the future," Muchen said. "The more the sect grows, the more people you will have reporting to you."

Looking around the table, Muchen could see excitement mixed with trepidation. The prospect of taking on a managerial role and having teams of cultivators at your beck and call was heady stuff, but at the same time it came with heavy responsibilities attached.

"None of you will be taking on personal disciples until you've matched Xinyi's level of cultivation," Muchen said. "I will be assigning subordinates to help you carry out your duties as it becomes necessary."

Conventional sects operated on a sort of pyramid scheme. Or perhaps, more charitably, it should be defined as a feudal system. Successful cultivators trained a set of disciples. The successful disciples in turn trained more disciples, and so on and so forth. Groups of cultivators would also be arranged into larger organizational structures—usually having to do with the physical location where everybody lived—but the day to day responsibilities were usually handed down from master to disciple.

A sect would generally keep a group of outer disciples who were treated as disposable labor while they tried to catch the eye of a master who could induct them into a more prominent role in the pyramid scheme. The end result was a decentralized mess where getting anything done required the leader to navigate a minefield of internal politics.

Of course, such a system did have its benefits. While power was decentralized, so was the burden of central administration. For a sect with expansion as its top priority, that only really cared about directing its disciples' actions in time of war, it was clearly the way to go. As somebody who wanted to run a profitable business, though, he thought he could do better.

The trick would be to get everybody else to buy into the system.