Liu Wei stood before the main office of the Alchemy Hall. He had spent the four weeks making himself more familiar with his new hall and planning on how to improve it.

The biggest problem facing the training hall was its lack of resources. Directly using them to train disciples was only one of the many things that required them. More instructors would need to be hired and paid, training equipment would need to be bought and, if possible, Liu Wei also wanted to subject the entire complex a proper renovation, if only to lift the spirits of all of those it housed.

The resources that Liu Wei had brought along from the Enforcement Hall could be used to solve those problems in the short term, but that would leave him back at square one when they were used up. Even if he tapped into his rather large personal wealth, he wouldn’t be able to sustain the hall for all that long.

No, the hall needed something different: A proper income. But that was easier said than achieved for a hall that was entirely focused on training disciples. It wasn’t that he couldn’t think of a business his hall could start. The problem was, that the pillar families’ elders could and most certainly would simply block him from doing so with the justification that it wasn’t within the Training Hall’s field of responsibility. The challenge was finding something that they wouldn’t be able to use this line of reasoning for.

Still, he already had an idea for something fitting regardless. It wouldn’t be easy to implement though and he would also need to wait to the next council meeting to actually start doing it. As long as nobody could argue that this didn’t overstep the boundaries of the training hall, it wouldn’t need to pass a vote, but for major new pursuits like this, a hall would still need to bring them up before the council.

That left him with plenty of things to prepare in the meantime though. It also didn’t solve the other big problem standing in his way: Even if he managed to procure enough resources to train all of the outer disciples to a similar standard to the inner ones, the pillar families could still just take the best of them away from him.

All of the other halls could offer any disciple they wanted the position of an inner disciple, directly trained by them. They could do this during the initial recruitment but also at any point afterwards.

While the disciples could technically decide to forego this offer, doing so would be madness. Not only were inner disciples given access to a vastly more resources and better training, they would also retain the status of a disciple for five more years.

While junior members were technically ranked higher than both outer and inner disciples, becoming one was not at all advantageous. Contrary to disciples, members were expected to actively contribute to the sect through work, which would leave with far less time to pursue their cultivation. They also had to pay for their own living expenses and handle their training and cultivation on their own. That was why five more years spent as a disciple were a great benefit.

They also were one that Liu Wei couldn’t replicate for his disciples. Even with the best training and possibly some level of loyalty towards the Training Hall, he couldn’t ask any of the outer disciples to reject the offer to become an inner disciple, especially not when they had little time left otherwise.

This could lead to a situation where the pillar families could simply wait for his disciples to be trained on the expense of the Training Hall and then take the talented in as inner disciples shortly before they would otherwise grow into members.

Five years were plenty to indoctrinate someone who had just been isolated from their previous social circle.

Coming up with a solution to this challenge that the pillar families wouldn’t be able to block in the council had been the most difficult part, but he had come up with an idea that might work. It was essentially a balancing act between the freedoms the halls had to act as they saw fit and the regulatory power that the council held.

Liu Wei certainly had a good guess as to why nobody had ever tried reforming the Training Hall like this before him. No one had simultaneously had both the political power to push them through and the motivation to do so. The powerful elders would nearly always hold more powerful halls and even if not, they belonged to the pillar families more often than not either way. The current system was perfectly adjusted to their needs and whims, no need to change anything about that.

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Even Liu Wei’s solution was something he couldn’t implement by himself. That was why he was now here at the alchemy hall in the first place.

Stepping inside, Liu Wei was immediately greeted by the unmistakable scent of alchemy, a wild mixture of acrid smoke, fresh herbs, the sweet tone of sugar and the invigorating fragrance of perfected elixir.

The hall was, as always, a flurry of activity. Cultivators old and young rushed from one hallway to another, some carrying alchemical components, others thick batches of paper, others again stacks of boxes containing finished products. It was an organized chaos, impossible to unravel or understand without being part of it, akin to a beehive.

This was the working culture that Ma Rong had spent centuries fostering within the hall. Between the alchemists of this hall age, rank and personal honor were secondary; the one thing that mattered was their work. This enabled a unique level of cooperation between them, that made them more productive than any other group in the entirety of the sect. Indeed, no other sect in the entirety of the northern alliance had this powerful of an output when it came to alchemy.

Through this chaotic yet impressive scene, Liu Wei made his way to the counter placed at the back of the main hall. When the girl that stood behind it recognized him as an elder, she bowed deeply.

“Greetings, honorable elder! How can I be of service?”

“I want to commission the creation of some pills. I would like to talk to someone of high enough status to facilitate that.”

“Of course, honorable elder! I shall call for someone immediately! If you could follow me into a waiting room so you don’t have to stand here.”

“Lead the way.”

The girl led him through a hallway and into a well-furnished room that was noticeably quieter than the rest of the building.

“Please wait for a few moments, someone qualified will arrive immediately.”

With those words, the girl left him alone. Liu Wei sat down on a couch to wait. He didn’t actually come here for pills of course. But it was a good enough excuse not to warrant any additional suspicion from the elders of the pillar families. They had their eyes and ears planted everywhere throughout the sect which meant that someone like Liu Wei needed to act with caution when he didn’t want them to notice what he was doing.

The door opened up again, but the one to enter wasn’t the girl from before or some senior manager of hers but the leader of the Alchemy Hall as well as the reform faction, Ma Rong himself.

Liu Wei stood up to greet the old man.

“Elder Rong. It is good to see you.”

“Elder Wei. Please follow me. I will gladly advise you on the ‘pills’ you search.”

“That fills my heart with joy.”

These were the respective phrases that had been agreed upon to signal that everything was alright and they could proceed as planned.

Ma Rong led Liu Wei through the hallways, now devoid of any other person. A couple turns later, they had arrived at a door that was covered in a myriad of complicated formations. Ma Rong took out a token and held to the door, which prompted it to open.

He signaled Liu Wei to head inside, following him closely. As soon as both of them had stepped through the door, it shut again. The room in which they now stood was largely empty with the exception of five chairs that were forming a circle in its middle. Sat upon three of those chairs were Elder Lan Shi, Meng Hui and Elder Guang Lai who, alongside Ma Rong, made up the reform faction.

As the two newcomers joined them, Liu Wei studied the impressions the four had towards him. Ma Rong was hard to read, having mastered the art of controlling his facial expression throughout his long life. If anything, Liu Wei though, he could see the tiniest hint of a deep contemplation in his face.

Lan Shi seemed sure of herself, but retained a slight suspicion, though one born of caution rather than hostility. Ever the polar opposite of her, Meng Hui was visibly nervous with a sliver of hopefulness.

Guang Lai finally, seemed purely curious. He was the youngest of the elders, only reaching Dao Contemplation a decade ago. A former direct disciple of Ma Rong, he had inherited many of his idealist opinions, or perhaps one could say he had been protected from having them overwritten through the pillar families’ indoctrination. Tough he was amongst the weakest elders for now, he was the clear successor of Ma Rong’s political legacy.

Liu Wei took a moment to clear his thoughts. It hadn’t been easy to organize this meeting with full secrecy and even though these elders wouldn’t be nearly as hostile of an audience as the council would, he had yet to build the trust that they would need for him to become a true ally to them. It would be a rather unpleasant setback for him to squander this opportunity.

When he had readied himself, he broke the silence that permeated the room:

“I greet all of you. Thank you for entertaining my wish for this meeting.”