"In three days, I want all of the students to begin forging their new constitutions,” said Master Zhao. Rejya Xinasa took in a sharp breath at the pronouncement. The amount of work that would need to be accomplished in the following days was… substantial. Three days didn’t seem like enough time. Despite her reservations, she had no choice but to attempt the feat.
She started dividing out the tasks in her mind and trying to attach the names of appropriate disciples to them. It was immediately apparent that organizing the entire enterprise herself would be impossible. There was simply too much to do.
Master Zhao had not slowed in delivering his rapid-fire instructions. While she was perfectly capable of following them, he had devolved into assigning specific tasks rather than goals to accomplish. Given the sheer number of things that needed doing, it wasn’t helpful.
“Master Zhao,” said Xinasa, wincing slightly as she forced herself to interrupt him, “I will assemble the disciples and organize them. Your expertise will be required to plan the required formations. Where will you be assembling the formation team?”
Her interruption made him pause for a moment, but then he nodded his head sharply, accepting her redirection of his mental efforts. “Tell them to assemble in my quarters,” he said curtly before turning and disappearing into a nearby building. Xinasa stifled a sigh of relief. That could have gone very poorly, but she didn’t have time to listen to him list out every task that would need doing. Thankfully, he seemed to have decided to ignore the offense.
Having assumed control of the organization effort, Xinasa didn’t hesitate to reach out with her Qi to contact Orixin Verin, the senior-most formations master among the disciples. “Senior Sister,” sent Xinasa, “Master Zhao requires you to assemble the formations masters and meet in his quarters. Please do so immediately.”
Verin didn’t ask needless questions, responding with a terse affirmative and cutting the connection. With that out of the way, Xinasa immediately contacted the highest-ranked disciple present. “Senior Brother,” Xinasa said respectfully, “I would be most grateful if I could beg your assistance.”
“What can I do for you, Junior Sister?” asked Xian Qin. As succinctly as possible Xinasa outlined the situation and what their master required of them. His response was immediate and decisive. “I will inform the disciples to gather in the assembly hall in ten minutes. Is Junior Sister in charge of organizing this effort?”
“It seems so,” replied Xinasa, adding a hint of wry amusement to her sending. “Master Zhao simply started giving me orders.”
“Then I am at your disposal,” replied Xian Qin. “Please do not hesitate to assume my support.”
“Thank you, Senior Brother,” said Xinasa. She refrained from coloring her sending with emotion, but only barely. Qin’s support of her authority would make the process much smoother. Xinasa hurried towards the assembly hall once the connection had been cut. It was vital that she be there before the disciples began to gather. If she wasn’t, it was possible that some other disciple would attempt to take control of the meeting by default. They simply didn’t have time for petty power plays, which meant she had to act quickly.
Upon reaching the assembly hall she stepped up onto the dais and took up a relaxed stance in front of the podium. Now if someone wanted to dominate the meeting they would either have to do it without the inherent authority the podium represented or move her bodily. While she wasn’t the strongest disciple present, she was confident she could avoid the second possibility. As for the first one, she would have to act quickly and decisively.
The disciples began filing into the hall almost on her heels. Many gave her questioning looks as they entered but none questioned her directly, which she took as a good sign. Her assumption of authority over the school’s curriculum and direction had granted her some standing among the disciples. Coupled with her relative seniority – not the highest, certainly, but within the top ten –she managed to avoid any immediate challenges.
Exactly ten minutes after she had spoken with Xian Qin she began to speak. Not all of the disciples were present, but she couldn’t be bothered to wait for them, especially since showing up late was likely one of those petty power plays she desperately wanted to avoid.
“Master Zhao has returned from his trip to the Palace. He didn’t see fit to brief me on the specifics of what happened, but based on the instructions I was given it seems that he was successful. He expects that three days from now the disciples will be able to begin the process that we have previously experimented with.”
The gathering hall was silent for three beats of her heart then discussion erupted among the crowd. Given that there were just over two hundred disciples present, the din resulted in very little useful discourse.
Xinasa was about to attempt to call the hall to order, but before she could Xian Qin’s voice rang throughout the hall. “Silence!” The chatter cut off immediately. “Sister Rejya has been given the task of organizing this effort. I expect you all to follow her instructions.”
Two hundred pairs of eyes immediately returned to her. While their attention wasn’t uncomfortable before, they now carried the weight of expectation. She took a beat to come to grips with the new pressure before continuing. In as few words as possible, she outlined the tasks that needed doing.
“Who would like to volunteer to organize the effort to acquire the necessary resources to build the formations?” she asked.
“Junior Sister,” said Xian Qin, “Master Zhao has entrusted me, personally, with the accumulated assets of our fledgling sect. This being the case, I believe I should lead this effort.” His voice was calm and unflinching, despite openly admitting to possessing what amounted to a massive fortune. While Xinasa doubted that Master Zhao had given over the most valuable treasures he had acquired for the sect, what he did control represented a great temptation to the greedy. The fact that he admitted to it so openly displayed his confidence in his personal power. That Xinasa doubted anyone would act against him to obtain it only testified that his confidence was well earned.
That solved, she finally addressed the largest task. “Next is the issue of the beasts and how we will acquire and store them. Based on Tara’s progress, they are likely to be here a minimum of two weeks. We will need to plan for their requirements. There are two ways we can accomplish the task. Either we can break up into teams by task, with each team being responsible for a specific set of tasks, or we make each team responsible for the beasts they acquire individually. I’m leaning towards the second one.”
The obvious invitation to debate jump-started the process and soon there was a lively discussion taking place. Xian Qin took the opportunity to gather a group of disciples and depart to begin his own tasks. With her authority accepted by the group at large, his departure changed little.
It quickly became obvious that acquiring a beast for each student individually would be a daunting task. Gathering and caring for three hundred infant beasts was simply unrealistic. The discussion turned instead to how many beasts they really needed. That discussion required Master Zhao’s expertise. Xinasa wasn’t fond of the idea of disturbing him, but she had little choice. Luckily he readily accepted the interruption once she explained the necessity.
Master Zhao’s entrance into the gathering hall changed the dynamic of the meeting immensely. Xinasa’s authority over the meeting, while not directly challenged, had been less than complete. For Master Zhao, this was not the case. His entrance drew every disciple’s full attention.
“You have questions regarding what is possible. Ask them.” There was a beat before Xinasa realized that no one was going to step forward if she didn’t.
“Master Zhao, we are wondering if it is possible to reduce the number of beasts it is necessary to acquire. You used an infant beast, one with little inherent Qi despite being strong for its age. If we used beasts even a little older they could potentially supply enough Qi to suffice for several students. This would simplify the task of caring for them greatly and allow the disciples to focus on acquiring the highest possible quality beasts.”
Master Zhao paused for a second, either considering the question in depth or communicating with someone. “The rest of the formations masters will be joining us. What you ask isn’t impossible, but it will take some planning. How would we divide the beasts up among the students?”
Xinasa thought about it for a second but didn’t have an immediate answer. Thankfully a disciple in the crowd stood to offer a suggestion. “Master Zhao, the students are naturally divided by their housing arrangements, with five dorms, each with five floors. Would it be possible to divide up the beasts in the same way? Each beast would then have to supply enough Qi for twelve disciples.”
Nobody could counter the inherent logic in the suggestion, so the discussion moved on how the disciples would be assigned. It followed that since the beasts would be assigned using the dorm structure, the disciples would apportion the task the same way. Xinasa was quietly pleased with the outcome as she watched the situation develop. Being cultivators, their natural tendency was to compete. Under her careful guidance, fledgling factions began to form based on the dorms they were assigned.
As the discussion evolved, it became obvious that the disciples would be required to interact with students on a personal basis. This allowed Master Zhao to step in and address one of his lingering organizational problems – the disciples didn’t have a formal place within the sect hierarchy. With the disciples being so neatly apportioned with responsibility, he naturally wanted to take advantage of the situation.
“Those of you who will be acquiring beasts will also be acquiring suitable cultivation techniques for the created constitutions. Since you have acquired them, you will be the ones responsible for passing on these cultivation techniques to the students in question. That being the case, it is necessary to formalize your standing within the sect. Any such disciple will be deemed a ‘floor elder’ and will naturally receive compensation for their work from the sect based on their success. With twelve students on each floor, I believe three elders per floor is an appropriate number.”
His words created a ripple through the assembled disciples. Previously, the disciples had been motivated by their duty and the vague notion of competing. Now, however, they had both a definite goal and the promise of a reward. Each had been thinking of how to minimize their responsibilities, but the promise of both status and reward had their thinking heading in entirely new directions.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Not long after, a disciple brought up the idea of giving each dorm a general archetype for which beasts to acquire. His reasoning for the suggestion was quite good, focused as it was on the more or less experimental nature of their project. Despite this, his true intentions were quite clear. Having all of the beasts of a dorm fall under an archetype would help forge a group identity and solidify the developing factions. The suggestion pleased Xinasa immensely.
Each faction fought viciously for their desired archetype, with actual fighting threatening to break out on several occasions. The rowdiest, three disciples who began trading serious insults, were immediately banned from participation by Master Zhao. Example set, the gathering simmered but didn’t explode.
As the fight continued, alliances naturally developed. Both of the female dorms wanted to be the Phoenix dorm, so they were naturally opposed, and each allied with a male dorm for support. The disciples representing the mixed-gender dorm, with three floors for boys and two for girls, quickly became the neutral party and mediator, with both sides enticing them for their support. Wisely, the mixed dorm, already decided as the Black Tortoise dorm, refrained from choosing sides. Instead, the two factions began bargaining, exchanging favors and outright payments in order to get the name, and the associated identity, they desired.
Eventually, they came to an acceptable compromise, with the victorious female dorm being the Phoenix, the male dorm the Dragon. The other two were the Qilin and the Tiger, respectively. With their names assigned, each dorm solidified their associated archetype. Phoenix dorm would focus on birds and beasts that flew. Dragon dorm would choose beasts of draconic lineage. Tiger would be for predators of the land, Tortoise for the sea. Qilin would be for more quixotic beasts, either traditionally prey beasts that made the cut, rare indeed, or chimeric beasts which weren’t easily classified.
Their loyalties and duties apportioned, the disciples dispersed immediately, though each dorm was sure to be going to a more private meeting where floors would be assigned and dorm leadership established. That process was likely to be as contentious as the assigning of names. Master Zhao kept an eye on the process but his intervention wasn’t required.
The process wasn’t smooth but the disciples managed to get through the process without resorting to outright violence. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the universal decision among the dorms was to delay selecting definite leaders until the results of their hunt for appropriate beasts and cultivation techniques succeeded. Those who produced the best results would naturally have a higher standing.
Each disciple had been wandering the many planes for millennia, most of them for tens or even hundreds of millennia. They had a plethora of personal contacts to leverage and resources to call upon. To a man, they were confident of their ability to find a beast that would awe their competition. Their goals set they departed to begin the hunt. The Spatial Transfer Array, hidden deep under the Academy, was in near-constant use. The cost of using the Array so profligately made Xinasa wince but there was no other choice, save to have Master Zhao shuttle the disciples around individually. No one was brave enough to suggest that possibility.
Within six hours of the initial announcement, the underpinnings of the sect had been reimagined and the disciples had largely departed to prove their worth by procuring beasts of legend for their new charges.
Xinasa was left with a greatly depleted workforce and another thorny problem – how to keep the resulting chaos from affecting the students and, to a lesser extent, the faculty. This turned out to be surprisingly easy. First, the disciples had yet to be integrated into the everyday functioning of the school. Second, they had been discouraged from forming attachments to individual students, so when a disciple was required, one was as good as another. Both of these facts would be changing in the near future, but for the time being the disciples wouldn’t be missed.
Harder was dealing with the practice courtyard. Already a group of disciples, under the dual guidance of Xian Qin and a formations master, were tearing up the courtyard in preparation for laying down a massive series of formations. Each set of formations would be connected to a ‘feeder’ formation underground which would house the appropriate beast.
Rather than take on the duty herself, Xinasa contacted Principal Cartwright and told him that there would be construction going on in the meditation courtyard. It was obvious he wanted to ask what they were doing, but Xinasa skillfully guided the conversation around the topic. He hinted several times that he thought it had something to do with whatever had happened that had destroyed a six-foot radius of the courtyard, but seeing as he had no idea of how such a feat was accomplished he didn’t have much leverage to dig for answers.
He was left with little information and the definite need to find somewhere else for the students to perform both their morning martial arts practice and their evening meditations. That done, Xinasa had one of the disciples put up construction barriers around the courtyard, all in garish orange, to warn both staff and students to keep out. This turned out to be surprisingly effective. Students and staff alike stopped occasionally to gawk and speculate, but all respected the boundary that the barrier established.
Less than twelve hours later the first disciple returned with their chosen beast. The selection shocked Xinasa to the core. Somehow the disciple had managed to acquire, and quite quickly at that, a young Platinum-scaled King Wyvern. While not of pure draconic descent the Platinum-Scaled King Wyvern was clearly a Divine Beast, though in terms of power it ranked among the lower tiers of the Divine Beasts. More interesting was that it was one of the relatively few beasts of draconic lineage with a clear, not to mention extremely high, affinity for metal. Overall, it would make an excellent choice for an innate constitution.
Over the next day, Xinasa was forced to re-evaluate her assessment. While the Wyvern was impressive, it could hardly compare with some of the beasts that the disciples had procured. More than one specimen had even Master Zhao shaking his head in admiration. In particular, one enterprising disciple from the Black Tortoise dorm managed to acquire the beast for which the dorm was named – the Xuanwu, which had the body and head of a tortoise but whose tail was an extremely venomous snake. Whether it would make a good innate constitution was up for debate, but the Black Tortoise was known for its longevity and defense, being nearly impossible to kill and even the weakest having lives that spanned millennia.
By the end of the second day, all the disciples had returned and were fiercely defending their choice of beasts. Xinasa was gratified that many disciples defended their choices not solely on the basis of their innate strength but also on the suitability of their constitutions. Despite that, the strongest beasts, or at least the most remarkable, were almost universally chosen. Those disciples who had their beast selected immediately saw their status within their respective dorm rise.
As the disciples returned Xinasa didn’t hesitate to put them to work. While they couldn’t draw the runes for the formation themselves, there was plenty of other work to be done, much of it of the manual variety. The pulled up pavers, broke up concrete, and generally prepared both the courtyard and the chambers beneath for the formations to be laid.
By midday of the third day after Master Zhao’s return, the dorms were prepared and the formations finalized. All preparations were more or less ready. The past fifty-odd hours had been filled with frantic effort, but they had succeeded. The only question now was whether or not it would turn out to be a huge waste of effort. After all, just because Tara had succeeded didn't mean others would. Over those final two days, the number that had achieved a spirit pulse had risen, reaching just over 275. Of the remaining students, Xinasa was confident that most would achieve the required result in the very near future.
Only two seemed utterly incapable. After speaking with Master Zhao the two were returned to their previous homes. Some debate ensued on whether they should be replaced. Master Zhao made the final decision himself, choosing not to replace the students, leaving the total number at 298. They had known they would lose some students, but there was an air of melancholy as the students were sent off, something Xinasa hadn’t experienced in previous sects. It was normal for sects to lose students, not just expected but required. To have the sect actually mourn, however briefly, the loss of two students was proof enough that they were building something very different on a fundamental level.
During this time there was one other issue that couldn’t be ignored - the state of Tamara Greenly. Xinasa had taken it upon herself to remind her master that the girl was still completely mortal. A few moments had passed before the implications had struck him, but once they did he’d immediately set out to remedy the situation. While she had been with him he had naturally seen to her mundane needs through the application of his own energies. Now that she was back at the school he had other duties and wasn’t free to see to her at all times. Another consideration stopped him from simply assigning a disciple to take over the duty; Tara was still absorbing natural energy at a prodigious pace. He feared that continuing to introduce other energies might harm the girl in some way. The solution he came up with was rather unorthodox - he commanded the use of Earth medicine to sustain the girl. It wasn’t infeasible; several of the disciples had taken an interest in Earth medicine and knew enough to apply the proper treatments. His reason for doing so was quite sound, so naturally, no one objected when he asked a disciple to see to her.
The afternoon of the third day since Master Zhao’s return showed a completed courtyard now covered in strange designs. While the students knew nothing of their actual purpose, not one felt that the designs were normal. In fact, they all looked quite enchanting and mysterious, drawing the eye and inducing some vague awe in them. Even the mortal caretakers were affected when they looked into the courtyard, though all had been summarily banned from entering it without invitation.
When the students began to file in the disciples stopped them from choosing seats like they normally would. Instead, they were rounded up and made to wait off to the side while Xinasa took to the stage.
“Students, I know the past two days have been somewhat different, but we’ve been working on some changes. In the future, we want you to have pride and kinship not just with the school as a whole, but within your dorms and your floors. While this won’t affect much immediately, in the coming days you’ll find that it will be critical to how you develop. To make this easier to do, we’ve decided to associate each of your floors with a specific beast of our culture. The names will sound funny at first since we had to translate them from our language, but you’ll come to understand in time. Each of these beasts is revered in our culture, so don’t look down on whatever beast you receive, no matter how funny it sounds.”
“As I call out your floor you will be guided to your seats. In the future, these will be your permanent seats. Do not attempt to sit elsewhere.” There was some shuffling at this but they calmed down quickly.
“First, your dorm names. Boys dorm one is now Tiger Dorm. Boys two is Dragon Dorm. The mixed dorm is Tortoise dorm. Female dorm one is Phoenix Dorm. Female two is Qilin Dorm. I’m going to go floor by floor now, starting with Tiger Dorm.” Xinasa paused to make sure she had everyone’s attention and that they were following along.
“Tiger Dorm first floor is Kitsune floor or the Many Tailed Fox Floor. Floor Two is the Phantom-Gold Bear…” While she read the list with equanimity, that was only because she had seen the list before coming. Many of the disciples standing around were quite appreciative of the beasts that had been selected, showing respect to those Floor Elders who had managed to succeed brilliantly. She read through the list quickly, giving the associated elders just enough time to get their respective students moving the right direction before calling out the next. She was pleased to see that many of the newly promoted elders had familiarized themselves with the students on their respective floors, obviously taking their selection for the duty seriously.
It took nearly ten minutes to get everyone arranged properly, but soon they were all seated and Xinasa was once again walking them through meditation exercises, except this time each was directed to not only gather the light around them but to channel the pulse throughout their bodies, letting it suffuse them. There was obvious frustration from all the students as the suddenly found the exercise much more difficult. Complaints were common but dealt with quickly and gently.
Soon Xinasa felt the first pulse and knew that, whatever else happened, this step was a success. By the end of the two-hour meditation session, nearly fifty students had achieved their first pulse. A handful even managed two. Those who succeeded showed signs of exhaustion and were immediately taken back to their dorms to rest. She reminded the disciples responsible for the incense cleansing to take care and to ask for help if they needed it before retiring. Despite the chaos of the past few days, she was happy. Things were finally progressing.