“Father’s insane.” The children murmured between themselves, unaware that Tundra could hear their every word.

“Is father possessed?”

“I want the old grandfather back!” One of his grandchildren protested.

The hall was noisy as Tundra declared the new rules. Every child and grandchildren’s stipends and benefits would now be pegged to their cultivation level, and also their tasks.

In short, he had turned his family into a mini-sect of its own, and each child had to earn ‘merit’ in order to receive rewards.

His three wives sat next to him, and Elly looked at her children sympathetically. This change would be hard for them. They were so used to privilege that it would be a struggle to accept such a change.

“Father-” Edison Mistburn Fox, the unofficial young master, spoke up. “Why- why do you want this change? It’s making the family unhappy and frustrated. With this, we’re no better than the sect’s disciples. How can we walk out with pride as the heirs of the Great Fox Family??”

Tundra Fox merely stared at his son, and once more, wondered how he raised such arrogant fools. He looked at Elly, the mother, and frowned.

Was this all because of his absence, and his wives were unable to discipline his children? It had to be.

“If you want to walk with pride, reach the 5th realm.” Tundra Fox countered. “Even if you are dressed like a pauper, in the fifth realm, everyone in the Middle Cities would still bow to you.”

Edison immediately shrunk.

“Power. All of you don’t have it.” He said frankly. “2nd realm after a hundred years? Do you know how many prodigies in the great sects reached the 4th realm by 50 years old? And you still talk about some foolish pride?! I’ve failed my family. For me to take so long to see the blinding laziness right in front of me, I brought shame to the Verdant Snow Sect and my ancestors.”

All his grandchildren and children froze in silence.

“A sect master that doesn’t know how to raise his own children. How can a sect master like that even hope to train good disciples?” Tundra repeated.

Of course, it’s not so simple. It is easy for a sect master to just pick good, talented disciples and raise them. It is another matter to raise rowdy children into great cultivators.

But the children trembled anyway. “Who here doesn’t want to cultivate?” No one raised their hands. At this point, Tundra was fairly sure his wives spoke to his children already.

Anna, Evan, and many of his other children were also here. They silently listened. It was true that they didn’t amount to much. Many, many years ago, in Anna’s first few years, her supplies as the first child wasn’t even that great. Her father wasn’t the Sect Master, and an elder’s resources were a far cry from that of a sect master.

Tundra waited. “We are a cultivation sect. I’m the Sect Master, and right now, your father and grandfather. If you are the type of offspring I have, then it seems I am truly a failure as those people say I am. They say a tiger doesn’t have puppies for sons, but when I see my children, I’m disappointed.”

His wives all looked uncomfortable.

“Your mothers believe I’m the cause. That I failed to guide all of you.” Tundra Fox admitted. “I think they are right, so, while the rest of you still have time left, I will correct this ship and make something from you.”

The children looked afraid.

“From now on, my schedule will include two days of cultivation training. All of you will spend two days with me. I expect all of you, who still want to be cultivators, to attend my training.”

His children all gulped. He looked at a few of his youngest grandchildren. They were still children. Jihan, Jericho and Jessica were all less than ten years old.

“The three of them will be exempt from this. We start next week.”

***

The children dispersed, and he could tell their response was mixed. Some of them were keen to train.

In a large enough group of people, there were always those who wanted change, and those who resisted it. His goal, as Sect Master, and patriarch of his family, was to encourage those who wanted change, and discourage those who resisted it.

He returned to his own room after the long meeting with his descendants. They were his children, but they were all old. His youngest, the 10th child, Azelia, was already 120 years old.

Once he was alone, he sighed.

In hindsight, training and growing a sect would probably be easier than raising his children to be something. Raw materials mattered a lot. It was one of the main principles when running a sect.

A raw talent could be nurtured and polished. But it was very difficult to turn raw dirt into a gem. So, in the old Verdant Snow Sect, he focused on the talents. Talents who wanted to be there. Talents who were loyal, hardworking, and had the right attitude.

He left his children to his wives. In fact, he remembered he had thirty five wives and about ten more concubines over 10,000 years. He reached the 10th realm around Imperial Year 41,000, and by then, sects and other powerful families were more than eager to offer him new mates.

He didn’t think about it much back then. He lost his family, so his reaction then was to start another one. He didn’t even know why he didn’t question his decision.

“Husband, may we come in?” Elly, Marin and Celestia were outside.

It was rare that three of them came to see him together. He wondered what the three discussed. “Yes.”

His three wives sat around the tea table, and Elly took the lead, as the 4th wife. “Husband, the children are protesting your new rules.”

Tundra sighed. “Which one?”

“Almost all of them.” Marin countered. “They’ve approached all three of us and asked us to speak to you to loosen the restrictions.”

Tundra sagged. His disappointment from the earlier meeting did not fade.. “They are all adults. They should have had some achievements by now. When I was their age, I was charging towards every treasure realm, every forbidden land, just to earn merit.”

Both Elly and Marin looked down at their cups.

“Why did they grow up like this?” Tundra said, frustrated.

Elly tried to defend herself. “It’s hard to take care of children who don’t listen. They think they have power and they keep pushing the servants around-”

“And I was too busy to step in, and my elders won’t get involved in family matters.”

Elly nodded.

Tundra Fox, at that moment, wondered whether it would be just better to let his entire family die and then he would start a new one. He honestly felt a little sick of his own thoughts, and shook his head. “No matter. Of our children, who do you think actually wants to be a cultivator?”

The three wives glanced at each other. The fact that it took a while for them to even answer told Tundra everything.

“None of my children have an interest in being a cultivator?” Impossible. In his mind, surely some of them have some interest. It couldn’t be that there isn’t a single talented soul in his ten children and twelve grandchildren?!

Elly quickly corrected. “I think Sonia, your granddaughter and Adelia? Edison too, a little.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Marin frowned at the mention of her daughter. “Adelia really does have an interest, but her talent is really weak. She’s only in the 1st realm, but she’s already in the late stages of her lifespan at 150 years old.”

Back then, his Verdant Snow Sect collected disciples from 10,000 cities and the entire continent. In the later years as a Great Sect, they received 100,000 disciples annually across all their branches, and naturally, there would be one among them all that really was gifted with talent. It was just as the other sect masters said, a game of numbers. There was really no foolproof way to ensure talent was inherited, though there were supposedly special cultivation methods to improve the quality of offsprings.

He looked at them. “Really? No one else?”

“Maybe Edison, he’s in the 2nd realm, and Anna? Anna’s the only one in the 3rd realm.” Marin tried to offer alternatives.

“Ed’s distracted most of the time.” Elly countered. Edison was her first child, and he was the one who spoke up earlier. “He- he seems to prefer chasing women than cultivating. It’s lucky that Suri manages to control him.”

Some of his children were married, and thus produced children of their own.

Tundra frowned. “I don’t mind that he lusted after women, but how can he neglect his cultivation? It’s why we exist as a martial sect!”

Celestia sensed the conversation was going nowhere, and she was the only one with no children of her own. “Why not try improving our cultivation? Let us lead the way.”

“Us?” Elly looked at Celestia.

“Yes. We’re his wives, and maybe our children would finally see that their father means it. If our cultivation improved, they’d see that cooperating with Tundra would help them.”

Tundra liked that idea, but he immediately observed Elly and Marin’s reaction. The two wives thought for a while, and eventually nodded. “Very well. As their mother, I suppose I have no right to say much if I’m only in the 3rd realm at my age.”

Tundra smiled as his wives agreed. “Once a week, or at night, why not all of you come to my room. We can cultivate together.”

Marin panicked briefly, and clarified. “We’re cultivating, not making children, right?”

“Of course.” Tundra laughed as he watched the three wives blush shyly at the mention of making children. Marin’s embarrassed look tugged at his heart, and reminded him of how much he missed having them around. He didn’t know why he was so busy chasing prestige and power in his first life, and neglected the blessings of the wonderful women he had around him.

***

The scripture pavilion of the Verdant Snow Sect was a fairly modest place. He remembered how it was rebuilt to be much larger and grander, many, many years into the future. Cultivation methods and techniques were stored here, many of the techniques were created and modified over time by various experts, and it was common for many elders to write down their insights on their methods.

Writing honed the mind, and focused the direction of thought. The teacher learns from the process of teaching.

Many elders gained epiphanies into their chosen arts and methods from the questions of their disciples. Even innocent, simple questions sometimes held great insights.

Tundra flipped through the pavilion, and looked for something unrelated to the scriptures. Instead, he looked at writings on family. On relationships. On raising children.

It was incredibly scarce.

It was not a topic that a cultivation sect normally collected.

“Sect Master.” Elder Jon Blackstone was the Pavilion’s Elder, and so he bowed. “What brings you here?”

In Elder Jon’s mind, the sect master didn’t need more cultivation methods. So it had to be something else.

Tundra looked at Jon Blackstone, and smiled. “Jon.”

He looked back at the shelves. Each of the shelves was made from the bones of a type of ancient fish, the Deep Icelake Sea Clawfish. The bones of that fish possessed a unique quality, as it was really good at separating the energies of various scriptures, allowing the scriptures to be sorted and arranged without affecting other scriptures.

The book he looked for probably didn’t need such special shelving.

“I’m looking for writings on raising children.”

Jon’s eyes widened, before he grinned. “That is a concern I didn’t know you have, Sect Master.”

Jon was an old friend. Loyal. He served him till his death. “Sit with me, Jon.”

There was a quiet room with a tea table at the highest floor of the scripture pavilion, meant for moments of deep contemplation. It was not a place for tea, but Tundra was the sect master, and no one was going to stop him.

“You really sound old, Tundra.” Jon said with a smile, after Tundra expressed his frustrations with his descendants. “To be fair, I did bring it up to you.”

“You did?” Tundra honestly couldn’t remember.

“You brushed it off. You said to give them time. I took that as a hint that you’re fine with it, and so never brought it up again. I think that was, perhaps five-six decades ago?”

“They were in the 50s then.” Tundra retorted, but he sighed immediately afterwards. “I wish I had intervened earlier.”

“It’s never too late.” Jon shrugged. “People can change, after all.”

“It’s really hard to change personalities and people.” Tundra countered as he sipped his tea. He knew it’s hard to change people, that's why as a Sect, they focused on the talents, and ignored those who were not. But it’s not like that with his family.

“But they can. And if there’s anyone you should spend the time helping, it’s your family. ”

“True.”

They both drank their tea at the same time.

Tundra looked at Jon, and decided to change it up a bit. It’s been forever since he had a good chat with his old friends. “How about you, do you ever hope to start a family?”

Elder Jon choked on his tea. “Thank you for the offer. Watching you make babies was enough to tell me all I want to know about life as a married man. The politics of your wives’ families was enough to scare me for ten lives.”

The Regressor Sect Master paused. This topic sounded familiar, but he wasn’t sure what happened there. It’s been so long. “Is something happening there?”

“You mean the pills and cultivation resources your wives send back to their family or their old sect? Or the brewing conflicts with their rival families? Or the recent raids on merchant convoys headed for the town of Mistburn?”

Tundra paused. He could not remember it at all. For Jon, this was just recent news, but for Tundra, there was a full 10,000 years between them. He stared at Jon, and sighed. “I admit I don’t recall. I’ll need to be brought up to speed on our recent events.”

Jon looked at Tundra, and nodded. He quickly explained how the rival families of Dragongate and Silversands tried to encroach on Mistburn’s territory. Although it wasn’t open conflict, the two families funded bandits that aggressively attacked Mistburn merchant convoys, but left their convoys untouched.

Then, on Marin’s side, her family recently faced a surge in beast attacks, and that led to disruptions to the family’s mining operations in the Dragon’s Earthspine Mountains.

Both his wives funneled their allocated cultivation resources and healing pills back to their families, in essence, reducing their own children’s cultivation resources.

“It’s been going on for a while.” Tundra realized as Jon narrated how the first attacks occurred about 50 years ago and the conflicts merely escalated in that time frame.

“Oh yes. But we didn’t bring it up, after all, it’s your family issue. As a sect, we remain focused on your goals for our sect.”

Tundra nodded. That was the right thing to do. There really should be a separation between the personal, private lives of the Sect Master, and the professional duties related to a Sect. But he knew that wasn’t true most of the time. Each Sect Master will take what they can for their family, and it is only offset by the bargaining power and balancing influence of the Sect’s Elders.

But reality is often complicated, since the marriages with Elly and Marin were both on the basis that he was then an elder of the Verdant Snow.

He looked at Jon, and then asked. “Can we absorb them as subsidiary sects?”

It was not unusual for families to be a sort of subsidiary clan or sect. Many great sects have thousands of subsidiary families who were naturally part of the network.

“They would have to contribute more to our sect, and that’s not something we’ve ever discussed with your wives.”

As with all marriages, all ‘agreements’ are often verbal and usually vague. Terms like ‘support’ and ‘presence’ are thrown about all the time, but what do they mean?

“I’ll have to deal with it.” Tundra nodded.

Jon shrugged. “The Sect will have your back, Sect Master. If you want us to assist, we will do so.”

“It does not feel appropriate to mix up the two.”

“I know, but which sect out there isn’t deeply intertwined with its ruling families?”

Tundra closed his eyes. Who else was after them? He was fairly sure he ignored many of his old foes, after all, many didn’t dare take action when he was in the 9th or 10th realm. “Which other sects are our enemies?”

Jon laughed. “Plenty. And there’s more that we don’t know. When we seized control of Lakeshore Barrens and the town of Lakeshore, we made enemies with the Yellow Cloud Sect and the Blood Blade Sect. Even now they are trying to get rid of our representative Core Disciple. It’s just some stroke of luck that Lakeshore isn’t worth it to deploy someone powerful, and Elder Jashen makes frequent trips to Lakeshore just to remind them, and make our presence felt.”

Lakeshore. It happened about ten years ago when the second most powerful family of Lakeshore, the Blackshore family, approached them to assist in overthrowing the most powerful family, the Yellow Cloud and Blood Blade-backed Amberblade family.

The patriarch of the Blackshore family was in the 4th realm, just like the patriarch of the Amberblade family, and Tundra remembered how Elder Jashen and the Core Disciple, Agnia, beat the patriarch till he was bleeding from head to toe and lost a few realms of cultivation.

It was bloody.

But that was politics in the world of Cultivators. All right to rule was determined by strength. Even today, the Imperial Family rules thanks to the support of the Great Sects, and the gift of the True Golden Dragon.

He couldn’t help but chuckle. He used to fear those who held the gifts, but in the end, the True Golden Dragon’s descendants were still defeated by the Zuja Avatars.

For some issues, such as politics and control, the solution was simple. “As always, the first thing we need is strength. If we have strength, these flies will naturally won’t dare to act.”

“-you mean?”

Celestia was right. He needed to start growing the strength of those willing to work with him. His wives, and his elders were prime candidates. He smiled at Jon. “It seems I will find myself in my alchemy workshop a lot.”