‘Whew, it's always strange to see old farts looking at me with those puppy dog eyes…’

Zhang Dong removed himself from the gathering area after enhancing Zhang Zhi's cultivation. The other elders had sparkles in their eyes and if he allowed it they would probably start kissing his feet just to get some help. This was not that strange of behavior as after hundreds of years of failing in cultivating the old farts were desperate.

This procedure that Zhi had gone through was a limited bonus he was given after getting in contact with Wang Long’s system. Under his faction window, Zhi was the first one to make it over to his prestige units. There was a limited number of five people that could go through this changing process and he already had decided on the next two.

First of this was a little test to see what this function entailed for the one going through with it. While his favorability rating was enhanced it didn’t seem that Zhi had really changed much. Now he could move on to his family members like Zhang Liena that would be next in line. After her came Huo Qiang and then on the next two he had not fully decided on.

One of the possible candidates was Zhang Jin. His grandfather was loyal and a trusted member of his inner circle. The only problem was that he had only recently achieved the nascent soul level. His power wouldn’t get as much of the boost unless he really dumped all the spirit points he had to get him to the middle stage. With how he was planning to get Qiang and Liena into the late stage this would be quite costly.

Both of his disciples were also potential targets of the boost. While they were still core formation practitioners this could open up the future for them. Considering that he might have to play the long game it might not have been such a bad idea. The two would not become nascent soul masters instantly but would be closer to being half-step into the higher realm.

With time they would certainly develop into powerful figures, the only question was if they had enough time. If the Azure Emperor came knocking and his wife joined in then his disciples wouldn’t be that helpful. However, they would be a great choice if he needed his kids to retreat. Zhang Xue and Liu would be perfect bodyguards and caretakers. Perhaps it was the wrong kind of motivation to entrust more power to people in hopes they return the favor but there wasn’t much he could do here.

‘Besides Qiang and Liena there aren’t that many elders worth mentioning, I guess I’ll gather enough resources for them before making a decision.’

For the time being, he made the choice to wait. Zhang Zhi needed to be monitored as well before he truly decided to fiddle with his wife with the help of his system. It should not be able to fiddle with the thoughts of people but there was always a risk. There were already techniques in this world that could be used to control others, it wouldn’t be strange if whoever made this world had access to stronger ones.

These prestige ‘units’ that the one affected became came with a boon. They were supposed to become loyal to the faction leader. This meant they were reinforced against any mind-affecting spells and techniques. They also shared in the power of the faction leader which after the run-in with the overseer would come in handy. His wish was that the Empress would not be able to affect them as much just as he wasn’t affected by the time stop.

“Well then, I should try this new monitoring feature.”

After his speech, it was time to return to the Golden Dong Palace. With a quick teleport, he appeared in his private chamber. No one would be the wiser if he was or was not in his personality floating castle which also improved the workflow.

The room he was in had been slowly plastered all over with various monitors and another holographic map replica. Thanks to his cultivation it wasn’t hard to look at multiple screens at the same time. There, on all of them, he could quickly check the state of his sect and the state of the empire.

‘Best if I color code everything first… Let me see… I guess my faction can go with white or yellow…’

It was turning into a strategy game. His golden cultivation and the whole Golden Dragon persona inclined him to choose yellow as the color for his side. The Azure Emperor would of course be blue and the Emerald Phoenix Empire was green. The Heavenly Crane Sect had become pink and that left Argus and his faction as a holy white. Then the fish people with brown color so as to not coincide with the other blue.

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‘I guess it's muddy water? Their color patterns kind of clash with each other…’

After inputting everything into the mapping device he was given the state of the current war. The West border region was all yellow and it pushed into the north side where the demonic lands were. The center of the empire was blue with the coloring becoming fainter before being taken over by other colors.

‘That Emerald Phoenix Empire took quite a chunk from the east side, their territory is almost as big as mine…’

After a few glances, it was clear that the Long Clan still had the largest section of land. They were highly concentrated in the middle though with the rest just being faint blue with a questionable grasp. The pink coloring pushed into the east side which clashed with the green side. Then in the south, there was a small white encampment that belonged to Lucius.

The faction system even introduced a hostility rating that he could place on the interactive map that was now connected to his system. Only after being reassured by Bob that the administrator couldn’t access the system he had was he willing to continue using it like this.

‘It’s a bit strange but perhaps that great goldy figure above doesn’t want the overseers to fiddle with the system? If that’s true then perhaps this broken system is the greatest weapon I could have against it.’

There could be a few reasons that the administrators didn’t have access to the system holders' system. One of them was to make it fair for the system holder but that didn’t really make much sense as the administrator was there to steer the scenario in one way. Then if something went wrong they could even erase people's memories and probably even kill the system holder.

After going through his predecessor's files he was still unable to find anything to help him with the administrators. That man had to be aware of the whole structure of this world and that included the overseer. Was it also the Empress even two hundred thousand years ago or did these people die as the rest?

The world had a limit on power and even when that woman was a lot stronger she didn’t feel like a fully-fledged immortal. In the previous world, the demon king also had a power level going above the heroes but he was still only within the confines of power that Zhang Dong was at.

Taking that into consideration it should be possible to take out the Empress if he only got a bit stronger. Something like a half step into the immortal realm should be more than enough. His main plan was to absorb the Dao’s of the two other Emperor-level enemies, perhaps they would be enough to push him in the right direction. If that didn’t work he would need to do it the hard way or utilize his faction system in some other way.

It was easy to bring his people closer to his own level but it wasn’t possible to go beyond it. There was a possibility of gaining some insight from his own faction members but as it stood for now they were all behind him.

The only two that were slightly above were Qiang in the ways of fire Dao and Liena in the wind department. However, this was not something he couldn’t cross by himself if he just delved into the study himself. All the base techniques they were given were created through the system and what they were doing was just perfecting them.

‘I guess if we three lock ourselves in seclusion for a few hundreds of years then we might gain insight into several more Daos without needing to fight but can I trust the admin to not figure out that my system is busted at some point…’

The Azure Dragon was a big problem, he always brought his wife over for any type of occasion. It would be a slap to the face of the Long Clan if Zhang Dong refused any invitations or didn’t invite his own brother to some more serious events. At some point in time, they would need to meet and when that happened he needed to be ready.

With the map before him, he could continue to monitor the fishy invaders in the north and the more traditional cultivators in the east. Regretfully this map didn’t really tell him anything about the strengths or weaknesses of his enemies. At most, it could warn him of surprise attacks or secret hiding places if they had a powerful enough defensive force.

But this was not the reason for this setup, he was attempting to change it from an action game into a strategy for now. From this chamber with the screens, he could perfectly direct all of his forces to places he seemed fit. He had built up his faction to be part of the great three and it was time to use them as such.

‘I need to get stronger and they need to get stronger if we want to survive this together, I can’t cuddle them or play the hero forever, if they can’t take care of themselves then after I’m gone it won’t take much for the entire sect to implode…’

While giving out a sigh he looked towards the top part of the map. There he saw a small yellow dot where Zhang Zhi and the current forces were stationed. After the scouts came back it was time to prepare the offensive. This time around he would be taking a backseat and his sect members would have to fend for themselves to gain more experience.

‘They should be fine…’

He hoped that he wasn’t making a mistake and was also ready to jump in if things got too hairy for Zhi. But while the offensive was taking place he wouldn’t be fully passive. There were other ways of supporting his troops than directly being there on the battlefield.

‘I guess I should prepare some items worth for true grandmasters.’