Things do not go as we plan them. In fact, for some planners, things go exactly the opposite. There comes the famous quote "If a plan has more than three parts, it's made of megalomania, pride and failure in equal measure". I thought as I looked for a way in the forest, and went around a small and delicate looking bush with purple leaves looking for that damn tree. I thought to myself, how about writing a book, if `Small Thieves` does not post as fast as I like it to. Yea, a greedy thought, knowing how fast they release. Yet, that was what I decided to do, and deciding follows by doing.

The book name was yet decided, with a half baked plot. It was about Yordon's history. That world had it real hard with cultivators and their System. It was an extremely unbalanced world, in purpose, so that the readers would feel lucky for being born on Earth, for all its faults, had some measures of security against lunatics-standard behaviour. I know, that sound like an oxymoron but bare with me: 

In Yordon, when one is born, he is just like everyone else. Unless his family had access to cultivation resources with the ability to improve fetus capabilities. On a side note, Those are dangerous for the mother, as newborn's skull bones should not be joined until after giving birth, which might not be the case after the mother consumes said cultivation resources. Back on track, most are equal, but those who aren't. Then, I added the `Fortunate Encounter` to unbalance things some more. In essence, one can trade parts of his cultivation for a fortunate encounter ticket. That ticket can be use for the System to enforce said encounter and help the cultivator "immensely". Not every fortunate encounter does, as some hinder, fail or even kill the attempter, but most do not.

I found a tree with enough lower branches to climb, looked around to make sure I didn't see any scaled monkeys and went right to it.

sounds good, ain't it? So here is the catch: let's say that you have reached a position of power. and `suffer` from a cultivated state of mind like not caring for anything but your clan. What could you do to make sure your clan would thrive? Now, that's not a theoretical quiz question, but a practical question. What could you do?

sadly, the next is but a part of the solutions found:

Marry many women, caring for the baby more than the mother, and make sure that said clan young masters all starts with heads-up. Then, prevent knowledge in the territory you control(classic Middle Ages church, I know), so that only those you allow would know how to utilize the System and its benefits. Eliminating competitors before they grow too much, while using the System to farm Fortunate Encounters from said competitors, as it costs cultivation, remember. (Capitalism's problem, as it is not entirely a free market, when there is only one giant company) and so on.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

And now to the history part. People stopped cultivating, for that would make you either a target for elimination or a target for extortion, instead, for a couple of generations, they just lived happily, as mortals, and died when their time had come. Problem was that City lords, Clans and Sects suddenly had a problem, as they used to farm Encounters from the Supreme-Mortals ranks, but those were no more. Each decided to motivate the lowly mortals to cultivate by... you guessed right, violence, as cultivation will help them defend themselves. Then history had a hiccup.

City lords sponsored bandits, clans kidnaped more women for the next generation but sects? they had it all wrong. They kidnaped married women for marriage proposes. They gave them a cultivation manual, disregarding the mortals those women were married to. In a sense, they were right, as those mortals died shortly after the women were taken. On the other hand, a millennia after that, the Married Women Rebellion(MMR) happened,  when a group of seventeen women who became `old monsters` and did not forget nor forgive set the sects and the clans on fire. They were a force to be reckoned with, as they came from different sects, and had only care for the destruction of those who wronged them so much time ago, willing to betray their sects and sharing lineage secrets with each other on their way to revenge.

That's the hiccup. the first one, I thought, while reaching for another branch. almost there

That was the main hiccup, yea, but those ladies did not think about how to continue from there without committing the same mistakes, and apparently history repeats. After all the sect's secrets were unified under the MMR sect, the bawl was flipped. When the original MMR died, a few millennia later, women were the oppressors. Then the story began.

The story is about two children's lives, tweens, a male and a female, living their life in a farm, when suddenly the male was taken to be a servant at The Sect, while the female was praised as a rare genius and was taken into MMR sect as well.

"To leave the forest, follow the sun". Finally I am high enough to see where the sun is. I know the direction, but man, that's a lot of forest to cover.

back to the story. History had a few other hiccups, as history (and cultivators) do, but all in all, cultivation was reserved for women anywhere it's not wilderness.

And Why pray tell that's a problem? Because, for some unknown reason, when I found myself last week in this forest and thought sarcastically 'System', it, and I cursed like someone suffering from severe coprolalia, it greeted me.