With the agenda of the trip achieved, Aki did not linger about, but set off back to the sect immediately. The return trip was a lot less eventful than the previous leg of the journey, which made Aki feel a bit uneasy. The whole way he was expecting the other shoe to drop, but that moment never came.

The little hamlets, lakes and forests were just as charming the second time, so overall it was a pleasant journey. Aki even managed to coax Winter Gale into some proper conversation a few times.

In truth, he was trying to think of excuses to make the journey last longer, but he really could not find one good enough. He was dreading the amount of work he would have to do on the return to the sect – he was certain a positive pile of missives would be awaiting him

I’ll have to get started properly on the [Tax Evasion] stuff, then I have to make sure the integration of the Soul Food School goes well, and then there are all the other projects there. It almost fills me with despair!

Still, these were only idle daydreams of his – he did not truly intend on escaping his work. He just could not get enthusiastic about all the bothersome busywork.

The return journey in fact took a few days less than Aki had planned, and in no time at all he was back at the sect.

Aki gave himself a few hours of laying about in the residence after returning – always his favourite part of any trip. Still, there was much to do so he could not linger long. After charging up his energy sufficiently, he called Passionate Seeker to give a report on sect matters.

“Master, disciple Passionate Seeker offers greetings! I’ve gathered reports on the things you requested.”

Naturally the meeting was in his favourite courtyard’s tea corner, where Aki was sipping on some tea while he listened to his apprentice. He glanced up from his cup. The woman was looking as attentive as ever, but Aki thought he sensed some more spring to her step than usual. Is she feeling happy about something?

That should have been a matter to celebrate, but Aki only felt a sense of foreboding. He was not sure exactly why, but perhaps the recent [Power Point] technique incident was still bothering him. His disciples had been a little bit too enthusiastic lately, so he could only worry that a new incident was on the way.

Still, whatever the matter is, business comes first.

Aki set his cup down. “Have there been any matters of note in the sect while I was gone?”

“Nothing too unusual, master. The experiment has gotten well underway and preparations for the outer sect contest are finished. The contest itself should be beginning soon.”

“You’ve done well keeping matters in control here. How about matters outside the sect? The reports from the mission hall should have been delivered to you.”

The woman furrowed her brows on that. “There may be something... strange afoot. About a week ago all indications of demonic cultivator activity seem to have disappeared from our territory. It caused great worry for Elder Boreal Night.”

Aki kept up his poker face. Alright, looks like I’ve actually managed to be somewhat effective in solving something for once. Maybe my plan was more clever than I thought?

“Do not worry about that, the matter is being handled. I’ll send word to the mission hall about the specifics, but it will be classified for now. How about White River Pavilion, how has their arrival gone?”

“They are still setting up, we received word that migrating supply routes here will take a while.”

Aki poured himself some more tea as he thought. Hmm, I should get started on that operation as soon as possible. I think we’re going to be sending in the preliminary information on the next periods finances next month.

“Please inform the Pavilion that I wish to meet with them soon. Is there anything else?”

That energy in his apprentice’s posture was still there, and the reason had yet to be revealed. The woman shuffled around a bit, before throwing her arms out with a shout.

“I’ve managed to figure out your [Counting Spirit Stones] Qi condensation technique! It’s gotten so much more efficient once I figured out the missing part!”

Wait, that actually worked? And well too? Aki saw his apprentice’s smiling face and realised that this may not be bad news after all. He allowed himself to feel some relief.

“Ah, you have done well apprentice. How did you figure it out?”

“Well, first I followed your advice and made some trade deals to earn a ton of spirit stones! Some rogue cultivators were looking for rare materials, and I managed to properly gouge them on the prices just as you taught me to!”

Aki smiled. This was fortunate news indeed. “Ah, you have done really well then. That technique-”

“But!” she interrupted. “That was still not too inefficient, so I had to find the next step!”

Aki raised an eyebrow; his apprentice was unusually excited. Did she earn even more money for the sect? He allowed himself to get hopeful.

Passionate Seeker gestured with her hands, forming a circle. “You told me about how karma was about contracts, giving and receiving, but I was only seeing half of it. I was only earning.” She smiled brighter. “So for the next step, I had to spend it all!”

Aki felt his breath catch in his throat.

“Y-you spent it all?”

“Yes, to make the cycle complete I had to of course spend everything I had earned!”

Aki almost slumped down on the table, but barely hung on. No! I’ve completely failed in my stockpile money plan!

“Apprentice... What did you spend it on?”

That seemed to sober her up a bit. She fidgeted with her hands for a moment before continuing.

“Ah, I was thinking about where to spend it all, and well, you did give me all that authority, and there was that experiment we had to run, and-”

Aki narrowed his eyes. “Spit it out, what did you spend it on?”

She looked a bit sheepish for just a moment. “Well, in your experiment you wanted the disciples to have some leisure time each day, but the ones who had been at the sect longer did not really know what to do with that time.”

She raised her gaze up, looking nervous. “I was consulted for advice, so I sought to follow your example.” She gestured outside the window to a nearby lake. “I arranged for a whole bunch of [Sauna] facilities to be built in the outer sect.”

Aki breathed a sigh of relief. Well, that could have been something a whole lot worse. This isn’t too bad actually. It almost lines up with some of my plans. He raised his head up.

“Don’t worry, you’ve done well. I see that I did not err when I gave you this authority. Keep up the good work.”

She beamed at the compliment, all traces of that previous nervousness vanishing.

“Thank you master! I’ll continue to give my best effort!”

With that, Aki finished sipping his tea and prepared for his next meeting. It was time to settle some practicalities.

The matter of the [Tax Evasion] was not too complicated to handle. Aki chose to transfer 30% of all future sales to the Pavilion, while using that money to replace a corresponding number of purchases. It would take some time for the effects to actually come into play, but the savings should help balance finances.

Aki tried to not be too greedy with how much he transferred over, as financial matters were reported in advance to the Liquid Sword sect. He settled on 30% initially as it seemed like an amount he could explain away if someone actually came to investigate.

The matter of the Soul Food School was more difficult to arrange. They arrived a week after Aki, and promptly began getting integrated into the sect. The sect received 40 new members and 1 new elder. Aki found to his surprise that there was no formal ceremony for the induction of a new elder, things just went on as normal.

He imagined it might be because the other elders couldn’t be bothered to attend such bothersome event, but he did not mind it. It just saved him some work after all.

Aki arranged for the new Soul Food Hall to be established near his [Sauna] in order to centralize his leisure facilities. It was not too much trouble to form a new Hall in the inner sect, but the outer sect was a more tricky matter.

Aki chose to have the Soul Food school’s outer sect disciples, who formed about half of the members, form a study group of sorts in the outer sect. They received their own facility and one of the senior members was to be there to supervise them, but that alone would have given them a privileged position compared to other Outer Sect disciples.

To rectify this, Aki arranged for admissions to the Soul Food study group to be open, and made an announcement that in the near future other study groups would be established.

He did not really know how he wanted to arrange those yet, so he chose to delay matters for a bit in order to get some time to think on it.

With sect matters initially settled, Aki could again focus on his training, and he continued cultivating his water Qi. The lessons with Passionate Seeker were also proceeding well, and Aki could feel his instincts and skills with combat weaves being honed.

Altogether, things settled into a rather comfortable rhythm. His disciples continued their various tasks and were achieving steady results – Aki was anticipating improvements with his alcohol the most.

Life in the sect was rather peaceful for a while, but Aki began to feel that something was missing. Something that he had enjoyed a lot in his past life but was shockingly lacking here in the sect. Something extremely fundamental to the human experience.

A new plan began forming in his mind, and so Aki began to theorize and experiment with a more specialized version of his [Karmic Bonds] technique. It took him two months of diligent work before he felt ready to unveil his plan.

This plan would end up causing him quite a lot of turmoil in the future, but not all of it would be unpleasant.