The Aunties and their children listened in rapt attention about Jessica's description of cars and city life. Most of the Aunties had never been farther than two towns away, except for the one that moved for love. Of course, that was Elaine and no she wasn't bitter about it in any way. She was fine.

Jessica's kettles emptied, they said their goodbyes and promised to meet again for tea the next day. Today's tea had stretched into dinner and it was apparent that of the many students she had that only a precious few were self-starters. It seemed that everyone was too caught up in not offending anyone else to the point of pain.

Imagining outer disciples agonizing for hours if something rose to her level made her realize that she needed to sit down with all of the remaining disciples in leadership positions.

And probably appoint some replacements.

***

Jessica Kim aimed for a low profile. The third morning after the attack, she was looking for potential targets for leadership positions. She didn’t even know what positions needed to be filled and would probably look stupid just asking.

It was too bad that there wasn't a book called sect leading for dummies. She racked her brain thinking about Less Wrong cycles that dealt with group rationality and were struck that she already has a high level of buy-in from the sect.

She was at the beginning of the fifth realm, apparently about to embark on a nascent spirit path, in a world that respected power and enlightenment. The same respect she gave to Rationalist leaders and scientists.

How had she selected people for leadership before? When she became a manager at her last job, her supervisor sat her down for an honest chat.

In the chat, he reminded her that just because someone does quality work, it does not make them a leader. He didn’t explain what else was needed but the cycles filled in a bit more of it.

A friend had been promoted to management and realized his mistake. He was not a people person and dealing with others stressed him out. He didn't want that amount of control in their lives. Jessica hadn’t felt like she was controlling their lives, but their workflow.

She could start with the workflow. The first step she could take would be to make sure she understood the full scope of what the Sect did for itself and outside entities.

Walking around the rubble clearing outside she realized that she was sneering. She always did that while deep in thought on difficult problems.

Looking up, none of the students looked at her. They were intentionally looking away.

This is fine, she thought.

A pile of rocks sat nearby. Clean clear stones, any one of which would be a perfect skipping stone. Now, where was a little pond or lake?

Another thought struck her. She loved graphs and physical representations of her problems, especially if it was some tabletop RPG.

Jessica nodded to the closest student.

He hopped over to bow at her feet.

The stone floor she sat on was marked by long streaks of rock and the abundant qi of the cold. It was also smoothed to resemble a clean concrete pour. The small pile of rocks was there probably because the students were removing the rocks from largest to smallest.

"Bring me Junior Disciple An-Yong and Grace please," She said.

"I hear and obey."

He ran off sprinting in what would have been a world record anywhere on earth. He flew down the steps outside the raised floor towards the tunnel entrance.

***

"This was probably an important building," Elder Jessica said when both of the Junior Disciples arrived. Not one hair was out of place for either but it was clear by their reddish complexion that they too sprinted all out.

"It was Elder," Grace said. The new elder had expected a lot of her immediately and Grace was certain that it was going to be her year.

In the center of the room, the new Elder had laid out two hundred stones of the skipping variety. On a few of them, she had drawn a character for Junior disciples, on many, the character for initiates, and about twenty had a character Grace did not know.

"Elder, would you like some help with your…" Grace didn’t know quite what word would be right for this occasion.

"Ah for my project? Yes. You see, I am trying to visualize the Sect and how it works."

Grace breathed a sigh of relief. The smallest offense could give the new elder a reason to cripple her for life. She would have no recourse, and although she seemed eminently reasonable so far, she could easily turn into an arrogant young mistress if proved. At least that was how things went in the stories that Initiate-no, brother- An-Yong told.

"And you need our help to understand?" An-Yong said.

"Yes. I need to understand what it is that the school does to figure out how best to…" The blue and white-haired elder snapped her fingers, "deploy our resources."

Elder Jessica took ten blank stones.

"These are the scouts and when they are not scouting, say they do regular tasks."

She placed the ten stones on the side. An-Yong and Jessica moved in.

"These are the aunties. I will be making them gainfully employed while they are here, at their request."

The stones marked with the unfamiliar letters seemed to be the ones in question as those were moved off to the left. Twenty-two stones were in that pile.

"That leaves all these outer sect disciples here, which I am not sure if I even have an accurate count."

Grace nodded. She was off by seventeen rocks but the representation in this manner seemed very helpful.

"Can you break down some more of the duties a bit better?"

Jessica looked to her like an equal, pleading to Grace with her eyes to rise to the task.

Grace pulled out a brush and took five stones.

"These are the alchemist and his four disciples. They are very important to the functioning of the school, but they don't generally advance past the third realm, and refuse the call to become a core elder like yourself."

She painted the stones with the symbol and sat them down on the outside. She handed the brush to An-Yong.

"Three outer sect disciples used to man the library full time along with one elder. They also were responsible for the treasure rooms, when we had them."

An-Yong painted the rocks and placed them to the side.

"Of the rest, about twenty per day take turns in a rotation cooking, cleaning, and maintaining the grounds. It's not always the same twenty," Grace said, “Additionally we have artisans and craftspeople that keep us running.”

Another five rocks left the pile.

“There is a small group of official emissaries that we keep,” Grace said, moving four more rocks down into another pile, “They go speak to the other clans on our behalf. And finally, we have healers.”

Five more rocks were separated, and off to the side with their distinct markers.

“The Emissaries, they are like salesmen…” Jessica said, “I mean diplomats.”

Grace stood up, looking around.

“This one doesn’t think that she forgot anything else, Elder. It is possible that anything else the sect needs, we spend our funds to get. When not otherwise engaged, any third realm or up cultivator can be sent on tasks that we have been asked to perform, usually with a second tagging alongside.”

“Now I want to also break these down by what level of cultivator they are.”

Jessica smiled.

“This one has more… paint,” Grace said.

“We have a need.”

Grace smiled. She was going to bring her favorite colors

Total Sect Disciples/Followers: 217

Inner Sect

Fifth Realm: 1

Fourth Realm: 0

Outer Sect

Third Realm: 35

Second Realm: 81

First Realm(or lower): 100 (+12 new students)

Daily Tasks or Special Jobs

Daily Upkeep (general pool): 20

Library Specialists/Quartermasters: 3

Alchemist: 5

Scouts: 10

Artisans/Craftspeople:5

Aunties: 22(+22 aunties)

Emissaries: 4

Healers:5