“Now that we have three elders, I can finally go on that vacation that I’ve been planning,” Jess said, trying to get a rise out of Jung.

He merely raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. It was the first time she’d called the leadership back to talk strategy. One of the scouts had returned early with the news that the people of blessing were on their way. They would be arriving at the Sect within a month and the construction of the new wall would have to wait for the construction of new homes for the people.

The third realm scout, who had run for two days straight looked up.

“Elder, you’re going to leave us at this junction?”

“She doesn’t mean it,” Jung said.

He sat in a lotus post on Jess’s left side. The poor guy hadn’t even had a chance to refresh himself before Jess had aunties shoving food in his face. Sure he was greedily gobbling down all of the baked goods that he was fed, but he wasn’t really up to much.

How much could the man eat? All of it apparently.

“How many can we send?” Jung asked the crowd, “As an honor guard on Elder Jessica's vacation to…?”

“Someplace less cold. I was thinking, what was the name of that town?”

“Blessing, Elder.”

“I think that a little vacation to blessing would be in order. We could meet some of our new guests on the way, couldn’t we?”

The wheels in Jung's head turned so fast that Jess was concerned that he would go up in flames.

“We…certainly could,” he said, slumping down.

Jess had passed the newest version of her rocks out to each of her leaders. A group of forty cultivators had just reached the third realm, some had gotten to the second realm and there was talk that three others were on the cusp of the fourth realm themselves. Jess had Jung give the scout rocks to Hu.

“These scouts, they will obviously head out and be paired up with whoever goes,” Hu said.

He pushed all of the scouts into the center. All Twenty-two rocks, minus Jung and Grace.

“This one imagines, that you would want the elders to be in charge somewhere else. Unfortunately, this junior disciple cannot order them around anymore.”

Scouts: 20

The rocks were in the center. Jess cast about but realized that she would need to make the next move.

“If we leave about twenty of the cultivators here, that should be sufficient to keep the Sect going. How many healers can we spare?”

All eyes looked to the nurses and got blank stares.

“Ko Sa? Will you send …can you spare two nurses?”

The Doctor nodded.

Two more rocks joined the center.

Nurses: 2

“We can take all of the remaining third realm cultivators, which after accounting for the scouts, would be about fifty-something?” Grace said, offering a pile of rocks.

Jess nodded.

Third Realm: 54 rocks

“That will leave any second realm volunteers, and I am certain that many of them will volunteer. We must pack provisions to meet the people coming,” Jess said.

“All of the aunties will want to go,” Mary said, standing up to move all of the remaining aunties into the pile.

One was a nurse and already there, so she counted twice and one was a scout.

Aunties: 22

“The path of the exploding sandal will be much welcome with us. After this meeting, we can ask any who have achieved the second realm who will join and take any volunteers. The remaining initiates…it is too risky and I need them to set up here for our honored guests.”

Jess paused, looking carefully around the room. She noticed that many faces were peeking in from the windows. She probably didn’t need to ask too hard for volunteers. The word about Rahelish being on the move had stirred the cultivators.

“This seems less like a vacation, and more like a full-scale mobilization,” Mary said, “Is the Cold Steel Sect going to war?”

“It’s more like, going on a nice long walk with some of my best friends and allies.”

Mary’s face contorted into flips as she tried to process this information.

“This one volunteers,” Mary said, “As a second realm disciple.”

A clamor of disciples raised their voices drowning out whatever Mary said next. The thunderous response nearly floored Jess.

She held up a hand, as a few disciples streamed into the room to pledge their service on the vacation that they all knew was a cover for something else.

When the ruckus stopped, Jess took a deep breath.

“You all understand that we face possible death and that I do not require this of any of you?”

Another roar of acceptance from the now packed room and Jess was forced to concede the point. Weakly she thought that she might need to actually pick someone to stay behind.

***

Mary was aghast that every single person was ready to head up north with Jessica. The trip would take all of the strongest cultivators away from the Sect, but she just packed. The entire group, more than half of the school would be leaving in the morning.

Jessica had to make sure to leave at least one trustworthy second realm cultivator to oversee the workings of the clan. While they were out, none of the aunties would take it and the job was handed to Ko Sa, who despite being the head medic, had hit a ceiling in his cultivation long ago.

The day was going to be full of peril and fun things if it ever arrived, and Mary found herself wishing that Fa Za was still around. That poor man had done everything in his power to try to get Elder Jessica to be on his side and in his corner but all he had done was a little bit of teaching and brooding.

But now it looked like Grace was getting closer and closer to Jessica and had more of her ear. Mary didn’t know if the new elder had thoughts about Fa Za, but she resolved to talk more to her on their ‘vacation’.

***

The next day, they left at dawn. Scouts ran ahead, the vanguard for their actions, and the main body a small bit behind.

Grace ran point with Sa Kon and Blue.

“Young man, I daresay that your life would be much improved if you could stab some things,” the demon spear said.

“Thank you, spear sir, but this one does not have anything to stab at this moment,” Blue said.

Grace looked at his rippling muscles and his glorious bushy hair. She wasn’t jealous of the time that Blue had spent with Jess, as she’d have more time alone with her than anyone else save for An-Yong, but she was a bit mad that she hadn’t had the focus of the training.

Blue was a beast, zipping along effortlessly, as he was nearing the peak of the third realm.

Grace tried to remember how Jess had worked with him because it hadn’t felt like nearly that long, or she was improving on their old methods. She was impressed by the results.

Scratch that, she was ecstatic about the results and she only wished that Jess had worked it out with her earlier. It was weird but there was a kind of sense that it made with Jess choosing to only have one person at a time follow her path until she worked out the kinks.

And though there were flaws at times with the way that Grace saw it, she admired the passion of the Sect Leader. It was, after all, her Sect, though Grace had never asked her why she stayed when she could have just left.

“Do you ever think about why elder Jessica stuck around after she was summoned?” She asked Blue, during a lull.

“This one does not concern himself with such questions, but he is eternally grateful that she did,” he replied.

“Maybe no one has asked her. Or maybe she just hasn’t figured it out herself?”

“Or perhaps, she saw me and decided that she wants to stab more things in her life and I afford her such an opportunity,” the spear said, “She did tell me often how much she loves piercing her opponents.”

Blue shared a wayward grimace with Grace.

“Spear sir, is there a way that we could maybe get you to have like a different hobby or something?” Blue said.

The snow crunched under their feet as they ran.

For a long moment, no one said anything, and off in the distance, Grace could see the end of the snow. They were already far afield from the school, and it felt like spring was running at them. She knew that was not the case, but she was certain that was how it felt.

“What…. is a hobby?”

***

Near the middle of the train, Jess called a halt as they edged to the end of where the snow was. Beyond her field of vision, she searched out. There was still some cold aura in the air in front of them, but it was muddled in other sources of qi.

“Hu, go down the line and have everyone cycle once. We need to cycle in ice and cold qi while we have it abundantly available. Everyone's cores and dantians should be full to bursting in one-half hour. I’ll keep watch.”

Hu sprinted to the front of the line, passing the news. They were not too far spread out, but it had taken them all day and well into the afternoon to run nearly a hundred miles in the direction of Blessing and the towns surrounding the Heavens Mountain school.

If they could evacuate the people, they would.

For the first time in a long time, Jess thought about how nice it was that her Sect was following her. They didn’t have to, and neither did she have to stick around. The elder who summoned her hadn’t bound her by any meaning of the word. Quite the contrary, she’d stayed on, and now she was either reaping the rewards or suffering the consequences.

In the best case, they could arrive early and she could send a few cultivators to escort the refugees. Then the remaining men and women could continue on.

In the worst case, which Jess shuddered to think about? Rahelish would arrive early. The other towns would not be prepared, or actively try to now evacuate.

Back on earth, Jess had always thought that people would act smart in an emergency, but the pandemic had changed her view, and her climate pessimism had compounded that problem. On the other hand, being in another world with problems that she could at the very least help with? It made her feel like a million dollars.

Jess stretched her own spiritual sense out as she tried to feel the entire line out. Her nascent soul had grown over the last month, and she was able to feel the last person in the file, almost a kilometer behind her all the way to Grace and Blue at the front.

Each person, she lightly touched, rather than groping wildly at them like she’d done the first time she had learned how to sense others. Now, they would only feel the lightest presence, nothing more than some wind on each person. The more astute would sense more, but she was satisfied with her progress.

The scout had run day and night, to cover the distance back for two days, but Jess needed her cultivators ready to go. As they stopped to cultivate, the hardest thing was telling herself that they didn’t need to run that fast. The caravan of regular people heading towards the Cold Steel Sect would probably take two weeks to traverse the damn distance. And with only one third realm cultivator accompanying them? Jess shuddered to think of what would happen to the caravan. Already they had run past several low-level rock beasts that had caused her to put Sa Kon into use.

More and more of the scouts had taken a cue from Grace and Blue and wanted to learn the new qi draining technique and Jess had allowed them to practice under the controlled situation of the move. It would, she hoped prove to be a good use of their time when they got someplace where they could no longer source enough cold or ice qi. Most of the cultivators had a path that included a martial weapon of some sort, like the path of the ice spear or the path of the winter sword, and thus could draw upon another source of aura.

“Are you ready to run?” Jess said as she got to Blue.

“Until when this one hits the ground, it’s the ground that hurts, Master!”

Blue stood, continuing to cycle.

Grace hid her laugh. Jess knew that Grace got a kick out of Blue’s motivation.

“Only the toughest training can steel a cultivator to destroy a mountain, Master!”

“How do we destroy a mountain, disciple?”

“One rock at a time!” Blue yelled.

Grace hid her entire face in her hands. Jess knew that she was dying of laughter at that very moment and tried to see if she could take it over the top.

“AND HOW DO WE DESTROY A ROCK!” Jess yelled.

“WITH OUR FISTS MASTER!” Blue screamed at the top of his lungs.

Blue jumped straight up ten meters and rushed the nearest boulder, pushing a pinpoint wave of qi into his palm and releasing it through the entire boulder.

“Is that a hobby? Because I could dig that hobby. Put me in coach!”

Total Sect Disciples/Followers: 228

Inner Sect

Fifth Realm: 1

Fourth Realm: 6(+3)

Outer Sect

Third Realm: 72(+40, -3 advanced up)

Second Realm: 48(+30 advanced into, forty advanced out)

First Realm(or lower): 62

Daily Tasks or Special Jobs

Aunties: 22

Daily Upkeep (general pool): 20

Library Specialists/Quartermasters: 3 (1 elder)

Alchemists: 5

Scouts: 22 ( 2 Elder, fourth realm, 2 fourth realm, 18 third realm)

Artisans/Craftspeople: 6

Emissaries: 4

Healers:5