The gathering at the Kang Clan seemed to come to a close. The Kang Clan Patriarch had left the hall and some of the guests began to take their leave. Others left for rooms within the hall and Sage guessed it was the time for backroom deals and maneuvering. Since there was little chance of a bird flying around the hall unnoticed, Sage could only stay out of things for now. He gave the Seven Stars a bit more time to finish chatting with their newly made friends before leading the Jade Horde away. After they had mounted their Vulture Geckos and took to flight, Sage took some time to reflect on the gathering.

From what I saw, the Kang Clan cares about martial strength. Kang Yung was upset when I was brown-nosing him. Then I stood up to him and my treatment seemed to return to a neutral point.

If he was correct in his gamble there was probably no way to tell except by examining their further treatment by the Kang Clan. After meeting them up close, Sage’s guess was that the Kang Clan were straightforward martial artists. They most likely only truly liked others that were like them and disdained sycophants, ruthless businessmen, and arrogant nobles. Even if Sage changed their opinion of him, they probably wouldn’t let it show. They were in charge of the whole province and if it became obvious what types of people they liked it would be much harder for them to figure out who was treating them honestly and who was just going through the motions.

It’s no wonder they run a whole province. They’re way too good at controlling any information about themselves. I had no idea of their style until it was already too late.

Over the next few weeks, there was no more word from the Kang Clan. There was also no benefits or hindering of their work. They didn’t need any help from the Kang Clan, they had just wanted to keep expanding and growing. Since the Kang Clan didn’t stop them then it was just fine from Sage’s end. They continued to grow and fortify the Hoplite Villages, building mines, farms, and logging operations to supplement their silk related goods. Sage even had the Falcons vet craftsmen and moved in mortal Weavers and Tailors to help them with their natural silk goods. They were able to follow simple instructions and build basic items, but anything with complexity or requiring finesse were beyond them. With a bit of outside help they were able to produce truly high quality goods instead of crude ones made with quality materials.

With their reach extending over the whole Bronze Tiger province, the Jade Horde began to expand into the neighboring provinces. Endless Valley to the north, Red Sand to the west, and 10,000 Wave to the northeast. Of course, Sage was most interested in 10,000 Wave, but he didn’t wish to raise any suspicions or slow their expansion. He sent one of the Seven Stars to each of the three provinces and kept four of them in Bronze Tiger province. The three Strongfist brothers continued operations in Bronze Tiger province as usual. He sent Abbot Kunga to the north. Endless Valley was controlled by the Qin Clan, and Abbot Kunga was very calm and measured. The Qin were very good at manipulating people so he sent the most stable person there. To the west, he sent Bi Hongbing. Red Sand province fell under the control of the Windflame Sect and Bi Hongbing used fire and ice, which would give her a better chance at both fitting in and suppressing fire users. Whitestaff was sent to 10,000 Wave Province. She was the strongest of the three he’d sent, at the very peak of the fourth rank, on the verge of forming her core. Sage kept Black Saber in reserve, his troops would be used as reinforcement in case any of the others needed help.

Before they left, Sage assigned the three an additional 350 Hoplite warriors and 50 villagers. Since each century was usually formed of about 80 Hoplites and 20 Humans, he set it up so they could recruit in the new provinces and expand their forces up to five full centuries. There were 30 extra Hoplites that were to make up for any casualties along the way, but more than likely they’d have to recruit more humans to make up for the slack until the new villages were established. The three Strongfist Brothers also got their forces expanded to three centuries each. Unfortunately, Black Saber was left with only a single century. There was a limit on how many Hoplites they had and it would take more time for more warriors to grow to a fighting age.

While Black Saber didn’t get a larger force, he was ordered to train the first elite team. He had only a hundred men, but they were to be the best ones. Outside of important officers, he was free to transfer over the best human and hoplite troops from the other Seven Stars. In the future each of the Seven Stars would have their own elite century as a personal guard. After training one elite unit, they would use the experience and knowledge gained to train future elites much faster. To that end, more outside help was hired in the form of trainers. Especially since everyone in the elite units would be riding Vulture Geckos and equipped with special weapons.

On Sage’s side, King sent some of their captured Demonic Birds, who they called the ‘Big Birds’, to do detailed scouting of the future village locations. What King and Sage had done previously, they now delegated. The Big Birds would scout while the troops would handle the cleanup and investigation. In the meanwhile, Sage started building the special weapons. His experiences in creating the Nine Transformations Saber were applied to the new weaponry. Nothing the saber had done was really revolutionary, magical tools could do the things the rings did much better. A mountain could be refined into a treasure and shrunk down to fit in a pocket. In combat it could be smashed against one’s enemies and smash them under its weight. Another magical treasure could conjure forth enough flame to turn a lake into steam in mere seconds, and then melt down the nearby mountain to fill in the hole. That said, those treasures were amazingly expensive and only the most powerful cultivators would be able to afford them. By using a few modified storage treasures, he could create similar but much lesser effects.

Truthfully, creating storage treasures wasn’t a simple thing. A storage ring was inscribed on its inner and outer surface with array symbols to create a formation. More importantly, the ring’s material had to be alloyed with a bit of Void Ore. Void Ore wasn’t a common material and was very expensive in its raw form. The larger the space of the Storage Ring, the more Void Ore it would include. Larger amounts of Void Ore would have to be alloyed with more and more precious materials in order to be made into smaller objects. It was also imperative to use stronger materials so the ring wouldn’t be destroyed in higher level battles. A standard Storage Ring could easily be destroyed by the shockwaves of a battle between 5th rank cultivators. Creating new weapons from scratch would be very difficult and expensive.

Instead, just like the Nine Transformations Saber, Sage chose to use the most common Storage Rings and modify them for his purposes. From what he’d learned in the Holy Flame Sect, there was a Sect in another Kingdom that specialized in space manipulation. They used special methods to mine Void Ore and even their Outer Sect Disciples used it to produce massive quantities of storage treasures. Each ring only took a tiny sliver of Void Ore, and a standard Storage Bag required a piece the size of a grain of sand. They charged more for a single grain of Void Ore than they did for a Storage Bag, ensuring nobody would even bother to build their own storage treasures and just buy from them. So, Sage just modified them. Heating up a Storage Ring, he’d then alter some of the array symbols and change the properties of the extra space it contained. He ruined quite a few Storage Bags perfecting the process and a few rings before he succeeded.

A standard sized Storage Ring contained about four cubic yards. It was about the size of a closet on the inside and cost about 4000 Spirit Stones. The Nine Transformations Saber had used up all the Storage Rings he’d collected in the past from looting enemies. For the new weapons he was developing, he didn’t use rings, he used the much cheaper Storage Bags. They were far more common and only a tenth of the price of a Storage Ring. He designed three different weapons and then simplified the process to train a few others to help him with mass production.

The first was merely adding a Storage Bag to a shield. He modified the array in the same style as the ninth ring, for full momentum. He named it the ‘Arrow Wall’. Instead of blocking arrows and spears, it could capture them. Then, the arrows could be released again and shot back. The second weapon was a spear he called ‘Giant Nail’. He modified a Storage Bag for full weight instead of only a quarter weight. Then he modified its shape and appearance to take the place of a spear tassel, mounting it to the haft just behind the spear head. Then he added an array to the spear shaft to reduce weight to a tenth of normal. Now, with the bag full of heavy weights, the wielder just had to stop powering the array when they strike to make it weigh ten times normal when they strike.

He had only just started on the third weapon when he was interrupted. An attendant came in and passed him a scroll. He quickly read it and his jaw dropped, figuratively that is.

There’s a Cloudmetal Charcoal mine next to the new village in 10,000 Wave province?