Sage suddenly received many invitations from others in the Chong Clan and also from the important people in Golden Cricket Cove. There were many who thought themselves smart that wanted to form a relationship with him. If the challenge for leadership was successful he would be someone that the new Chong Clan leader had a close connection to. On the other hand if he lost, they figured the Jinxi Patriarch wouldn’t let him live. So, many were eager to meet him, but very few of them bothered to send a gift. If he lost, wouldn’t they be throwing away their treasures?

It was also the reason that Sage decided to simply declare that he was going into seclusion to prepare for the challenge. Meeting with these other groups could help form relationships that he might be able to use in the future, but after seeing the lack of sincerity from them he knew they would only be fair weather friends. As soon as there were any difficulties they would ditch him, and he was quite sure many of them wouldn’t even hesitate to betray him if they could benefit. Sage much preferred to deal with a place like Thousand Treasures. They didn’t pretend to be his friend and form a ‘close’ relationship. Instead, there was a contract between them with a strict description of benefits and responsibilities. He would rather be connected by impartial contracts than rely on the fickleness of the heart and the cruelty of man.

Three days was not enough time for him to learn anything new or make any great achievements in his strength. At least for other people. For Sage, three days was more than five years on the Inner World. With his current level of power that wouldn’t be enough to improve on his techniques or other abilities, but it was plenty of time to build weapons and equipment. Before cutting himself off from the world, he asked the Great Elder Xie for as much information about the Jinxi Patriarch as possible as well as a supply of certain metals.

He used the intel on the patriarch to come up with strategies and countermeasures, but in order to complete those devices he needed some materials. The Inner World could grow the plants he transplanted and after a number of years he would have more than he could use. On the other hand, the metals and other minerals in the ground of the Inner World were dependent upon the Heavenly Materials that he collected. When the Inner World first formed, it seemed there were no metals at all, and the earliest inhabitants made weapons and armor from the bodies of Demonic Beasts. Later, Sage realized that it just took time for these metals to ‘grow’ within the Inner World and the inhabitants could find mines of common mortal metals. The same sorts of metals that existed on Earth. After incorporating the Heart of Eruption there was a drastic change and now the 1 star ores were becoming far more common. There was even a group that had started a mine on a 2 star material.

Even so, with Sage preparing to battle a Nascent Soul he couldn’t rely on such low quality goods. He had to purchase 4 and 5 star materials from Great Elder Xie in order to build equipment with the right standard. He had wanted to look into buying extremely expensive equipment to kill the Patriarch with cash, but then he realized that the Jinxi Patriarch probably had access to so much wealth that Sage could never compare, even if he went all out in the time he had remaining. Since that was the case, his plan of relying on equipment was a dead end.

I’ll just have to go with the rule of no tool support for the challenge.

Most challenges for leadership were supposed to be conducted without any weapons or armor, but there was a clause to allow for the challenger to allow equipment to be used. The rule was intended to ensure that the leader couldn’t use the wealth of the clan to suppress its members, and the exception was in the case of a challenger’s power being based upon their equipment. If some sort of legendary weapon was found, or a Chong Clansmen became a master of weapon forging, they had to allow a route for them as well.

Even though he didn’t plan to allow any equipment, Sage’s Soul Clone still continued with the initial building plan. While it may not be his first choice, there was nothing wrong with having a few contingency plans.

In the outside world, Sage settled his mental state and prepared to take on what was likely to be the strongest single enemy he’d ever faced. Well, that is if he didn’t count Guan Zhenyan. He’d poisoned that stingy fellow before the conflict so it didn’t really count. He was pretty sure the battle with the Living Disaster and those other powers would be more difficult, but there had been hundreds involved. In this official challenge Sage couldn’t rely on anyone else. He couldn’t just buy time for reinforcements to arrive or call out his allies from the Inner World. With so many eyes on him, they would surely catch him if he tried to cheat. They would invalidate the whole challenge and imprison him for breaking such a strict rule.

Can I take on the whole Chong Clan? What a waste that would be.

For this challenge to be valid, he had to do things fair and square. Even so, he had plenty of tricks up his sleeve.

After the third day, Sage rose from his crossed leg position and exited the room he had been using for seclusion. The Great Elder and Xiezi were there waiting for him along with many of the other important members of the Xie faction. They all took the time to examine him with a faint hope in their eyes. At the same time, they also looked quite nervous as they felt there was little chance for his success. After this failed challenge they would all have to start taking many missions. Most of them knew that they would all be lowered down to the level of rogue cultivators. The Great Elder had already informed them that all their Faction’s resources would be diverted to a few young geniuses. They would be raised as the next hope for taking leadership back from the Jinxi. As for the others, the only resources they would get would be those they earned themselves. They only hoped that a decade of slow cultivation wouldn’t ruin their futures.

They left the Xie Faction area as a group and moved to the Chong Clan arena where it felt the entirety of the Chong Clan was waiting for them. The structure reminded Sage of an ancient Greek amphitheater. It had a large oval shaped stage, with levels of stone benches ascending upwards in a ‘c’ shape around the stage. The major difference was that it felt like the place was many times larger than he felt possible. The stronger and tougher materials on this world meant that the stone structure could be much larger without suffering any problems. There was also the fact that cultivators had more powerful senses than normal humans and so they could sit further away while still getting a good view of the action. At the moment, these stone seats were packed to capacity and then some. The upper most dozen levels of seats had people standing, packing in two to three people for every one that was normally supposed to sit there.

There was an empty section in the first few rows and the Xie faction moved to take the seats, filing in to fill that glaringly blank space. Upon the stage there were two people waiting. A thin old man with a soft smile and gentle eyes was standing next to a younger man with a fierce stare. The two of them a golden shade of the Chong Clan uniform.

At this moment two others walked up onto the stage. One of them was a beautiful older woman of an indeterminate age with her hair held in a bun by a pair of jade chopsticks. She wore a vibrant red robe embroidered with snowy white flower petals drifting across it. Beside her was a man with golden eyes and wearing an emerald green Chong Clan uniform. There was a collective gasp from the crowd when they saw the bright green color that represented the Lang Clan. That color hadn’t been seen in the Chong Clan for more than a century. While many in the clan had heard the news of the Lang Clan returning, this was their first time seeing them again.

That man in the green uniform smiled at the old man and raised his voice so the tens of thousands in the audience could hear, “Don’t worry, ‘Patriarch’. The Chong Clan will enter a new era of prosperity after you are gone.”