Decade? That was what the Great Elder took to be extremely fast? She talked at length about some of her plans to expedite the conflict. Sometimes a war would foment for a full century among these great powers, a fact that Sage hadn’t really thought about until the Great Elder started talking about it.

He’d suffered so many rapid-fire attacks in succession that he felt her explanation was ridiculous until he realized that things were very different when these first rate powers were butting heads with each other. There was a very large difference in the battles between a hundred people and a thousand people. The first rate powers had whole provinces under their control. Millions of people lived in their territories, and that amount of power and influence could cause huge waves. When thousands of cultivators acted in unison it became more akin to a military and the strength of a single individual was negligible. At least to an extent. The truly powerful felt no threat at all from those vastly weaker than themselves, and even millions of them wouldn’t stand a chance. Especially when those powerful people were at the fifth rank or greater, as their Core gave them a constantly regenerating source of power. Any Core Formation Cultivator could fight constantly for days or weeks without being tired as long as they carefully rationed their strength, a thing they couldn’t do when facing those at their same level.

Rising victorious as one against the many was quite impressive, but it also wasn’t something that could happen among the first rate powers. While a Nascent Soul could easily destroy millions of third rank cultivators, the same couldn’t be said about the higher ranks. No number of fourth rank cultivators would be able to kill them, but the Nascent Soul wouldn’t be able to move unhindered. They would be likely to be injured and be forced to struggle over a long period before they came out on top. Yet, the true power of the first rate powers was their vast number of fifth rank cultivators. Each of the first rate powers had numerous Nascent Souls, but not one had more than twenty. In fact, most of them only had two to four. At the same time they each had dozens if not hundreds of rank fives. Such a huge force was not negligible for a Nascent Soul to face off against. Just like Sage had experienced in that huge battle, numbers would play a large role.

The long heritage and great resources of a first rate power meant they had far more power and secret weapons available to them than any second or third rate powers like Sage had been fighting with recently. In that battle, the Fu Clan had just sent one of their weaker Nascent Souls along with an unimportant unit, yet it was still equal to the most elite members of the Artful Life Alliance. Such power was also the reason that Sage had held back from attacking the Fu Clan so far. He was confident of success, but he wasn’t sure how great the price he’d have to pay would be.

With the Chong Clan guaranteeing their support within a decade, Sage prepared to leave. Even if the Great Elder named herself an ally, that didn’t mean none of the other Elders would miss out on a great chance like this. What if the Great Elder went out to take care of some business and then the others ganged up on her? It would really be a shame to kill the most powerful members of his new allies. If he crippled the Chong Clan, how would they help him fight the Fu Clan?

While he wanted to get them to act sooner, he already knew that most of his leverage was gone. Even if he helped the Xie to take over the Chong Clan, that didn’t stop them from turning upon him if he tried to order them around. As far as the Chong Clan was concerned, he was only a branch head, and that didn’t give him the right to order around the Clan Leader, even if he helped the Clan Leader get the job. He wasn’t going to jeopardize their good relationship by demanding too much.

Sage left the Chong Clan without any further ado, heading to the Merciful Mollusk to transfer to the edge of the province. There were a few in the Chong Clan that he still had a grudge with, but because of the chaotic shifting of power, he decided to leave them alone for now. With a plan in place to solve the Fu Clan, Sage stopped to ponder his next move. He stopped in place, concentrating for a few seconds before continuing on.

During those few seconds, the Soul Clone entered a stone chamber that had a large list of names carved onto a large stone wall. Violet Light Sect, Red Jungle County Prefect, Dawn Mountain Prefect, and Daybreak Valley Prefect. These names had a line slashed through them already, and Sage used a golden blade to strike off another. ‘Chong Clan Leader’ was struck from the list and he turned his gaze to the other names. Artful Life Alliance, Whitestaff, Fu Clan, Skyfire Jiang Hua, Hong Clan, Hei Clan, and finally a vague name ‘Pursuers’.

The Hong and Hei Clans were the most recent additions, added after his trip to Icefire Valley for what they did to Duo Tan, Hong Bi, and Hei Yue. Sage wasn’t obligated to do anything about them, but Duo Tan was sort of his ‘senior brother’ as a disciple of Guan Zhenyan. He’d also realized the rarity of getting a chance to understand laws after two thousand years of no advancement on the Inner World. He went so many years of training without any changes in his understanding of the laws. That long stretch showed him how rare such an opportunity was and how lucky he was in improving his Law of Poison to a Primal Law of Corruption and also gaining another Primal Law from Icefire Valley. That opportunity was left behind by that couple from thousands of years ago, so if he ran into the Hong or Hei Clan he would definitely check their behavior and punish them if necessary.

The last name on the list, Pursuers, was quite vague. It was not in reference to anyone in specific, but just there to remind him of another grudge. He’d been chased relentlessly three times in his life already. In fact, that number was even on the low side, as he’d suffered many harrowing events in his younger years. After he finally escaped that collapsed mine and found the Lang Clan destroyed he’d lived a rough life for a few decades, and he’d had to run for his life many times, but his enemies were merely opportunistic. Bandits, Thieves, and just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, so none of these times were that worthy of any revisiting. On the other hand, the three major times of pursuit were different. The first time was when news of him being a Seal Master had spread through the Shihu Kingdom. He had to flee the kingdom, changing his name and returning back to the Dou Kingdom with a new alias. Those who chased him that time were pursuers. The second time Sage had been betrayed by his own subordinates, King was killed and he frantically escaped to the Shou Empire. These groups were also pursuers. Lastly, there was the most recent time when Lionheart Town was sieged and he went to battle with an army.

For the second event, Sage had mostly cleaned up the perpetrators. The Prefects of Dawn Mountain and Red Jungle Counties were the ones responsible for bribing Black Saber and the former City Lord of Lionheart Town, Wu Chang. Sage killed both prefects and the members of the Jade Horde who had rebelled against him, with one exception. Whitestaff. She was also responsible for the third incident. Of the four major groups involved one of them, the Violet Light Sect, was destroyed while a second, the Artful Life Alliance, was half gone. He’d already set into motion plans to destroy the third, the Fu Clan, which left only Whitestaff unaccounted for. Unfortunately, she fell into the same category as the pursuers from Sage’s first major escape. Sage didn’t know how to find her. Just like he didn’t know who was responsible in the Shihu Kingdom for pursuing him. Eventually, when he was strong enough, he hoped to get the Holy Flame Sects assistance identifying who had run him out, but he was most upset with still finding no leads on the whereabouts of Whitestaff. She was the weakest of his enemies, yet the most difficult to track down.

Pursuers also had one more connotation. After thinking about it for many years, Sage realized that Hei Bai didn’t have the power to arrange so many enemies against him. Even if all those groups had grudges against him, were they enough to warrant so much attention? Were they after his secrets? How would they know he had any? Lionheart Town was no great prize worth going to such lengths to get. He felt there was someone else behind this plot, but he didn’t find any clues about it on the Violet Light Sect Ancestor, nor among the Artful Life Alliance leaders he’d killed. As he saw it, if there was a mastermind behind the attack, they would surely come after him again in the future. Hopefully they would bring Whitestaff along again, and give him another chance to catch her.