Due to Yiming’s enthusiasm, Sage asked Yating to include a new training path into the Lang Clan. Once she mentioned it, he realized it was something he’d once wished for in the past, but had never had anyone to trust at the time. That being the position of commanders for the Dragoons. When he’d first created the Hoplites, he recruited human mercenaries, former bandits, and anyone else he could get to give leadership to the chronically dull and simple-minded creatures. Insects in the shape of humans made for great soldiers, combining the selfless ferocity of an insect willing to sacrifice itself for its species with a human form so they could wield human weapons and wear human armor. After being betrayed, Sage ditched the human leaders and created the Dragoons with more advanced pre-programmed memories so they could lead themselves. Yet, it was far from an ideal solution. The Dragoons didn’t need squad commanders for every ten like the Hoplites worked best with, but they would still benefit from leadership.

Especially since Sage now had the Purple Mist Sect as his own personal force. The Purple Mist Sect was not actually a part of the Lang Clan and as their sect leader, they answered directly to Sage. This was also one of the reasons he felt confident in handing over leadership of the Lang Clan to his son. He also had no qualms giving control of the Dragoons to the clan. Of course, he didn’t bother to alter them, and they were left with their ultimate loyalty to him. All it took was giving them all a command to obey the commands of the clan. It was a little more difficult than that, as he made it so the command was also something that would be passed down in their ancestral memories and save him from more trouble later.

The actual number of Dragoons was set to stay at a fixed number. They could reproduce amazingly quickly, but Sage didn’t want them to completely consume the whole insect continent so if he didn’t cap their numbers they would consume too many of the natural resources. Because of this restriction, they used a performance based system and only those with the greatest abilities were allowed to reproduce. Since this was already a pretty tragic system, Sage didn’t feel bad implementing a set of wargames. For the Lang Clan members that wished to become commanders, they would be given a number of Dragoons to command. Those that performed well would be promoted to gain control over larger and larger numbers of troops.

These new commanders could then campaign against the wild insects and very rarely against each other. To be clear, only their troops would go into battle against each other, Sage truly hated that practice of encouraging clan members to compete directly and form animosity. It was already enough to have them compete against set tasks to earn resources, they didn’t need to actively encourage them to be in opposition.

He also felt it was a little rude to make the Dragoons fight against each other, but he decided to make participation in these units voluntary. He was pretty sure the majority of the Dragoons would leap at the opportunity as it would create many more chances for them to show off their prowess and win the right to reproduce. He also made sure that the rules included penalties for every Dragoon that died under their command, since he didn’t want them becoming wasteful butchers. It was important they learned how to retreat when necessary to preserve their fighting power. Sage made sure to reward Yiming for inspiring this great idea, since now the Lang Clan would have its own battlefield commanders as well as improving the training of their lower level troops.

With more and more generations of descendants Sage found himself becoming numb to the size of his family and a sense of distance started to form. He still felt affection and respect for them all, just like the ancestors he’d never met, but it was a lot less of a connection than to that of his wife and children. He even found himself falling into the same trap he’d once scoffed at other clans and sects for doing. One of his descendants took a liking to studying and researching. During one of Sage’s annual visits to update the clan library he ran into a face that seemed somewhat familiar. The next year he saw the same face again and out of curiosity gathered a bit more information. It turns out the girl, Suhan, was not just a scholar but already became known for causing trouble with her experiments.

Sage immediately realized he was being a hypocrite, but he was so pleased to find a young researcher in the clan that he diverted a larger amount of resources to Suhan and started acting as a mentor. It reminded him of the times when he was training his own children when they were young. Before he’d felt they were old enough to be trained by others, he’d led those youngsters in their exercises. Suhan was no child doing simple exercises and practicing forms, but he still had a similar feeling from tutoring this little descendant. A few in the clan were a little bit jealous, so Sage asked for a favor from his son, the current Clan Head, and had Yating create more lucrative resource rewards for research so that Suhan’s extra benefits would no longer be excessive. It also had the extra benefit of encouraging others to become researchers, which Sage was eager to see.

In his ideal world, when the Lang Clan returns to the outside world, they wouldn’t leave the Inner World completely. He hoped that the clan would continue on here, and that a large portion of them would become researchers. Every advancement in technique would boost his own capability as well as that of the Lang Clan. In the outside world, they could benefit from many generations of improvement in their techniques. Meanwhile in the Inner World, the Lang Clan would be completely safe and free of worry. Those who desired conflict could head outside, while those who wanted to live their lives in peace or conduct research could stay inside.

Suhan was eventually appointed to be the first lead researcher of the clan, just as Yiming had become the first general of the clan. The two of them were then tasked with expanding their departments, establishing best practices, and training new generations to follow in their footsteps. Another notable talent appeared at this time to help them to this end. Yihan, from the same generation as Suhan, was disappointed with the clan’s training methods. Once she came of age, she started a formal school for the clan. Rather than relying upon tutors from the Purple Mist Sect and the clan library as a repository, she hired and trained teachers with a much more formalized education system.

When Sage heard of this idea, he helped push it through and told Yihan all he knew about different schooling systems back on earth. He told her about standardized testing, public and private schools, class scheduling, and anything else he could think of. He also touched on some of the differences between different countries he could remember, like having a homeroom, uniforms, student governments, or other such things. The main thing he felt important was that focusing different amounts of time on different things would be a simple way to encourage growth of the clan in specific directions. This led to the common practice of providing a basic generalized education before letting students choose their own paths. Sage somewhat agreed, but they could choose what they considered ‘basic’, which meant a great focus on martial prowess and cultivation level.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in the classical studies of language, literacy, mathematics, science, history, etc. It was actually because becoming a cultivator greatly expanded not just the body, but the mind and also increased lifespans. While they would get a taste of everything in the younger years, it was much better if they maximized their lifespans and intelligence first. It was far more productive to have them spend fifty years training hard to advance to rank three. Each advancement in rank more than doubled their max lifespan, so that fifty year investment meant they could live anywhere from 500 to 1000 years. At that point, they had plenty of time to study and learn whatever they liked. It was also at this rank that nearly every cultivator would have an eidetic memory.

Even so, they didn’t want their clan members to be idiots with no understanding of how the world works. They devised a plan with a few hours of more generalized education spread out through the day as breaks from the intense physical training and cultivation practice. Along with the general school, there would be a Clan University for those at the third rank and above to learn more specialized knowledge and training. This is where they would train and select those to join the research institute and the commander academy. It was also a perfect place to put the more advanced techniques that had been developed by Sage’s children to form different paths. The general path would be available in the school, but the higher techniques required a little barrier of entry, and attending a higher school was a fitting choice.

Ahh, the clan is finally starting to build momentum without me!