After handling the potential leaks from the Chong Clan, Sage paid a visit to one other suspicious party. This time he brought more than just the Purple Mist Sect. He also brought along his wife, Jiao, as well as some of his descendants who were skilled diplomats. That’s because they’d returned to a place he hadn’t been for some time: the Zhu Clan. The in-laws. Sage didn’t have a very good relationship with these people, but that was mainly because of how little his wife thought of them. She had always rebelled against their practices, so his opinion of them was jaded by her experiences.

That said, he didn’t think they were all that bad. Among all the ways people used to gain power and secure their position in this world, marrying into other families was a relatively tame one. Selling off one’s children to form alliances was not exactly tasteful, but for the most part at least every marriage was legitimate. By making brides from their family a valued commodity, at least their Clan members weren’t turned into slaves or discarded. In a world where the strong made the rules, they’d found a way to survive. Without sufficient foundation the only way to get powerful was stumbling into some dumb luck, either in the form of an opportunity, or by giving birth to a genius. The Zhu Clan had found its way to maintain their position, and this tradition of theirs was distasteful, but Sage couldn’t hate them for it. Everyone wanted to feel safe and secure, especially in such a world where might made right.

The Zhu Clan treated them many times better than the first few times Sage had visited. At that time he’d been a nobody with a promise from his ancestors. Thinking back, he realized that the Zhu Clan had always been very polite to him, it was his wife, Jiao, that was the rude one. For a Clan that survived on their connections with others, it was a given that they were experts at negotiation and diplomacy. In fact, Sage and Jiao were only there to make the introductions and then they both stepped back to let the others they’d brought with them conduct the talks. Jiao knew too much about how these people operated. So many flowery words and careful ceremonies. Merely being in the Zhu Clan gave her a short fuse and seeing one of the people she’d clashed with in her early years infuriated her. The two of them confined themselves to their guest room and those who Jiao actually cared for came to visit them.

In the meanwhile, the Lang Clan’s diplomats carried on long and complex negotiations with the Zhu Clan. After a few days of subtle back and forth they finally got down to business. After a couple weeks they finally got an answer to the question they came with. Did the Zhu Clan have the Insect Immortal Index? Eventually, they got their answer, but only after an alliance was formed. A few marriages were arranged with Lang Clan members to further tie the two Clans together and then the Zhu Clan was bound not to share their technique. It turns out it wasn’t the full Insect Immortal Index, let alone the True version. They had only a scattered heritage in this regard and only the standard Merge and Mutate techniques, letting them link to their spiders and breed them with other insects.

The terms of the alliance ‘guaranteed’ the secrets of their techniques would not be shared. Sage didn’t really trust an alliance in that regard, but it had already become a somewhat obscure technique in the Zhu Clan. Additionally, since it was already fragmented, he wasn’t as worried about it being released. The Mutate technique was the most dangerous to be released, but without the rest of the Insect Immortal Index as a foundation it was not enough for him to abduct the whole Zhu Clan. They had so many alliances and connections with other clans that it would be far too difficult to round up every one of them. Their Clan’s path to power was distasteful, but effective. They had to settle for offering generous terms to make sure they weren’t tempted by the Four Major Businesses.

Unlike the Chong Clan, Sage had no enemies within the Zhu Clan and they were also renowned for their relationships with other groups, including their ability to remain discreet. The Lang Clan had far more trust in the Zhu Clan sticking to the terms of their deal, than they did in the many factions of the Chong Clan not betraying them. From what Sage learned in the Holy Flame Sect, the fragmented techniques the Zhu Clan had were only slightly better than things that other Insect Tamers and breeders had developed. It wasn’t as if they could monopolize this area for themselves, but they could do their best to keep the more sophisticated parts of their creations from spreading.

The main thing setting their creations apart was the ability to instill them with Ancestral Memories, which required the True Insect Immortal Index. This technique was isolated to the Inner World and only the highest and most trusted members of the Lang Clan. Sage was sure that their competitors would eventually figure out what creatures they combined to create the physical form and abilities of the Blastids and their other Insect Devices, but it would be much more difficult for them to implant them with the same docile behavior. The knockoffs they made would likely require an Insect Tamer’s training, which would increase the cost of production and cut into their profit margins. The main area of concern would be if a rogue member of the Chong or Lang Clan was still surviving out there and found a way to force a purchased Blastid to breed with another insect. Most Blastids couldn’t breed, and the most basic version of Mutate couldn’t solve this problem, but perhaps another Insect Tamer had developed a technique to make up the gap.

After solving the Chong Clan and Zhu Clan, the Lang Clan focused their underground efforts on the secret war over gathering Insect Tamers. This secret conflict got so intense that it even spread into the neighboring Kingdoms. The Four Major Businesses had stopped trying to destroy the Prosperity Company in other ways and focused their efforts on stealing this stream of revenue. On the Lang Clan’s part, they maintained their main trading convoy of Airships and refrained from any plans for expansion or aggressive marketing. They wanted to put steady pressure on the Four Major Businesses without overextending. Others might use this as an opportunity to grow their forces to fuel an expansion, but the Lang Clan didn’t want to make use of outsiders and the hidden locations they used to raise Dragoons and Blastids had fixed output rates.

The Lang Clan and the Four Major Businesses entered a sort of stalemate, at least in the Dou Kingdom. Their operatives spread out into the surrounding Kingdoms and conducted a sort of shadow war, competing over Insect Tamers and breeders. The more of them that the Lang Clan could stop them from recruiting the longer it would take the Four Major Businesses from developing a knockoff. This was really all speculation, but the longer it took them to copy their wares, the deeper their reputation could grow. Even if there were copies made, if the people had already tried a better version from the Prosperity Company it would help them maintain the lead in the market. The longer they could keep selling their goods, the more people would become familiar with the ‘original’ and hence reduce the disruption of competing products.

The Four Major Businesses were a goliath of industry and even if they had survived the initial period of this conflict they still had a long war ahead of them.