The next few weeks saw a flurry of activity in every town within my territory. People from the Sect begab arriving. Those interested in training the secondary professions, as well as Sect members willing to help with construction. Enough cultivators arrived at each town, and I was glad I had taken the time to inform each leader. It had given them enough time to arrange buildings for training to take place and create a list of the most pressing issues for repair or expansion.

The Dojo was completed within those few weeks, much faster than I ever expected. Using spatial devices, arrays, and Qi ‘muscle’ made a difference, making light of the workforce required. It seemed like the buildings sprung up overnight, more a result of magic than Qi.

As Bob had suggested, the Dojo’s design had been expanded to tweak the elemental balance to include air, earth, fire, water, and lightning. The lightning element worked more as a containment field than an actual blending of elements, but its inclusion made the blending of elements more cohesive. It allowed the entirety of the center building to harmonize almost flawlessly.

Bob had also designed an arena, a construct mostly comprised of illusion and arrays, with enough building materials to anchor the formations. The stadium would serve as the sight for the tournaments I planned to host and had enough seating capacity to house thousands of people. Because we used formation flags and illusion to give substance and shape to the arena, it would be a simple matter to expand the dimensions if the place became popular. More importantly, it allowed the Arena Master to expand the dueling rings to take advantage of spatial arrays to allow for flying and aerial combat.

I’d had the arena placed closer to the town. I planned to allow my citizens to purchase tickets to watch matches and bet on the outcome, not just cultivators or professionals. Zui had suggested I include betting to offset costs and generate the funds needed to nurture the cultivators that joined House Myche or those that became disciples of the Dojo.

That income might not be much initially, but once other cultivators began claiming part of Delph Island as their fief, I hoped that would change, especially if I could offer prizes as an incentive, which would tempt other territories to compete.

Zui had suggested I hold monthly tournaments, the winner of each earning a place in a Grand-tournament held yearly. That tournament would decide who the best was over the last year.

Today I was taking the time to teach a class in Alchemy. I wouldn’t be able to hold a lecture often. I was too busy for that, but watching Siam give his lecture had impressed on me how much I had missed out on at Flowing Water Sect by isolating myself. As Baroness and Head of House, it served no purpose to continue that habit. In fact, my isolation could serve to cause division and resentment.

“What is Alchemy?” I asked, starting the lecture in the same manner Siam had.

Only three cultivators were attending. But when you consider fewer than a hundred people had been sworn or adopted to House Myche, that number was impressive. When I first began learning about Alchemy, there were only two other cultivators interested in joining Alchemy Hall. One of them had quit and joined Herbal Hall instead when they realized how challenging the profession was.

It was one of the reasons pills were a coveted resource. Not everyone had the temperament or ability to create pills. And for those that could, not many had the time required to invest in any meaningful production. That created a scarcity that forced the Sects to require contribution points to be spent even for a mortal tier pill.

“The creation of pills,” Leo answered, blushing once he realized everyone had turned to focus on him.

I had taken the time to learn each person’s name as they entered the lab I was using. Leo, Jade, and Xu. They were part of the group of cultivators that hadn’t awakened an air affinity. Without that affinity, they had decided against becoming Beast Tamers.

I had changed my policy from only offering that option to cultivators that awakened an air affinity. Siam had pointed out that some of the strongest Beast Tamers were those whose aspects included fire and earth. But that had made no difference with these three.

I had offered those cultivators I recruited from the Sect that joined my House the chance to switch to Beast Taming. Only one fire-aspected man had agreed. The rest were content with the path they had chosen. It did force me to take a few days to hunt down a drake for the man to bond with. Thankfully, there was a plethora of fire-attuned creatures nesting in the mountains within my territory.

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I captured a juvenile and five eggs that hadn’t hatched yet. I would let Siam decide if they should be kept in stasis or hatched when needed. I had also asked him to create a training and breeding program so that we could offer domesticated drakes for sale to other cultivators.

Leo and Xu seemed to gravitate towards each other, I’d noticed. The burgeoning signs of puppy love or the first steps of genuine affection were apparent in the small gestures and fleeting touches they shared, and it explained Leo’s blush.

Leo had awakened an earth affinity, while Xu had resonated with fire. Together they should be formidable, particularly if they decided to merge their cultivation paths and Dual Cultivate.

Leo might do better as a Herbalist than an alchemist, I believed. His affinity would allow him to nurture plants easily, but it was not unheard of for earth aspected cultivators to gain understanding and proficiency in Alchemy. He would have to work harder and gain control of his Dharmic fire quickly if he wanted to advance.

Xu would have it a little easier. She could use her affinity with fire to help with the processes involved in a slew of alchemical processes, those processes that were part of Alchemy but didn’t include the creation of pills.

Jade had formed a connection with water and would do well as an alchemist if she worked at it. She would be able to monitor and adjust the moisture in the herbs and beast parts as she combined ingredients. Eventually, her control would allow her to intuitively understand how to change a pill formula for optimal results.

“Partly,” I said, agreeing with Leo, “but we do much more than create pills.

“That is an important function of what we will do, but at the heart of the matter, alchemy is a science. And Alchemists spend their lives learning to understand the properties or the world around them and how to convert the resources the planet offers into new products that can be used by cultivator and non-cultivator alike.”

“Why wouldn’t we just concentrate on pill-making?” Jade asked. “It would be profitable and allow us to create pills that would help with our cultivation.”

“You’re right. It would be profitable. So why haven’t we just industrialized the process? Could we use arrays and machinery to do much of the work a single person does? If we automated the process, we might even be able to standardize the product so the impurities found within a pill would not vary from Alchemist to Alchemist.

“Imagine visiting a shop in the market where jade bottles were stacked floor to ceiling with thousands and thousands of pills. A shop like that in every community. If alchemy was only a reason for profits, why shouldn’t we mass produce and make pills easily available?” I returned her question with more than one of my own.

She was thoughtful as she considered my question. She took the time to imagine how something like that might be done and figure out why it hadn’t been attempted. There were billions of people living on Shijie. There had to have been an attempt to mass-produce refined products.

“I’m not sure, Sensei. What you suggest makes sense. Your idea could even be expanded to other professions. Why don’t we automate and standardize how pills are made? Or arrays or formations? Or even clothing and food production, for that matter?”

“Part of the reason is the size of the world itself,” I replied, pleased that she had been able to extrapolate my original question to encompass so much more. “There are cities, towns, and villages spread across a wide swath of land that make it necessary for each area to be self-sufficient.

“Trade exists, of course. Without it, we would stagnate and even regress as a civilization, but we have been conditioned and required to be as self-reliant as possible. Qi makes our lives easier, but for every advance we make, we have to temper our achievements against the risks.

“We know, at any moment, there might be a beast tide, and that is what constrains most of the large-scale industrialization we might attempt. For those enterprises, like farms? They exist, so why not other professions?

“Walls and gates may keep a village safe, but when an attack comes from the sky, those walls are worthless without arrays and formations that can protect from above and below. We do not have the people to protect any type of massive industrialization.

“You need to understand, the most significant reason we continue to create pills one by one has to do with the nature of cultivation. Arrays can be constructed to gather Qi. They can even be used to direct that energy during pill formation. If every pill could be standardized mass production might work.

“But they can’t. Every leaf, every plant, every animal you use in alchemy is permeated with world energy at different levels. That makes it impossible to create a pill based on a recipe and following directions.

“An alchemist learns to refine pills. We are not talented chefs that throw ingredients into a pot and stir. We monitor the pill cauldron as we create, watch for energy fluctuations, and make changes and adjust temperature and the number of ingredients we use as we craft. An Alchemist must be focused and talented enough to regulate when and how we add each component until the last step and the pill forms.

“It takes concentration and understanding. That final step where we fuse the ingredients and the balance of Qi energy we have nurtured changes each time. It is a process. Actions are taken until we compress those ingredients and energies into a chemical process. A process fueled by Qi energy that hopefully results in a pill and not a cauldron exploding.

“That is something that no array, formation, or machine can duplicate.”