That began a period of grinding routine for Sen and the army at large. They got up, stowed the camp, marched for part of the day, set up camp, and trained. Then, they did it again. And again. And again. However, even with that routine, it wasnât entirely smooth. The soldiers, who were used to the prospect of training on an almost daily basis, grumbled. It might not have been so bad if Sen couldnât actually hear most of that grumbling. It was concerning enough that he went to see the head cook, Zhang Bai, to discuss it. Sen was not entirely prepared for the reaction he got when he expressed his concerns. The normally grumpy man burst into uproarious laughter.
âIt doesnât seem that funny to me,â said Sen.
âNo. I donât suppose it would, but thatâs because youâre a cultivator, and not a soldier.â
âWhat difference does that make?â
âWell, as I understand it, cultivators who complain about their training donât usually survive very long as cultivators.â
âI suppose that might be true in the sects. Iâm not really sure,â admitted Sen.
âLord Lu,â said Xu Xiao Dan.
The former patriarch had hung back, apparently not wanting to intrude, but it seemed he had some insight to offer.
Sen looked at the man and said, âYes?â
âHe is correct,â continued Xu Xiao Dan. âSects are rather quick to discard those who donât show sufficient enthusiasm for discipline.â
âDiscipline is all well and good,â said Sen, âbut it can be learned. Why discard talent?â
âResources,â said Xu Xiao Dan and Zhang Bai at the same time.
Sen looked between the two before he finally settled on Zhang Bai.
âOkay, why do
you
say that?â
The head cook shrugged and said, âTraining someone takes time. It takes effort. It costs money. Itâs an investment. Unless youâre looking to punish someone, usually yourself, training someone who isnât quick to do whatâs necessary usually means wasting some or all of that investment.â
Sen glanced at Xu Xiao Dan.
âIndeed,â said the former patriarch. âItâs even more the case with cultivators. Any sect will have finite resources. Youâre an alchemist, so letâs look at it in those terms. Gathering enough alchemical ingredients to make pills and elixirs for
one
qi-condensing cultivator is trivial.â
âAgreed,â said Sen.
âSupplying sufficient alchemical ingredients to serve all the needs of two hundred qi-condensing cultivators is another matter entirely. You could strip every medicinal herb, qi-attributed plant, and precious mineral for miles in every direction and still fall short. Those problems are amplified at the foundation formation and core formation stages. Again, finding sufficient ingredients to serve the needs of one such cultivator isââ he paused. âI wonât say that itâs easy, but it is an achievable goal for a motivated cultivator. The difficulty swells rapidly the more such cultivators you need to serve.â
Sen frowned as he considered those words. Heâd never particularly struggled to find what he needed, but his circumstances had never been entirely normal. In the beginning, he hadnât been doing most of the gathering for the pills and elixirs that Master Feng had given him. Heâd also benefitted from Auntie Caihong making almost everything he took during his initial years of training. He didnât need anyone to tell him that heâd gotten the
very best
of everything. Auntie Caihong simply wouldnât have accepted the necessity of using anything less than components of pristine quality.
Once heâd gone out into the world, circumstance had often pushed him far deeper into the wilds than most cultivators would go. Heâd stumbled across more alchemical treasures than heâd ever gone looking for just because of proximity. Heâd never given any real consideration to how much of a challenge it would be to multiply his needs by the number of members in an entire sect. Even with his own sect, heâd never asked too many questions about how they handled those matters. If anything, heâd been happy to make things like that Sua Xing Xingâs problem. Now that he was thinking about it, though, it wasnât hard to understand the thinking the sects employed.
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âI see,â said Sen. âItâs a filtering process. You donât want to waste any of those resources on anyone who isnât completely committed.â
âPrecisely,â said Xu Xiao Dan.
âOkay, thatâs all understandable, but Iâm still not sure what any of this has to do with the soldiers.â
âSoldiers arenât like cultivators,â said Zhang Bai. âCultivators are disciplined because they have no other choice. Soldiers become soldiers in lots of different ways and for different reasons. When you get a mix like that, you have to settle for people who are disciplined
enough
.â
âWhat does that mean?â asked Sen, baffled by the idea.
âIt means accepting people who put in enough effort to learn what they need to learn and have enough discipline to do the things theyâre ordered to do. But,â said the head cook, âit also means that you turn a blind eye when those same people complain the rest of the time. In fact, you should be happy theyâre complaining.â
Brow furrowing, Sen asked, âWhy?â
âPeople who complain loud enough to be heard are just being people. Complaining gets it out of their heads and thatâs that. Itâs normal. Itâs when you stop hearing people complain that you should worry. Because thatâs when theyâre probably planning something foolish.â
âGood to know,â muttered Sen.
After that conversation, he was able to set aside his concerns about the mortal army, and focus his concern on the cultivators. Training was necessary, but it was a double-edged sword. Cultivators needed time to restore their qi. The fact that they were all moving every day helped with that. Aside from whatever spirit beasts were in the area, they were taking in qi from relatively untouched environments. If anything, they should be restoring their qi faster than they could have at home. Sen had even taken to setting up large qi-condensing formations, but the basic speed of recovery was still slower than they were using up what they had.
He'd worked with what passed as the leadership of the cultivators to develop a loose rotation. Foundation formation cultivators only trained every third or fourth day as their reserves were the shallowest. Core cultivators trained every second or third day. It had helped, but Sen could still tell there was a slow bleed happening. Heâd have to give everyone a week off from training soon. It would give everyone a chance to recover. It would also let them cover ground a little faster, since marching would be the only thing anyone had to do. Sen decided that was probably a good thing. Theyâd be approaching Infernoâs Vale soon. He hadnât decided what, if anything, he was going to do with the Order of the Celestial Flame.
âAssuming they survived,â said Sen.
âLord Lu?â asked Xu Xiao Dan from the other side of the tent.
âThe Order of the Celestial Flame,â said Sen. âI donât suppose you know what became of them?â
âI do not. We were trading information at the beginning, but it soon became impractical to send messengers. We couldnât give up anyone who could fight, and only those who could fight stood a chance of reaching them safely. I assume they found themselves in the same position.â
Sen nodded his acknowledgment. He
hoped
that was case, and that theyâd find some of those flame cultivators defending their home. Part of him doubted the chances of that. The water cultivators of the Clear Spring Sect were dangerous. Every cultivator was dangerous, but the offensive techniques of the water cultivators were less brutally destructive. The fire cultivators in the order would have posed a much more direct threat to large groups of spirit beasts. If Sen had been planning a conquest of this part of the kingdom, he would have targeted them with overwhelming force.
Even if the spirit beasts hadnât wiped them out, Sen wasnât sure how he should approach them. Unlike the Clear Spring Sect, he didnât have any bad blood with the Order of the Celestial Flame. They might welcome the chance to join the relative safety of the army. On the other hand, they might think theyâd done enough. He wouldnât blame them if they felt that way. He just wasnât sure he could accept that answer. The fight against the spirit beasts wasnât his fight alone. Letting any sect or order outright refuse to fight might well be something he
couldnât
tolerate. He was a tyrant, which meant that he could arbitrarily excuse anyone from anything if he wanted, but he wasnât that naĂŻve. Playing that card too often was a good way to created enemies ahead and behind.
It also wasnât something he could put off thinking about for long. He needed to decide how heâd handle such things before they arrived in Infernoâs Vale. Unfortunately, there werenât many solutions to that problem. They could either participate willingly, be forced to participate, or they could die. If it were some other sect, one he didnât like or wasnât familiar with, the choice would be easier. He would be less hesitant. The Order of the Celestial Flame, however, had treated him fairly. Killing them
after
they had been bled by the spirit beasts felt like a cruel choice. Particularly since they had gotten no support from anyone else.
It wasnât as though heâd gone running to help them. Then again, he hadnât been idle the last few years. They hadnât asked for help, either, as far as he knew. None of which make it feel any more justified to push them into fight a war. Sen wondered if all rulers faced situations where what theyâd prefer to do was at odds with what might need to be done. He thought back to the situation that Jing had found himself in when the war began in earnest.
Yeah
, he thought,
they probably all do
.