Dual Cultivation God Returns - Chapter 1048 - 1048: Demands of a greater ambition

“Hmm, though perhaps this development would require some rethinking of our ambitions and how we structure things, Eternal Duality Valley as it is now is too small of an organization for such a reach over several Boundless Worlds”, Nie Xiwang noted to Wu Long. This statement attracted not only his attention, but that of Shen Min, Feng Yi, Liang Yuhan, Sui Luxiao, Cao Xiang, Cao Mei, Luo Mingyu, Hua Ziyan and Wei Lan.

“But we cannot expand our numbers too much in a short period of time, we’ll sacrifice overall safety and control, as well as increase internal risk factors”, Shen Min immediately took a hawkish position to the rapid expansion of Sect members.

The truth was that her Veiled Sentinels already had some trouble keeping up with their expansion with the Symbol Arts Masters, Artifact Refiner Masters, and more. After all, it took some time for them to infiltrate every level of the Valley and keep an eye on everything each time it expanded in bulk and not gradually.

And even they weren’t completely incorruptible, although certainly loyal because they were selected from the victims of Lust Cultivation rescued by Wu Long and her.

She was already slightly worried about the upcoming prospect of absorbing the Crimson Arrow Manor into the War God Palace, as she would need time to slowly trickle in her Veiled Sentinels into their midst.

“It is certainly not ideal, but we cannot sustain that reach even just from the military numbers perspective, let alone other departments”, Feng Yi sighed, “Just holding up the Desolate Fortress requires almost the entirety of the War God Palace even with heavy use of Stink Pills to keep the majority of ants at bay and periodically temporarily close off the entirety of the Fortress to give the soldiers some time to rest as there are not enough shifts to keep up with the fatigue. On the other hand, it is excellent training grounds for more people so we can recruit quite a number yearly without sacrificing the quality of our troops”,

She then showed a conflicted expression as she added, “Although I get Sister Shen Min’s worry as well. It is not ideal to recruit risk factors, we go through rigorous screening during our current recruitment after all, and we are only recruiting from within the city of the Dream Realm, so it could be said to be an internal recruitment. Not to mention the speed of recruitment that would match what Sister Xiwang talks about is a completely different scale”

“Greater ambition requires greater reach, and greater reach requires expansion of manpower, that, unfortunately, is the principle that I don’t see a way around”, Nie Xiwang spoke words neither of the two beauties could refute.

Although Hua Ziyan’s Twin Essence Palace took a more background role for now, she knew that it would not always be the case, so she had to think of implications for it as well.

And Wei Lan had to agree with Shen Min. Her perspective on Sect internal matters was very strongly shaped by the fate of her past Sect, which is why contrary to her usual gentle and kind, empathetic disposition, she tended to side with Shen Min on matters of internal control and security.

Liang Yuhan, Sui Luxiao, Cao Xiang and Cao Mei, representing the leadership of the currently most active branches of the Valley also understood their current organizations were nowhere near enough in scale to undertake the ambition opened up by Song Lingfei’s ability.

That went for Luo Mingyu’s Divine Enlightenment Palace which served as a backbone of the Sect’s cultivation progress as the palace of Dao Cultivators.

After all, the vision they all collectively had before this, Wu Long included, was of a traveling Sect that changes locations, perhaps leaving small outposts along the way, but ultimately the core of the Sect would be constantly moving up with them through the Boundless Worlds. They had time to grow in scale as they would be almost always taking the entirety of their members with them everywhere, and absorbing new ones on their way, thus growing as they advanced.

Now, however, the places they pass through were not just something they leave behind, but they would maintain presence there, which required some personnel to manage and overall scale to expand.

“Hmm, maybe we would need to come up with a new structure entirely”, Wu Long spoke with a pondering look, tracing his chin with his hand, as he recognized the validity of both arguments, “I do agree that it is better to leave the core of our Sect a lot more secure and even compact. It not only concerns the security of our Sect, but more importantly of Baihu’s Dream Realm, it is after all her Origin World, and I wouldn’t want people I don’t trust having access to it”

As he spoke, Fen Baihu’s cheeks slightly reddened.

He then added, “But it is also irrefutable that we cannot maintain a reach over several Boundless Worlds with such a force, which is why perhaps we can branch out. The current structure of the Eternal Duality Valley would become the core, and would operate more or less the same, only its functions would now include management of a larger structure that would be subordinate to that core”

“Like an Inner Court and Outer Court of a Cultivation Sect?”, Wei Lan, as a former Grand Elder of a large Sect, instantly recognized the structure.

“Exactly!”, Wu Long’s eyes brightened, “In fact, we can name our current Sect the Inner Valley, while starting to recruit an Outer Valley from outside”

“I see, that structure definitely works”, Nie Xiwang nodded, “You mean to say that we could absorb entire local Sects and organizations that could become part of our Outer Valley to act as our regional bases for a given continent or even wider region. They would not have access to Sister Baihu’s Dream Realm, or rather, they would not even know of it’s existence since they don’t need to move with us to higher worlds or other continents. They would be stationary and local to a continent as they were before they become part of our Outer Valley, but would still be technically part of our larger structure thus receiving benefits and acting according to our will”

Jumping off that line of thinking Luo Mingyu chimed in, “They might not even know that Soaring Feather Trading Company is an integral part of the Valley, perceiving it as simply a separate organization that cooperates… “

“Or rather, they wouldn’t need to know anything about the internal structure of the Inner Valley at all – like a relationship of a Branch Sect and Main Sect”, Nie Xiwang seemed to have been inspired back by Luo Mingyu as the minds of the two Dao Cultivators envisioned the new structure playing off each other.

Luo Mingyu nodded with excitement, “They might know that just like Outer Valley, the Inner Valley consists of different Palaces, but there is no functional need for them to know the specifics of how the Inner Valley is structured or operates – they will have information about Inner Valley only on need-to-know basis!”

Nie Xiwang nodded, “And as they are not privy to our most sensitive secrets, we don’t have to be so worried about maintaining as strict of a control, since a breach of an Outer Valley Palace, Hall, Temple or whatever it is, would not give away much to our adversaries other than information about that specific Palace, Hall, Temple, organization, etc.”

“In that case, our Inner Valley located in this Dream Realm can not only stay on course of development that we envisioned before, with a more manageable growth rate, but also begin slow screening and recruitment through the Outer Valley”, Feng Yi, nodded also getting excited about the prospects, as the War God Palace was operating slightly more with the mindset of the Feng Family’s Army – constant recruitment of new soldiers every season, “If there is a notable talent appearing in the local Palace of our Outer Valley, we could begin a screening process and then recruit them up into our Inner Valley, or if they outgrow the Palace of Outer Valley but are not yet ready for Inner Valley, we can just transfer them to another Palace of Outer Valley in a higher world until they are ripe for the Inner Valley”

“And that includes not only fighting talent, but talent for any of the Inner Valley Palaces”, Liang Yuhan nodded, anticipating that her Thousand Eyes Palace could gain a reliable and well-controlled recruitment pipeline as well.

“That solves most of my worries as well, since we can recruit people we already screened for years and can more or less trust into the core while the periphery doesn’t concern us as much”, Shen Min nodded with both relief and some excitement, “Even more, this could prove to be excellent trial grounds for training my Veiled Sentinels whenever I can recruit more, to see how they do in Outer Valley”

“Then I suppose Soaring Feather Trading Company could do the same to maintain the size of our core company that would correlate to the size of the Inner Valley, and manage smaller local Trading Companies like proxies like the Thousand Treasures Hall does with the Silverleaf Trade Hall and others like it”, Sui Luxiao instantly saw the merits of this system. After all, Fen Baihu’s Dream Realm would be a major part of the success of the Trading Company that could deliver goods between different locations without any delay, even across Boundless Worlds. The problem was with security of allowing newer members access to such sensitive information, but if only the trusted members of the Soaring Feather Trading Company and Cao Xiang’s Liugwei Transport Company were responsible for internal logistics, while their proxy local Trading Companies were only responsible for direct local sales without knowing the details of logistics or production, they could effectively insulate themselves from risk, while training and screening new personnel in these proxy local Trading Companies.

“I assume, since we have the Desolate Fortress connected to the Oak Fortress on this Continent, and access to the Battle God’s Cradle that we are going to also control, all located on this Soft Meadow Continent, this would become the location of the first Outer Valley Palace or Hall… right? We would want to control the World Stone unless we take one of the three big Sects fighting for it into our Outer Valley…”, Cao Mei asked Wu Long.

“Hmm, that’s right, though we are technically allied with the Ember Palm Pavilion it is a bit of a can of worms to deal with their internal politics so they are not an ideal candidate”, Wu Long nodded, as the Three Pillars Sect came to his mind right away as the most developed candidate that also already has relationships with them, and that they were already investing in.

He then instantly decided to talk with Jin-… with Steel Hand about it later. He didn’t see much reason to oppose it, since it would be a beneficial development for the Three Pillars Sect as well.

As this serious conversation was happening on one side of the table, on the other side, Cai Yin was discussing with Song Lingfei, Gong Cui, Gong Liwei, Wu Mengqi, and Bi Rui the strategies of how to effectively infiltrate the female noble society of the Wei Dynasty in a more lighthearted chat with occasional giggles.

And just at that moment as the side with the heavier discussion seemed to have settled, Cai Yin saw an opening to ask…

“By the way, Wu Long, I wonder if it would be okay to introduce the Cyclic Burning Cauldron technique of burning away impurities to the female noble circles of the Wei Dynasty? I think just that alone could turn me into their favorite person – they would be willing to share any gossip and secret with me”, Cai Yin smiled, receiving approving gazes from the beauties around as they all instantly recognized the genius of this idea.

“Mm? Of course, wasn’t it already freely spread throughout our Eternal Duality Valley? At the time Mingyu asked permission to teach it to women in our Sect, I told you all that it wasn’t a big deal, it isn’t exactly a secret technique, and it isn’t even that efficient to begin wi-…”, Wu Long raised his eyebrows with confusion, slightly absent-mindedly as his head was still deep in the heavier topic of the overall expansion of the Sect.

This careless remark, spoken about that technique in such a dismissive tone, however, earned him strange looks from all the beauties while Ye Ling shook her head with a sigh.

“Ah~ did we ever tell the story of WHEN did Wu Long FINALLY introduce this technique to us? And no, it’s not when he met us in the beginning”, Luo Mingyu turned to everyone who joined the Dao Family after this ‘Heavenly’ technique was given to the beauties.

For those who came after, it was a given that the Dao Sisters shared this technique with them basically right away as an absolute necessity, whether they already entered the Dao Family or not. So they all assumed it was always like that.

Wu Long’s face twitched as he finally remembered how important the Cyclic Burning Cauldron technique was for his ladies or for women cultivators in general, but it was already late so he simply scratched his head slightly awkwardly, making a wry smile as Luo Mingyu began with, “So we were sitting in the inn in the Wood Spirit Empire…”