Chương 109: 108. My Cabbages!

I leave Coiling Dragon Sect in the middle of the afternoon. There is no ceremony, technically. There are only disciples lined along the main path, several workers standing awkwardly near the side because no one told them whether this sort of farewell required participation, and Bao Ming holding a broom. Old Chen stands with the workers. Shen Qiao stands beside him with his hands folded into his sleeves. The disciples clasp their fists and bow.

"Have a safe trip, Sect Leader!" Their voices are not perfectly together. Wei Chen is too loud. Jun is exactly on time. Several younger disciples follow half a beat late. The four newest recruits bow with extra seriousness in their new robes. Ren Xiaolu and Han Yiru still look overwhelmed. Mo Shun stands quietly, broad shoulders relaxed. Liang Kuan bows deepest. There is still disbelief in his shoulders.

'I hope the others handle them well.' I pause and reconsider my words.

'I trust the others to handle them well.' Only Ling'er and Shen Qiao know the true purpose of this trip. To everyone else, I am handling external matters after the recruitment trial: contracts, inquiries, minor sect obligations, perhaps the sort of tedious diplomacy that allows disciples to imagine leadership as both important and deeply boring. Shen Qiao meets my gaze for a moment and gives the faintest nod. His calculations are the reason I am leaving at all.

Ling'er is away on another herb-gathering quest, and is absent during my farewell. I spare one longer glance. Then I turn and head down the mountain. At first, I walk at an ordinary pace. By the second bend in the path, the sect is partly hidden behind trees and my steps lengthen. Qi moves through my legs, steady and familiar. The mountain path passes beneath me faster than it once would have. Rocks, roots, and uneven patches of soil become minor details, noticed and adjusted for without thought.

The wind presses against my sleeves. The afternoon air is cool enough that I do not mind the pace. A quiet excitement rises despite myself. For the first time in years, I am not leaving the sect because something has gone wrong. I am leaving because something may be found. Shen Qiao's advice sits clearly in my mind.

'Eight more.' That is what the sect can support beyond our current number before food, housing, medicine, and basic supplies begin to strain again. Ideally, each one must possess at least a strong root by the Gaze's standards, a useful constitution, or some other exceptional compatibility that justifies me leaving the mountain to search personally. The gate trial accepted sincere D-grade foundations because they were the most promising applicants who came to us.

Ren Xiaolu, Han Yiru, and Mo Shun may grow slowly, but they are clean, teachable, and worth the resources we can spare. Liang Kuan is a different matter entirely, though his family failed to notice it. This trip is for the people the ordinary recruitment system would never deliver. After descending far enough that no one from the sect can see me clearly, I stop beside a stand of thin pines and change. The sect leader's outer robe goes into my storage ring.

A simpler robe replaces it, gray-brown, well-kept but unremarkable. I tie my hair more plainly and adjust a cloth over the lower half of my face. It is not a dramatic disguise. Anyone who knows me well would still recognize me if they looked closely. That is fine. Most people do not look closely at another middle-aged cultivator with business on the road. I summon the spirit root detecting gem into my palm. The crack along one side catches the light. Even damaged, it remains valuable.

For public ritual, it is still useful. Families understand a glowing gem. Applicants understand a test they can see. Rival sects understand procedures that look familiar enough not to invite questions. For the actual search, it is nearly useless compared to the Gaze. I close my hand around it for a moment, then return it to the storage ring. The Gaze is powerful, but it is not administration. It does not sit in my office, read the region, and send me a neat list of names by morning.

It does not stand at the gate and sort every village child while I review contracts. It requires me to be present. Looking. Asking. Judging. Every hidden talent I find costs time away from the sect. That is the part no miraculous ability removes. A sect leader still has to go where the problem is.

'My first objective is recruitment.' My second is quieter: finding more information on bloodlines, awakenings, and the history of dragons. And, if the heavens are unusually generous, some explanation for why fire dragons appear so often in the records while water dragons remain rare enough that each mention feels intentionally obscured. I am not expecting answers. Esoteric knowledge rarely sits openly on a shelf waiting for me to buy it at a discount.

If the matter were simple, Ling'er would already have found something during her travels. But minor cities and old towns have strange habits. They preserve records no one reads, copy fragments no one understands, and store broken manuals because some ancestor once insisted they were important. Sometimes a thing survives not because people value it, but because no one local is qualified to recognize what it is. My first stop is a small town northwest of Greenstone.

According to records, its population is around two thousand. More importantly, the town sits under the Liang Clan's influence and has no nearby sect jurisdiction pressing against it. I think of Liang Kuan bowing too deeply in his new robes.

'Perhaps there's more branch family members worth taking in.' Then I quicken my pace toward the northwest road. It passes through low hills first, then flattens into farmland broken by irrigation channels, muddy cart paths, and thin lines of winter-bare trees. By the time the town comes into view, the afternoon has stretched toward evening, and smoke rises from cooking fires in narrow gray columns. Calling it a town is generous, though not inaccurate. It is smaller than Greenstone, and less arranged around trade.

Greenstone has the restless feeling of a place where merchants, cultivators, hunters, farmers, and travelers keep crossing paths. This place feels more settled. Houses cluster close to fields, storehouses sit near packed-earth roads, and a few tiled roofs rise above the rest, but most buildings are wood, clay, and repaired thatch. Farming tools lean against walls. Chickens scatter from the roadside as I pass. There are shops, but not many. A tea house with more old men than customers.

Several stalls selling vegetables, dried fish, lamp oil, and cheap cloth. The Liang main family sits at the center of the town in a sprawling compound with high walls, polished gates, and enough open space around it that no neighbor can pretend not to know where authority lives. The outer buildings are not extravagant, but they are better maintained than anything else nearby. The roof tiles are newer. The gate guards stand straighter.

Even the road leading toward the compound has fewer ruts than the roads leading away from it. A crowd was gathered in front of the compound. Farmers, shopkeepers, branch relatives, servants, and several young cultivators stand in loose groups while an older man in dark metal-gray robes speaks from the raised steps. The Liang patriarch, unless I am mistaken. The Gaze confirms it when I let my attention settle.

Liang Clan Patriarch - Foundation Establishment (Fifth Stage) Name: Liang Zhaoyuan Age: 61 Spirit Root: Metal (C-grade) Constitution: None Cultivation: Foundation Establishment (Fifth Stage) - Stable Verdict: Local clan patriarch with solid cultivation, narrow inheritance, and enough authority to determine most cultivation opportunities in this town. Not exceptional by wider standards. More than sufficient here.

He is announcing something about spring allocations, field protection, and revised escort rotations for outer holdings. Near the front of the crowd stands a young man in better robes than anyone his age should wear comfortably. Two attendants hover near him, one holding a folded cloak he does not need and another carrying a narrow case that likely contains a weapon. He watches the announcement with the bored tolerance of someone listening to rules made for other people. The Gaze settles over him.

Arrogant Young Master - Qi Condensation (Fourth Stage) Name: Liang Xun Age: 17 Spirit Root: Metal (C-grade) Constitution: None Cultivation: Qi Condensation (Fourth Stage) - Stable Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Verdict: Main-branch heir trained with suitable metal-aspected resources from childhood. Locally promising, but lazy. I look at Liang Xun for a while. A C-grade metal root, trained properly from childhood, becomes a young master.

A B-grade earth root was cast out and sent to our sect so they don't have to waste food and resources on him.

'The Gaze's letters do not correspond to any formal system this world uses.' Local clans don't speak in grades. They speak of weak roots, clear roots, pure roots, mixed roots, compatible roots, inherited roots, auspicious constitutions, and unfortunate impurities. A sect may value a root because it suits the sect's inheritance. A clan may call a child promising because the child's element matches the family method. Another power might dismiss the same child because the root is narrow, unstable, or inconvenient.

The Gaze reduces all of that into letters for my benefit. I still do not fully understand what it measures.

'Raw ceiling, perhaps? Efficiency under correct instruction? Learning speed? Some combination of all three?' A pure root like Mei Lin's is easier for a narrow inheritance to cultivate. That much is obvious. A metal clan wants metal children because its manuals, medicines, weapons, and elders all know what to do with metal. But that does not mean every mixed root is inferior, or every pure root is profound. A mixed root with enough depth may support broader cultivation than a pure root that reaches its limit early.

Ling'er makes the categories nearly useless if I think about her too long. Whatever ordinary language would call her root, the result is a child who can cultivate across elements, beyond standard elements, and through principles that would make most testing tools shatter or remain inert. I stop thinking about Ling'er's before my head begins hurting again. Shouting rises from the far side of the gathering. At first, I think it is part of the announcement. Then several people turn, and the shape of the crowd changes.

Two young men are arguing near a cart stacked with sacks of grain. One wears the cleaner gray trim of the main compound's outer servants. The other is dressed more plainly, though the resemblance between them suggests clan blood somewhere behind both faces. A branch youth, then. The argument does not last long. One of Liang Xun's attendants steps in, says something I cannot hear, and the branch youth lowers his head. After a moment, he takes the heavier sack from the cart and carries it toward the compound.

Once I notice it, I see the pattern everywhere: The branch families are not slaves, but they're not equals either. They work the fields connected to the clan's holdings. They carry goods. They escort main-branch youths. They maintain storehouses, settle small disputes, and serve in dangerous errands when a proper disciple is too valuable to risk or too important to bother. Their children are tested when the clan thinks there may be value in it.

Their daughters and sons become marriage threads, labor reserves, guards, messengers, and occasional vessels for future bloodline luck. They are kin when the clan wants loyalty, servants when the clan wants labor, and bloodline reserves when the main branch runs dry. I understand Liang Kuan a little better. A normal village child with a weak root can still return to the fields, marry, trade, hunt, or leave. His disappointment belongs to him and his family.

It may hurt, but it does not necessarily follow him into every room. A disappointing branch youth doesn't have that option. A root so weak that he was sent away rather than nurtured. A deeper earth root ignored because no one had reason to look for it. I remain in the town for several hours. A man with my cultivation can move through a place like this without being challenged if he behaves well; I buy tea, I ask about roads, and I listen to merchants complain about escort costs.

I browse the physician's hall and find nothing but common powders at inflated prices. I inspect a stall selling old texts and discover three farming records, two prayer manuals, and one book of local ghost stories whose author had clearly never met a ghost. For recruitment, the result is only slightly better. The Gaze finds three D-grade roots among the wider town, all young enough to matter but too ordinary to justify the purpose of this trip when Coiling Dragon has only eight open places before strain returns.

I find one C-grade root in a Liang main-branch girl of twelve who is already being watched by two elders and would not be accessible without insult, negotiation, or theft. I am not here to start a clan dispute over a child whose family is already investing in her. Several others have weak roots, no roots, or obligations so tightly tied to the Liang Clan that recruiting them cleanly would be impossible.

A few branch youths might have become useful outer disciples under different circumstances, but not enough to justify pulling them into conflict when Coiling Dragon has neither spare leverage nor spare attention.

'That is disappointing.' It is also useful. The town confirms the problem: Talent exists, but it is not scattered evenly across roads waiting for my hand to collect it. It is trapped, misread, hoarded, invested in, neglected, or wasted depending on who controls the test and who benefits from the answer. I leave before dusk. The road toward Crescent Bay takes me farther from Greenstone's orbit and closer to the coast. The air changes first. A dampness settles into the wind.

Then comes the salt, faint at first, then steady. The road widens as it meets more traffic: carts bearing timber, sacks of grain, bundles of dried reeds, barrels of fish, and stacks of planks cut for hull repair. By midnight, I rest briefly beneath a roadside shelter with two merchants and a snoring mule. By morning, coastal fog lies low over the fields. I continue. Crescent Bay announces itself before I see the walls. Hammering carries over the road in uneven bursts. Shipwrights, most likely.

The smell of pitch, salt water, drying nets, wet wood, fish guts, and coal smoke arrives together with enough force to make me miss mountain air. The city itself sits along a curved inlet, larger than Greenstone City and less tidy. Warehouses crowd the outer roads. Fishing boats rock in the harbor. Half-finished hulls rest on wooden frames near the shore while men climb over them with tools and shouted instructions. Spring has not fully arrived, but the city is already preparing for it.

Ships must be repaired and nets must be mended before the waters grow busy. People move with the impatience of a place that makes money by timing. Crescent Bay has around ten thousand residents, if the records can be trusted. That makes it large enough for factions to overlap without immediately destroying each other, and small enough that everyone still knows which streets belong to whom. Two names matter here. Whispering Wind and Silent Moon. I remember them.

Both are stronger than Coiling Dragon was before recent events. Both sit near the upper range of what minor sects can become before others start debating whether they should be called something more. The two sects maintain a tense rivalry in Crescent Bay. Tense, in this context, appears to mean that no one has yet made enough money from open war. I adjust the cloth over my face and enter the city with the flow of morning travelers.

The shopping streets sit several roads inland from the harbor, close enough to smell the sea but far enough that the ground is mostly dry beneath the paving stones. Shops crowd both sides of the road with hanging signs, bright awnings, and shouted prices. Fishmongers argue beside cloth sellers. A spice merchant waves a fan over open jars, and a bookseller has arranged several crates beneath a patched canopy, though from a distance I can already see too many romance titles and not enough useful manuals.

I move slowly through the crowd. Alchemy notes are easier to find and harder to trust. Most of what secondhand shops call alchemy is either improperly copied recipes, physician's notes, or fake recipes that would sooner poison me than give any benefit. Still, one does not find hidden gems by refusing to look at dirty stones. I pass a stall selling old scroll tubes and pause long enough to inspect the visible labels. Fishing rites. Household ledgers. A devotional text to a sea goddess. Nothing promising.

The proprietor notices my attention and immediately claims the devotional text is an ancient water inheritance. I do not buy it. Two streets later, I find a better shop tucked between a tool seller and a warehouse office. Its signboard reads Old Ink Pavilion. I am about to enter when raised voices carry from farther down the street.

"Junior, you dare?!" Shopkeepers pull goods closer to their stalls. A woman selling steamed buns lifts her tray and steps back without looking surprised. Two dockworkers move to the side of the street with the tired coordination of people avoiding rain. I follow their attention. A group of Silent Moon disciples in indigo robes stands near the center of the road. Across from them, several Whispering Wind disciples in purple-adorned robes block the flow of traffic.

One disciple from each side stands too close to the other.

"You walked into me," says the Silent Moon disciple, hand resting near the hilt of his sword. The Whispering Wind disciple lifts his chin.

"If a stationary mountain complains that the wind touched it, should the wind apologize?"

"You are not wind. More like a fart!" Several of the Whispering Wind disciples make offended noises. The purple-robed disciple smiles with all his teeth.

"Silent Moon teaches the sword, does it not? I had heard your footwork was subtle. I did not realize subtle meant too slow to avoid another person in broad daylight."

"And I had heard Whispering Wind disciples were light on their feet," the Silent Moon disciple says.

"Now I see you simply drift wherever your heads are emptiest." That earns murmurs from nearby locals, though most try to hide them. A second Whispering Wind disciple steps forward, robes fluttering despite the lack of breeze.

"Careful. Our Sect Leader is in seclusion pursuing Core Formation. When he emerges, you will regret you words." A Silent Moon disciple laughs softly.

"Your sect leader has been 'near breakthrough' for three years."

"Better near breakthrough than near irrelevance!" The locals back farther away. I remain where I am, partly because the entrance to Old Ink Pavilion is behind them and partly because the exchange is beginning to develop educational value. The two sects are close enough in strength that neither can ignore the other, and not different enough in maturity to stop blocking a shopping street over a shoulder. The first sword comes halfway out of its sheath. The first gust of wind answers.

The scuffle begins too quickly for the civilians and too slowly to surprise anyone. The Silent Moon disciple draws with controlled force. Gust curls around his ankles and carries him sideways in a sharp burst. His sword cuts forward. The movement is quick, aggressive, and wasteful. Another Silent Moon disciple steps in. Another Whispering Wind disciple laughs and kicks off the side of a stall. The fight spreads. I watch with professional interest despite myself.

Silent Moon's blades threaten sleeves, wrists, and foot placement more than vital points. They are trying to embarrass cleanly. Whispering Wind favors interruption. Sudden gusts, angled footwork, and sharp entries. In a more open space, they would be troublesome. In a shopping street, they are mostly expensive. A gust misses its intended target and slams into the vegetable cart. The cart lurches.

The owner in green and yellow robes makes a strangled sound, lunges for one side, and manages to save half of it before the other half spills across the street in a rolling wave of spring greens.

"My cabbages!" The cry carries with the grief of a man who has suffered this before and found no justice in heaven. A Silent Moon disciple slips on a fallen radish. A Whispering Wind disciple laughs, then catches a cabbage against the side of his head when a second gust rebounds badly off a shop wall. I am still considering whether to intervene when a faint pressure brushes the edge of my awareness. Contact. Light, practiced, and exactly where my pockets are.

My hand closes around a thin wrist before the fingers reach the fold of my robe. I look down. A hooded child looks back up at me. For one brief moment, we regard each other with equal disappointment.

'A pickpocket?' The boy is small, all elbows and narrow shoulders beneath a patched brown hood. His face is partly shadowed, but I catch dark eyes, quick and bright, already measuring exits. His wrist twists once in my grip. It does not move. The scuffle several paces away continues. A sword rings against stone. Someone curses. The vegetable seller makes another wounded noise as a cabbage is crushed beneath a boot. The boy looks at my hand, then at my face. He inhales sharply.

"Help!" he shouts, loud enough to cut through the street.

"He's trying to take me into an alley!"