New Headquarters
The Ministry of Special Affairs was responsible for various matters. It essentially did whatever John Brown ordered, with no fixed duties. For example, when John fell in love with the young lady of the Icefall sect, it was the Ministry of Special Affairs that delivered his love letters.
The deputy minister of special affairs was a woman at the peak of the Divine Soul Realm.
The government of the Brown Dynasty is highly decentralized. Nobles are appointed as rulers of specific areas, allowing them to govern as they see fit. Each noble is de facto an independent ruler.
The only thing that matters to the Brown dynasty's main branch is recruiting talented disciples. The sects and the Brown family have detailed agreements on their distribution; the overall deal stipulates that 50% goes to the sects and 50% to the empire. However, if the local nobles of the Brown family find more talents than anticipated, they can keep the extra talents for themselves.
As a ruler, John Brown has many ministries, cultivator armies, and even a mortal army. The Brown family's headquarters recently sent a Void Soul cultivator as a helper. The west is barren, so they couldn't produce a Void Soul cultivator after so long, so the main family decided to station one here; the reason wasn't that the main branch was worried about west's defense; after all, void Soul cultivators can teleport anywhere in the world in no time, so even if they stay in the headquarters of the main family, known as Brown city, they can teleport and help anywhere if a strong force invades.
The main branch sent void soul cultivators to the West to act as a mentor, helping the Westerners advance and maybe cultivate their own void soul cultivators.
...
A woman with red eyes, red hair, and a beautiful face, like practically every cultivator, looked at Lucy and asked, "Can you swear an oath about the authenticity of this news?"
Lucy looked at her calmly and said, "Of course, this news is true. The branch leader of the Icefall Sect, Master Ted Buttons, lost his talented son in a tribulation. We hope to come under your wing. For no reason, Ted Buttons considers us the perpetrators, so he would target us when he comes back."
The woman with red eyes, named Daoist Ice, was in deep thought. Of course, as the local rulers from the brown dynasty, they had many spies all around and knew something had happened in the West Ocean area, but the Icefall Sect hid the details, so they couldn't discover them.
The death of a Nascent Soul cultivator, even as talented as Oliver, is not important; it would not attract attention. However, the way Oliver died, by a tribulation at the level of multiple Soul Realms, was a big deal. Even Master John Brown himself is only at the multiple Soul Realm, so that level of tribulation can be extremely dangerous.
"How did that tribulation appear?" Daoist Ice asked. Tribulations usually appear naturally when something enrages the heavens. Some beast emperors and divine soul cultivators can attract tribulations, but those tribulations are at most at the level of the Divine Soul Realm. After the divine soul stage, cultivators and beasts no longer have to suffer from regular tribulations from the heavens.
Many spells can create fake tribulations, but to this day, Daoist Ice is unaware of any spell that can summon a tribulation of that level.
"That is a mystery. Maybe something happened deep in the ocean!" Lucy answered. She really didn't know why the tribulation appeared.
The ocean area in the far west is mostly untouched by cultivators. It's not that cultivators cannot reach that deep; it's just that the ocean area in the west has no extractable valuable resources, so they have no reason to waste resources monitoring it.
Daoist Ice sat down on the ground, closed her eyes, and started meditating on the spot. After a few minutes, she stood up and said, "We agree! You are hereby officially recognized as one of our subordinate sects. Take this badge; if you show this, Ted won't dare to act against you!" She gave away a silver badge with the character 'Brown' printed on it.
Although the North Apple Continent has only four great sects, there are many other subordinate sects, many of which are under the Brown family's command.
"Thank you. Can you please help us teleport back to our sect? With our strength, we may not be able to get back in time," said Lucy.
Daoist Ice nodded and said, "Follow me!"
After flying for a few minutes, they reached a three-story building.
After entering, Daoist Ice said, "Go stand on that platform."
Lucy and her crew complied.
Daoist Ice said, "Think of where you want to teleport to!"
Lucy did as Daoist Ice instructed; a blinding light came before she could ask anything, and the four disappeared.
Daoist Ice walked up to the immortal item in the shape of a monitor and looked at a map with a red dot that appeared far away.
"Strange; as far as I remember, that area was barren. Did something happen there?" She decided to visit there later, but for now, she has to report what happened to the minister of special affairs.
These people are weird; for one, they lack the aura of the breakthrough token. As a well-informed cultivator, Daoist Ice knows that it is possible to break through without token; one just has to move to the far edges of continental formation, where its power is weaker, and try to break through there. However, this technique only works up to the divine soul.
This is a loophole in the formation that is too costly to fix, so the Brown family just doesn't care. In any case, cultivators of the divine soul realm cannot pose any threat, and it also doesn't cause any revenue loss. The costs and risks of moving to the edges of continental formation are too high, so nobody in their right mind would try it.
Some rural tribes living on the far edges of the continent break through without tokens; those people, however, would have to buy the token retroactively if they wanted to live on the mainland. But as far as Daoist Ice saw, Lucy and her crew didn't seem to be one of those remote tribes; this matter needs to be investigated and eventually reported to master John Brown.
As deputy minister, she has the authority and even the duty to make decisions on the spot; she doesn't need to ask the minister for everything. Deputy ministers under John Brown have nearly the same power as ministers; the only difference is that only the ministers can personally report to John. Aside from that, deputy ministers can act independently.
Using the 'call' spell, she connected to the minister and started reporting.
Daoist Ice called the minister, who would report it to John. If it wasn't worthy of Master John Brown's attention, she wouldn't have reported it to the minister.
Still, to prevent friendly fire and disruptions, she has to report her every action to the Ministry of Intelligence. The Ministry of Intelligence keeps a database that contains all ministers', deputy ministers', or even lower-level officials' actions.
The Ministry of Internal Management then appoints trusted cultivators to review those databases, looking through everything to ensure no impermissible conflict between different ministers' actions. For example, the minister of foreign affairs may support Sect X, and the ministry of special affairs may support Sect Y; that conflict can cause a lot of wasted resources. In that situation, the minister of internal management has to notify the chief minister, who has to harmonize the conflict. There is also a possibility that there is no conflict and that they have been supporting different factions for a reason; in that case, the chief minister would just notify the minister of internal management to ignore it.
The minister of intelligence is also responsible for spying on other forces; they have a direct channel to the headquarters' intelligence agencies and limited access to the Brown Dynasty's central database.
...
Lucy returned to the sect through teleportation. Usually, teleportation this far away can only be done by at least multiple soul realm cultivators, but using the formation, it can be performed only with energy stones. Just this one teleportation probably consumed at least tens of thousands of big energy stones, but those expenditures are nothing for big forces such as Viscount Brown.
The teleportation just now was not without risk; all teleportation under the Void Soul Realm comes with a slight risk. If they hit space turbulence on their way, they may die, appear 100 kilometers underground, or end up in the middle of the ocean far away from their destination. After reaching the Void Soul Realm, however, one can teleport anywhere without consumption; they can completely ignore all space turbulences. Killing Void Soul cultivators is very hard; they can run anywhere.
"Lucy, you are back!" Jack appeared in front of her.
"Master!" Lucy bowed and looked with surprise; it looked like Hero Sama reached the Nascent Soul stage.
"You brought the badge?" he asked.
"Yes, master!" She took it out and gave it to Jack.
After nodding a few times, he said, "With this, we can finally safely relocate to Sky City."
Lucy asked, "Relocate?"
"Of course, we are now a subordinate sect of the Brown dynasty, and according to the regulations written on the badge, we can use their library if we pay enough contribution points. Using their database, I can improve our Heaven's Way technique to the Nascent Soul." Jack said.
Lucy nodded but then asked, "What about here?"
Jack said, "No use staying here; it's too barren and underdeveloped. Still, we won't abandon it; we'll keep it for as long as possible. At the same time, however, I will look for a suitable location to build our headquarters on the main continent."
Lucy nodded and said, "Master, your plans are always amazing, as expected of Hero Sama!"
Jack liked her flattery, smiled, and said, "You've done great this time; Here, 5 million contribution points as a reward!" Jack took out a gift token containing 5 million.
Lucy took it and smiled, quite satisfied; 5 million contribution is a lot for a Core Formation cultivator.
After the last time, Khan Charles was rewarded with 100 million contribution points; since then, he has been in retreat, using all kinds of precious materials to quickly advance to the peak of Core Formation. For what it's worth, Charles distributed the reward with Faith and the two other cultivators, each given 10 million, and got rich overnight.
...
Ted finally returned to the western headquarters in a sore mood. He was removed as the leader and replaced by a Divine Soul cultivator! The headquarters was extremely dissatisfied with his performance, and there were several reasons for that.
First, after investigations, it was revealed that Oliver had called Ted many times, presumably to inform him about the tribulation and ask how to deal with it, but Ted ignored him and didn't take his calls.
Second, as a matter of caution, cultivators above Soul Substance should have a Dispelling Heavens Formation in their hand, but Ted didn't have it on his person. The reason may be that the Dispelling Heavens Formation is expensive and expires over time; it has to be replaced every 15 years. A Dispelling Heavens Formation couldn't have dispelled that kind of tribulation, but it would have lowered its intensity.
Third, the sect was upset with him because he took so long to respond to Oliver's call about the flaw in the continental defensive formation; such matters are important and must be attended to immediately.
Fourth, ...
In short, the sect was outraged by his carelessness and directly removed him; they also ordered him to put down all his other businesses and investigate the flaw in the continental formation. As for the deal with the mysterious outsiders Oliver mentioned, it turned out that they were forces of the Browns, so the idea of taking revenge on them completely dissipated. As Oliver said, Ted reported everything about the lack of breakthrough token's aura on them, but the sect didn't seem to care, so he could only leave helplessly.
After a few days, he departed to look for the flaw in the continental formation.