Amber

Jack remained in closed-door cultivation, using the sect's resources to make steady progress. He could have progressed even faster by using treasured ingredients and elixirs, but he didn't. Building a perfect or near-perfect core requires diligence; if one advances too fast, the quality of the core may drop. Worse, cracks may even form.

When breaking through to the nascent soul stage, the cultivator has to crack their core for the nascent soul to pop out, but the cracks that the cultivator intentionally makes are entirely different from the cracks that appear due to rushed cultivation. Unintended and hidden cracks in the core are the biggest single reason for failure to reach the nascent soul; they can completely ruin one's chances of breaking through. One reason for the purity of the core is that they are more resilient to cracks.

In any case, even though the sect already had pill masters, Jack didn't use any pills and steadily progressed to the nascent soul stage using only energy stones.

When the sect was formed, Jack hired scientists and ordered them to start researching immortal arts such as formations, pill-making, puppeteering, etc. The mortal scientists made progress, but even their best products were barely useful in the energy-gathering stage. After all, it's hard to build complicated immortal products without actually being a cultivator and knowing how mana works.

But as the sect expanded, disciples who were talented in immortal arts began appearing. The sect already has a pill-making expert and an expert in formations, both of whom are in the core formation realm. Unfortunately, there are no experts in puppeteering, immortal botany, talisman making, etc.

The sect already announced that anyone who manages to produce late energy gathering products or core formation products related to immortal arts would be rewarded with millions of contribution points, the exact reward depending on the product.

The sect has greatly benefited from its pill master and formation master so far. The Headquarters and the two branches have powerful immortal formations capable of resisting late-stage core formation cultivators. Massive energy-gathering formations gather energy and help in cultivation, and preservation formations can extend the shelf life of harvested immortal resources by hundreds of times.

Now, disciples can order pills, which are much more effective and targeted than consuming raw materials. There are pills that help break through small stages and core formation.

Talented disciples don't need pills to break through core formation, but those less talented would greatly benefit from them; in any case, even for talented disciples, having pills for emergency situations is very useful.

The two masters are still disciples; they rejected becoming elders. As a result, they are not duty-bound to produce the pills and formations. The sect master occasionally asks them to make pills for some core disciples and elders; otherwise, they are free to reject anyone who doesn't have enough money and isn't worth the effort.

Still, the two masters, especially the pill master, have developed techniques for mass-producing low-level products and also hired many disciples who can help. So, even though the sect still lacks pills, they are still available if one looks deep enough.

Amber, the sect master, who was committed to Jack's vision of the sect, didn't force the pill master to work day and night to alleviate the everlasting pill shortage. She only offered general tasks, which could only be fulfilled by the core formation masters. If they agreed and produced pills, it was good; if not, then there was nothing Amber could do.

This is the biggest difference between an elder and a disciple; a disciple is free. They cannot be ordered to do anything; their only job is cultivating and getting stronger. The sect can only offer incentives, such as contribution points, to make them perform sect tasks. Elders are different; they are employees of the sect. They are paid generously but are bound to obey the sect.

The current system has issues; for example, the pill master could set outrageous prices, and because there are no alternatives, everyone would be forced to pay. Fortunately, everyone has acted in good faith, so those fears haven't materialized.

Another issue is that very few want to become elders. Even though the pay is amazing, they lose their freedom after becoming elders.

Elders have many privileges; they have access to the sect's research results, can buy from the sect with discounts, have fixed pay, have free access to energy-gathering formations, can rent sect magic weapons, disciples have to bow to them when they see them, etc. But these perks aren't enough for genius students, such as those who pioneered unknown cultivation arts.

Still, as a committed free-market believer, Amber didn't set any sect laws to change the situation. There are ways she could have done this; for example, she could have set a mandatory sect task for disciples. This way, many who remained disciples because of the freedom to choose their tasks would consider becoming elders.

In any case, Amber believes that these problems will be solved with time. After all, for now, most in the core formation are amazingly talented. Later, however, when the sect expands further, surely there will be students who lack the talent to advance further and decide to choose the elder's path.

…

Ten years later.

In the last ten years, Jack has remained in closed-door cultivation; all sect matters were completely in her hands. 

First, Raphael, who reached core formation with the help of a core formation pill, was promoted to Great Elder; the sect now has five Great Elders.

Second, the number of disciples exploded, especially the number of core formation disciples. There are now 56 core formation cultivators in the sect, 34 of which are in headquarters.

Of the remaining, 13 are in the Far West Branch, which has a higher energy level, possibly explaining why so many reached core formation in around 20 years. The Far East Branch has also expanded by leaps and bounds; it has nine core formation cultivators, with more expected this year.

The sect's strongest cultivator is Jack, who just broke through the 9th stage of core formation. Faith and Amber are both at the 7th stage, while Mike is at the 6th stage. Lucy is at the 5th stage, while Raphael is at the 1st stage. Gabriel retired a few years ago to live his remaining life in peace. After he failed to break through, his vitality was damaged, and he may at most live for another decade before dying.

Amber ordered the sect treasury to provide for Gabriel's needs, who was very helpful in setting up the Far East Branch. Mike, the Far East Branch leader, changed its name to Gabriel's Branch. Now, the Far East Branch is called the West Gabe Branch.

Of the remaining core formation cultivators, 5 are in the fourth stage, 7 are in the third stage, 14 are in the second stage, and the rest are still in the first stage.

The Far Easterners now have five core formation cultivators, but they still lack a good cultivation technique. Developing a cultivation technique for the core formation realm is extremely difficult; Jack used his outside knowledge to develop Heaven's Way up to the core formation. He let the Far Easterners remain to see if they could develop any cultivation technique that would help him improve Heaven's Way. After all, the Far Easterners are now desperate and surely would experiment desperately to build their cultivation technique.

When breaking through to the nascent soul, Jack prefers to use a cultivation technique; otherwise, if he breaks through without one, it would make his future path more difficult. Cultivation techniques usually don't increase the speed of cultivation but increase one's power. If Jack breaks through without a cultivation technique, his power among the nascent soul cultivators would be at the bottom level. Once he breaks through to the nascent soul without a cultivation technique, it would be difficult to start using one again.

He cannot cheat either; if he uses his outside knowledge to develop the nascent soul chapter of Heaven's Way, at least 30% of the Dao collection will be lost.

By this point, Jack has complete control over the Barbarian Land, the Republic, surrounding countries, and over a third of the Far East. The land in the Far East is vast, bigger than the Barbarian Land and the Republic and surrounding countries combined.

There are two levels of government: one for immortals and the other for mortals. Jack remains president of the Republic even now but doesn't pay attention to his duties as president; the village chief is still the acting chief executive of the Republic. Elections are held every seven years, but Jack wins them all, as nobody is allowed to run against him.

For this, Jack didn't care; it had been decades since the last time Jack even thought about the mortal world. Everything happening in the mortal world, be it democracy, dictatorship, etc., is irrelevant. Jack only needs a steady supply of talented children; nothing else matters.

Recently, Amber has become interested in the mortal world but hasn't dared interfere with the village chief, an old-time follower of her master. As a result, she has been secretly waiting for him to die. Unfortunately for her, the village chief, despite being over 90 years old, was still quite healthy; he didn't seem to intend to die.

Amber used to be an ordinary chief of a poor family in the Republic; she was quite sympathetic to their miserable lives. She could improve their lives if she is allowed to. Still, her master was in closed-door cultivation, and she didn't dare disturb him over such a small matter. She could only wait for the village chief's death.

Besides the mortal world, however, many other things needed the sect master's attention. Over the years, many immortal resource points were discovered: thousands of big and small energy stone mines, many suitable areas for immortal plant cultivation, special resource points such as fire element concentration areas, immortal water wells, immortal diamonds (which are very useful in formation building), immortal iron, immortal copper, immortal silver, immortal clay, etc.

All of those needed a lot of manpower to extract. To do that, she delegated anything that could be delegated to mortals and only used immortals when there were no alternatives. She was forced to offer generous rewards to entice disciples to abandon their cultivation and go to help in resource points.

There were not many elders in the sect, which was beginning to become an issue. Elders are the readily available manpower the sect has; with so few of them, it lacked reliable manpower.

In this way, Amber began thinking about expanding her available manpower.

After debating with other great elders about the issue, she invented another group: handyman disciples.

Any disciple who doesn't advance in cultivation after a set amount of time, depending on cultivation level, will become a handyman disciple automatically. The sect can order handyman disciples and send them to do sect tasks whether they want to or not. The sect, of course, pays them, but the pay is nowhere as generous as for voluntary tasks.

To become an elder, one must undergo many trials; even core formation disciples must be observed for a long time. Elders have a lot of access in the sect; appointing someone with ill intentions as an elder could have severe consequences. Elders are the higher echelon of the sect; after all, very few can become elders. Handyman disciples solved the urgent issue of low-level, low-skill immortal manpower.

She also was planning another rank: Official Disciple.

An Official Disciple is an employee of the sect who receives a good salary. Still, they don't have as much access as elders, so becoming an Official Disciple is much easier. She planned to introduce Official Disciples in the following years. Those two changes were expected to improve the sect's manpower issue or at least greatly alleviate it.

The East Gabe Branch and Far West Branch were self-governed; they solved their own issues regarding mining and exploring their resources.

Faith, for example, used her identity as an ancient god to order the disciples to go and help in mining immortal resources; her methods were more forceful than Amber's.

Mike used captured cultivators from the Far Easterners to help; his methods were only possible in the East, though, as there were no captured cultivators in the Far West or the headquarters.