DESOLATE ERA 6

"Halt! Who goes there!?"

Carl stood in front of the truly massive red wood gates that were manned by two dozen guards, who were all on alert. They were dressed in the uniform of the Raindragon Guards, green chain mail down to their knees covered their red robes, black boots peaked out from under their long robes, and they wore a helmet with a neck guard of chain mail. The guards were gripping their weapons while glaring furiously at him, trying to intimidate him with the pressure of their cultivation.

He knew the armor these guards wore and the weapons they used weren't anything common, but Earth level treasures. It really spoke to the depth of the Grand Xia Dynasty's foundation and wealth that even the average guards in their army had such valuable treasures as part of their issued equipment.

The average clan and superpower in the Swallow Mountain region would go murder-crazy over the chance to own a piece of treasure of the same quality that was casually issued to anyone who could enlist in the Raindragon Guard.

With such treasures and relatively high cultivation levels, the Raindragon Guard's prestige in the area was well founded. In the Raindragon Guard, the lowest ranking private was at least a Zifu Disciple. The non-commissioned officers were at least at the Wanxiang Adept stage. The NCOs also wore Earth level armor, albeit of a higher level quality than the privates wore. The officers were even more impressive, being Primal Daoists with Heaven level armor and weapons. And the Generals of the Raindragon Guards were either Earth Immortals or Void Gods, and they had Immortal level treasures issued to them

This point alone made the army of the Grand Xia Dynasty overly intimidating to any clan or superpower out there. And it was why any organization that went against the Grand Xia didn't last long once the Raindragon Guards were deployed to show them their place in the pecking order.

Currently a number of spears were held in a threatening manner as the guards awaited Carl's response to their challenge. The intimidation tactic of using the pressure of their cultivation didn't bother him at all, though it would have most nearly on their knees.

"I'm Riverbank Carl, a Captain of the Raindragon Guard, escorting a couple of disorderly cultivators to cool their heels in lockup for a time." Carl ignored the looks of dismay appearing on Teng Li and Sun Hu's faces as he pulled out his ANBU Mask, which had morphed into a Jade Identity Token in this world, to prove to the guards that he was a member of their elite forces.

The Sergeant of the Guard, who had challenged Carl, took a moment to inspect the Identity Token to verify its veracity, before handing it back to Carl.

"Captain!" The sergeant saluted Carl, who returned the military salute. "What can we do for you today, sir?"

"I just need someone assigned to guide me to the prison where I'll remand these two to their tender mercies. After that, I'll need to visit the main administration wing to fill out the paperwork, Sergeant."

"Of course, sir." The Sergeant immediately assigned a Corporal to give Carl the tour of the base. Even with how generally standardized army bases were, there were always different layouts depending on the surrounding terrain. It wouldn't do to let a Captain of the Raindragon Guard wander around on his own, lost. It would reflect badly on them.

"This way, sir." The Corporal immediately began flying at speed along the pathways laid out. Carl easily followed along behind him, with Teng Li and Sun Hu floating along behind him with their powers still inhibited such that they were helpless.

While they were flying along the path through the massive army grounds, Carl made note of the base's setup, buildings, training grounds, storage depots, armories, and barracks. He might like to borrow some of the ideas for anything he would set up in the future when expanding his lands to give more of the Kages and leaders from the Generic Naruto world land to govern.

Arriving at the base's prison, Carl smirked at the intimidating sight, making sure that his two prisoners got a good look at the prison.

It was a massive circular seven story structure of rust-red colored metal, with a metal gate a distance away from the building. An aura of extreme cold radiated from it, chilling the bones of his two prisoners since their powers were bound. There were even the faint sounds of cries of anguish coming from the building, as if prisoners were being tortured right at that moment, to complete the ambience of a truly dreadful prison.

Carl smirked at that bit of dramatics that was added to the formation guarding the prison, which was meant to intimidate prisoners. Judging from the looks on the face of Teng Li, Carl judged that it did its job properly.

The Corporal that guided Carl spoke to the guards on the gate. After a verification check of his Identity Token, they opened the gate to allow them entry.

"Just a moment while we send a message to the Captain, sir." The guard in charge of the gate guard detail reported to Carl after a military greeting while sending a runner to inform the Captain in charge of the prison that a Captain was there to see him.

"That's fine." Carl agreed.

A few minutes later, a 2.5 meter tall, robust man came striding out of the prison doors. He was dressed in the normal Heaven level treasure for Officers, and had red hair spilling down from under his helmet.

"So, you're Captain Riverbank, then." The man boomed with a grim smile on his face that actually looked more like a grimace. If Carl was an average Zifu Disciple level cultivator, he might be intimidated.

Carl figured that the average officer that was at the Primal Daoist level would be offended by meeting a Zifu Disciple that had the same rank as them, hence the attempt to test his mettle by the good Captain in charge of the prison. The big man's aura and natural dominance over his Domain radiated from him, pressing down on Carl's shoulders.

"And you're Captain Black Tiger, in charge of the prison." Carl responded blandly as he steadily stared back at the large man, waiting to see just how long he would keep radiating his higher cultivation aura in an attempt to make Carl buckle and shame himself. Naturally the Captain wouldn't go too far and actual injure him. But embarrassing him was something that could only be blamed on him being too weak.

"Huh." Captain Black Tiger let out a grunt and turned back around to enter the prison. "Come on, then, and tell me just what you want."

Ignoring the brusque way Captain Black Tiger talked, Carl entered while dragging along his two prisoners.

"It's simple, really. This guy was a little too enthusiastic in pursuing his unwilling fiancé and nearly destroyed my ship. So I wanted to give him a few months time out in prison to think about involving others in his courtship rituals."

Captain Black Tiger paused and looked back at Carl, then at the two bound men behind him. He suddenly burst out laughing, even bending over and slapping his knee while guffawing loudly.

"That's it! That's it! Ahahaha!"

Carl nearly scratched his head in confusion. Just what did this guy find so funny?

"Alright, leave them to me. I'll make sure to educate this little guy in how he should be pursuing his romantic target!" Captain Black Tiger straightened up with a broad and creepy smile on his face that he directed towards Teng Li.

Carl nearly re-thought his idea to leave Teng Li and Sun Hu behind in the care of Captain Black Tiger since he had no idea what was running through the man's mind, and he thinking that whatever advice he was about to be given would actually be far too harmful to Teng Li. But in the end he decided not to worry about it and simply left them behind after thanking the Captain for his efforts. Teng Li wasn't one of his people, so there really was no reason for him to care about any bad advice he was given or mental torture he went through. In fact, it might be for the better.

Black Tiger's enthusiasm for the subject of romance kind of reminded Carl of Lee's teacher Gai. His boundless enthusiasm for training and manly challenges to prove that his Springtime of Youth was Flowering was legendary back in the Elemental Nations. And with more magic and technology available for him to use in training in this world, it was not stopping anytime soon.

Carl resolutely ignored the pathetically begging looks on the two prisoner's faces, or the look of hearty enthusiasm on Captain Black Tiger's face. It was no longer any of his business. If they learned anything from him about the topic of chasing love, that was their business. Anyway he sliced it, it looked like they were very much regretting their earlier arrogance and disregard for others around them.

After leaving the prison, Carl made his way to the administration building. After introducing himself to the people in charge and filling out the necessary documents regarding his prisoner and his position in the Raindragon Guard, he spent several days trawling through the information network the Raindragon Guard had about the Stillwater Commandery, especially the things related to Snowdragon Mountain and the Ironwood Clan.

'I really should get some of my ninja cultivators to enroll in this Raindragon Guard,' Carl thought as he was finishing up with everything he planned to do at the Raindragon Guard's base. 'They do have some nice intel on the movements of the players, both inside and outside of the Stillwater Commandery.'

With his goal for the moment completed, Carl the blood clone departed the Raindragon Guard base. Once outside the gates he pulled out one of the flying boats that he had crafted for each of his blood clones to use while the original body of Carl used the Ark that he bought with CP, Carl took mental control of the boat and flew away.

While he was heading off, he sent a packet of information along the shared mental network between the blood clones and the original so that everyone was updated with what he had seen and done. He then sent the ANBU Mask back into the dimensional storage space that all the blood clones shared with the main body of Carl and departed for a small region called the Cold Gold Forest.

There was a rogue cultivator that liked to use demonic techniques on the regular mortal citizens of the Grand Xia that was last seen in that area, and since that was a crime punishable by death, a mission was issued to bring him in, dead or alive. Carl had taken the assignment to hunt him down and either kill him or capture him to bring back to the Raindragon Guards, so he was off to have some fun.

Even though he was a Captain in the Raindragon Guards due to his ANBU mask, it was pretty embarrassing that Carl had no records of success to back up his rank. He needed to start accumulating merits so that he wouldn't be thought of as a paper tiger in the organization.

Standing on the deck of his ship as it sailed through the skies, Carl the blood clone pulled out two of the set of eight roman style spatha swords and began going through the sword forms with a sword in each hand. He liked the idea of having a different style of sword for each of them, the blood clones, that went about their different missions. It would give him plenty of experience in wielding different weapons as he adventured and completed missions for the Raindragon Guards.

Less than a week after the battle where Carl and his friends met Fu Xiang and captured Teng Li, they had arrived outside the gates of the Commandery Capital, Stillwater City. There was a clearing some distance from the gates where people who were arriving via airship were setting down and disembarking in order to enter the city.

There were prohibitions in place so no unauthorized airships or cultivators flew through the skies of the city, so there was of course a series of businesses that built up around the airfield. There were restaurants, tea houses, and places to hire animals and carriages to take one through the city.

Carl and his friends had pulled over the carriage they had rented just outside the gates of the city to have a word with his guests before they went their separate ways. Fu Xiang and her people had also rented a carriage of their own. The carriages were larger on the inside and fit them all easily, pulled by some very fast beasts that could travel quite a distance in a single day. It was an absolute necessity, with how very large the city was, if one wanted to travel anywhere in a reasonable time frame.

Looking up at the enormous gates that he had only seen in his implanted memories, Carl nodded in appreciation at the construction. The walls and gate themselves was made out of a grayish colored stone was at least a kilometer tall. Par for the course in these cultivation worlds, the architecture was truly massive.

'Everything about these cultivation worlds are always ramped up so large for impressivity,' Carl mused while waiting for Fu Xiang to get off her carriage so they could settle up. 'Small countries have more land than large continents back on Earth. Cultivation sects are built into mountain ranges where each mountain is taller than Olympus Mons. Grand Palaces of Gods were large enough that it would take years of traveling at light speed just to get through their entrance hall.

'Everything starts off bigger than possible on Earth at the mortal realm, where I am now, and it just keeps scaling larger and larger as the main character climbs the pyramid of power to immortality.'

So for a piddling little Commandery Capital City to have a city wall that was a kilometer tall was pretty good, for such a backwater.

If he had kept his Ark at the previous pace they had been traveling at, it would have taken them an entire month to reach the city; but in order to get rid of Fu Xiang and her people quicker, he had sped the ship up until they reached the capital much faster.

Carl's friends were chatting with each other cheerfully while Fu Xiang slowly got out of her carriage. The little girl seemed to be done with her petty attempt to upset them by making them wait for her to get out of her carriage.

Carl shook the random thoughts from his mind and snorted in disdain while coldly staring expectantly at Fu Xiang. It was only right for him to get in character and enjoy the proper mood that the current circumstances demanded. Inwardly he was chuckling in amusement to see the frustration on the little girl's face, while outwardly he had a cold and expressionless face on.

"Here's the map to the very incredibly valuable treasure I promised you!" Fu Xiang hatefully passed a jade slip over that had the map and information embedded in it. As soon as the jade slip left her hands, she turned around and stalked away, angry that she had given away the information, but not without a final angry glare at Carl.

Of course she still had a copy of it herself, but with Carl in possession of it as well, it was likely that by the time she gained enough strength to go in persona and try to get the inheritance, it would be gone, taken away by him.

Carl simply raised an eyebrow in amusement at the act she was putting on. Looking at her back, then seeing bunches of people loitering around the gates for various reasons, he realized that she had deliberately said that simple sounding sentence very loudly with a purpose. She was hoping that gossip would spread that he had a valuable treasure map of some kind. The imaginations of various cultivators would begin firing up, and they would want to get their hands on the map he had on the small chance that it would lead them to treasure.

'What a scheming little girl.' Carl laughed and mocked her in his mind. There was no way anyone at this low level could take the map from him. And even higher level cultivators would be out of luck if he put it in his warehouse for safekeeping.

"Thank you for the map to your family run brothel, Miss Fu," Carl loudly responded. "It's truly a treasure that we will enjoy to our fullest when we visit and avail ourselves of the first class talents that your family has raised. In fact, I've heard that there is an expert at Go that is accepting any challenges. I look forward to testing myself against their genius."

Carl cackled inside as he watched Fu Xiang turn several different colors; green, puce, purple, red, and finally white. She then turned around and left without another word.

While he didn't think anything would come out of her attempts to paint a target on his back by declaring he had a valuable treasure map, he didn't want to have to deal with any headache that came from her scheme. So his Shadow Demon's Secret Retaining perk from the ATG world suggested a few ploys to him that would derail her attempt to spread the secret.

In order to make sure the secret he wanted to keep didn't get out, it was necessary to cast doubt and obfuscate the truth before rumors could even begin to spread. By talking plainly about such an embarrassing-in-public topic as a family's brothel, it was a much more salacious and amusing rumor to see a young noble miss be humiliated by mentioning to her in public that her family owned a brothel, and that she was paying for services rendered by sending people to her family's brothel.

Obviously this rumor would only slightly damage the reputation of the Fu clan. There were a lot of people in this world. But the Fu clan wasn't exactly huge, and small clans like them were likely to zealously guard their reputation, and in some cases care about it far more than a large clan would. Or at least smaller clans tended to always think the worst about any rumor about them, whereas a larger and sneakier clan would simply see it as an opportunity to accomplish some goal of theirs.

So with the rumors spreading and when people started asking around about the brothel the Fu family owned, the clan might even be force to hastily buy or create one as a cover. Her elders would surely much prefer their name and honor be slightly tarnished by rumors of them owning a brothel, rather than the real news of the treasure map getting around. If the secret of the Immortal Inheritance was kept secret, they would still have a chance to take possession of it, no matter how miniscule that chance was.

And while many people that listened to such rumors may be dumb in a lot of things, they were often shrewd when it came to their own benefits. So it wasn't hard to understand that many people, after hearing the rumors of a treasure map, would have the idea occur to them that if she gave away such a valuable map, then it was highly likely that the Fu clan still had a copy of the map. It would definitely bring the Fu clan attention that they didn't want as multiple people would try any means to take that map, so the smarter elders would definitely do what they could to support the brothel gossip.

And little did Fu Xiang understand that spreading that rumor might very well cause Teng Li's clan to pressure the Fu clan into moving the wedding forward so they could get their hands on the map.

So, really, Carl did her a favor by obfuscating the truth with rumors of her Fu clan owning a high class brothel, even if she wouldn't see it that way.

Carl totally didn't choose that particular rumor to spread in order to irritate Fu Xiang. He totally wasn't that petty…

"Now that we got rid of her, let's get settled in our accommodations. We've still got a month and a half until the college's recruiting season. Plenty of time to explore the capital and prepare for the tests," Carl commented with a grin as he and his friends boarded the carriage. The carriage turned towards a residential house that one of his clones had bought while he was spending time over in Firebird City.

Carl and his friends chatted about how they would use the map that Fu Xiang gave them after they were enrolled in the college to go find the Immortal Inheritance. Who knows how long the travel time to the location would be, let alone the necessary step of passing whatever tests the Immortal Inheritance would have.

They needed to hurry up and get enrolled in the college so they didn't have to keep sitting on their cultivation without advancing for another year, since they were determined to join the Black-White College.

"Oh, this is going to be fun!" Several of their group expressed similar sentiments to Naruko, who was ever the excited optimist.

And it wouldn't have been quite complete without one of Shikamaru's mumbled phrases trailing behind them, "What a drag."

Inside the wood paneled office of the Lord of Firebird City, blood clone Carl sat at the desk, doing paperwork, and hating every minute of it. Two of the set of eight Jian style swords were sitting on a stand within arm's reach, and he would rather be swinging them in practice than doing the paperwork.

His misery at doing the boring and dreaded paperwork was actually kind of amusing to him, in its own way, since anytime he was stuck doing the paperwork required to keep his prefectural city running, he would send very detailed updates through the links between him and his creator and fellow blood clones often. If he was going to suffer from being forced to do paperwork, he was damned well going to make sure that all the rest of the Carls that were off having adventure knew exactly what it was like to do said hated paperwork. And they would know in excruciating and minute detail.

Naturally he reveled in the annoyed feelings he got back in return. It was kind of strange to be so petty to himself, but it was a way to entertain himself.

A chime on the computer terminal he was working on alerted him that he had an appointment with Rubiana, Bronhildar, and Kushina in 15 minutes. Carl saved the documents and closed down the terminal before headed off to the R&D lab where he and his small group were working to put into practice the idle idea he had a while ago.

Leaving his office behind, his guard retinue lined up on him. That was a relatively new thing in his experience. Even back in the ATG world when he was literally married to the queen of a continent that was larger than Earth, he hadn't had a retinue of guards at all times when going out.

But for some reason groups of his ninja cultivators decided that since he was the equivalent of a Hokage that his position demanded ANBU forces to guard him. While he could have argued against it, he decided to give in willingly and allow it. Each of the blood clones and the original body also had their bodyguards around them, even if they didn't make themselves seen.

'I know the Black-White College allows 10 retainers to join the student in the school, and they can attend lessons, do activities, and gain their own currency and buy techniques. I should probably recruit and train more ANBU forces in the Time Pearl in order so each of my friends at the school can have their own retinue, protections, and so more of my people can have fun and network at this school.'

Since blood clone Carl thought of it, the rest of the Carl's on the network thought it was a good idea and plans were made and sent back and forth, being refined and adjusted.

By that point Carl had arrived at the building set aside for this particular project and began going through the security points keeping what they studied inside secret and safe.

Upon entering the lab, Carl saw the prototype armor golem on one side, and on the other a full dive VR bed. There was medical equipment surrounding the VR dive bed that would monitor the state of their mortal volunteer that Rubiana was double checking.

Rubiana was one of the rescued dragons that had been tortured back in Azeroth. She was a priest and had dedicated herself to the healing profession, diving into the large amount of knowledge and abilities that Carl brought with him.

Bronhildar, one of the Dragonspawn from Azeroth, was tinkering with the armor golem they had created. She was a rogue and an engineer, and she had gleefully dived into the various technologies and had fun inventing new things.

There had been a lot of back and forth discussion between the four of them about what to make the armor golem look like, fuelled by Carl's memories of media throughout his journey.

Carl liked the aesthetic of the Marines from Starcraft. Bronhildar liked the Space Marines from Warhammer 40k. Rubiana liked the idea of a more humanoid form, so she voted for Mega Man to be the aesthetic, for some reason. She found the idea of an army of Mega Mans running around to be "cute". Kushina liked the idea of the golems looking like the Mjolnir armored form from Halo.

In the end they made the experimental armor golem look like Chappie. For some reason that was a suitable compromise for now, though they each had plans to make their own version and convince the different future army divisions to be made of their particular brand of armor golem.

Carl just laughed at the whole thing. He didn't really care in the end what the troops looked like, except that they would probably have to keep different units uniform within the unit. If one army looked like Space Marines and the next looked like a horde of Inspector Gadgets, it would certainly be an interesting thing to see what becomes of the battlefield when they worked together.

"How does everything look?" Carl asked the room in general.

"Everything is good to go on Chappie's end," Bronhildar said. "Obviously no weapons at the moment, but the tests of its movement capability and strength are giving us good results. It's the equivalent of an early Xiantian Lifeform, so nothing too advanced yet, but easily far stronger than a regular mortal is used to dealing with."

"The VR and medical scanning equipment are ready for the test." Rubiana stated.

"Time seals and formations are fun to play with…" Kushina mumbled to herself, before standing up straight and reporting. "The time acceleration array is set up and ready to activate."

"Let's get our test subject in here and give it a go!" Carl cheerfully said.

A regular looking young man came in, escorted by a couple ANBU. He looked quite nervous to be in their presence, and Carl was reminded of some of the young man's background.

Mo Ru was an unlucky person in this world of cultivation. He was a mortal that was unable to cultivate, as such he was at the very bottom of the social order. He was only fit to be a cleaner, sent to clean up the muck that no one else would touch, since it was far above their dignity.

Or at least that was what his fate would have been in another city. In Firebird City Mo Ru now had the chance to get an education and get a job in various industries. Even if all he did was paperwork, it was infinitely preferable to being forced to crawl through the sewers and unblock filth with his own hands.

Carl had the technology and magic know-how to create automated cleaning systems, so he thought it was far too much of a shame to relegate a regular mortal and their skills to simple menial labor.

Mo Ru was a volunteer who felt extremely grateful for the great changes in his life and wanted to pay Carl back in whatever way he could for making all their lives better. He had already gone through several briefings and knew what to do, so they moved right on to the test.

Mo Ru entered the VR unit and was integrated into the program. The Chappie robot golem came to life, and was being piloted by Mo Ru. Piloting the Chappie seemed to come quite easily as Mo Ru had no problems standing up and walking around the lab floor while they were watching the diagnostic equipment they had set up.

It was when they had Mo Ru attempt to run an obstacle course at the full speed he could that they ran into problems. Mo Rue sent Chappie running towards the first obstacle, when it seemed to freeze midstride just as it was time for Chappie to jump and grab on to the wall.

Chappie had been going at Xiantian speeds when the error occurred. Carl frowned as he checked the information, but he had Mo Ru get Chappie up and try a few different movements and obstacles, but they kept getting the same problems.

"It looks like the 'bandwidth' just isn't big enough to allow a smooth operation with the time field in place," Bronhildar said. "The VR simply doesn't get the data fast enough to render the scene quickly enough for a mortal to handle Xiantian speeds."

"There's got to be a way to accomplish it. We just haven't delved deep enough into certain daos to be able to accomplish this yet," Carl said, remembering that in the original story there were formations made up of Celestial Immortals that imitated a huge formation golem of sorts.

If they could create formations where Celestial Immortals could be bound together to fight on a higher level than True Immortals, even if not on the level of Ancestral Immortals, then there had to be a way for a mortal to be able to battle on the level of Xiantian Lifeforms.

After letting the mortal Mo Ru go back to his regular duties, Carl, Bronhildar, Rubiana, and Kushina went over their data and began planning what they would have to study in order to make a new attempt.

At this point the success of the idea wouldn't be that helpful against powerful forces. But who knew how advanced they could make it? How high could a golem made to be piloted by a mortal go? Even if they never got past making them viable in Xiantian Lifeform battles, they had still learned a lot by studying and creating something in this field, and it was interesting and fun to work on it.

A month and a half had passed by quickly for Carl and his friends. They had discovered many restaurants that served delicious food. Carl especially liked visiting those that served new and exotic dishes, since the moment he tried any fauna or flora that he hadn't eaten yet, he got a new population of beasts or fields of plants appearing in his Hunting/Grazing Grounds.

They had also visited many of the auction houses, stores that sold cultivation treasures and resources, and various markets. His luck perk had kicked in and he found quite a few treasures hidden as trash. Once he cleaned them up a bit, they were quite nice and powerful artifacts for their level that cultivators could use as weapons or life saving treasures. He kept a couple for himself and passed most of them to his people to strengthen them for the upcoming tests to get into the various colleges.

While looking through the city, they even ran across the slave markets. All kinds of people and animals, normal weak people and cultivators alike, were being sold as slaves. It was natural that in a world where the strong ruled, there were some that were unlucky and were captured forcefully and sold as slaves.

Carl saw a few slaves that had potential that he and his people bought with the intention to bring them back to their Prefecture so they could have a better life and contribute to his territory.

Being given their freedom would make most of them loyal to him, and the slaves who had a "bite the hand that feeds you" mentality, such that they would hate him regardless of him setting them free or not, Carl left alone. Even if they had amazing potential in cultivation, bringing such bad eggs into his territory was a bad idea.

While he couldn't do much to affect the overall civilization and their predilection for enslaving people and creatures in this reality, he could at least treat his own people well and make sure they had good lives.

During their time in the capital city, aside from sightseeing, Carl's group of young ninja/cultivators had been preparing as much as they could for the upcoming entrance exams for the cultivating schools.

As such, Carl had dredged up his memories of the original story, and remembered a conversation between Ji Ning and Northmont Baiwei, who had become somewhat decent friends with each other, or at least friendly acquaintances.

The Northmont Clan was a very large power in the Stillwater Commandery, seeing as how they were the clan that was in charge of governing the Commandery. Stillwater City was obviously their home ground, so they knew all about it and the various institutions that made their home there.

And when Ji Ning was deciding on which school to enter, Northmont Baiwei provided him intelligence on the eight biggest powers there, aside from his own Northmont Clan and the Raindragon Guards, which was the army of the Grand Xia Dynasty.

As explained by Northmont Baiwei, there were Three Main Schools, Three Major Clans, and Two Major Sects that comprised the eight strongest powers of the Stillwater Commandery. Aside from the Raindragon Guard and his own Northmont Clan, that is.

The Two Major Sects comprised the Heavenly Saint Church, who was generally considered to be big-hearted and honest, but were also very dominating and overbearing. And the Blood God Church whose members were considered extremely evil and crazed. Their members often committed major crimes in their pursuit of power and the Raindragon Guards were tasked with hunting such individuals down to maintain the Xia Empire's laws and keep the Karma Luck of the empire positive.

The Three Major Clans comprised the Eastriver Clan who were extremely skilled in commanding water daos. The Dragonhunter Clan who focused on Archery, but who did not teach outsiders. And the Bluewood Clan, the oldest of the three clans, who specialized in controlling golems and constructs.

The Three Main Schools consisted of the Black-White College, the Skysplitter Sword Sect, who focused on all things concerning the blade, and the Hundred Flowers Fairyland that only took in female students.

The biggest drawback of joining the Two Major Sects and the Three Major Clans to learn what they could teach, as far as Carl could determine by the information he had gathered while in the capital, was that they demanded loyalty from anyone who learned their techniques such that they were forced to take an Oath to the Heavens to be loyal to their organization and not to disseminate their techniques to outsiders.

Unlike Carl who had access to An Oath Taken perk which exempted him from the consequences of breaking such an Oath to the Heavens, his people would suffer the penalties if they went against their oaths.

And furthermore, the Clans viewed those they took in from outside as pack animals that should be delighted to be allowed to labor their entire lives for the benefit of the Clans that so graciously took them in and taught them.

The idea that his people would be treated in such a way was very irritating to Carl. He wouldn't put up with it, especially because he knew how talented they were, and he had more than enough knowledge and techniques for his friends to advance as far as they could in their cultivation.

The only reason he and his friends were even joining an external group was for the experience of joining a college, to network, and to have more people to spar against. They weren't there for the precious opportunity to gain more techniques and resources, so there was no way they would farm out their loyalty to be treated like work horses.

Beyond all those negatives of other organizations, there was one big reason that Carl and his people utterly disdained and rejected the idea of joining the Three Major Clans or the Two Major Sects; they had only ever raised very few Earth Immortals or Void Gods and had never had one of their members become a Celestial Immortal or Empyrean God.

The Celestial Immortal level for Ki Refiners and the Empyrean God level for Fiendgod Body Refiners was a whole new level.

At that point in their cultivation, the Celestial Immortal or Empyrean God would recreate their body based on their dao, leaving behind the dependence of the Five Elements that the lower realms and mortals were comprised of. At that point the Three Calamaties and Nine Tribulations would no longer target them for attempting to advance higher.

Such cultivators that left the mortal world behind had a whole new viewpoint on the Dao, on the very foundational rules that formed the Chaos World they lived in. As such Celestial Immortals and Empyrean Gods would be a strong backing for such organizations as the Black-White College and lay a very deep foundation for the organization that raised them, in the hopes that even more immortals would come from their school and continue to expand their power base and influence.

Aside from the Northmont Clan who ruled the Stillwater Commandery, the only one of the eight powers who had ever raised a Celestial Immortal was the Black-White College. The other seven powers, while they were ancient and powerful, simply did not have the depth of foundation, knowledge, and techniques that a Celestial Immortal could give them in order to raise more immortals.

So although many years have passed since the Celestial Immortal of the Black-White College had departed for greener pastures in the higher realms, they were still the strongest of the eight, ranked just below the Northmont clan. The Black-White College's numbers consisted of around a hundred Zifu Disciples, two hundred plus Wanxiang Adepts, more than thirty Primal Daoists, and at least six Earth Immortals or Void Gods.

Putting it in a bit of perspective, even though Carl's Firebird City and Prefecture had tens of thousands of Xiantian Lifeforms and now they had hundreds of Zifu Disciples, they were still lacking quite a few higher level cultivators at the Wanxiang Adept, Primal Daoist, and Earth Immortal/Void God level. The Black-White College could easily crush his people with barely any effort.

Obviously the College had no reason to do so, but the power disparity was there. And as such, the Black-White College would be a good place for him and his people to network while learning from the local cultivators how to grow stronger in this reality's power system, and how to run their organization. It would give them plenty of connections with strong people in the Stillwater Commandery that would ease their way into being a power in the Commandery.

After such an analysis of the various institutes that were recruiting, and remembering Ji Ning's talk with Northmont Baiwei, Carl and his large group had realized that the chance of all of them getting into the Black-White College wasn't high, due to their exclusivity.

The Black-White College generally only accepted at most four students a year, and they were very picky about who they admitted. If the applicant didn't have enough skill the Black-White College would rather not recruit anyone multiple years in a row, rather than accept talent-less dregs into their esteemed college.

So while Carl knew there was a chance they wouldn't all get in the Black-white College, there was no point in not trying. And Carl knew they were all incredibly talented, so in his opinion it would be dumb for them to deny them just to keep their recruited numbers down in order to maintain a certain reputation.

The recruitment time for the eight main powers lasted a week, due to the fact that the other colleges and organization held their recruitment time after the Black-White College's tests. Many cultivators would attempt to enter the Black-White College, and when they failed would go to one of the other organizations.

Carl and his group decided they would go take the test on the first day together at the Black-White College. And if the college was prideful enough to not take them all in order to not ruin their reputation of being stringent on their admittance criteria, then the rest of them could join the other college-like organizations, the SkySplitter Sword Sect and the Hundred Flowers Fairyland, since they had the least restrictions on their members. At least those two Colleges didn't require major loyalty oaths.

And if in the future they discovered that the Two Major Sects and the Three Major Clans had some super special techniques that were only known to a single family or organization so they weren't in Carl's Jutsu Archive? Well, posing as a member of an organization wasn't the only infiltration method ninja had of getting the information they sought. They would find a way to get that information if they wanted it.

It wasn't a big deal even if they all ended up at different schools. Carl and his friends would all be uploading their memories of the lessons, lectures, and various battles to the VR world that Carl had that was built from the World Seed he gained from the Sword Art Online world. Everyone in Carl's organization would then have access into all the Dao insight they could gather and all the techniques that weren't already in the Jutsu Archive.

When all was said and done, even with their new cultivator memories of this world, at the heart of the matter they were all shinobi from birth and training. So the idea of gathering intel and stealing techniques seemed perfectly normal to them.

And Carl himself had adapted to these kinds of worlds. He refused to allow his people to be held back by the various organizations and their various issues and hang-ups. He wanted the very best for his people.

With the entrance tests coming up, Carl's group of friends boarded the carriages he'd bought for them and made their way to the Black-White College in plenty of time to participate.

Their carriage stopped in the large square outside the gates and Carl and his friends dismounted, looking around at the huge crowds that were milling around. The family members of the participants were standing away from the main square, not willing to offend the Black-White College by getting in the way of their admission tests.

There was a very nervous aura present from all those who were participating, and from their families on the outskirts as well. This was a test that could determine how high a young cultivator could go, and show off how talented, or not-talented, they were.

Carl's group of friends was unusual in the very casual way they chatted and joked with each other. It certainly brought some attention on them from their surrounding competitors. Carl found that even he was feeling a bit of the enthusiasm of competition, and he was looking forward to the tests.