Chapter name redacted

My dossier was interesting. It was evident that wherever my basic information was kept in the Sect, it had been seen and copied—at least, some of it. The abbreviated dossier had me listed as merely a non-human, while the in-depth one had the same cat species that the school guessed I was.

My association with Xiao Li was indicated, as was my predilection for using Illusion and Enchantment spells, although they worded it differently. They remarked on my very wide breadth of individual trained spells, even if they implied that some of them were actually just put down as species-specific abilities, as Ghost Cats were apparently very beguiling. 

My predilection for necromancy or "demonic techniques" was not, however, listed at all. That, clearly, was held at a higher confidentiality level.

This was interesting, and it also meant that my servants and Nalani weren't informers, as I hadn't stopped my research into longer-lasting necromantic control spells or methods and usually had a skeleton wandering around. Even if I covered it in illusions, at least my butler and the little girl Fang'er had seen me working on them before the illusions were in effect. It always felt good getting the reassurance that people weren't, in fact, betraying you--especially in this world.

Chen Dexin's dossier was also fascinating. She had a similar fighting style as I did and usually used illusory or beguiling techniques before striking with overwhelming force. That made me nervous, actually, because despite it being my secondary focus, I was almost as susceptible to illusory techniques as everyone else.

I had attempted to gain resistance in a similar way as Xiao Li's grandma-in-a-ring recommended, but there were some spells I just couldn't easily cast on myself, like Phantasmal Force. 

Anything that enchanted me sufficiently and required concentration was just impossible with my current methods. I'd forget about the necessity of maintaining concentration on the spell, and it would stop, usually less than a second after the spell took effect. 

I hadn't reached the stage where I could cast such mental spells and illusions as a ritual without maintaining them with my concentration, either. Realistically, it might even be more feasible to make a magical device to do that rather than trying to modify the actual rituals. That meant that the most complicated illusions and enchantments were off the table.

The list of her official spars was quite interesting, too. She had a few losses when she first arrived at the Sect, but eventually, she began winning a fight on almost a weekly basis. After a while, this changed to only one or two fights a year.

Doing a little mental calculation, I noticed that these later fights were usually shortly after the school accepted a new batch of disciples. 

'Heh,' I thought. Was she stomping people down? New girls? Was I fated to be the next notch on her six-shooter? Or did she just target people who seemed to want her position? The fact that she remained in the free dwellings at all meant that she wasn't a pushover.

The amount of contribution points needed to pay for one of the high-class villas, which was similar to what the Inner Sect was provided, was prohibitive. Anyone who could hold one by force of their strong right hand would be foolish not to do so, even if they were maintaining a low profile or could theoretically afford it.

I had eight girls who followed me now, and I would need to use all of their assistance. Not only to plan and carry out the meeting but, most importantly, to verify the contents of the guidebook in advance.

It would be very simple to insert things in here to trip me up. For example, it could have written that I had a bigger budget than I actually did. Then, I'd be screwed when I went over-budget when vendors submitted receipts for payment, and the administration denied the invoices. 

There might be anti-nepotism rules in the school, too, making it an infraction to slide work and benefits to your friends. This I doubted very much, though. The entire Outer Sect system was sort of designed for the organic growth of leaders and followers, and making it more difficult to reward your followers wasn't in keeping with the present Darwinian social strategy here.

At the very worst possibility, the entire guidebook could be a carefully crafted fake.

But I would verify some of them today. I'd find a deacon in the administration annexe and verify the rules for the meeting. For the rest, I would need to create a work plan for everyone. 

I'd need to verify that every vendor listed was not only still in business but also capable of providing the products we needed well before the deadline, too. Another way to screw me would be having a legitimate business suborned to ghost me at the last minute, leaving me in the lurch for vital supplies.

I nodded and started writing on sheets of paper, wishing that someone would invent ballpoint pens. 

I could do this. By the time I left the Navy, I was mostly a leader of other sailors. I knew how to manage time, work and workers. More importantly, though, I knew the only reliable way to eat an elephant. Project Management was something that even dull people could do with some success if they approached it systematically, after all.

---xxxxxx---

Although I had called everyone here to assign work tasks, I was trying to pretend I was high-class, so it was ostensibly a tea party first. We tried to have one of these meetings at least once a week and sometimes more often if there were any pressing issues.

If you were leading a group of teenage or slightly older girls, there generally were pressing issues. At a bare minimum, I had to show that I understood their individual concerns and was helpful. Often, this was just discussing in a group or individually what problems they were facing each week. 

A lot of times, it was cultivation-related, which I couldn't help too much with, but other times, it was an issue they were having with another disciple, and I could serve as an intermediary, mediator or, at worse, a threat.

I only cracked down when it was pointless or worse. For example, I had come down pretty hard when talk about boys became popular. Not because I had anything against it if they were just playing around, but because they began talking about dao companions, which were basically a husband or wife depending on one's predilection. 

I specifically stated that, at minimum, nobody who followed me would have a dao companion until they were in the Foundation Establishment realm. They could fool around if they wanted, but their individual progress as cultivators was more critical. Otherwise, why were they here? I refused to allow my clique to become the cultivator equivalent of a sorority that focused on finding their members a husband.

"Is there anything we need to talk about first before I get started?" I asked, casually glancing around the table. 

I obviously didn't chair these meetings using Robert's Rules, but I did have a style of conducting meetings from my time as a non-commissioned officer, and it included asking for new business at the start. For lack of a secretary, as Nalani had more important things to do, I kept the minutes myself, committing a small summary of the meeting to a half sheet of paper and filing it away after the meeting was concluded. You never knew when a record of a meeting might become useful or important.

I continued glancing left and right as Fang'er brought out small snacks. I noticed that she had finally incorporated her first whisp of Qi into her spiritual body after I helped her awaken her sense of it last week. She was now considered a genius amongst the servant disciples, as most youngsters her age took over two years just to develop a sense for the energy of heaven and earth.

I was allowing all of the servants in my villa to use the main, large Qi concentrating formation in the cultivation room. I didn't cultivate there, anyway, so it was a waste for it not to be used. The formation was strong and close to being useful for even a Foundation Establishment cultivator, but it still was less than the Qi that I naturally took in from the moon each evening, so it just wasn't that useful to me unless I wanted to cultivate during the day.

Since it was the school, and not I, that paid for the spirit stones to operate it, I didn't see a reason not to allow my servants to use it.

"Uhm... Senior Sister, disciple Yaqi has been asking me lately if it was possible to join," one of my girls said, and I hummed, nodding. 

I glanced at each of the girls one at a time, "Do any of you have any concerns about disciple Yaiqi?" My group was still too small to allow someone to join if there were personal conflicts between an existing member and them. Plus, it let them feel like I valued their input, which I did, and that they had a little individual power. That wasn't as much true, at least not yet, but it might become so if my group expanded enough where there were tiers of followers, where I had to give them ranks and responsibilities like a real paramilitary organisation.

I sent a Message to Nalani across the table, <Get some spirit stones from me, and go get an intelligence report on this Yaiqi.> She nodded but didn't reply.

"I'll investigate the background of disciple Yaiqi. If there are no troubling issues, then you can bring her to the next meeting and introduce her," I said with a nod, "Although, let her know that we will be busy for the next nine weeks or so, so if she joins now she will also be busy."

That got some interest, as until now, only Nalani and I knew what I had agreed to do. I carefully explained my plans, but I kept a lot of the speculation that this was a setup to myself. They didn't need to know, and it would only serve to make them question my decision-making, which I could do well enough on my own.

"Uhh... this sounds complicated," one of them said, sounding unsure.

I nodded to Nalani. She stood up and took a small sheet off the wall, revealing a chart I had made. It was a simple Gnatt-style project management timeline, with all individual jobs separated out and a critical path for the project already underlined in red. This was mainly for my own benefit as the project manager, but I said, "Don't worry. Do you know the way to eat a mammoth tusk?" There weren't actually elephants here, but there were its predecessor.

She laughed and shook her head, and I nodded with a smile, "One bite at a time. I have separated out individual jobs for each of us. Some of them depend on other tasks being finished first, but a critical path exists between now and the Disciples Meeting. It sounds intimidating, but that's just because we don't have any experience doing it."

I then handed out individual sheets, "These are your individual work plans for the next two weeks. I have one as well."

I waited for them to look at the sheets. I knew my clique wasn't a full-time job, so I didn't structure things that way. At most, there was a couple of hours of work a day if they were staying in the school, or alternatively, for some, a full day or a day and a half's work and then nothing for the rest of the week if I needed them to go to "the big city."

"Why does this say I should go to the Mission Hall and select this particular school mission?" one of them asked.

I said, "Because using the portal to Cloudsoar City costs contribution points, except if you are on Sect business—then it is free. Many small missions are available in the city that do not take much time. They don't pay too much, but they're simple and serve as a way for free transport to and from the city. I selected a school-mission that is suited for each of you if you need to leave the city."

Several of the girls made an "ah" noise and nodded. One of them frowned and said, "I don't think this schedule will work for me, Senior Sister."

I glanced at her and asked, "What's wrong?"

"I can't go to the city on this day or the day after. The Master of the Swordlight Peak has said that he intends to speak on the Dao and the sword on this day, inviting any disciple who cares to listen," she said intently, and I nodded. I had heard about that, but I forgot it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have scheduled her on that day. She was one of the few legitimate sword fanatics in my group, so it wasn't surprising that she wanted to hear what a Core Formation sword cultivator said.

I glanced at the universal chart on the wall briefly, closing my eyes before I nodded. There was enough slack involved in the follow-along tasks that this wasn't an issue. I had designed each task with a large amount of slack. The really time-critical ones, either Nalani or I would handle ourselves, mostly.

This wouldn't impact the critical path, so I said, "It will be fine if you change that day from the second day to the fourth or even the fifth. Will that work?" There were seven days a week like I was used to, but they were just numbered from one to seven, not given fancy names. Literally, the fourth day of the week translated into "star period number four."

She smiled, relieved, and nodded.

"Okay, I want you to review each item right now, and then we'll have a brief one-on-one, and you can ask me anything related to your tasks or just anything else you want to talk about," I said with a smile, "While these are the preliminary missions, I can assure you that the follow-on ones will have a significant amount of remuneration, in the form of contribution points, attached, so work hard!"

That got smiles all around.

---xxxxxx---

I sat in the room I rented from the sect, awaiting any potential students on the first day I put on the Mission Hall. Students could list themselves as tutors for various subjects, and this worked slightly differently than putting up a mission, but it was mostly the same.

In my case, I had finally solved most of the issues of using formations to cast a ritual. It was still half-and-half, though, but I was using a formation for most of the visible aspects and only wizardry on the internal stuff of actually casting the spells. Combining this with illusory spells would make it very difficult to tell that this wasn't just a regular formation. 

Most of the meta-magic areas of the ritual were now a formation, and I had to admit that formations had an advantage for longer-lasting spells when compared to ritual magic, at least at the low levels that I was at.

I was advertising "Daoheart and mental spell resistance training"; it was just the normal Fear-based system that both Xiao Li and I had been using for over a year, although I had refined the system now.

Someone walked in. I didn't recognise him, and he had the slightly nicer robes of an Inner Sect disciple. How interesting. His cultivation was high, but still in the ninth level of my own realm.

"Greetings, Senior Brother," I offered warmly.

He nodded and said, "Junior Sister Mei Wen, I presume?" I nodded, and he continued, "I'm interested in your training, but only if it seems like it might work. I apologise for seeming doubtful, but..."

I inclined my head and nodded, "I can explain how it works and even offer you a free trial. If you think it will help, you can sign up. If not, you owe me nothing." 

'The first time's free,' was a long-time winning sales strategy for service-based businesses like this.

He looked relieved and nodded, "That sounds great, Junior Sister."

I waved my hand, indicating the mostly empty room. I had sat at a desk at the entryway, but in the centre of the room, on the floor, were a series of seven concentric circles painted carefully into the floor, looking almost like a dart board or a circular rifle target, "I have set up a formation in the centre of the room. If you step into it, you'll be affected by a simple mental effect—fear. It starts off moderate, but the further you step into the circles, the more intense the effect becomes."

"Ah, I see why you said Daoheart training, then," the senior disciple said, nodding slightly, "I'm more interested in the resistance to mental effects, but this is a good bonus. Then, if you don't mind?"

I inclined my head, and he stepped into the furthest circle, frowning. This was the refinement I had made. I started off with a smaller fear effect rather than the way Xiao Li and I did it, as making us both run out of the circle every time was a time waster. He set his foot in the second circle and paused only a moment before turning around and leaving the entire formation.

After he was out, his pale white face and expression shifted back to normal, and he said, "That's remarkable, Junior Sister! In the outermost circle, the effect was small, and I could slightly feel the foreignness of the emotion. This is definitely worth it, enough that I wish I could use it more than just the one hour a week you have on the Mission Hall schedule."

I frowned, "I might need to adjust the description if that's what you thought. I will only be manning the room during those hours, but the fee is for a month's long access. I'll add you to the lock on the room, and you can come and use it whenever you like."

He grinned, "Yes, I think you should. The price seemed high for one lesson, which was why I was hesitating, but this is a bargain!"

I nodded and agreed I would. I think the disciple working the desk at the Mission Hall had misunderstood me, and it was my fault I didn't verify what was posted myself. I added him to the Arcane Lock whitelist and sat back at the desk while he stayed mostly in the first circle, with brief periods of time entering the next one.

I was aiming for a passive income, after all. This formation was powered by spirit stones, but the core wizardry effect was still more efficient. Still, so long as he didn't spend twelve hours a day in here, it would be worth it. And if he did, then well, I would still take the loss as I was being paid in contribution points. Those were just the risks you had to take if you ran an "all you can eat" business. 

Two more people showed up, both from the Outer Sect. They were just curious at first, thinking it was overpriced, but when they realised that they could use it all month, they both signed up, being sold more by the Senior Brother's presence as my first customer than anything else. 

After the hour was up, I left the room and went to the Mission Hall, to correct the description for my service quickly before a scheduled meeting at the same location with a disciple that I had selected to do business with.

The Disciples Connection meeting was just a week away. Over the past two months, we have made exceptional progress. Most of the things in the guidebook were correct, but I did notice that several items were not, including a couple of recommendations for vendors and entertainment providers. 

They were items that would have only been needed really close to the event itself, so if I had not done any due diligence, then I could have gotten screwed, but since the first thing I had done was verify the status of all vendors, I chose then it wasn't a big deal at all.

I didn't even really know if it was sabotage. I liked to think that it wasn't because only an incompetent would have been sabotaged by this effort.

For the food, I mostly only bought ingredients from vendors rather than turnkey catering services. Not only was the latter expensive when you considered we were feeding cultivators, but we also had an entire division of immortal chefs who were dying for experience and contribution points.

If I was independently wealthy and prioritised contribution points over everything, then I could see why the catering services listed in the guidebook were an option. It would make sense to convert some spirit stones to contribution points in that case. In my case, even if it cost some of the contribution points, hiring some of the trainee immortal chefs of our own sect was a much better value proposition.

Stuff like this kind of made me want to rewrite this guidebook to be more precise, but it wasn't worth it—especially since I doubted very much that I would be doing this again.

Nalani was leading this part of the plan herself, mainly because she didn't want to share the recipe for pizza, mozzarella cheese or pizza sauce with the others, so she had to prepare these herself close to the day of the event, although we rented a speciality spatial pouch for pood preservation that would allow her to make most of the pies the day before.

She would use this event to display this new dish to a wide audience in the sect, although we had already privately conducted taste tests with a few people. Not surprisingly, pizza was popular—especially amongst both the men and the so-called battle fanatics of the sect.

I approved since I would get a share of these profits, too. While pepperoni didn't exist, there were a number of cured meats that were so similar that we used them instead of attempting to reinvent the wheel—especially because I had no idea how pepperoni was made. Cheese, I was a hobbyist. As far as charcuterie went, I only ate it. What would that even be called? A sausage maker? A Salumi-ist? Here, it was just a butcher, I guessed.

Cured meats here had a somewhat bad reputation as being low-class. It wasn't that surprising, as stopping meat from spoiling was the reason why meat curing was invented, but we managed to find a butcher that made relatively high-end versions, using demonic beast meat, for cultivators that liked the unique salty taste that only curing could provide. I bought a number of kilos of what was very similar to a Genoa salami myself for sandwiches.

While she was handling most of the food-related issues, I was handling the alcoholic drinks myself. There would be the normal drinks that everyone would expect, namely beer and baiju, but I was taking a risk and inventing a number of mixed drinks. I didn't have time to make whisky, by any stretch or even gin, but I could make vodka or just pure Qi-infused ethanol and create a bunch of flavoured mixers.

Copper tubing was surprisingly cheap despite there being no real Industrial Revolution here, so I was running a number of stills in my spare rooms at my villa. This didn't impact my day-to-day living at all. The whole villa was an insane fifteen hundred square metres or so of space. Even accounting for the servant's rooms, there were six additional bedrooms and tons of miscellaneous rooms. Back on Earth, this would be an action-film-star-style mansion.

I hadn't even explored every room because there just was no reason to do so.

The chemistry of alcohol here was odd. It seemed to work the same way as I would have thought, but if I was just making regular moonshine, then there was no way most cultivators would get drunk. However, if I made it using a spiritual plant base, like spiritual wheat, rice or the like, then it would create a sort of spiritual alcohol, even if chemically, I figured it was just regular ethanol.

I couldn't distil it any purer than something like ninety-five per cent, partially due to my equipment and also due to the fact alcohol and water vapour became an identical azeotrope at that percentage. However, I spent three contribution points for a water-based spell in the Dao Repository that could leech the rest of the water out and get pure alcohol. This was mostly a useless technique since the speed at which it dehydrated things was too slow to be useful in combat, but for my purposes, it was perfect.

Practising a water-based Daoist technique was a little weird, and I almost used wizardry to solve the problem, but at the same time, it was kind of interesting, and I liked learning these new things.

Not only did I have a long history of being a patron in bars, but I also worked as a bartender for a very brief period after leaving the Navy. Being hired to a nuclear power station as an operator had a long hiring process, even if you had military experience, so I briefly worked as a bartender for several months after I left the service.

I had a list of about twenty cocktails that I would offer. Some were simple, and others were complicated, including fruity daiquiri-style drinks using my Ray of Snowcone.

I had wanted to add additional entertainment options, including new games of chance, but we had just run out of time. Making cards and the like was simple, but making them cheat-resistant against literal superhumans was less so. It was doable, but not in the short period of time that we had, so I tabled that plan after less than two weeks.

I finally reached the front of the line for the service desk at the Missions Hall, and the disciple greeted me, "How can I help you?"

"I need to adjust the description of a teaching-style mission I placed," I said simply, not suggesting anyone in particular made any mistake. Even though they had, it wouldn't help to do so. It would be a matter of face, and I had to keep a good reputation with these disciples, as they could screw you over quite subtly.

After that was done, I found the conference room that I had reserved for the meeting. When meeting to discuss matters of business, it was often more straightforward to do so here because one could sign a contract and file it with the school at the Missions Hall rather than having to make a special trip to do so.

I was surprised to see the disciple that I was meeting already there. I didn't have a watch, but I suspected I was early. His grin told me he realised what I was thinking, and he just waved a hand, "I work here, so it's not a big deal to be a bit early. I haven't been waiting long, either."

I nodded and sat down, "So, how did the samples work?" I had provided him with two samples of my first-generation talisman that duplicated a legitimate first-level wizardry spell. In this case, it was Disguise Self. Somewhat counter-intuitively, level one spells were proving more simple to translate into a talisman than cantrips.

"Amazing!" he said with real emotion, "These are absolutely amazing illusory talismans. You rarely see a talisman with this much utility. Naturally, cultivators with spirit sense see right through it, but that was expected. These could still be a life-saving utility talisman."

I smiled genuinely, "So, let's get down to business, then." They didn't use a lot of resources to make—something equivalent to a level two talisman—but their utility was easily in the middle or even high range of Qi Gathering talismans. That gap between what they cost me to make and their utility was huge profits. That was why I was focusing on utility spells rather than attack ones.

I'd have to sell them for spirit stones rather than contribution points, but I needed spirit stones anyway, and I also wanted to make a market for this talisman so that I could later add its manufacturing method to the Dao Repository and rake in the money when other disciples bought the method. I still needed to refine it a little bit before I could do that, though.

I pulled out all of the copies of this talisman I had made over the past couple of weeks and sat them down on the table. There were more than a hundred, so I grinned, "I will offer you a bulk discount."

---xxxxxx---

On the day of the Disciple's Connection meeting, I had ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, but everything was going well. I had to present myself as a hostess, but I also had to run around behind the scenes, refilling the ice box with ice shavings for the daiquiris, which were proving especially popular with the female disciples, as well as putting out any fires.

Finally, the meeting came to an end. One intoxicated disciple cuffed me on the shoulder, ignoring my icy disapproving stare, yelling, "This has been a great party, Junior Sister! That pi-tsa was delicious, as were these new drinks!"

When he left, Nalani and three of my girls approached. Nalani said, "Senior Sister, you can go home. All we have to do is clean up, and we can handle that."

I frowned, "Are you sure?"

She nodded, "You worked harder than anyone today."

"Thank you. I won't be polite then," I sighed appreciatively and glanced around once before leaving and running back to my villa at maximum speed.

I went straight to my large bathroom, taking a shower and then soaking in my tub, making a bubble bath. About a half hour, Fang'er knocked on the door and said, "Mistress! There is a Senior Sister Chen Dexin at the door, and she claims she needs to see you."

My face, half submerged in steaming rosewater, soured. Was this how she would challenge me to a duel? When I was already exhausted? It didn't quite seem like her, but I sighed. 

Although the two people I challenged didn't allow me to enter their dwellings, it was because they were trying to talk me out of it or because they didn't respect me.

It was polite to invite someone in, prepare them tea, and do things like that. I wouldn't meet Chen Dexin at the door like a boor, "Show her into the tea room and prepare some of the nice green tea. I'll be out directly."

"Yes, Mistress!" she called and vanished.

I quickly got out of the tub, draining the water and drying my body. A quick Prestidigitation and my robes were as clean as they have ever been, and I put them back on. My hair took a little longer, but moving quickly, I had it both dried and brushed out to an adequate degree in only a few minutes.

I walked straight to the tea room. Chen Dexin was already seated on a cushion on the guest's side, and I put on an affable smile, "Senior Sister, it's nice to see you."

She inclined her head, "I'm told that this season's Connection meeting has been a huge success, congratulations."

I ground my teeth a little, aiming for a petulant tone, "There were a number of errors or inaccuracies in that guide you gave me, Senior Sister. They could have ruined everything if I wasn't methodical."

She laughed as I slid past her and sat down across from her and kept smiling, "Well, one has to be sure, you understand?"

I didn't. 

I poured us tea and, after a suitably polite period of silence, asked straight out, "So, are you here to challenge me? Put me in my place?"

She sat down her half-finished tea cup and tilted her head to the side, "Ah, yes... well, I could offer you some pointers. And I must admit, putting you in your place does sound appealing."

---xxxxxx---

I woke up in my bed, being held in the arms of Senior Sister Chen Dexin. We were both naked and under the covers. My head was resting in the crook between her breasts and arm, and I had to admit that it was quite comfortable.

But... how... did I end up here, again? 

I reviewed my memories since I fell asleep and sighed. Was I always this dense?