That began a period of grinding routine for Sen and the army at large. They got up, stowed the camp, marched for part of the day, set up camp, and trained. Then, they did it again. And again. And again. However, even with that routine, it wasn’t entirely smooth. The soldiers, who were used to the prospect of training on an almost daily basis, grumbled. It might not have been so bad if Sen couldn’t actually hear most of that grumbling. It was concerning enough that he went to see the head cook, Zhang Bai, to discuss it. Sen was not entirely prepared for the reaction he got when he expressed his concerns. The normally grumpy man burst into uproarious laughter.
“It doesn’t seem that funny to me,” said Sen.
“No. I don’t suppose it would, but that’s because you’re a cultivator, and not a soldier.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Well, as I understand it, cultivators who complain about their training don’t usually survive very long as cultivators.”
“I suppose that might be true in the sects. I’m not really sure,” admitted Sen.
“Lord Lu,” said Xu Xiao Dan.
The former patriarch had hung back, apparently not wanting to intrude, but it seemed he had some insight to offer.
Sen looked at the man and said, “Yes?”
“He is correct,” continued Xu Xiao Dan. “Sects are rather quick to discard those who don’t show sufficient enthusiasm for discipline.”
“Discipline is all well and good,” said Sen, “but it can be learned. Why discard talent?”
“Resources,” said Xu Xiao Dan and Zhang Bai at the same time.
Sen looked between the two before he finally settled on Zhang Bai.
“Okay, why do you
say that?”The head cook shrugged and said, “Training someone takes time. It takes effort. It costs money. It’s an investment. Unless you’re looking to punish someone, usually yourself, training someone who isn’t quick to do what’s necessary usually means wasting some or all of that investment.”
Sen glanced at Xu Xiao Dan.
“Indeed,” said the former patriarch. “It’s even more the case with cultivators. Any sect will have finite resources. You’re an alchemist, so let’s look at it in those terms. Gathering enough alchemical ingredients to make pills and elixirs for one qi-condensing cultivator is trivial.”
“Agreed,” said Sen.
“Supplying sufficient alchemical ingredients to serve all the needs of two hundred qi-condensing cultivators is another matter entirely. You could strip every medicinal herb, qi-attributed plant, and precious mineral for miles in every direction and still fall short. Those problems are amplified at the foundation formation and core formation stages. Again, finding sufficient ingredients to serve the needs of one such cultivator is—” he paused. “I won’t say that it’s easy, but it is an achievable goal for a motivated cultivator. The difficulty swells rapidly the more such cultivators you need to serve.”
Sen frowned as he considered those words. He’d never particularly struggled to find what he needed, but his circumstances had never been entirely normal. In the beginning, he hadn’t been doing most of the gathering for the pills and elixirs that Master Feng had given him. He’d also benefitted from Auntie Caihong making almost everything he took during his initial years of training. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that he’d gotten the very best of everything. Auntie Caihong simply wouldn’t have accepted the necessity of using anything less than components of pristine quality.
Once he’d gone out into the world, circumstance had often pushed him far deeper into the wilds than most cultivators would go. He’d stumbled across more alchemical treasures than he’d ever gone looking for just because of proximity. He’d never given any real consideration to how much of a challenge it would be to multiply his needs by the number of members in an entire sect. Even with his own sect, he’d never asked too many questions about how they handled those matters. If anything, he’d been happy to make things like that Sua Xing Xing’s problem. Now that he was thinking about it, though, it wasn’t hard to understand the thinking the sects employed.
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“I see,” said Sen. “It’s a filtering process. You don’t want to waste any of those resources on anyone who isn’t completely committed.”
“Precisely,” said Xu Xiao Dan.
“Okay, that’s all understandable, but I’m still not sure what any of this has to do with the soldiers.”
“Soldiers aren’t like cultivators,” said Zhang Bai. “Cultivators are disciplined because they have no other choice. Soldiers become soldiers in lots of different ways and for different reasons. When you get a mix like that, you have to settle for people who are disciplined enough.”
“What does that mean?” asked Sen, baffled by the idea.
“It means accepting people who put in enough effort to learn what they need to learn and have enough discipline to do the things they’re ordered to do. But,” said the head cook, “it also means that you turn a blind eye when those same people complain the rest of the time. In fact, you should be happy they’re complaining.”
Brow furrowing, Sen asked, “Why?”
“People who complain loud enough to be heard are just being people. Complaining gets it out of their heads and that’s that. It’s normal. It’s when you stop hearing people complain that you should worry. Because that’s when they’re probably planning something foolish.”
“Good to know,” muttered Sen.
After that conversation, he was able to set aside his concerns about the mortal army, and focus his concern on the cultivators. Training was necessary, but it was a double-edged sword. Cultivators needed time to restore their qi. The fact that they were all moving every day helped with that. Aside from whatever spirit beasts were in the area, they were taking in qi from relatively untouched environments. If anything, they should be restoring their qi faster than they could have at home. Sen had even taken to setting up large qi-condensing formations, but the basic speed of recovery was still slower than they were using up what they had.
He'd worked with what passed as the leadership of the cultivators to develop a loose rotation. Foundation formation cultivators only trained every third or fourth day as their reserves were the shallowest. Core cultivators trained every second or third day. It had helped, but Sen could still tell there was a slow bleed happening. He’d have to give everyone a week off from training soon. It would give everyone a chance to recover. It would also let them cover ground a little faster, since marching would be the only thing anyone had to do. Sen decided that was probably a good thing. They’d be approaching Inferno’s Vale soon. He hadn’t decided what, if anything, he was going to do with the Order of the Celestial Flame.
“Assuming they survived,” said Sen.
“Lord Lu?” asked Xu Xiao Dan from the other side of the tent.
“The Order of the Celestial Flame,” said Sen. “I don’t suppose you know what became of them?”
“I do not. We were trading information at the beginning, but it soon became impractical to send messengers. We couldn’t give up anyone who could fight, and only those who could fight stood a chance of reaching them safely. I assume they found themselves in the same position.”
Sen nodded his acknowledgment. He hoped that was case, and that they’d find some of those flame cultivators defending their home. Part of him doubted the chances of that. The water cultivators of the Clear Spring Sect were dangerous. Every cultivator was dangerous, but the offensive techniques of the water cultivators were less brutally destructive. The fire cultivators in the order would have posed a much more direct threat to large groups of spirit beasts. If Sen had been planning a conquest of this part of the kingdom, he would have targeted them with overwhelming force.
Even if the spirit beasts hadn’t wiped them out, Sen wasn’t sure how he should approach them. Unlike the Clear Spring Sect, he didn’t have any bad blood with the Order of the Celestial Flame. They might welcome the chance to join the relative safety of the army. On the other hand, they might think they’d done enough. He wouldn’t blame them if they felt that way. He just wasn’t sure he could accept that answer. The fight against the spirit beasts wasn’t his fight alone. Letting any sect or order outright refuse to fight might well be something he couldn’t tolerate. He was a tyrant, which meant that he could arbitrarily excuse anyone from anything if he wanted, but he wasn’t that naïve. Playing that card too often was a good way to created enemies ahead and behind.
It also wasn’t something he could put off thinking about for long. He needed to decide how he’d handle such things before they arrived in Inferno’s Vale. Unfortunately, there weren’t many solutions to that problem. They could either participate willingly, be forced to participate, or they could die. If it were some other sect, one he didn’t like or wasn’t familiar with, the choice would be easier. He would be less hesitant. The Order of the Celestial Flame, however, had treated him fairly. Killing them after they had been bled by the spirit beasts felt like a cruel choice. Particularly since they had gotten no support from anyone else.
It wasn’t as though he’d gone running to help them. Then again, he hadn’t been idle the last few years. They hadn’t asked for help, either, as far as he knew. None of which make it feel any more justified to push them into fight a war. Sen wondered if all rulers faced situations where what they’d prefer to do was at odds with what might need to be done. He thought back to the situation that Jing had found himself in when the war began in earnest. Yeah, he thought, they probably all do.