The Magistrate: Chapter 12 (Patreon)

Chapter 12

Economies of Scale

The middle of Winter was the slowest time of the year for assignments. Only a few pills and materials could be produced or collected during the heavy snow, and the Cloud Sect wasn't big on manufacturing. After hunting down the necessary alchemists and hunters to fulfil his only assignments and taking care of the Spring housing project for the disciples who were voluntarily leaving Cloud Sect, Tobias began to take extended breaks to enjoy the life he'd created for himself.

He hosted dinner parties for his assistants, tried his hand at barbecuing, and read for pleasure. He went to bed early and woke up late, depending on his whims. By the time Tobias grew bored of relaxing and eating meat for every meal, the sect had shut down for the New Year's Festival, and everyone he socialised with had left.

Patriarch Lee was still in Cloud City, but the thought of trudging down the Cloud Steps through snow to visit his friend held no appeal to him. Not when visiting him in the Spring wouldn't risk death.

This left Tobias bored and full of regrets.

His main regret was visiting his family in the Summer, because even though he didn't have anything to do, he wasn't in a position where he could take thirty days off to go home for the New Year's Festival like everyone else. Lower Magistrate Han was still looking for an excuse to change his assignment and send him away, so taking a second holiday so quickly after the first would create problems. And Tobias wanted the man to have no viable excuse for changing his assignment.

His new job was far too lucrative.

The wealth the auction generated for him was absurd. If he continued to be a magistrate for the rest of his life, he wouldn't earn a tenth of the money he now had. However, until Tobias had so much free time on his hands, he hadn't considered that this might be a problem.

Yes, the gatherers all felt he'd earned his share of the profits, but the elders of Cloud Sect probably disagreed, and they had rules about stealing from the sect. After considering the matter further, Tobias was certain that they were waiting and watching to see what he would do with the money before expressing their displeasure.

They frequently gave their disciples ropes to hang themselves with, expecting them to figure out how to avoid the danger on their own. It was unlikely they would treat him any differently.

That meant Tobias couldn't quit his job and retire.

Not that Tobias was planning to do that. His position provided him with numerous opportunities and elevated his status, affording him more security than his wealth could ever offer. Besides, now that he fully understood what was required to do his job, it wasn't an overwhelming experience. In fact, it was relatively simple.

That still left Tobias with the problem of what to do with the money he was earning from the sect and how he would keep the sect happy.

Tobias was certain that Cloud Sect would eventually take over housing the disciples. They couldn't allow anyone to influence their disciples too heavily, and Tobias was fast approaching that territory with how much they relied on him. If the sect came to Tobias tomorrow, he would happily hand over his housing business. However, Tobias didn't think that would happen. The sect would want to ensure that housing the disciples in the city was feasible first, which meant he would have to go through all that effort of building up the business, only for them to take it away from him.

That thought irritated him.

Having someone take everything you had built just because they were more powerful than you was demoralising. But that was precisely what the sect would do if he continued housing their disciples.

This thought bothered Tobias for nearly a week until he realised Cloud Sect could only take over housing the disciples if Tobias was still housing them. If they had moved into their own accommodation, the sect couldn't take anything from him. This idea appealed to him, and he began planning what he'd do after the disciples were comfortably housed in the compound in the Spring.

Between the fortune he'd earned from the auction and the Nang Clan, Tobias would build manors and mansions in the city. Manors and mansions that he could sell to the wealthier disciples. If the money he made was being used to create permanent homes for them, the sect couldn't complain about what he was doing with the money. They would also be less likely to take over housing the disciples. In addition, by the time the project was finished, they'd likely feel he'd done enough to have earned the money in their eyes.

After careful consideration, Tobias decided to sell the manors and mansions to the disciples at cost. Not to please the sect or disciples, but to control where they were built. If he built up the land around the shopping and entertainment district, he could create a source of revenue that sect couldn't touch for a century. His annual auction could be stopped with just a few words, but an independent shopping district couldn't be.

However, Tobias wasn't sure that they would stop the auction. He'd made his auction unnecessarily convoluted so the elders could say that the sect didn't sell pills for money, while giving the disciples a way to live outside the sect without having to trade in sect points.

A little creative accounting would allow him to continue providing that service even if the disciples moved into the manors or mansions Tobias built. Tobias had a strong suspicion that even if the sect took over housing the disciples, they still wouldn't want the disciples to use sect points to pay for it. Sect points were intended to be used for the sect's growth, and those who had reached the end of their natural path could not contribute to the sect's growth in a traditional sense.

The sect was going to be left in the awkward position of needing the disciples to earn money while also not wanting them to do so. There would likely be a transitional stage where the sect let him run his auction, but only until the less agreeable elders accepted making money as a necessary evil for those at the end of their path. With cultivators that could take decades, Tobias began making plans for how to encourage the cultivators to grow more spirit herbs now, so he could capitalise on the auction and sell them expensive homes while he could.

That meant reinvesting what he'd earned from the auction to encourage the disciples to want to earn more money. To do that, he had to provide housing that was better than what they could receive in the sect and what he was already offering. Once Tobias had worked out how to do that cost-effectively, he went to visit Inner Disciple Dong.

Inner Disciple Dong was a foundation realm cultivator who was a little over two hundred years old. The man had been struggling to compress enough spiritual droplets to form a core for more than a century and was beyond the natural end of his cultivation path. He was also the most experienced gatherer that Tobias was going to house and had become the de facto head of the gatherers, because he was a walking encyclopaedia of gatherer knowledge.

Many of the highest-quality spirit herbs the gatherers had access to belonged to him, and he was happy to pass on his knowledge, finally getting the respect he deserved, now that he was about to leave. Being trapped at the end of his natural path for so long had allowed him to progress slowly and push close to the core realm despite his limitations. Forming a core was still beyond him, so he'd spent the last century trying to gather and grow the ingredients necessary to make a core compression pill.

Disciple Dong finished reading through the list of spirit herbs Tobias wanted the gatherers to grow in larger numbers and then handed it to his servant before approaching his private spirit garden.

The spirit herbs didn't resemble ordinary plants. Small specs of light floated around them, and they displayed vibrant colours that could not be replicated by anything natural. They were beautiful to look at, but at the same time, Tobias had an instinctual feeling that they were dangerous. They were like looking at a poisonous frog or mushroom. You didn't need to be told it was poison, something in your instincts told you it was.

The array protecting the garden from the snow made the air near the garden feel like a Summer day, so Tobias took a step forward to follow.

Disciple Dong turned and held up his hand, "I mean no disrespect, Magistrate, but please do not approach my spirit garden. Your very presence will damage it."

Tobias took two steps back. "I apologise for any harm I have inadvertently caused."

Disciple Dong relaxed. "No harm was done. Please stay on the other side of this line."

Tobias followed the man's finger, seeing a line of white stones that circled the garden. It was not a smooth line, but one that frequently bulged in places. The lack of consistency surprised him. He was used to seeing everything in the sect perfectly symmetrical.

Disciple Dong noticed his frown. "Is this your first time seeing a spirit garden?"

"It is."

"Then this must look very beautiful and strange to you."

Tobias nodded.

"Then allow me to explain why I have asked you to stop. From the initiate realm onwards, spirit herbs are capable of creating a barrier to protect themselves from danger. However, they only do so when they detect a nearby threat. This line is the range at which my stronger foundation realm spirit herbs can detect these threats. If you step over the line, they will attempt to protect themselves with a barrier. The chi they have gathered to fuel their growth and ascend will be eaten away by this barrier, significantly reducing their potency."

Tobias found that fascinating. "How do you look after them then?"

"By learning how to avoid their ability to detect you and then learning how to hide the actions you take to help them grow."

"Is each one different?"

Disciple Dong nodded.

"Are their barriers strong?"

"They are enough to keep away any cultivator in the same realm, though those from a higher realm can easily overcome them."

"Couldn't you just wait until they have expanded their chi?"

"Those who collect wild spirit herbs often do, especially if they find something significantly above their cultivation. However, no cultivator or spirit beast would ever destroy a spirit herb that has no chi. There would be little benefit to doing so, which is why they are so willing to raise a barrier at the first sign of danger."

"It's a defence mechanism."

"Yes."

"Do they have others?"

"Some are capable of attacking you with techniques, but those are much rarer. Only the elders raise them."

Tobias smiled. "This conversation had been most enlightening. Thank you, Disciple Dong."

With great hesitancy, Disciple Dong sighed. "Magistrate Finch, I mean no insult, but the list you gave me shows your ignorance of my profession. If you allow me, I'll explain why your suggestions will not work."

"Please do," Tobias said. "I'm always happy to take the advice of someone so experienced."

Disciple Dong relaxed. "Are you aware of the first law of chi?"

"Chi can be created but not destroyed, except by miasma."

The exception was discovered in the Great Plague, and no one had figured out why."

"Are you aware of the eighth law?"

Tobias shook his head.

"The eighth law states that all interactions with chi cause contamination to chi. If you take a cultivator and trap them inside an array that doesn't allow chi to enter or leave, the chi within the array will eventually become so toxic that it will either kill the cultivator or destroy their cultivation. This is because each time the chi enters and leaves the body, it picks up toxins. This toxic chi is destructive to cultivators but nourishing to spirit herbs. If you placed spirit grass within the same array after the cultivator dies, you would see it grow before your eyes."

Tobias frowned. "What happens if you leave spirit herbs inside the same array?"

"They will eventually die from chi toxicity. If you place a cultivator inside the array after the spirit herb has died, you will see them make faster progress in their cultivation until the spirit herb toxicity has been absorbed. Cultivator and spirit beast toxicity nourishes spirit herbs, and spirit herb toxicity nourishes cultivators and spirit beasts. One will die without the other, so a balance must be maintained."

To Tobais, it sounded like spirit herbs played the same role for cultivators as plants did for mortals. They had a symbiotic relationship, each taking care of the other.

"How does my list affect this balance?"

"I'm getting there. Gatherers have discovered that if you have all the ingredients for a specific pill, cultivating near those plants offers you a similar effect to that pill, though greatly reduced."

"So, the herbs for a general meridian opening pill will make it easier for you to open meridians if you cultivate next to them."

"Exactly."

Tobias thought about the list. "The herbs on my list are for specific meridian opening and cleansing pills, not general meridian opening and cleansing pills, so most of them won't help any of the disciple grow their cultivation."

"I'm glad you understand."

Tobias paused to think. "Is cultivating near these spirit herbs more effective if you have more of them? What I mean is if you have enough spirit herbs to make ten pills, will that be more effective to cultivate next to than one?"

"The effects do stack."

Tobias found that very interesting. "If you had the spirit herbs for a stomach meridian pill. Would cultivating next to them make opening your heart meridian more difficult?"

"No. However, it would be a wasted opportunity."

"Then would it not be ideal to create a single large spirit garden specifically dedicated to producing thousands of the same pill with a chi gathering array at its centre?"

It seemed like the logical conclusion after what Tobias had been told, but he knew the gatherers preferred to tend to their own gardens.

Disciple Dong sighed. "It's been tried in the past, but keeping track of who owns what is the problem. It always leads to fighting and squabbling."

Tobias saw the problem. They were treating it like a communal garden instead of a business. Most disciples tried to distance themselves from greed and worldly problems, so calling it a business would immediately shut down the idea Tobias wanted to propose.

He decided to approach the matter from a different angle. "Then don't let the gatherers own individual herbs. Have them own a share of what the garden produces."

Disciple Dong frowned but didn't dismiss the suggestion. "How would that work?"

"You donate the ingredients for making one stomach meridian opening pill to the garden and receive one share of accommodation credits the garden generates. Donating ten pills' worth of herbs gives you ten shares worth. No one owns any single batch of herbs, so everyone receives the same reward for their herbs. At the end of each year, those who worked in the spirit gardens and those who donated spirit herbs split the accommodation credits generated from the garden. Using this method would mean that those who contributed herbs wouldn't even need to take care of the spirit herbs themselves. However, they would have to help if they couldn't find enough interested gatherers."

Disciple Dong nodded. "This would eliminate the internal conflict these sorts of projects produce. I don't see any reason to object to your suggestions. Establishing gardens this way for specific pills will make it much easier for everyone and allow those like myself to pass on their skills much more easily. It will also give us access to chi-gathering arrays specifically attuned to individual needs. It might even be worth investing in cultivation chambers if the gardens were big enough."

Tobias smiled. "Then you can move ahead with my request."

Disciple Dong shook his head. "I'll upset the foundation realm gatherers if I inform them that you only want to expand production of greater body meridian opening and cleansing pills."

Tobias heard it as Disciple Dong being upset, because that included him. "You told me that some of the ingredients for making initiate realm pills take up to five years to grow, while the fast foundation realm herbs require five years at a minimum. By comparison, two years is the longest growth time for the pills I've suggested, and that is only for some of the stronger pills. Expanding these pills is how you will pay for better accommodation next year rather than five years from now."

Tobias had already shared his plans for better housing, which were well received.

"Five years is nothing. It's the blink of an eye."

Tobias nodded. "I'm aware of that. However, it is still five years of discomfort that can be avoided. You can, of course, create gardens for pills beyond the mortal realm. I won't object. In fact, I would be delighted if you did. I was just trying to find a viable solution for your immediate housing issue."

Disciple Dong finally smiled. "I apologise for my rudeness. I clearly did not understand your intent. We, foundation realm gatherers, do not enjoy accelerating the growth of such basic herbs, but many will do so if it means better accommodation in the short term. Many of us will also be happy to be rid of our mortal spirit herbs, as it will allow us to focus our efforts on growing what we need to progress our cultivation."

Disciple Dong waved his servant over and picked up the list again to skim through it, showing he hadn't read it properly the first time. "Would you object to increasing these limits? The benefits of larger gardens for those trapped opening and cleansing their greater meridians cannot be underestimated. With the use of a cultivation chamber, they might even be able to make more progress without damaging their divinity through pills."

Tobias kept his smile from his face. The numbers on the page were his estimates of what he thought they could achieve, not a limitation on how much they could produce. The more spirit herbs they grew, the richer he would be.

Tobias nodded. "I have no objection to increasing the limits. The pills Cloud Sect is allowed to produce annually is many times what it currently does, so the state will not object. How big would the gardens need to be to be optimal?"

Disciple Dong paused to think. "It's dependent on the spirit herbs and how drastically they change their environment before it becomes a problem. Each will have a point of diminishing returns. There are calculations I could perform, but they won't be accurate. Cloud Sect has never attempted anything on this scale during my time. Though endeavours like this were common before the Great Plague, I've heard. We'd have to experiment on what the limit is."

Tobias almost corrected him by saying the limit of a single garden, but kept his mouth closed. Pushing too quickly would be a mistake. "Get me the rough calculations as soon as you can. I need to calculate how much space you will need before I talk with the architect."

Disciple Dong nodded. "I can visit the sect library and have you the calculations by the end of the day."

Tobias smiled. "Thank you for your help, Disciple Dong."

***

Tobias had discovered that most cultivators only sort out hobbies after reaching the core realm. This was when progress switched from being measured in years to decades. The spiritual energy you needed to cultivate for chi and the dao insights you had to gather and comprehend meant it was more efficient to let a cultivation chamber gather chi for a season and then undergo several weeks of seclusion than to cultivate each day. This was because, with the proper cycling methods, prolonged cultivation allowed you to increase the moment of chi you were moving through your energy meridian network, enabling you to cultivate the same spiritual energy in less time, thereby allowing you to search for more dao insights.

Elder Kang's favourite hobby was architecture.

The man was obsessed with it, destroying and rebuilding his residence every other year. Because of this obsession, all his personal disciples had to share his passion. Otherwise, he forgot they existed or that he had agreed to teach them. This wasn't a malicious action towards his disciple, but a byproduct of his obsession.

Disciple Xi was the only disciple Elder Kang personally taught, aside from his own disciples. Not because he saw something in him, but because his father was a renowned architect in the capital, and Disciple Xi had learned at his side before becoming a disciple. His insights were just different enough to Elder Kang's that the elder was happy to trade his limited alchemy knowledge for his input.

Knowing the man's disposition, Disciple Xi suggested that Tobias invite Elder Kang's disciples to design the manors and mansions he wanted to sell, as Elder Kang would likely invite himself to lead the project if he did. He wouldn't be able to help himself. The opportunity to experiment with so many buildings would be too much for him to turn down, and Tobias would have the protection of an elder without having to pay the cost.

Tobias had already gone ahead and leased the shopping and entertainment district, as well as a few other properties, securing them in case his housing plan worked. The city had been abandoned for so long that the leases were relatively cheap. The refurbishment would be extremely expensive, but Tobias would only undertake it if his other plans were successful.

Elder Kang grinned as he stood beside Tobias's desk, redrawing the layout of the disciple's districts and shaking his head at his disciple's efforts. Tobias had been working on the project at the state assignment hall, because the elder wouldn't have dared to barge into his residence like he would in a public building.

Elder Kang turned to his head disciple and scowled. "Why would you put an alchemist's workshop in the middle of the foundation realm district?"

Disciple Cho blushed. "I offered them face by reducing how much they have to travel."

Elder Kang sighed. "The sect has the alchemist workshop next to the training ground for a reason. The emissions impact nearly every profession. It should be over here, but moving it here will also require us to double the size of the training area to act as a buffer."

Tobias was amused by how effective everyone was, despite all of them ignoring the nature of what they were working on. Cloud Sect still hadn't endorsed the disciples at the end of their path, voluntarily leaving and going to live in Cloud City. Yet, Elder Kang was acting as if he were working for the sect, ensuring everything was up to standard and putting in his best effort.

Tobias forced himself not to think about how much all of this would cost. He kept reminding himself that he just needed to get the project far enough along to start selling homes, and then the whole enterprise would pay for itself.

Elder Kang shook his head. "None of this is balanced. I need to redesign everything. Collect Magistrate Finch's notes and come to my residence. We'll meet with him again once we outline where everything should go." Elder Kang turned to Tobias and gave a small bow. "Magistrate Finch, I'll see you in a few days with a better idea of what you should do."

Tobias returned the bow more deeply. "This one is honoured that his humble project tweaked your interest."

Elder Kang smiled. "It won't remain humble for long if I have anything to say about it."

Tobias saw him to the door as his disciples picked up everything on the table and hurried after him with grins on their faces. Elder Kang was apparently much more forthcoming and generous with his teaching when he had a project to work on. His disciples seized the opportunity to work with Tobias once they realised the scope of his plans. They even owed him large favours.