The Magistrate: Chapter 77 (Patreon)

Chapter 77

Paperwork and Contracts

In the three months since being appointed 1st Minister, Tobias had purged the ministry of all the corrupt magistrates and reestablished one that could be trusted to perform its duties. He’d purged the states of corrupt officials and many extortionist rackets and criminal organisations that they were supported by. And he’d also made great strides in having the 1st Emperor’s hidden realm converted to a neutral cultivation realm. It still needed more work, but that was to be expected. You did not undo ten-thousand years of cultivation in a few months.

Elder Kang sat in Tobias’s 1st Minister’s office with a cheerful expression, excitedly explaining the designs he’d come up with for the small leisure city Tobias requested. While he talked, Tobias studied the blueprints of the individual buildings, creating a three-dimensional model of the city in his head.

As Tobias picked up the next drawing, he frowned. “This inn lacks areas for cultivation or training.”

Elder Kang nodded without looking over. “That inn is for the mortal pilgrims who wish to visit the Imperial Palace. You said it was being established as a historical site for the people of The Three Kingdoms. I assume there will be wealthy mortals who wish to visit and see where our glorious 1st Emperor lived before he ascended to immortality. Perhaps not those who currently live, but once we begin teaching them the true history of The Three Kingdoms again, I am sure many will be interested.”

Tobias hadn’t considered turning the Imperial Palace into a tourist trap, but the more he thought about the idea, the more he liked it. “We could teach them the true history while they explore.”

“How would you do that?”

“Guides. We teach the guides the history so they can explain it to those who visit.”

“An interesting idea, 1st Minister. You could use those guides for the city as well. They could tell those who visit what used to stand in the Outer Imperial Palace and how terrible the people who lived there were.”

Tobias made a note to begin drafting training guides and returned to studying the designs. The next few hours passed quickly.

As Elder Kang prepared to leave, Tobias removed a manual he’d written from his storage ring and placed it on his desk. “Elder Kang, I hope you do not consider my actions insulting, but you have been a great help to me both now and in the past. I want you to take this as a token of my gratitude. It is my thoughts on your cultivation and where it should be taking you.”

Elder Kang paused as he gazed at the book Tobias held. “How much of Cloud Sect's secrets do you know?”

Tobias placed the cultivation manual on the table between them. “I have never observed Cloud Sects training or its teachings. However, I’ve seen the results of your cultivation, as well as the techniques and spells you use. This is how I would go about achieving them.”

Elder Kang picked up the manual and began reading. The longer he read, the deeper his frown grew. Finally, he closed the book. “Your ideas around our cultivation method are not what we practice. However, in some ways, it is significantly better than what we practice. Why did you give me this?”

“Because I want to help you and let Cloud Sect know that I have not stolen their secrets. I simply comprehend cultivation well enough to produce the same results.”

Elder Kang clutched the manual between his fists. “And I may keep this?”

“It is yours to do with as you wish. It’s far from my best work.”

Elder Kang made the manual vanish into his storage ring.

Tobias saw the elder’s frustration and softened his tone. “Your brother shared with me that you have identical divinity and talent. Yet, he is a nascent soul realm cultivator, and you are a core realm cultivator. I do not believe you are suited to the path you are on. You are not a warrior, and Cloud Sect is a warrior sect. The gift I have given you is a guide to help you change your path to one that better suits you. My hope is that it will one day allow you to ascend to the nascent soul realm like your brother.”

Elder Kang finally smiled and bowed. “This one thanks Sage Knowledge for his assistance on his path to immortality.”

“If you ever wish to discuss what I have written, you need only visit.”

Elder Kang thanked him again and hurried out.

Eunuch Ho glided into the room and began cleaning up in preparation for Tobias’s next meeting. Tobias had several aides and magistrates who could have done the job, but none of them treated him with the familiarity that the eunuch did.

Tobias turned to the old man. “Eunuch Ho, I have found a healer capable of restoring what has been taken from you. With your permission, I will summon him to restore you to your former self.”

Eunuch Ho paused his tidying and suddenly chuckled.

“Is something I said amusing to you?”

Eunuch Ho turned to face him, cupped his hands, and bowed. “No, Master. And yes. This servant must assume you do not understand how this one came to be here.”

Tobias shook his head and invited him to sit.

Eunuch Ho declined the invitation like he always did. “Eunuchs of the Imperial Palace are here by choice, Master.”

“Whose choice?”

“Ours.” Eunuch Ho took a deep breath when he realised Tobias wanted a longer explanation. “I was born no higher than yourself, Master. One day, a man came to my village and told all the boys that they could go to live in the Imperial Palace as servants. It was a place where they would never know hunger or cold, where they would wear fine silks and comfortable shoes, where the burdens of work would be light. However, this life of luxury came at a cost. It was a cost that I, and every other eunuch, chose to accept. This life is the one that I chose for myself. It is not a life that has been forced upon me.”

Tobias didn’t know any of this, but then he’d never looked into how the palace gathered its eunuchs because he’d found the practice disgusting.

“You don’t regret the price?”

Eunuch Ho shook his head. “My life has been a life of luxury compared to the one I was destined to live. The price I paid is one I would gladly pay again.”

“My offer remains.”

“I gladly accept.”

“You do?”

Eunuch Ho chuckled again. “Just because I would gladly pay the price again does not mean I would not be happy to receive the reward without paying.”

Tobias chuckled with him. “I will send for the healer. Would you be interested in serving me when the Outer Imperial Palace is demolished? The Imperial Palace will have more servants than it needs to maintain it, so many that work in the outer palaces will be let go.”

“One usually offers the incentive after making such a request, not before, Master.”

“It’s not an incentive. Whether you accept will play no part in your recovery.”

“This one has enjoyed serving you and would enjoy continuing to do so, Master.”

“Inform the other Eunuchs in the Imperial Palace of my offer to restore them. Once you have done so, find me many loyal men to assist you as you can. Half will maintain my home in Cloud City, and the other half will serve my family in their future home near The Three Step Hills.”

Eunuch Ho cupped his hands and bowed. “I will do as you say, Master.”

***

A cultivator’s stomach meridian opened due to one of three situations. The first situation usually occurred in childhood. The child would become extremely excited during a competitive game and push their body beyond its limits, opening the stomach meridian in the process. This usually resulted in a burst of energy, followed by mild stomach pain that required them to lie down for a few hours.

The second situation occurred when they were entering their early teenage years and required a chi-saturated environment. Over several months, this environment slowly opened the stomach meridian until it was noticeable enough for a passing cultivator to stop and investigate.

The third situation occurred when a foundation realm cultivator flooded a mortal’s body with enough chi to force it open. The benefit of this method was that it could find cultivators of any age.

Tobias sat in his office reading the letters his disciples had sent him. Tobias had sent them all over The Three Kingdoms to search for new cultivators. Whenever they located a suitable child, they marked the location for Tobias to build a school. Whenever they found an adult, they offered them free training at his cultivation academy.

This was not something government officials usually did. Paying for something out of their own pocket was unheard of. But then Tobias had never respected government officials. Many were lazy and self-important, more interested in the prestige the position conferred than in helping those they were supposed to serve.

Tobias didn’t want to be like that.

Tobias wanted to be a bureaucrat who used the bureaucracy to change the system from within. That was far easier than fighting to achieve his goals. It also meant that it was less likely someone would undo his work, because his work would be so impeccable that it would set a new standard for quality, which those who came after him would have to adhere to.

However, Tobias was only discovering that setting such a high standard came with problems.

Tobias had told his disciples to wait an entire season before writing a report, because he didn’t need daily or weekly updates. However, he never expected them to search so frantically. Many of them must have run from village to village, gathering everyone together as quickly as possible to test them before moving on. Under no other circumstance could they locate over ten thousand cultivators in a single season.

It wasn’t until Tobias read the nineteenth letter that he understood why they were setting themselves such a gruelling pace. They were searching for potential disciples for his academy, not cultivators for the Imperial Sect.

Enough of the children and adults born outside of cultivator families had a sickly sibling who fit their criteria for testing that it had become a race to see who could find the most, before the Great Clans caught on. Xu Ling had also promised them that they would have the honour of training the disciples they found, or, if they weren’t interested, choosing the one who was.

Tobias never expected them to be so motivated, so thorough, or so quick, or that he would have to house and train thousands of unskilled cultivators while he waited for the Divine Council to approve his plans. He also hadn’t expected to take on new disciples.

Very little of Tobias’s fortune had gone into raising his current disciples. However, getting so many additional students into the foundation realm so they could work as scholars would be financially crippling. And that was without considering how expensive it was to house the other cultivators they had found while he waited on the Divine Council’s decision.

Tobias finished tallying all the letters, marking down the villages where he needed to build schools, and began considering the problem before him.

The longer the cultivators postponed cultivating, the weaker their divinity would grow. For many of them, this wasn’t a significant problem, but for those over fifty, it was. Divinity declined faster with age. Tobias’s disciples could teach them everything they needed to know to open and cleanse their body meridians, but they couldn’t supply enough facilities for all of them to cultivate quickly.

Neither could Cloud Sect. With the civil war concluded, their disciples had returned. The spirit gardens in Cloud City were no longer begging for cultivators to maintain their chi purity. Only his clan’s spirit gardens still had this problem, but there weren’t enough of them to assist so many new cultivators.

The 1st Emperor’s hidden realm would solve that, but there was the price of admission to consider. It wasn’t free, and Tobias could not afford to bring them all here. Tobias gave the matter some more thought before remembering the sad fact that cultivators were not created equal.

A cultivator with a divinity of six was worth more than one with a divinity of five. The same rule applied to talent. Tobias had the means to test their divinity, and his disciples had the means to test their talent.

Tobias decided to provide resources to the cultivators, but only for as long as it took him to determine their divinity and talent. Those who showed exceptional divinity and talent would continue to be trained at his academy. Those who didn’t meet his criteria would have to wait until the Imperial Sect had reformed like he’d originally planned.

It was the best he could do.

And more than he had to.

But he needed to reestablish the Imperial Sect to have a chance at reestablishing the others. The Imperial Sect was a national project that had existed up until the Great Plague. It was where The Three Kingdoms trained their healers, alchemists, forgers, gathers, and array experts. It was also where the majority of The Three Kingdoms' industrial strength had come from and where its ability to operate most of its national projects had come from.

The 2nd Emperor chose not to reestablish it because it was both expensive and gave him less power, instead training only those he needed. This had limited the skill pool, causing a major reduction in expertise.

Tobias’s only objection to reinstating it was the name. He didn’t like the idea of calling it the Imperial Sect. The Imperial Family was gone and not remembered fondly. Instead, he wanted to rename it the Civil Sect, because the cultivators who trained there would eventually become civil servants.

Tobias considered the Imperial Sect to be one of the 1st Emperor’s better national projects. The Three Kingdoms would supply the cultivators with the skills and materials they needed to become stronger, and in return, the cultivators worked for the nation at a significantly reduced rate. They would still be extremely well paid, but not as well paid as when they worked privately.

Tobias couldn’t see any reason why the Divine Council would object to its reinstatement either, which was why he’d gone ahead and begun searching for cultivators. The Imperial Sect had been integral to most national projects. And its reestablishment made it easier for him to reestablish public education, which would inadvertently raise most of the nation's blood price.

Tobias knew this was something the Divine Council would never agree to, so he’d come at the problem indirectly through the national education project.

Before the Great Plague, The Three Kingdoms required everyone to study until the age of twelve. Because of the national education project, reading, writing, and basic mathematics were universal. The cost of killing an educated peasant or serf was one hundred times greater than killing an uneducated one, so once the project was reinstated, killing peasants and serfs would become even rarer than it was before the Great Plague. People weren’t that wealthy anymore.

There were other national projects that Tobias wanted to reinstate for similar reasons. Public healthcare, postal services, mandatory grain reserves, and public cultivation testing. The last had been relegated to the army and sects, but only when they were interested, and they rarely visited rural areas now.

It was a mistake.

A mistake that had made Tobias’s job easier.

Villages or towns that had a child or an adult with enough divinity to be a cultivator were among the many ways he could justify building a state school there. The school would educate the child, giving them the skills they needed to cultivate properly when they were old enough, while drastically improving the education of everyone else, leaving them safe from all but the wealthiest killers.

Despite all the additional headaches, Tobias was happy with his disciples’ letters. The moment he finished reading them, he headed for the Imperial Archives instead of preparing for his afternoon meeting with Patriarch Song.

The Head Archivist met him at the entrance. “How may we help you today, 1st Minister?”

“I need to know if you have all the records on how the Imperial Sect operated.”

“We do, 1st Minister.”

“Do you have the cultivation methods that were taught there?”

“We do have the cultivation manuals and manuscripts that were taught, along with the layout for the curriculum. The 1st Emperor considered the Imperial Sect to be one of the pillars of The Three Kingdoms, and it has an entire section of the archives devoted to its history and teaching methods.”

“Be prepared to collect them when I return this evening. I will need to do an in-depth study on this matter.”

“It will be arranged, 1st Minister.”

***

Patriarch Song was the head of a third-tier noble clan, which meant that his family had the ability to raise foundation realm cultivators. They were not a powerful family in the grand scheme of things, but that was precisely why Tobias wanted to work with them.

Tobias needed The Three Kingdoms to drastically increase the number of general meridian-opening and cleansing pills it produced, along with the number of stomach meridian-opening pills available, if he ever wanted to achieve his goal of having a fairer and more productive society. This couldn’t be done through his position or with the Great Clans or sects, so he had to rely on the smaller noble clans.

Patriarch Song finished reading the proposal and began stroking his long moustache. “I’m aware we are not the first clan you have approached with this offer, Patriarch Finch. You have worked your way through the second-tier clans and many of the third-tier ones before coming to me. This is far too good to pass up, so I must ask why they turned you down?”

Tobias’s clan owned hundreds of general meridian opening and cleansing gardens, with cuttings and seeds to establish many times more. It was too much work for his family, even with the assistance of his disciples, so he needed to offload them onto someone else, before the Great Clans and sects began sending him the rest of the spirit herbs they owed them.

Tobias wanted to chuckle but didn’t. “Why do you assume they turned me down, Patriarch Song?”

“I know my clan’s standing, Patriarch Finch. And I know yours. If the others had agreed to your offer, I would not be here. However, I am not in a position to turn you down like they were. Even if we only receive half the pills these three gardens produce, that would still be significantly more than our clan currently has. Our family will prosper because of your generosity, so I must humbly accept your offer.”

Tobias handed him a second proposal.

Patriarch Song read the proposal and began to frown. “You wish us to sell you our excess pills for a pittance and expand the gardens when we are able. Now, I see why the others turned you down.”

“If you sign that contract, I will give you my complete works. It is the same information that I sold the Great Clans and sects.”

Patriarch Song sat there speechless, his aura trembling so violently that Tobias had to suppress it, so it didn’t harm his servants. This sort of reaction was one of the reasons why Tobias dealt with the clan heads instead of his clone. The other was that it was too insulting to meet with them that way.

Patriarch Song gave a sharp nod. “I accept both proposals.”

Tobias handed over a third proposal.

This proposal stated that Patriarch Song would turn mortals into cultivators and train them so they could tend the spirit gardens, allowing his clan to cultivate higher-realm spirit herbs for better pills. It was an expensive undertaking, but the reward was worth it.

Patriarch Song shook his head. “I must refuse this, even if it costs me the first two proposals. I cannot allow you to examine my family’s cultivation method or change it in any way, even if you are a sage.”

Tobias expected this response. “The third proposal will remain open until I say otherwise. You may approach me if you ever wish to accept. Until then, I am happy to proceed with the first two proposals.”

Tobias and Patriarch Song placed their marks on all the contracts, making it official. Tobias handed the copies that needed to be sent to the public records office to Servant Ho before returning to his desk with his final offer.

“Disciples who hold the title of professor at my cultivation academy are now available for hire. Here is a book with the exercises, cultivation methods, and techniques they can teach your clan, along with the available professions and formulas. The first section explains the tests your clan members must pass before they can be accepted as students. The prices for everything are listed within. Those with lower divinity and talent obviously will take longer to teach, so cost more.”

Tobias’s disciples had made a strong impression during the war. His battle techniques and spells, while hated, were also greatly respected. This was more than enough to interest most clans, though none had shown interest beyond having one or two members trained. They needed proof before they would accept his extremely high prices.

Patriarch Song took the book with interest, making it vanish into his storage ring as Tobias invited him to share a drink. They discussed family and politics as the day lengthened, before parting after dinner. Tobias immediately headed for the Imperial Archives to begin studying how he could reestablish the Imperial Sect.