Even when Sage had attended the Thunder Mountain Bridge competition, he had only learned superficial information about the major players in the Dou Kingdom. At the time he’d only been concerned about the people that would be showing up for the tournament and what he might have to run into. Now that he was in charge of building an intelligence network through the Kingdom, he put in a little more effort. In truth, it wasn’t that big of a deal to the Holy Flame Sect. Even when Peak Master Zhen gave him the mission, it seemed more like a convenient way to send him out of the sect and hide from the people that were suspicious about his secrets.

The reason Sage was working so hard to build up the Jade Horde and the Little Birds were twofold. He didn’t want to do it because the Sect asked him to, but instead as a way to show his gratitude. If they hadn’t taken him in all those years ago, he might be just like the people he was recruiting into the Jade Horde now. Being in the sect had given him time to rest, recover, and chase the opportunities that led him to where he was now. The Holy Flame Sect really only cared about doing business, and any direct threats upon them, but Sage figured that if he was going to build an information network, he might as well go all out. The second reason to do all this work was to pave the way for rebuilding the Lang Clan. His other great benefactor was the great ancestor in the tomb, and the dead members of the Lang Clan. He’d been killed and took over the body of a poor boy who died at a young age. Even if the Lang Clan didn’t know that, they still treated him as one of their own. Even without the ancestor demanding it of him, it was still something he wanted to do.

For some reason, Sage felt far more driven now. It was difficult to make such a careful self inspection, so he wasn’t sure whether his confidence and drive had originated from his new strength, or the bloodlines that created it. The long and short of it was that he’d merged with them and they were a part of him. Even if he felt anything was off, there was no sense in suppressing it, it’s just who he was now. Just like he’d learned to embrace the treacherous cunning from his snake bloodline, he’d have to accept his newfound vigor.

The Dou Kingdom was made up of 11 provinces and the royal capital, which was itself the size of an entire province. The provinces were arranged with 3 of them surrounding the capital and the other 8 arranged four to the north and four to the south. To the east of the capital was the Endless Valley Province, and to the west was the Lucky Star Province. To the north of the capital was the Five Mountain Province, the home of the Five Mountain Sword Sect Alliance. In fact it was only one of three provinces that wasn’t controlled by a single large sect or clan. Sage was happy to hear of this, as that’s where Song Lu Tian could be found.

Spreading across the Bronze Tiger Province, the Falcons were able to acquire a map of the Dou Kingdom. It was far from comprehensive, but it did have a general overview of the nation and how to travel between each of the 11 provinces, the over a hundred counties, their cities, and the names of many of the major powers in each province and county. Sage saw quite a few names he recognized from the Thunder Mountain Bridge tournament and was no longer curious as to their backing. Along with the map, they’d also uncovered some of the more basic information related to the Kingdom as a whole. The Dou capital itself mostly let the country run itself. What they did do, was to demand tribute.

The 11 provinces of the Dou Kingdom were created to provide the Dou Royal Family with wealth. As he’d heard a little about in the past, the majority of the land in each province was mostly empty of human civilization. The provinces were each located upon the locations of lucrative natural resources and it was the job of each province to send a yearly tribute to the capital. The royal family seemed to ignore the provinces as long as their tributes were sent. If the tributes were to be interrupted, they would step in. To that end, they encouraged a single power ruling over each province so that it was easier to punish or reward the ones in charge. The three provinces that weren’t ruled by a single clan or sect were overseen by alliances of sects or clans, because if they didn’t group up of their own accord, the royal family would force them to be, one way or another.

As more information was collected, Sage learned they’d used various methods in the past to accomplish that goal. Either supporting a single group to subjugate their competitors, mediating the formation of alliances, or even stepping in directly to wipe out the trouble makers and install a group of their choosing picked from what was left. With such harsh methods it was then more surprising to find out more about a topic he’d heard mentioned before. The Eastern and Western coalitions. The Qin Clan and the Fu Clan had each taken the lead in forming a coalition. They both had two other provinces backing them up and creating a stark division of power in the kingdom. As justification, they used the fact that the capital only bothered to deal with 11 different groups, so wouldn’t it be even better if they only had to deal with a single group?

After that, it came down to a disagreement over who would take the lead in this coalition of provinces. The Fu Clan claimed to have invented the idea, so naturally they should be in charge. The Qin Clan claim that only they are capable of unifying and managing such a great task. At an impasse, they decided to recruit other provinces to their cause to prove their positions. At that point instead of a single coalition, it became two of them. It also started to evolve into far more than a simple overseeing of the yearly tribute. The Eastern and Western Coalitions now had their hands in everything. Founded by the most powerful groups in their provinces, they used their coalition to exert even greater control than normal over the businesses, sects, clan, and everything else in their provinces. They were already the lords in their own provinces, so these changes weren’t too drastic, but the real problems were created when the coalitions used the power of three provinces to bully the other individual provinces. It was then that the five remaining neutral provinces banded together against the two coalitions. Only then did things go somewhat back to normal.

Sage was surprised by such a political climate. When he was in the Righteous Wind province for the tournament, he hadn’t noticed anything too terrible going on, but it seemed only the largest and most powerful groups were affected or even knew anything about what was going on. It was somewhat like different worlds created for those of different levels of power. Mortals could only worry about the town they lived in, and low ranked cultivators would rarely leave the county they were born in. Just like the provinces, the counties and towns in those provinces were spread out to hit all the most important resources. Sometimes they were close together, but other times neighboring cities in a county could be hundreds of miles apart. A county covered an area of near a thousand miles and had less than a dozen major towns or cities along with a hundred or so small villages. With such size, a single county was about a quarter of the size of the United States, yet it had only a hundred or so towns in comparison to the 5,000 or so that would fill the same area on Earth.

Sage was reviewing and studying all this information not just for the sake of future expansion, but because the Jade Horde had been invited to meet with the Kang Clan. The group that was in charge of the Bronze Tiger Province. They had been expanding rapidly and were now enough of a presence that the Kang Clan found it fit to meet with their leadership. In such a large area, there were many large and powerful groups and businesses, but they all had to defer to the Kang Clan. By inviting them to a meeting, it meant that the Kang Clan thought they were large enough to be of note. The meeting was very important to the Jade Horde as it would establish their future relations with the Kang Clan. If it went well, they would have a powerful ally, but if things went south they could quickly face pressure at every turn and it would be a miracle if they weren’t eradicated in a few months.

Now, with a better grasp of the overall political situation, Sage spent some of his personal funds to purchase materials. Quickly building a few unique gifts to present to the Kang Clan to try to win their favor.

The pressure is on!