Whitestaff was not excited to learn she’d rushed for a few hours straight for no reason, “What kind of bull…”

Many deleted expletives later, Sage explained the situation and she glared at him. He knew the look, “It’s definitely my fault. I didn’t properly investigate their strength and nearly led us to our deaths. It won’t be happening again. In the future, the Seven Stars will be in charge of picking their own missions.”

Whitestaff stared at him a bit longer. Somehow when she stared like that, it felt like she could tell whether or not you were telling the truth. Then she nodded, “Good. You seem to have a tendency for biting off more than you can chew. Other than Red Ice, I’m pretty sure the rest of us are better at knowing our limits than you are.”

Sage felt his prestige as the leader of the Jade Horde was a bit tainted, but given his track record so far it seemed reasonable. He hadn’t led them on any missions since choosing the first Seven Stars and since he appointed them things had run pretty smoothly. Thinking back, it was most likely due to the advice in ‘How to be a Little Birdy’. It taught him the tricks and secrets to choosing good subordinates. What it didn’t do was teach him how to be a good leader himself, nor did it tell him how to act on all the information he learned.

He thought about selling the information he had, but he didn’t feel like wasting time with more information brokers. There was also the idea of going to inform the City Lord, but since he wasn’t a local he had no idea where the City Lord stood in regards to the Yi Yang Group, nor did he know if the Lord was willing to take them on. Even if the City Lord was proactive and got the jump on others to take them down, the Jade Horde might get absolutely nothing in return.

As they say, birds die for food and people die for wealth.

It was one of the rules of being a cultivator that Sage had lost track of. A fortuitous opportunity could lead to great strength or wealth, but it was also the most risky. The choice to go after such opportunities always had to be made very carefully. You had to know your limits and only put yourself at risk when the odds are in your favor. Seeking out treasures beyond your grasp would only lead to death. Trying to compete with those far more powerful than you are would never end well.

I’ve been far too focused on my promises to the Ancestor and the Holy Flame Sect. I’ve forgotten the number one rule of this world.

Power. Everything in this world was controlled by those with power. It wasn’t political power, economic power, influence, or any other sort of idea. It was literal strength. The one with the bigger fist made the rules. The ones at the top seemed to have hit a plateau and it was only then they worried about teaming up and building groups to suit their needs. He didn’t know much about the power that the Kingdoms answered, but he was pretty sure that group was more powerful.

Jiang Hua had destroyed his whole clan, all by himself. Sage had since learned he held an impressive name and title, ‘Skyfire’ Jiang Hua. He was quite famous and even held some sort of official position in the government of the Dou Kingdom. All because of his strength. The Jade Horde would have to handle itself for now. Despite the setback caused by the Yi Yang Group, their operations weren’t greatly damaged.

Sage returned to the ‘Horde Home’, that dreadfully named place, and spent much of his remaining funds on improving the defensive formations yet again. After making sure Black Saber wasn’t under any further influences, he tasked Black Saber and Whitestaff with recruiting more powerful members for the Jade Horde. They’d need some administrators and someone at a similar level to them in charge of running Horde Home. They would expand into a fully fledged city, making it the Jade Horde’s headquarters for now. Perhaps in the future they would operate throughout the whole kingdom and base themselves in the capital, but for now they needed to slow down and deepen their foundations.

Sage would be available to help vet their candidates, but it was far past time he returned his focus to his own growth. He’d spend far too much time lately on creating tools, weapons, and organizations. He hadn’t even properly explored the limits of his new body or even explored the treasures he’d collected. Trying to think like the leader of a Sect had been distracting him from his original goals in this world.

I’m pretty sure I drastically improved my potential with this new body, its far past time I put it to use!

Sage sat in front of two mysterious items. He’d received both from the auction back in Daggerguard City. At the time he’d been forced to go on the run and change his identity. He’d only been focused on building an organization at that point. True, he was distracted breeding insects and performing another metamorphosis, but he spent most of his time training subordinates.

The item on the left looked like a misshapen lump of clay. Sort of like somebody had molded the clay into a rock shape and them smashed it with a hammer. He had spent a few hours banging on it with different objects and tools, to no avail. He could still feel a sort of resonance with it, but hadn’t attempted anything drastic yet. For some reason, he had the feeling that whatever happened would be big, and he was still a bit on edge from the recent trip to the Yi Yang Group.

The object on the right was his current focus. It was the stone tablet that had caused his Human Seal to start fading away and had sent him on the run from the Holy Flame Sect. He knew that as soon as he started looking at it, he was going to lose his Human Seal again so he made sure to go into seclusion and left the Jade Horde to handle things on their own. Now, he was sitting here getting ready to face the tablet, completely unsure of what was going to happen to him.

He placed a hand atop the stone tablet and very gently sent a tiny trickle of his Qi into it. He waited patiently and nothing happened. Still cautious he repeated the exercise, adding a little more Qi with each attempt. It only took a few attempts before the amount of Qi was large enough to cause a reaction. The tablet suddenly came to life once again, emitting bright golden light. Glowing shapes and symbols appeared out of nowhere, not matching the carvings on the tablet and just rising into the air. Sage’s Human Seal reacted in kind and started to glow with similar brightness, but a shade of red in contrast to the tablets gold. The glow started out steady, but then started to dim and brighten. The light began to pulse with a rhythm, something Sage hadn’t known Seals could do.

Just as before a mirage of his true form appeared behind him. After a few moments it also started to pulse, turning more and less transparent in time with the bright glowing of the seals hovering over the tablet. Eventually the pulsing got faster and faster until it was a quick strobing. Just when Sage started to ponder whether or not cultivators could suffer from epilepsy, the pulsing stopped. The symbols were no longer floating around and blinking. They’d moved into a large vertical display over the stone tablet, floating in mid-air. The Human Seal had disappeared and Sage was in his true form, the one that had grown quite similar to an Eastern Dragon. He was distinctly missing whiskers and antlers, but if the plates on his spine were smaller and his body larger, he could almost pass for a certain wish granting dragon’s cousin.

I wonder how hard it is to make crystal balls with stars inside them?