Time continued to pass, and soon the triplets were properly young teens, with all the good and bad that came of it. Though it would have been simple to fall into the bad habit of having his entire life revolve around them, John kept a reasonable portion of his perspective on himself. By that manner, he’d been in his new world over twenty years, with close to two thirds of that time having the triplets as a part of it. Given the split in time spent with them he had ‘only’ been around them a bit over a third of his time in the world, but by no measure was it insignificant.

At the current point in time, he had barely spent more time with Matayal, his actual wife. It was somewhat concerning that he spent what felt like so little time with his family, but he had to remember that it was not necessarily less than he would have expected in a ‘normal’ life. He was not away at work all day, though he did have clan business that kept him occupied some of the time, with more portions reserved for training. Yet he also had free time to spend with his children. And though some of that time was still occupied with training, improving their cultivation together was a reasonable bonding activity in this world.

Nothing was going to be close to what he’d grown up with anyway, not in this world. And while that was fine, it was difficult to not put higher emphasis on his early memories as being ‘normal’.

-----

John was not an animal tamer. Though spiritual beasts were more intelligent and thus the right ones were easier to handle in certain regards, that still didn’t make it a trivial investment of time. However, just because John himself did not have the ability didn’t mean the Tenebach clan had nobody to perform the task. Radulf was one of the branch members only a decade or so younger than John’s grandfather, and though most of his time had been spent handling lesser spiritual beasts before the Tenebach clan’s rise in status, he still had the necessary knowledge.

The most important creatures under his care were the shadowhawks. It was not a matter of them as potential combatants, though there was some value in that, but rather for their potential as messengers. It had already taken them several years since they hatched to begin reaching adulthood, but they had a wingspan of nearly two meters and were somewhere around the strength of early Foundation Phase cultivators. Not enough to affect any battles… but more than a trivial effort to take out while flying.

For the most part they were only active in Marble County. The Tenebach clan had some influence further to the west, but this was still the first generation of shadowhawks early in their lifespan. Eventually they would be tested in the Shimmering Islands, but the storms there were far too much for them at the current moment. With a bit more maturity they might fly over or around such storms, but there was also the matter of distances between islands.

John was glad he barely had to deal with those issues, and had simply come to oversee their progress. “How are they doing?” John asked Radulf.

“Quite well,” the older man explained. “They are eager to return to the comfort and care of the clan, but smart enough to be dutiful. Healthy and strong, too. I’ve been taking some of them around to other climates to see how they handle it.”

“And?” John prompted.

“It’s about as expected. They’re not particularly well suited to the heat of the Green Sands, their feathers trapping even more than they would otherwise. They’d likely have to have regular stops if we wished to coordinate with the Milanovic clan. There aren’t really enough of them for that yet, however.”

“True,” John agreed. “Six is a sizable amount but insufficient for large scale operations.”

“I’ve been carefully contacting other keepers,” Radulf said. “Negotiating an exchange of breeders. It’s better not to have these siblings produce the only offspring.”

“Yeah, the small gene pool would be a problem…” John nodded. While a scientific understanding of genetics was not present in this world as far as John had seen, they still understood the inheritance of traits- and where it encountered problems in animal or spiritual beast breeding. A specific understanding of ‘genes’ was unnecessary for that, as was clearly shown on Earth where humans had been successful animal breeders for thousands of years. And John, with a college level education but not specialized in the field, couldn’t exactly revolutionize the process just by talking about chromosomes.

And there were oddities that couldn’t be explained with that. Like, offspring of spiritual beasts that grew to a higher cultivation rank being more powerful. It was one thing if it was simply potential, but children born later in a certain beasts lifespan were generally stronger, if they had methods to continuously improve. John had a basic understanding of epigenetics and how they could change during a lifespan, but no idea whether that even applied in those cases or if it was something else.

“Regardless,” Radulf said proudly, “We have reduced the travel time for critical messages in Marble County down by half or more. With another decade or two and additional generations… who can say how things will be?”

John nodded. Decades seemed so long, yet it had already been two since he came to this world. If they’d had the resources and shadowhawks when he arrived, the process would already be well on its way. Though there were always limits to how many magical beasts a clan or sect could have as a practical matter- they weren’t cheap to raise or maintain. Feeding them average food would result in mediocre abilities at best. The same of human cultivators, in a way, though spiritual beasts leaned more towards the consumption side of things rather than absorbing free spiritual energy. “Good work. I look forward to the future.”

Radulf nodded, “I’ve been teaching others as well. This knowledge will outlive me, don’t you worry.”

“Well, I wasn’t worried until you said it,” John grinned. In truth, he did have some concerns. Radulf was younger than Luctus, but he also hadn’t stepped over the threshold into the Consolidated Soul Phase. Thus, his lifespan would be less by a significant margin. For that matter, Luctus himself was not getting any younger. He was slowly advancing through the early Consolidated Soul Phase, but it was unclear if he would go any longer. Without improvements he might live another fifty years- but his health was not as great as it once might have been and it could easily be cut short. Outside of battle, of course, which was one of the nearly inevitable ends for a cultivator. Though certain individuals would live through many battles, you only died in one.

-----

Though information regularly came from the Brandle clan, John still wanted to personally catch up on everything with Matayal around. “What about the sea god?” he asked. “Any progress with… whatever you’re planning there? Insights?”

Matyal nodded. “The insights, at least, are sufficient. I would not have advanced to mid Consolidated Soul Phase so swiftly otherwise.”

Hearing her say that was something special, because she’d always been a fast cultivator. At certain points John felt like he was barely able to hold onto her and drag himself along- though he didn’t find that he was actually slowing her down. Especially not now, because even the minor amounts of fire he could control were improving. The improvement was slow, but everything was slow at their cultivation rank. Yet in terms of absolute power growth over time it was also not negligible. It was unlikely either of them would suddenly pull ahead of their peers, but their ability to dominate those sufficiently below themselves would always improve.

“I know there were ideas to recruit it as a guardian beast…” John said. “Have those progressed any?”

“The leviathan continues to sleep… but I do not think its slumber will continue indefinitely,” Matayal began. “If it is at all feasible to bring it into our fold, I will make the attempt. However, though its power is unquestionable its intelligence and nature are unclear. I could only find the barest mention of it in the records throughout the Shimmering Islands. I suspect few know of it, and I have seen no others around it. Though its size is quite expansive, so they could have been missed.”

“I suppose it might be a bit ambitious to actually recruit it,” John said. “Something of that power… what could we offer? It has to be at least compatible to a well established Ascending Soul Phase cultivator. Anything it wants, it could take.”

“Perhaps,” Matayal agreed. “Let us hope it is not too hungry when it awakes. Fortunately, it is quite far from Pualani. At least for that sake, as it is rather a tiresome journey to make regularly.”

“I understand that,” John nodded. “The other clan affairs are going well, I hear?”

“The same as they are here. Measured expansion. There have been attempts to work with the Mulyani clan to tame storm birds as messengers. If that works, they could easily go to Dolomite Harbor. Unfortunately, they’re not easily tamed or they would have been all over the place centuries ago.”

John nodded, “And you’ll be around for the meeting later, right?”

“With your club?” Matayal grinned. “Since it seems important, I will be. Though before then I intend to spy on our son. Lucanus and Yustina did bring along their daughters, after all.”

“Are we trying to set him up with one of them in particular?” John asked.

“I don’t know if I’m trying, but Emilia is not too far in age. And she’d be better for him than someone from the Mulyani clan. If he’s going to be clan head, he’ll need someone supporting him in everything, including cultivation.”

“That does seem suitable,” John agreed. “Though I would be reluctant to actually arrange anything, even now.”

“Emilia wouldn’t be taking over for her clan regardless of her position,” Matayal reminded John. “So they would not end up in a situation like us. You know Yustina is not interested in leading the Milanovic clan and disrupting their current lines of succession.”

“I just hope he can find the right woman,” John nodded. “Ursel… well, she’ll have to make her own decisions in that regard. She doesn’t exactly strike me as the type to settle down, but it’s still early. And Melanthina…”

“You just hope she gets over her obsession with Nik.”

John sighed, “I can’t tell if it’s romantic at all, but I was really hoping the whole thing would go away after our excursion. No luck there. At least she’s motivated to grow stronger still.”

“Let’s just hope she doesn’t do anything too foolish.”

“As long as she keeps to official matches…” John shook his head. “I’d hate for them to actually kill each other.”

-----

The club of reincarnators and transmigrators who had discovered each other through various means had five members, a split of two and three at the current moment. Those numbers seemed high, considering they hadn’t found any outside of their inner circle, but nobody could say what the true numbers were.

Today, their newest member known to the world as Deidre and the married pair from the Green Sands had news to share, worth coming in person. As John and Renato were located close to each other, Marble County was the easiest place to meet, and the Tenebach clan a bit more secretive. The Order of the Amber Heart would not begrudge Renato having secret meetings, but he was not the sect head. Though he was a decent rival in power for Johannes Dalen, his relative youth made his political connections weaker. Though it was not a true issue, as they were not in competition. Having a strong individual like Renato would only benefit the Order.

Deirdre her explanation first, though the general message was simple. “Recently, the Molten Sea far beyond the Sunfields has been towards Sunfields territory. Not as disorganized squabbles but because of the control of several large clans. In addition, we have reason to believe some of the Sunfields are supporting their activity.”

Dire news, matched by that from the Green Sands. “Similar activity comes from beyond the Wuthering Heights. The inhabitants of the sky islands that rest beyond those peaks seem to have turned their eyes on areas below.” Yustina was the one sharing the message, or it would have been much more casual, if technically correct. “It seems the rise of power in the area is beginning to draw attention from surrounding regions.”

John nodded. Strong cultivators meant resources, and though it also meant better defenders cultivators were always attracted to what they thought they could get their hands on. And over long periods of time, certain groups would grow ahead, watching for signs of something worth plundering. Acquisition of resources was not always through violence, but at the very least it was backed by threats of it. That was true even for the clans and the Order of the Amber Heart- if they could not fight for what they had, they would lose it.

The importance of the following discussions, then, would be how much of a threat to people that were cared about these events were, and what would be done about it.