Molting the Mortal Coil

Despite cursing at the old man internally, Sage maintained a pleasant smile on his face and shook his head, “I have no idea why this Little One could get the attention of such Great Persons, it is truly my honor.”

The Patriarch laughed, “So skilled and yet still humble. Very good! We called you here because of what you’ve done to Lionheart Town. You must know how impressive your changes are, how did you think of such things?”

“I was merely lucky, Sir.”

While still smiling, the Patriarch seemed to lean back. Sage couldn’t tell if he was satisfied, or thinking about something. At that same time, a middle-aged man with grey at his temples wearing dark green spoke up. He was one of the three sitting down, and he glared at Sage as if he smelled bad.

“Why have you wasted so many resources on improving a whole city? You’ve wasted so much time on useless mortals, yet you haven’t even given any of that good stuff to the Clan? You care more for mice than you do your family?”

The lizard on the man’s shoulder was staring at Sage like it wanted to eat him. Its mouth fell open and a long tongue was curling and licking against and between the gaps of its long spiked teeth. Sage was taken aback by the sudden assault after the Patriarch had been so kind. One of the men in the black centipede masks jumped in while Sage was still off balanced, “No need to be so harsh, Xiyi Su. Children always like to care for small or weak things, they think them cute.”

Sage would have to be an idiot to not realize they were taking turns to belittle him, and from the silence shown by the Patriarch it seemed he was condoning it. At that moment the Patriarch spoke up again, “Alright, don’t be too harsh. Little Sheng has been gone for so long, he isn’t familiar with the Chong Clan’s ways. As a new Branch Head he is like one of our arms or legs, so we have to treat him right. Isn’t that right Little Sheng? Don’t let these stuffy Elders push you around. Back to business!”

The Patriarch cleared his throat and then spoke with a more commanding and prestigious tone, “As the Patriarch of the Chong Clan, I Jinxi Jao, have summoned you, Lang Sheng, to formally name you the new head of the Lang Branch of the Chong Clan and introduce you to the Chong Clan Elder’s council.”

He stopped speaking, but the majesty of his words and position remained in the air for a few long moments. Sage could feel the weight of the gaze of all fifteen elders, as well as the dozens of others behind them. They all stared at him, and Sage felt like they were trying to pry out all his secrets with their eyes. 

“Okay, I think that’s enough stodgy formality for the day! Let’s end this meeting for now. Little Sheng, please stick around for a few weeks and familiarize yourself with all the Clan’s rules, responsibilities, and benefits. You’re one of us, so make yourself at home here! In Golden Cricket Cove, no one would dare mistreat a Chong!”

Clapping his hands, the Patriarch called the meeting to an end and the many people behind the Elder’s chairs started briskly filing out of the room through side doors that Sage hadn’t noticed before. Sage wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, but he saw the young man seated to the Patriarch’s right hand wave him off. The Young Master of the Chong Clan shooed him away and Sage took the hint, turning around and retreating from the hall from the same direction that he entered. 

The meeting had not been long, but he’d been pressured by those in the room. At that last moment of silence when all eyes were upon him, Sage had felt the pressure from around a dozen Nascent Souls. At that point he realized that most of the seated Elders had all reached rank 6, and those who hadn’t were at the peak of rank 5. He couldn’t quite tell each of their exact levels with so many auras pushing together in the room, but it was quite impressive nonetheless. As a First Rate power, he assumed they would have only a handful of Nascent Souls. As far as he knew the only Nascent Souls in the Holy Flame Sect were the Sect Leader and the Peak Masters. That meant the Chong Clan had nearly twice as many Nascent Souls. 

Sage was quite impressed by their power. He was curious why they didn’t split up and conquer more territory, but then he thought back to their methods and realized it was likely they stayed unified on purpose. Just like how they spent so much effort building their reputation up, they stayed strong so nobody would take it upon themselves to remove them. As Sage was led away from the hall, the attendant this time was quite chatty. They added more evidence for Sage to assume he was correct. Mainly by the fact that the Lang wasn’t the only Branch of the Chong Clan. He also learned the formal names and some bits of information about the main factions of the Chong Clan.

The ones in pale yellow were the ruling faction, Jinxi. They used the Golden Cricket, the namesake of this capital city. The songs of their Golden Crickets were legendary, both beautiful and deadly. In red, were the Xie Faction. Just as his friend Xiezi, they used tiny red winged scorpions, the Scarlet Winged Scorpion, as well as the Purple Backed Giant Scorpion, a huge tank sized beast with a terrifyingly thick carapace.

The rust orange faction were the Wa, and the warts they had gave them away. Their Immortal Three-Legged Toad was quite distinctive. It looked like a toad's large back legs were moved to replace its smaller front arms, and then only a single leg was left in the back and placed in the middle. 

The last two factions were those he didn’t have a good impression of, the dark green robed Xiyi and the lizards on their shoulders, as well as the Wu faction that wore dark brown robes along with their black centipede masks. 

Xiyi had two signature partners, just like the Xie Faction, but they were more unusual in that they were actually only one beast. The Violent Union Lizard. Those smaller iguana-like lizards he’d seen on their shoulders were the males of the species. Their feathers and the skin membranes between their limbs meant they were somewhat capable of flight and that large throat sac could swell up with poison for them to spit. The attendant also told him there was a female of the same species, one that didn’t have as vibrant coloring but was larger than a horse and stood on two legs. From the description, Sage imagined a small Allosaurus or a huge Velociraptor, one that the Xiyi saddled and rode as mounts. Supposedly, they had a sort of mental link with their mate, so the Xiyi clan basically had two linked partners at a time. 

Finally, the Wu were notorious for their use of Centipedes as equipment. Rather than one or two, they had over a dozen varieties of centipedes that they used like different weapons or armor, all of them poisonous. Sage was familiar with some of their means already so and he paid close attention to any information about them. 

After leading Sage and Tujiu back to the room they stayed in previously, the attendant introduced herself. She was actually quite pretty and from the pale yellow of her outfit, it seemed she came from Jinxi, “If you need anything else, just have this Jinxi Shi handle it for you. I stay in the courtyard next door to yours and the servants here have been instructed how to find me. Should I return tomorrow to take you on a tour around town?”

She’s quite nice. Probably a spy.