Position Determination

A while back, when they entered the Green Wilderness Secret Realm, Mother Qin and Tietou's Mother, who had originally been at the Songyang County escort agency, had both returned. After coming out of the secret realm, they never went back, instead staying at the sect to cultivate alongside everyone else.

After all, they had pretty much explored every corner of Songyang County by then—they even knew roughly how many dog holes were in every alleyway.

And so, apart from the disciples who had no choice but to remain outside, everyone who could return to the Lingxian Sect was now back within its gates.

The next day, the Lingxian Sect held its second sect-wide assembly.

At the meeting, Sect Master Lin Xiao first delivered a brief opening address, stirring up everyone's enthusiasm for cultivation and announcing the sect's development policies for the coming period.

Then, the formal appointment ceremony began.

The specifics of the appointment process are omitted here, but the details of the appointments were as follows:

Hall Master of the Finance Hall: Qin Jianghe, responsible for the income and expenditure of all sect assets, their safekeeping, management of the sect's external business ventures, and oversight of the Finance Hall's staff;

Hall Master of the General Affairs Hall: Liu Yunan, responsible for the day-to-day management of sect disciples' cultivation, the assignment of sect tasks, and management of the General Affairs Hall's staff;

Hall Master of the Law Enforcement Hall: Yang Jinshu, responsible for supervising and disciplining disciples' conduct, resolving internal conflicts and disputes, punishing erring disciples, and arranging sect guard patrols, among other matters (though in practice, thanks to the Heart-Questioning Path, the Law Enforcement Hall's main duties were mostly guard patrols—discipline supervision was just a precaution);

Alchemy Elder: Sun Yigao, overseeing all matters large and small in the alchemy chamber;

Artifact Forging Elder: temporarily vacant;

Tal Schrift Elder: Liu Chun, overseeing all matters large and small in the talisman chamber. Since he was currently away from the sect, his identity token was temporarily kept by the Finance Hall, and later someone would be sent to deliver news of the sect's organizational changes and his token to him during a trip to the cultivation world's trading fair;

Formation Elder: Mo Yuanjiao, overseeing all matters large and small in the formation hall, with Mo Que serving as the Formation Hall's steward;

Spiritual Cuisine Elder: Jiang Youfu, overseeing all matters large and small in the sect's kitchen and dining hall. The dishes served at the restaurant down the mountain and at the Lingxian Food Pavilion were requisitioned from the sect kitchen by the Finance Hall;

Spiritual Field Elder: Old Master Lin, real name Lin Quan, responsible for managing the cultivation scheduling of the spiritual fields, the repair and upkeep of spiritual farming tools, and all other related matters;

Head of the Scripture Pavilion: concurrently held by Sun Yigao;

Garden Master (i.e., the administrator of the Yaoguang Sub-world): Liao Pantu;

Beast Garden Master: Little Luan.

As for Little Luan becoming Beast Garden Master, the whole situation actually went like this.

When they reached the last position—Beast Garden Master—Lin Xiao had no good candidates, and no one else was volunteering either.

Some people already had positions, while others had cultivation levels too low to manage a beast garden. After all, if a demon beast outranked its manager, what if the creature turned the tables on them?

Just then, a pair of extremely enthusiastic wings shot up into the air, waving frantically in the middle of the crowd.

Everyone turned to look, and there was Little Luan, raising his chicken wing in imitation of the way others raised their hands to volunteer, hopping up and down in the crowd as if afraid Lin Xiao wouldn't see him.

"Cluck cluck cluck! Me, me! I'll do it! I'll manage those demon beasts!"

Beside him, Da Tao initially didn't react upon hearing his master say this, but after a moment it dawned on him—if his master went off to manage the beast garden, wouldn't that mean she'd have no time to torment him anymore?

So he immediately shot a look full of excitement, delight, and eager anticipation toward Lin Xiao, who stood at the head of the hall making the decisions.

Though Lin Xiao felt Little Luan was a bit unreliable, at least every task he'd been given had been completed without fail. Moreover, Little Luan's cultivation was already the highest below the Foundation Establishment stage within the sect.

He still had more than half of the Silver Frost Python Demon's demon core left to gnaw on, so breaking through to the next realm wasn't hard for him.

He truly was the best candidate for Beast Garden Master—or rather, the best chicken candidate.

And so, Lin Xiao nodded, all while Da Tao watched with overwhelming anticipation.

With that, all of the current chief positions in the Lingxian Sect were finally confirmed.

Next came the distribution of identity tokens to each person.

Once those matters were settled, each department was free to recruit their own subordinate staff as they saw fit.

So everyone jumped straight into two-way recruitment right there in the main hall of the sect.

There were those in charge who had people in mind, and there were those without positions who had departments they wanted to join. Everyone discussed things harmoniously.

After all the bustling back and forth, the matter of who went to which department was settled. Most of the elders went to report to Old Master Lin.

After all, they had spent most of their lives farming. If asked what they wanted to do now, the majority would say farming came first.

But some were tired of farming and wanted a change of pace, so they went to other departments.

And then there were those who didn't want to farm but also had no idea what they wanted to do. Seeing that certain departments were woefully understaffed—nearly to the point of bleakness—they went there to even out the numbers.

As for Fang Mancang, Fang Manliang, and Gu Yuxiao, who were still far away in Songyang County and the capital—since the work they were doing there already fell under the jurisdiction of the Finance Hall, Qin Jianghe simply assigned them directly to his department's roster.

And so, the preliminary management system of the Lingxian Sect was finally formally established.

Yet even with scores of people thrown into these various departments, it still wasn't enough.

Not to mention that many had no clue about the duties they had just taken on.

But none of that mattered.

Before they formally opened the mountain gates to accept disciples on a large scale, they still had a period of time to learn and get the hang of things.

Seeing that everyone had finished their divisions of labor, the assembly was drawing to a close.

Looking at the crowd below, Lin Xiao spoke:

"As you all know, our sect will soon begin accepting disciples in large numbers. In the future, with new members joining, we will naturally need masters to guide them. The General Affairs Hall will manage the daily cultivation routines of all new disciples, but they won't have the manpower or energy to personally teach every single one step by step—this will require guidance from senior members."

"Moreover, as our cultivation progresses and our realms rise, our understanding and insights into the mental techniques will each diverge in their own ways. Some may branch off in entirely different directions, giving birth to their own cultivation philosophies. These philosophies will be a precious treasure for our sect, and such treasure naturally needs to be passed down."

Hearing this, Jiang Youfu couldn't help but think of his own "Original Mind Canon: Spiritual Cuisine Chapter."

He pondered for a moment and realized that he too hoped to pass down this mental technique he had birthed. For instance, every time he taught it to his only disciple so far, Shengsheng, he felt immense joy in his heart.

Sun Yigao also strongly agreed with what Lin Xiao was saying.

For all living things, inheritance is an absolutely necessary and important matter.

Even the so-called instincts of animals are, in a way, a form of inheritance.

Up at the front, Lin Xiao continued:

"When it comes to inheritance, the matter of taking on masters naturally comes up. Right now, the master-disciple hierarchy and cultivation levels within our sect are all jumbled up. But because we are all friends and family, that doesn't matter much. However, from now on, that can no longer be the case. We must establish proper standards for this."