Chapter 33 33 – The Sue's Politics



As Ken guessed, Rose's personality didn't represent the family well. However, he also understood that where there was competition there were also factions.

"Is our family divided into factions?"

"Hmm, true, your intelligence is really beyond your age. The family is divided into factions, and each faction is divided into subgroups. While all of us are together against outside threats, inside the family the situation is quite complicated."

"How so?"

"The members of the generation above Grandfather's generation are either in seclusion to improve as much as they can before their potential runs dry, or just stopped intervening in the family politics since many factions are their descendants."

"So only three generations are involved in the family politics."

"Exactly. Although our grandfather is the patriarch, he must answer to the ancestors, so he can't do whatever he wants. Furthermore, each of his siblings and cousins also has their own factions. And in our faction, Grandfather has 3 sons and 3 daughters involved in the family matters."

"What about his wives?"

"Grandfather has a foul taste. He only takes weak women who must rely on him. This way, he can play around all he wants, and many of them die accidentally because he can't control his body's strength when he acts like an animal."

Rose said the last words with disdain. She obviously didn't like this type of behavior. Ken didn't really care, he just thought it was a waste of time that his grandfather could've used to get stronger.

"What about our faction, is it divided into subgroups?"

"It is. One subgroup includes my father along with Second Uncle and Second Aunt, while the other subgroup consists of Third Uncle, First Aunt, and Third Aunt."

Ken already met his third uncle and his third aunt, and he figured out his grandfather's intentions. By sending Rose who was from a different subgroup, he could make Ken integrate into his faction without going against his hatred toward Norman and Krone.

Ken understood that those subgroups would turn into separate factions completely after some years when it was Dominic's turn to leave his seat and enter seclusion.

'Although I said I want to kill my whole family, my family is far more widespread than I imagined. As for now, aiming to exterminate all of them would be a waste of my time. I need to aim for the subgroup first.'

He still wouldn't mind killing the other members if he benefitted from it, but he wasn't one to kill others indiscriminately. If he killed everyone, he'd have nobody left to look down upon when he reaches the top.

"So what is your fighting style, Ken? Maybe I can direct you to a good technique or a good master to help you improve your proficiency."

"There's no list of the available skills?"

"There is, but the documents for each type of style are around 100 pages. Isn't it better to have someone tell you directly the best techniques instead of going through a long, boring list? You might not even understand what's the best just from the short descriptions."

"I'll be fine."

The four finished eating and left the restaurant. They didn't need to pay since the restaurant belonged to their family, and Ken enjoyed the high-quality dishes.

"Little Brother, there's one last thing I need to tell you. We always divide the resources between the factions through competitions. You're very young yet very strong, you could help us win some resources as well. Would you like to join our faction?"

Rose smiled at him and Aya looked at him hopefully.

'They will take from me more than they will give me, but if I don't join them, I probably will get even fewer resources, since there's a limit to what I can achieve as a single person without a faction.'

Ken thought about the pros and the cons and reckoned he doesn't have a choice if he wants any resources. In the main sect, his parents couldn't shower him with any resource he asked for.

"We heard you're also an alchemist. We normally don't participate in the alchemy challenges since nobody in our faction practices this field, but if you are up for the challenge, you can take it on. The other competition you can participate in is for fighting between ages 10-14."

Although it was a long stretch to pit 10 years olds against 14s, there weren't enough kids to do the competition for a smaller range of ages.

"My father told me to let you know that the prize for first place in the alchemy competition is a large field of fourth-grade herbs. If you can win it, you'll be allowed to take as many of the herbs as you need for your practice. You'll additionally gain 10% of the profits from selling the rest of the herbs, and another 10% of the profits in the form of hiring guards for your house."

After Rose finished saying what she had to say, Ken returned to his house and called for Soleil.

"Soleil, I need a map of the sect and the areas around us, as well as a book of general knowledge about the area and the dangers hidden in it."

"Understood, Young Master."

A few hours later he sat in his study and read the book after glancing at the map. He could see that to the north there was pretty much nothing other than a long road that led to the neutral zone.

The neutral zone was a large area in the middle of the continent, controlled by the top 5 sects, in addition to their own territories. Theoretically, if another sect would get into the top 5, they'd get the lands of the sect that was kicked out of the top 5. Practically, those ranks didn't change in thousands of years.

On the west was a huge forest filled with beasts, and its structure was quite similar to the one next to the branch sect, except for the fact it had stronger beasts, better herbs, and trees of higher grade because of the higher Qi density in the air.

On the south was a large desert that continued as far as the eye could see. It had dangerous animals hiding under the sand, and there were very few sources of water available.

Lastly, the east had a large mountain range that had special ores, beasts, and herbs the sect used as materials.

Of course, between those places and in them were also some roads that led to towns and cities, and there were some human villages on the way as well.

'I don't think I will ever enter the desert, I'm not into overly open spaces.'

Since he was already in the sect, he realized it would be his chance to enlarge his database of techniques and manuals. After reading about the structure of the sect and its rules, he left his house and went to the treasury in the main mansion.

"Hey, are you the new boy, Ken? I heard you can make some pills; my brother needs some to strengthen his body."

Before Ken arrived at the mansion, someone stopped him and demanded his service. Ken turned back and saw it was a teenage boy, around 15 years old.

"Who are you?"

"Little Brother, I'm Louis Sue. My father is Norman, he instructed me to protect you and take good care of you while you're in the sect until you get accustomed to the new environment. You wouldn't mind a simple request from me, right?"

"Big Brother Louis, how can I reject? It's just that my time is expensive, and I ask for 50 intermediate Qi Stones to start concocting, and one more stone for every pill I concoct."

"Haha, Little Brother must be joking. The price of a perfect rank 1 pill is only a hundred low Qi Stones, so how can you overprice your family like that?"

"Indeed, but don't you know I've changed the formula and my pill's effect is 1% stronger?"

Ken could easily invent a pill with such effect, so he didn't hesitate to make such a claim despite only inventing much better pills. Since he already told Norman that he tweaked some low-grade formulas, he chose to show those achievements on a first-grade pill.

"Don't forget that without parents, you need our protection from other elite families in the sect, and even from the normal disciples. You never know when those people might attack a defenseless member of our family. Isn't this protection enough for your services, Little Brother?"

"No, thank you. I will be leaving then."

Ken wasn't impressed by Louis' direct threat and just turned around and left, leaving Louis alone to fume by himself.

Louis didn't actually need Ken to concoct some low-grade pills; those could be easily bought in bundles. He only wanted to exert his authority over Ken and 'educate' him to be ready to make pills for him whenever he needed them.

The guards let Ken into the mansion with a flash of his token, and he went to the basement for the treasury. After showing his token one more time, the guard let him in.

"Please leave your storage ring outside. In the storage ring on the table at the entrance you'll find lists of the techniques stored in the treasury. You may take only 3 books out, and once you're out, your next entry will be permitted only next month."

Ken nodded and left his storage ring outside. He didn't believe the guards were courageous enough to take anything from a member of the family, and he remembered everything that he stored inside.