Chapter 252: Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak
Not long after the conclusion of the tournament for Arena Master, the start of the new year came and passed, and it was soon time for me to return to the Su Clan to pick up my next batch of Disciples.
As this was the first training session after I had poached the clan’s Grand Elder, I expected to face some form of retaliation. Even if TaiZu and the Patriarch weren’t on the best of terms, as the leader of the Su Clan, the Patriarch couldn’t be happy about me stealing away five of his Grandmasters.
So, I wasn’t at all surprised when I detected a contingent of several dozen Martial Masters hiding out in the forests surrounding the Su Clan’s training compound. The idea that anyone would send Masters into a wooded area to ambush a Grandmaster wood cultivator was a bit baffling, but I had never given anyone in the Su Clan much credit for their strategic foresight.
However, to my surprise, I was able to enter the training compound without any of these Masters moving to stop me or running off to inform their superiors of my arrival.
With Heng now living on Mount Jiang, no one from the Su Clan was present to greet me, but my normal guest house had already been prepared as normal, and it was waiting for me empty and in good order. No one had even attempted to so much as plant an eavesdropping formation inside.
Frankly, I was becoming somewhat disappointed in the Su Clan’s lacking thirst for revenge. It almost felt like no one even knew their Grand Elder had gone missing.
Aside from the absence of Heng, there was little difference between this year’s training session and what I had become accustomed to. There was a slight uptick in the number of Disciples this year, with over 100 children present during the blessing ceremony, but that was easily explained.
This was the sixteenth year since I had recruited my first batch of Disciples, and the Su Clan’s plan to encourage increased birth rates was beginning to materialize. This place would no doubt be packed with Disciples in a few years as this policy came into full effect.
Of course, that was assuming that the clan’s training regime continued as normal. At this point, it was hard to predict what might unfold over the next few years.