One Last System

"They are not good enough," Vaner muttered under his nose as he watched all the remaining disciples of the skyladder sect lining up below the steps leading up to the throne hall.

"Disciples obey the Patriarch's command!" all those who have yet to be scouted by the sects from the higher zones bowed down.

"Junior disciples obey the Patriarch's command!" a small crowd of people behind the disciples shouted, all cupping their hands together and then bowing down in half.

'Not a single one of them is good enough,' Vaner gritted his teeth before raising his hand high up, only to slowly bring it down.

The crowd before him finally stopped bowing only to stand at attention. They all had their hands locked behind their backs and chest pushed pridefully up and forward.

'Was the last generation the last one to have anyone with potential?' Vaner thought, recalling the dear memories he had of Arthur, Mia, and a few other disciples that he saw some time before all the hell broke loose in the world.

'Well, there is no use complaining about the men I don't have,' Vaner decided as he took a deep breath.

"Everyone!" the middle-aged man shouted, using all the air that he gathered in his lungs.

Then and only then did Vaner use a simple technique to amplify his voice, allowing him to save his throat from drying up and breaking apart.

"There is no need for me to tell you how dire the times are upon us," Vaner started. "I don't think I need to mention that there is a limit to how long we can survive while locked up in the sect!"

This was the sad truth. Despite its glorious past, the skyladder sect was heavily reliant on the basic resources that the outside world would provide them with in exchange for favors, protection, and other things that only cultivators could ever create or hunt down.

And yet, the second the former patriarch decided to lock the sect up by collapsing the only path that led inside, not only they lost their only mean of getting out…

But what was even worse, they betrayed the faith of those who expected the sky ladder sect to protect them.

'Even if we drill out the hole through all the rubble collapsed on the entrance, even if people outside somehow survived…' Vaner bit his lips as he took a momentary pause in his speech.

"That's why, from now on, all the junior disciples and inner disciples of the sect will only have a single task. A simple job that's crucial to everyone's survival."

Vaner made another pause. This time, however, it wasn't something that he himself wanted, but something that he had to offer to the crowd gathered below.

"Starting today, I expect every disciple to spend at least four hours working hard to remove all the rubble that blocks the only entrance to the sect!" Vaner announced his first ruling as the acting leader of the skyladder sect.

'Even if we can no longer rely on the people outside… we need to expand our influence beyond the insides of this sect.'

"All the elders will be employed alongside you, ready to protect you in case of cave-ins. Those who will work exceptionally well might be rewarded with personal teaching from an elder of your choosing…"

Vaner smiled.

"Or by participating in lessons that I will conduct myself!"

An offer like this, in the past, would only make everyone laugh. Vaner was one of the weakest and the least popular elders in the entire sect, after all!

But right now, he wasn't just a simple elder. He was the first man to enter the sect… by crossing over the mountain's crown. The first to meet with the ancestral guardian spirit of the top terrace and remain alive to tell the tale.

And what was most important, he was far more powerful than the mighty patriarch before him, something he proved by defeating and then locking them man up.

"After surveying the state of our warehouses, we can feed everyone for the next three weeks," Vaner announced out loud what the surviving elders of the sect told him in secret. "So, if you don't want to succumb to starvation, you better get to working," he added before turning around and heading right back to the throne hall.

At first, the disciples didn't dare to move from the spot where they were gathered. Yet, once all the elders followed Vaner into the hall…

"I guess we better get moving," one of the disciples muttered before turning around and heading toward what used to be the sect's entrance.

Back in the throne hall, Vaner sat down on the patriarch's seat at the head of the massive table. And soon, the elders started to come in with reports.

"The disciples started to move towards the blocked entrance."

"The disciples started to move the smaller pieces of rubble."

"The disciples requested some help in breaking up the bigger pieces."

Bit by bit, elders would either keep their job as messengers relaying the progress of the work to Vaner directly or helpers that would remain on the work-site, ready to protect the disciples were any accidents to happen.

'We need to get out of this trap and get as far as possible as we can,' Vaner thought as he looked up through the panel of glass embedded into the roof of the building. 'The world was stable for thousands of years and so that strange wire within the mountain didn't act up. But there is no telling what will happen once the shifting flow of mana will reach this place as well.'

This was the real reason why Vaner was willing to push the entire sect to work on this one particular task.

Because in reality, if they were to go for extreme lengths, they could actually survive while closed off from the rest of the world.

The herb and vegetable gardens of the sect could give them a month worth of food. By employing everyone to deconstruct all the free-standing buildings and tilt the fields freed in this way, they could gain a certain degree of sustainability.

Yet, once the wire within the mountain would destabilize due to the changing flows of mana and the entire ancient structure were to start acting up…

'We need to get out of this place and figure out what this wire is supposed to do,' Vaner thought, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. 'I won't let this mystery be left to rot away just because some monsters invaded!'